Higher Education Institutions Improve Efficiency and Enhance Service with Oracle® Applications and Technology

Redwood Shores, CA 26-MAR-2007 08:08 PM

Oracle today announced that more than 17 leading U.S. colleges and universities recently purchased or implemented Oracle(r) applications and technology to help improve operational efficiency and enhance service to key constituents, including students, faculty, staff and alumni. These institutions are transforming their campuses by consolidating and protecting essential data, advancing efforts to recruit and retain students and adding timesaving self-service features.

"Oracle is committed to helping higher education institutions meet efficiency and accountability requirements, as well as constituent demands for high quality technology and superior service," said Oracle Higher Education Vice President Jim McGlothlin. "We are working with institutions of all sizes to improve the business of education."

University of Central Florida Upgrades Financials to Manage Growth

The University of Central Florida (UCF), the seventh largest university in the country, implemented Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management using Oracle infrastructure to build a more flexible financial management platform. The university, which has a complex financial system and a budget of $817.5 million for 21 campuses, worked with Oracle to implement the new financial system and become one of the first universities to devolve from the state's legacy system.

UCF used the PeopleSoft system to streamline requisition and purchase order processes, enhance purchasing card and vendor tracking information, increase reporting capabilities, reduce costs, eliminate unnecessary paper trails and minimize redundant procedures. With PeopleSoft's Web capabilities, UCF centralized system management while localizing access, allowing individual departments and employees to create online reports and freeing IT staff to focus on other activities. UCF also integrated its financial and supply chain management systems with PeopleSoft Enterprise applications for human capital management and campus solutions, further enhancing efficiency and improving constituent service.

"One of our five strategic goals, established by our president, is to become America's leading partnership organization. To that end, we are pleased to partner with Oracle by joining its Early Success Program, allowing us to accelerate our product upgrades to further improve the university's business systems," said Rebecca Vilsack, associate controller, UCF.

Kentucky Community and Technical College Systems Add Online Student Center

Kentucky Community and Technical College Systems (KCTCS), an Oracle customer for several years, recently upgraded to Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus Solutions 8.9 to gain new functionality for an online student center. With Campus Solutions, KCTCS offers students convenient, "one stop shopping" online, allowing them to log on and easily view financial aid information, check application status, pay bills, add or drop classes, update personal information and review degree progress information. Campus Solutions' Web functionality was especially valuable to KCTCS because its system includes 16 colleges and 65 campuses statewide. The system provides a common look and feel, as well as a common set of information for all users, improving collaboration.

"Oracle PeopleSoft is hands-down the leader in higher education administrative software, and we have benefited greatly from its increased automation and self-service functionality," said Paul Czarapata, chief technology officer, KCTCS. "Campus Solutions, along with our PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management and Human Capital Management applications, help us meet and quickly adapt to the changing needs of our students, faculty and staff."

University of Virginia Gains Insight into Procurement

The University of Virginia (UVa), a public university with more than 20,000 students, implemented Oracle iProcurement, Oracle Procurement and Oracle Financials, along with SciQuest Spend Director, Order Manager and Settlement Manager to develop an electronic procurement system. The university completed the implementation campus-wide in just seven months, also extending the new system to College at Wise, a campus in southwestern Virginia that previously operated on a completely paper-based system. UVa has now enabled a critical mass of suppliers that provide up-to-date catalog data and streamline order management. With an integrated supplier base, the university's goal is to maximize on-contract spending and gain real-time visibility and reporting capabilities throughout the entire order process.

"We have been able to integrate Oracle iProcurement and SciQuest to facilitate increased efficiency and enhanced insight that will save us money and allow us to operate more effectively, said Virginia Evans, assistant vice president for integrated system deployment and support, UVa.

Oracle's Higher Education Community Continues to Expand

Other U.S.-based higher education institutions that have recently selected, implemented or upgraded Oracle technology or applications include: Brandeis University, Waltham, Mass.; California State University, Fullerton, Fullerton, Calif.; California State University Sacramento, Sacramento, Calif.; Career Education Corporation, Hoffman Estates, Ill.; University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.; DePaul University, Chicago, Ill.; Rhema Bible College, Tulsa, Okla.; San Francisco State University, San Francisco, Calif.; San Jose State University, San Jose, Calif.; University of Florida, Gainesville, Fla.; University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minn.; University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, Texas; Virginia Community College System, Richmond, Va.; and Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, Mich.

About Oracle

Oracle (NASDAQ GS: ORCL) is the world's largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at www.oracle.com.

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The Building Blocks of ERP

Enterprise Resource Planning is commonly used to improve the integration within companies and organizations, and instead of focusing on individual parts, the operations of the company are viewed as a whole. Software infrastructure plays an important role in this process. In addition to this, software infrastructure plays an important role in the external processes of the organization.

Enterprise Resource Planning will focus on business processes, and they must be modular. In addition to this, the business processes must also be integrated. When companies deal with ERP, many of them make the mistake of focusing on the company.

Enterprise Resource Planning is a concept that extends beyond the company. An organization that wants to use it successfully must also look at the impact on the customers, partners, and suppliers. The ERP software will be responsible for dealing with a number of the company's business functions. There are five important issues that an ERP system must be capable of addressing. A business process will be responsible for dealing with multiple functions within a company. For instance, most companies have an accounting department, which they may also call the payroll. Even though individual functions will deal with business processes, the functions may not be based on a process.

The term "business process" is used to mean something that is much broader. Many people have wandered if modular applications are truly different from the stand-alone tools that exist today. Enterprise Resource Planning is much different than these tools. Because stand-alone tools are limited in their capability, companies are limited in what they can do with them. In contrast, Enterprise Resource Planning will allow a company to become more efficient because the various processes of the organization will be integrated. Without ERP, it will be very difficult to make the processes within your company seamless.

Modularity becomes an issue when a company is getting ready to purchase and utilize an ERP system. Some companies may not need to use all the applications at one time, or they may simply wish to use applications at specific times. Some ERP systems may be able to fit their applications together like Lego blocks. Some companies have analyzed the importance of having an integrated system, and many have wandered how such a system could help their companies become more productive. While stand-alone applications have their benefits, there are a number of limitations to them. A company that does not have an ERP system will spend a great deal of time repeating the same tasks over and over again.

They will place the same information in different applications, and the process can be tedious and time consuming. As you would expect, there are a number of problems with this approach. The most obvious problem is that entering the same information into a system is a waste of time. In addition to this, there is a much higher chance that the information will not be processed correctly when it is entered into the system many times over. Many companies have found that the data will not look the same on different applications once it has been entered into the system. This can cause a great deal of confusion, and this confusion will ultimately lead to a loss of productivity and profits.

Perhaps one of the biggest problems with stand-alone programs is that the information is not consistent. When employees get ready to analyze the information, they will often run into difficulties, and some will become confused. When an ERP system is used, the information and processes will be comprised in a "single version." The data only needs to be placed in the system once, and everyone who views the data will be able to see the same thing. This dramatically reduces the chances of errors and other problems. Most importantly, the data will be presented in a real time format. It is important for companies to make sure their ERP systems extend beyond their internal processes. If a company wants to succeed, they must be able to maintain their purchase of goods, and they must also be capable of maintaining strong relationships with their business partners. As you can see, these are issues that are external to the organization, and they must be taken into consideration.

Source: www.exforsys.com

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Risks to your ERP-SAP implementation

Inadequate “as is” documentation

Consider that you are the implementation Project Manager for a consulting firm and you have a client who has selected an ERP system. The project manager and the team started gathering requirements from end users through focus groups, workshops, sessions with SMEs, etc. After obtaining all the details from end users you can easily conclude that you have all the necessary information and requirements to successfully implement the “to be” software system erroneously. During UAT (User’s Acceptance Testing) you can find out that the system does not meet all the end user’s expectations as well as the participants of UAT are unable to authorize your implemented solution previously.

Requirements not scrubbed

Instead of focusing on what the requirement should process, it should focus only on the function that the system will perform. Government organizations implementing an ERP solution document requirements are maintained frequently in web of spreadsheets that makes it difficult to: 1. Track a requirement, 2. Modify the requirement while communicating the changes to the affected parties, 3. assigning requirement ownership, 4. Create an RTM and 5. Manage the lifecycle of the requirement. The ERP implementation partner is also tasked with interpreting the requirements from spreadsheets and it discerns how these requirements will be implemented during realization and verifies that the requirements have been met during testing process. Moreover, the implementation partner of ERP for the sake of meeting deadlines rushes through the blueprint phase does not scour the requirement and makes blind attempt for executing the requirement even when the requirement is not feasible, necessary or consistent with the functionality of the ERP application.

Vendor software problems

The process of testing or maintaining the SAP software will give you errors, and so the needed enhancements, or bugs within your software cannot be addressed with your existing project team and so these errors, bugs, and needed enhancements do not instigate from having customized or implemented SAP erroneously but are rather triggered due to a deficiency with the vendor software. Impact occurred to your business could be manifested in different manners such as client/end user dissatisfaction, inability to roll out specific planned system functionality, financial losses, and unstable system based upon the severity of the problem. These vendor software problems can also get unresolved for prolonged periods. Furthermore, lack of controls, participation from the SAP client as well as audit trails can cause the software vendor problems to erroneously become closed when in fact they were never resolved.

No Scope Verification

Controversial relationships between the client and implementation partner stem from the fact that the client feels that the implemented ERP solution does not cater to their business needs depending on the documented scope, and the end users cannot perform all these tasks that were implemented within the legacy systems without difficulty. And when the client report defects, short comings and bugs against the ERP system were not a part of the scope or documented via a requirement and so the problem is compounded. When the ERP integration partner labels the end user’s reported defects and problems as enhancements mutually rather than problems with the implemented ERP solution the relationship between the implementation partner and the client takes revolve for the worse.

Author: Ron Victor

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