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