University of Wisconsin students are encouraged to complete all of their online business before portions of the MyUW portal undergo construction next month, officials announced Wednesday.

From Dec. 2 until Dec. 12, numerous services offered through the portal will be temporarily shut down while the Integrated Student Information System — a software program that operates the various services — is updated.

To make way for additional services, ISIS will undergo a technical upgrade to improve the system's efficiency and security.

"It's like updating the furnace in your house," Joanne Berg, associate vice chancellor of enrollment management, said. "Every once in a while you need a tune-up, and this is kind of like a tune-up for your software."

Among other services, student records, financial aid and student-account tabs will be inactive at MyUW during the process.

Taking effect shortly after priority registration dates, Berg said the selected time period occupies the only sufficient window for the updates that does not conflict with major financial or enrollment deadlines.

"This window was chosen because there were no deadlines around it," she said, adding students will be allowed to add and drop courses for spring semester without consequence after the update is complete.

The period was also selected to allow appropriate time for the fall semester grading process, Ilene Seltzer, director for ISIS Central, said.

"We picked this window [because it will be] completed before classes are done and the faculty starts grading," she said. "We want the faculty to be able to grade and the students to have access to those grades."

Seltzer added the update to the current system — which was first installed in 2002 — has been in the planning stages since June and must be executed without interruptions.

"A lot of people have worked very hard," she said. "There's been a lot of collaboration between offices."

Because the update affects the Registrar's, Bursar's and Financial Services offices, the services will be unable to process any student information until ISIS is refurbished.

However, officials within the departments will be available for student assistance.

When students sign on to the updated portal Dec. 12, the site will have a new look, dubbed the "Student Center." To help students become accustomed to the new MyUW, Berg said the site will offer online tutorials for each updated tab.

"It might look a little different, but we'll have navigational tools out there so you know what to do," she said.

Berg could not estimate when the site's new features will be active, but said webmasters will begin installing new services to the site shortly after the technical update is completed.

"We have a lot of things on our list to do, but they're not going to happen right away," she said. "The service will come afterward."

Among other planned additions, the site will offer an online "backpack" which will allow users to save their schedule, financial data and other resources to one link.

Berg added she looks forward to the new course guide the most, which will allow professors to explain their individual section and its required texts.

On the week of Nov. 22, an informational e-mail will be sent to students to notify them of the update and preoperational measures to take before the outage. Those seeking further information are encouraged to visit the respective departmental web pages for their questions.