The overarching vision of Project One is for “the System to operate even more like a System.” By bringing the member institutions of the System onto a common platform for their major administrative business functions, the System can realize better alignment and easier exchange of data between the institutions.
Functional Scope
The following core administrative functions for finance, human capital management, payroll, and student administration will be replaced with Workday and updated as a result of Project One:
| Financial Management | Human Capital Management | Student Administration |
|---|---|---|
| Core Financials | Core Human Capital Management | Admissions and Recruitment |
| Expenses | Benefits | Advising and Degree Audit |
| Grants Management | Recruiting | Financial Aid |
| Project Billing | Time Tracking | Student Accounting |
| Procurement | Payroll | Student Records |
| Projects | Learning | Student Services |
| Inventory | ||
| Adaptive Planning |
Organizational Scope
Financial Management and Human Capital Management (Workday Platform) were implemented in three major phases, organized into three cohorts. Learn more about the Workday Platform project.
Workday Student will deploy over five major milestones, organized into the following cohorts:
| Cohort 1 | Cohort 2 | Cohort 2a |
|---|---|---|
| Cossatot Community College of the University of Arkansas (CCCUA) | Clinton School of Public Service | University of Arkansas Medical Sciences (UAMS) |
| Phillips Community College of the University of Arkansas (PCCUA) | University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (UAF) | |
| University of Arkansas Community College at Batesville (UACCB) | University of Arkansas at Fort Smith (UAFS) | |
| University of Arkansas Community College at Morrilton (UACCM) | University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) | |
| University of Arkansas Community College at Rich Mountain (UACCRM) | University of Arkansas at Monticello (UAM) | |
| University of Arkansas Hope-Texarkana (UACCHT) | University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB) | |
| University of Arkansas – Pulaski Technical College (UAPTC) |
Learn more:
Student Project Team
Project Organization
The Executive Committee
The Executive Committee, composed primarily of UA System Office senior leadership, provides strategic direction for Project One and promotes the long-term vision of the project.
The Steering Committee
The Steering Committee consists of senior leadership from across many institutions in the UA System, providing input to project leadership. The Steering Committee advocates for the implementation of approved standardized business processes and data across all institutions and reviews all significant modifications to the designed business processes.
| Co-Chairs | ||
|---|---|---|
| Terisa Riley | Chancellor | UAFS |
| Brian Shonk | Chancellor | UACCB |
| Members | ||
|---|---|---|
| Terry Martin | Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs | UAF |
| Suzanne McCray | Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Dean of Admissions | UAF |
| Ann Bordelon | Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration | UAF |
| Steve Krogull | Associate Vice Chancellor for University Information Technology | UAF |
| Kristen Sterba | Associate Provost for Students and Administration | UAMS |
| Crystal Halley | Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs | UAM |
| Ann Bain | Provost | UALR |
| Jonathan Coleman | Director of Financial Aid and Scholarships | UALR |
| Laura Clark | Provost | UAHT |
| Ashley Aylett | Vice Chancellor of Academics/Provost | CCCUA |
The Project Management Office
The Project Management Office (PMO) is comprised of UA System and Deloitte Project Manager co-leads and operates as a liaison between the Executive Committee and project team. The PMO escalates project issues and risks while ensuring that project schedule, scope, budget, and quality are aligned with leadership expectations. Additionally, they have the overall responsibility for reporting on the status of project activities, milestones, and deliverables.
The Technical, Functional, and Change Teams
The Technical and Functional teams consist of subject matter experts that are responsible for the development, standardization and/or configuration, and testing of business processes. The Change Management team will oversee the organizational change management, communication, and training needs of end-users.
Institutional Representatives
Each member institution selected representatives to coordinate events unique to each campus, communicate Project One messages, provide feedback, and act as a local voice for Project One. For a list of campus leads, visit the Project One Student intranet.
Vision, Goals, and Guiding Principles
Vision and Goals
The vision for the new solution at the University of Arkansas System:
Project One will implement an integrated and highly efficient Human Capital Management (HCM) and Finance system that meets the critical business requirements of the UA System members by eliminating outdated and redundant systems, maximizing the efficiency of managing System resources, enhancing security and ensuring transparency. The project will mirror the UA System’s excellence in teaching, research, and service, making it easier for faculty, students and staff to achieve their goals.
Developed with broad community engagement across all the members of the System, Project One will be defined by easy to use systems that lower the administrative burden for all, deliver trusted information, and reduce overall costs.
The project goals and System objectives are to:
- Acquire a modern ERP solution that effectively processes the volume and type of transactions required by the System;
- Improve the efficiency of administrative operations;
- Implement user-friendly intuitive systems for use system-wide;
- Deploy a shared system-wide chart of accounts to align reporting and simplify consolidation;
- Expand and simplify management access to detailed information;
- Provide smooth and seamless integration between Project One and other systems used by the campus community;
- Replace aging technology infrastructure and custom software; and
- Take advantage of continuing advancements in functionality and technology that would enable future improvements in business and administrative practices.
Guiding Principles
These are the principles defined by System leadership and will drive how we prioritize work on Project One.
- Operate as a System
- As common as possible, as different as necessary
- Ensure one system of record
- Provide support to stakeholders during transition
- Crawl. Walk. Run.
- Consolidate integrations when possible
- Minimize legacy data conversion
- Develop a common platform for future development
- Enable enhanced quality and access to information
- Monitor key performance measures
Workday Benefits
Workday will bring a multitude of benefits to the UA System. A few of the benefits are:
- Align and integrate mission critical enterprise data, information and business processes to support the strategic mission
- Transform business processes through adoption of “Best Practices”
- Enable enhanced self-service capabilities for faculty, staff, and students
- Reduce the number of old/outdated systems
- Eliminate shadow systems
- Integrate systems across institutions
- Eliminate manual and paper processes
- Limit access to processes
- Unify policy interpretation
- Enhance service delivery
- Improve:
- Reporting
- Transparency
- Visibility
- Accountability
- Audit history
- The Workday Human Capital Management application has improved the delivery of HR services and allowed our institutions to streamline and automate processes and procedures.
- The Workday Finance application will replace the legacy financial applications at the institutions.
Project History
Getting Started
In 2014, the Board of Trustees of the University of Arkansas engaged BerryDunn to conduct an Information Technology Assessment for all campuses and units of the University of Arkansas System.
The Board’s purpose was to assess IT System-wide and identify opportunities to reduce costs, create operational efficiencies and improve security.
Top Recommendation: “The University System should consider moving to a shared ERP platform over time. Moving to common and shared ERP products requires careful and deliberate discussion and planning. It can lead to cost reductions and operational efficiencies but requires significant change for people and processes at the institutional level. Currently several System schools are considering, or will need to consider, new ERP systems because the current system is at end-of-life.”
At the Board of Trustees Annual Retreat in August 2015, the Board charged the President to move forward with the project. The President met with his cabinet of Chancellors in September 2015, and support to move forward with project was unanimous.
The Council of UA Campus CIOs was asked to serve as the RFP Evaluation and Selection Committee, to select a consulting group to guide the project. An RFP was issued in October 2015 and the Committee recommended awarding the consulting engagement to ISG Public Sector in January 2016.
ISG’s scope of services included: support the University with design of an ERP procurement strategy, development of system requirements, preparation of RFPs, vendor evaluation/selection, and contract negotiations, with an option to provide advisory oversight services during deployment.
Procuring Software
The RFP for ERP Solution was published on October 7, 2016 and proposals were due on December 16, 2016. The Evaluation Team reviewed five proposals, participated in week-long software demonstrations with three finalists, and posted an Intent to Award to Workday in August 2017.
Procuring Service
The RFP for ERP Implementation Services was released November 1, 2017 and proposals were received on December 14, 2018. The Evaluation Team reviewed proposals and conducted interviews in the spring of 2018 with an Intent to Award by June 1, 2018.
Our System Integrator for HCM and Finance is Deloitte
Following a competitive procurement, Deloitte Consulting, LLP was selected as our system integrator. Deloitte has significant experience in Workday implementations, particularly in higher education HCM, finance and student administration. The Project One team is enhanced by Deloitte’s experienced leadership, and the commitment of the functional and technical professionals who are collaborating with the UA System team. Each resource brings considerable knowledge to Project One that will contribute to the overall effectiveness of this endeavor. To learn more about Deloitte’s Higher Education practice, click here.
Implementation Preparation
When the project was still in the procurement phase, there are several activities that the UA System conducted to prepare for the important implementation project. Each of these items was a critical piece of the foundation for the new system.
Financial Structure
The UA System formed a cross-institution work team to brainstorm and define a new financial reporting structure and financial chart of accounts that will be deployed with the implementation of Workday. The team met during the fall of 2016 and reported its results early in 2017. This new structure is expected to:
- Provide a mechanism to perform university system wide financial reporting
- Capture financial data at a meaningful level of detail to assist each Institution in managing its financial resources
- Identify the components and levels of detail available to capture and report financial data
Note that this proposed structure does not attempt to define input coding. The input coding block and coding reduction techniques will be determined by the selected software.
Interface Data Gathering
The Steering Committee authorized ISG to collect and collate information from all participating institutions about existing systems that may need to exchange data with the new Workday solution. The exact scope will not be known until Workday has been designed and configured.
This process was initiated with a Current Systems Assessment done in 2015. ISG validated the initial list in 2016 and collected additional data elements for each integration point. By gathering and organizing this data set now, the project can save the time and expense of waiting for this information to come together during implementation.
Pre-Implementation Questionnaire
A pre-implementation questionnaire was designed that can address questions about business rules, processes and procedures. This information can be collected, collated and analyzed pre-implementation to focus implementation effort later and reduce implementation risk. Many staff throughout the System have been working on the questionnaires to help develop an inventory of how the UA System operates. ISG is actively collating the information and scheduling harmonization sessions to better align all of the institutions. Benefits of this activity include:
- Drive standardization and disciplined decision-making process across the organization
- Extend the implementation decision-making window and encourage consideration of institutional objectives
- Allow institutions more time to gather information
- Allow implementation and refinement of a collective and disciplined decision-making process
- Reduce the number of decisions needed once the implementation begins, and thereby reduces likelihood of implementation delays and cost overruns
This process shouldn’t be confused with the Project One design sessions that take place during the Architect stage. The design sessions will be more specifically focused on how Workday will be configured and used based on how the UA System operates.