ERP at UF: Selection, Implementation and

ImplicationsMike Conlon, PhDPeopleSoft Implementation Officer

Three reasons for UF to implement ERP

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1. Must replace finance systems and payroll system provided by the state

2. Should improve operations – reduce administrative time and effort

3. Should reduce operating costs

University Vision

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Integrated, on-line, secure, self-service processes for university business

Eliminate dependence on State of Florida Systems

Implement Vanilla – adopt the PeopleSoft processes

Eliminate costly mainframe technologies Implement Finance, Research Administration,

Human Resources, Student, Portal and Data Warehouse

Vision Process

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Executive engagement Consultant for executive orientation to ERP Value proposition

Steering Committee Senior executives and thought leaders Develop vision statement

Risk Assessment Peers Self assessment

Risk Factors

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Scope of work – scale, timeline, complexity Scale and scope of the university – well known

result that while most Higher Ed ERPs go in on time and on budget, most Research One ERPs do not.

Decision making – many decisions to be made very quickly

Change management – many changes Team skills and talents, new technologies

Selection Process

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Eleven evaluation teams – 2 technical, 1 support, 8 functional

Four vendors – SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft and SCT/Banner (now SunGard SCT)

Four Schools – FAMU, FSU, UF, UNF Eleven months 150 page RFI Three 80 hour presentations – 40 hours

technical, 40 hours functional Eleven reports, 120 people for the read

backs

From Selection to Contract

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PeopleSoft selected July 2002 “Conference Room Pilot” – six weeks in

Tallahassee mid-Aug to end of Sept 2002 Contract with PeopleSoft September 30, 2002 Project staffing Oct, Nov, Dec 2002 Development and portal infrastructure in

place, Dec 2002

Implementation Challenges Before Go-Live

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Product Knowledge Consultants know the product, or claim to know the

product. UF staffers do not know the product UF Knowledge

UF staffers know UF, or claim to know UF. Consultants do not know UF

“Keep it vanilla” Changing UF business processes. How much change

can we handle? Decision Making

Advisory committees, stakeholders, deans, vice presidents, executive sponsors

From Contract to Go-Live

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Portal launched March 31, 2003 Data warehouse and Enterprise Reporting

using Cognos Business Intelligence Suite launched August 8, 2003

HR and Finance pre-launch June 18, 2004 HR and Finance full-launch July 1, 2004 Eighteen PeopleSoft modules. Largest single

launch ever in Higher Ed

Implementation

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UF Bridges, a new organization to create the new services, formed off-site in October 2002.

Three-way staffing model: Existing UF staff: 60% Temporary UF staff 25% Hourly Consultants 15%

Project Management Office – Fred Cantrell, Mike Conlon, Mike Corwin, Warren Curry

Matrixed teams

Project Organization -- Matrix

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Methodology Overview

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Fit/Gap What must be done? What does PeopleSoft do?

Design How to address gaps? Business Process? Mod? Bolt-on?

Product? Development / Data Conversion

All UF data must be accounted for; Millions of records; thousands of tables; paper documents; 100% accuracy expected

Testing Unit, Integration, Load, Legacy

Training Core users, end users. Modalities

Deployment Conversion, stabilization

Managing Risk

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Executives well prepared and engaged Resources available as needed Team built with three-way model Manage decision making Learn from the peers Contract the scope to make deadline Change management – orientation, training,

communication, engagement

Implementation Challenges After Go-Live

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Some facts about UF Very distributed processes. Ten times the number

of Finance users expected by PeopleSoft Very low staff turn over. Staff had no experience

with other systems or processes Very low management overhead. Staff members

work independently. Managers are typically academic with other responsibilities

Implementation ChallengesAfter Go-Live: Training

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Difficult to get people to training before launch. 48,000 seat-hours filled

Multiple modalities. In class, on-line, readings, web videos

Training environment and pilot environment Discrepancies between training materials,

environment and production

Implementation ChallengesAfter Go-Live: Change Management

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PI needs to pay person from a grant Staff not familiar with chart fields Chart fields not populated for grant Grant money not in appropriate accounts Staff not familiar with payroll distribution Administrators not authorized to perform functions

Bottom line – person does not get paid from the grant, person gets paid from other funds, must do transfers, sponsors not billed appropriately

Effort throughout each process to enable payroll distribution from grants. Improved each pay period

Implementation – The Good News

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On-time and On-budget Project costs ($29 mill) were 1/6 that of peer

schools, saving UF over $150 mill All modules implemented Payroll, Purchasing, many others, have run

smoothly

Implications

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Operational improvements Payroll, grants, finance, hiring, benefits, self-

service, portal, purchasing, expense, warehouse Operational savings

Manage the budget, data driven decision making, common processes, resources from support to core business

Savings could be $50 mill per year Position for future

E-commerce, system integration, scalable, supported platform

The not so good news

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Significant problems with grants, warehouse, reporting

Work-arounds spring up to compensate for missing/broken/undesirable features

Some processes failed to engage units

But – a silver lining – new engagement with senior leadership

Post Implementation

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Reset expectations Use the data

Management reports and metrics Engage the Community

Finance Roundtable, HR Forum, Research Steering, Reporting Task Force, Student Financials Advisory

Accelerate the pace of adoption Best practices, training Reduce work-arounds

Develop process improvement

Recent and Current Work Electronic Personnel Action Forms

Simplify hiring and job actions. Reduce errors Identity Management

Automate lifecycle management of computer accounts Implement Student Financials

New options for fees. AR processes. Full coverage. Implement Oracle Database

Oracle bought PeopleSoft Add Direct Service Organizations

UF Foundation ($1.2B) plus 20 others Research Administration

New processes to cut award setup from 20 days to 1 day.

Clean-up data, fully implement electronic routing of proposal approval

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Additional Info

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Bridges Web Site Training guides, presentations, advisory

processes, support http://www.bridges.ufl.edu

Web Portal News, PeopleBooks http://my.ufl.edu

Higher Ed Users Group White papers, product and technical advisories,

peer reports http://www.heug.org