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ISP
News
July 10, 2000
"We cannot
become what we want to be by remaining what we are." Max DePree, Leadership
Jazz
No
More "Hurry Up and Wait"
Debate
is inherent in a university culture, so deciding to make changes can be
a slow and tedious process. Once a decision is made, however, everyone
wants it done yesterday. Let's add a new object code, or make a center
a school, or add a new curriculum or a new type of employment, or change
our fringe benefit offerings. We've done the hard part. We've made the
decision. That should be it.
In fact, making the decision is often the
beginning of another long wait, as the new information is programmed into
each and every system that requires it. The new Oracle integrated system
will take much of the time and frustration out of that process.
The University's Integrated System will be built
using "lists of values," which are essentially drop down lists from which
a user can choose to complete a transaction. Object codes, employment
types, and organizations (e.g., schools, departments, administrative offices)
are three among many lists of values that can be added to or changed with
relative ease by employees with that responsibility, once the integrated
system is up and running.
To add a new entry to a list of values, a designated
"superuser" logs on to the appropriate application and goes to the set
of screens entitled "setup". Then, a new entry can be made into the appropriate
list of values and saved. It is then immediately available to all users
of that application. Interestingly, it is not possible to delete an entry
from any of the Oracle lists of values. Instead, the value is "disabled"
which means it still lives on in the database with all of its history
but is not available for use until the superuser "enables" the value,
and then it is once again available for use.
So, as the University pursues the initiatives
that arose from its strategic plan for the new century, we can be assured
that the time investment will be in planning, building, and hiring, not
in configuring our administrative systems to recognize and process information
related to those initiatives.
On
My Honor
The University of Virginia is renowned for its honor code. The Oracle
work environment will extend the relevance of that code a bit further.
In the case of the Integrated System, however, we will not be dependent
on reports of misbehavior. The offender's fingerprints will be on the
transaction.
A significant difference between how Oracle applications
work and our current business processes concerns the ability to transact
business beyond one's own business unit. "If you visualize a pie that
has been cut into slices, that could represent our current operations,"
suggests Bill Randolph, ISP project director. "Information flows back
and forth between the unit and central offices, with walls between the
separate schools and other business units. Each person can see data and
perform transactions only for his or her own unit.
"The new environment will look more like concentric
circles. Everyone with a given 'responsibility' has access to the same
information, University-wide. For example, when employees with the responsibility
'Purchase Initiator' log on to the system and choose a project to which
to charge an expense, they will see all the University's projects on the
screen. They will pick the project of their choice, and then the awards
and tasks associated with that project will be available for selection."
While this will be a change from our current
environment, it is consistent with our culture as a public university.
"People will be 'on their honor' to restrict their transactions to what
they are authorized to do," says Randolph. "As a safeguard, however, the
system does record who performed each transaction, so it will be easy
to trace if someone inadvertently or purposefully crosses into unauthorized
territory."
Set
Up Is Strategic
Setting up the Oracle applications would be time consuming, but easy,
if it only required plugging in known values to set-up questions. Some
steps are that easy, but far more require deliberation, consultation,
and decisions, because the information required for the new system is
not the same or used in the same way as in the current system.
Set-up is also an opportunity to problem-solve,
to figure out ways to use a field to generate information we would like,
even if that is not the stated purpose of the field. As a result, the
ISP team members are pooling all their creative and analytic forces in
the design of the Integrated System.
One of the lessons from Oracle training in December
was "It's all in the set up," so the teams' efforts now, as they work
with each other and with expert users throughout the University community,
are determining the functionality of the system for the future.
More
Decisions - What to Modify
All universities that decide to implement an ERP system vow there will
be no customizations because of time, expense, and the resulting difficulty
in installing upgrades. Yet all universities that have installed an ERP
system have had to make some changes that have, in fact, made the project
longer, more expensive, and more difficult to upgrade.
So what will make U.Va. different? Some of it
is semantics. A "customization" is going into the Oracle code and making
changes. A "modification" is an application extension that requires programming,
but does not touch the Oracle home code.
"Some amount of modification is expected and
budgeted into the project," says Bill Randolph. "We knew in advance that
any compliance requirements from the state or federal government would
have to be met, even if it means modification. We are working very hard
to avoid any customizations. The decisions come in regard to attributes
we may or may not have today, but would like to have in the future. The
teams are attempting to accomplish some of those as they set up the applications
(see article above). We are focusing on trying to limit modifications
to those that have the greatest impact on the greatest number of users
and have set an extraordinarily high bar for any customizations."
What is
the process?
The first step in considering a modification is determining its impact
and its cost. Any proposed modification that is considered high impact
is given to the technical team for a review of the people-hours it will
take to build the solution. Following this technical review, "a proposed
modification may be reconsidered if the solution will require a considerable
amount of time and is not a real requirement," says Virginia Evans, ISP
technical lead. "At that point we have to choose to proceed or attempt
to find an alternative solution."
The next step is for the functional teams to
design the solution, presenting to the technical team what the screen
or report will look like that will fulfill the business requirement. "If
the detail design demonstrates that we underestimated the resources required
to build the solution, we may have to reconsider whether we will be able
to do the modification," says Evans. Once a decision is made to proceed
at this point, it will probably be completed, according to Randolph. "But
what ultimately gets done must fit within our time and budget constraints"
he adds.
We are currently at the first technical review
step that will yield an estimate of the people-hours it will take to build
each proposed modification.
Getting
Ready for the People Side
Ultimately, the Integrated Systems implementation is about people - how
our work will change and how to make the transition as smoothly as possible.
What will each of our future responsibilities be, how does that fit into
what we are doing today, and how will we be certain to receive proper
training for those responsibilities?
The first steps are being taken to gather the
information to facilitate that transition. The ISP Human Resources Management
(HRM) team is working with central office managers to identify all their
current employees and the tasks and procedures they now perform. Once
the Oracle responsibilities are clearly defined, current processes will
be mapped to Oracle responsibilities, and the individuals who do that
type of work will be identified for training.
Soon this plotting of current to future responsibilities
will be undertaken throughout the University, with the assistance of the
ISP advisors. They will be working with all the unit administrators within
their areas to identify employees doing work related to the financial
applications to be implemented in July 2001.
"We want to be certain every person affected
by the implementation is considered and prepared as we move forward,"
says Leah Goswell, ISP associate director and HRM team lead. "The information
we gather now will help make that goal a reality."
Go
to ARCHIVED ISP NEWS DIRECTORY
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"
The University's Integrated System
will be built using 'lists of values,' which are essentially drop
down lists from which a user can choose to complete a transaction."
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