- Costly Customizations?
- How Do I Get Involved?
- How does the Mosaic project impact the University?
- How will I be able to verify employee information?
- How will Mosaic Support be handled?
- What do we get for our increased personnel costs in terms of output?
- Why is The University moving forward with the Mosaic Project during this time of financial uncertainty?
Costly Customizations?
Costly Customizations?
Full Question:
I have heard that the Mosaic Project costs are so high because we couldn't buy a system "out of the box" that would address all of our needs and we are paying for numerous customizations.
Reply:
In fact we are making very few customizations to the software and this is in line with our objective to be "vanilla."
va·nil·la (va'-ni-la) adj.
1.
Flavored with the flavoring extract prepared from the cured seedpods of any of various tropical American vines of the genus Vanilla in the orchid family, especially V. planifolia, cultivated for its long narrow seedpods from which a flavoring agent is obtained.
2.
Lacking adornments or special features; basic or ordinary: "We went through a period of vanilla cars." (Charles Jordan)
3.
Implementing a full featured ERP product that has proven its ability to run a University by customizing the product as little as possible and instead adapting the business processes to match the software's capabilities.
4.
The fastest, lowest cost, least risk method for implementing an ERP.
The UA and the Mosaic Project are committed to a simple, minimally modified, "Regent's Vanilla" implementation of our Financial Systems, Human Resources, Research Administration, Student Administration, and Business Intelligence. "Regent's Vanilla" means that we are strongly biased toward using the software as provided. The Mosaic Project will implement the PeopleSoft and Kuali software with minimal customizations/modifications relying on the flexibility and configurability of the software along with re-engineering of current business processes when required.
The Mosaic Project has a well defined process in place to evaluate and endorse customizations that are required in order to accommodate business best practices or specific University of Arizona requirements that may not be addressed in the software. The Implementation Management team, made up of Implementation Directors, lead consultants and other project leaders, is the first to examine the necessity of a modification request and can approve/disapprove the requests. Approved modification requests then go before the Functional Council, which is made up of representatives from the various departments and colleges. All modification requests are written up with a full description of the modification, the requirements analysis behind the modification, and the personnel and financial impact of the modification. The Functional Council evaluates and endorses modifications and/or new policies as needed. In situations of differences of opinion between the Implementation Management Team and the Functional Council, the Executive Steering Committee then will make the final decision.
How are we doing? The Mosaic Project is very transparent in providing a summary of system changes and related issues on the Mosaic Website (http://mosaic.arizona.edu/System_Changes). Anyone can review the number and type of modifications that have been put into place, along with the details of the approval process and costs associated with the modification. Our consultants tell us, compared with ERP projects at other universities, we are keeping the number of modifications very low.
How do I get involved?
How do I get involved?
Full Question:
Is there a way for me/us to get involved, particularly as it relates to the Financial, Sponsored Administration, or Business Intelligence portions of this project? If you have test, implementation, or project groups that we/I could participate in that would be awesome if you could let us know. I am sure there are plenty of us out here who would like some early exposure and to be able to contribute somehow to this wonderfully complex implementation. A lot of us are really excited and we would be even more excited if there was a way we could get involved. Thanks for your time!
Reply:
That's fantastic! We welcome your help! There is definitely a way to get involved, and we need this involvement in order to be successful. Each initiative is a little bit different, but they all have in common the need for testing, the need for feedback on training ideas and early training sessions, and the need for help during implementation. Please contact the Implementation Director(s) for the initiatives where you want to get involved. They will be delighted to hear from you. And thank you for your interest! View Implementation Management Team Listing
How does the Mosaic project impact the University?
How does the Mosaic project impact the University?
Full Question:
How does the Mosaic project impact, or how will Mosaic be impacted by, the current effort to restructure and transform the University?
Reply:
After a recent presentation on Mosaic, a question was raised about how the Mosaic project would impact, or be impacted by, the current effort to restructure and transform the University. That's an important question. In fact we'll use this question to introduce Mose, the voice of the Mosaic project. If there's a question about Mosaic, Mose knows. In an ideal world we would already have implemented Mosaic before the restructuring occurred. That way we could use the capabilities of Mosaic to help in analyzing the impact of various proposals and then to help in implementing the agreed on actions. Any restructuring of necessity requires revising the administrative systems in order to conform to the new structure. The flexibility in the Mosaic software would be an advantage. At this point it's not clear how the timing of Mosaic implementation will fit with the timing of any restructuring, but it seems very likely that some restructuring will occur before Mosaic is fully live. So we will do what is necessary with our legacy systems. And in fact the organization has never stood still in the past, so we will deal with it. On the other hand, a University restructuring could affect the implementation of Mosaic. But the nature and extent of this isn't clear at this time. And it won't become clear for some time yet. So the best way for Mosaic to deal with it is to get involved as appropriate, stay informed, and above all stay the course, unless and until we know something that causes us to change. By contrast, the worst thing we could do would be to worry about something that is unknown, and especially to slow down pending clarification. After all the prospect of unforeseen change is always with us. When change happens we analyze it and adapt to it. Business as usual. Full speed ahead. In fact the need for enhanced data and recordkeeping has never been greater, along with the need for business intelligence to make use of the data.
How will I be able to verify employee information?
How will I be able to verify employee information?
Full Question:
How will I be able to verify employee info in support of our office time, advising and other systems?
Reply:
Verification and authorization information is being provided by the new Enterprise Directory Service (EDS). Through LDAP and REST interfaces, EDS provides information about all people associated with the UA. EDS is scheduled to go live by the end of February 2009. For UIS users who are concerned about the discontinuation of UIS services and who are looking for run-time authorization decisions based on academic, employment, affiliation and bio/demo data this new interface offers a convenient way to transition to the new data environment. For more information, please see http://iia.arizona.edu/eds or contact UITS-IIA@listserv.arizona.edu.
How will Mosaic Support be handled?
How will Mosaic Support be handled?
Full Question:
I work in one of the colleges. When I have a question about Kuali or PeopleSoft, will I be expected to call the 24/7 IT Support Center? And if the University chooses to host externally rather than internally, does that mean that the user support will be outsourced?
Reply:
We'd rather say that, as a departmental user, you will be able to call the 24/7 IT Support Center if you have questions. You may well have other resources available, including online help, other individuals in your department or college, training materials, etc. But the 24/7 IT Support Center will be there for you if you want to take advantage of it. All of the trainers for Mosaic are permanent UA employees and are tied in to the 24/7 IT Support Center function. With this approach the things you learn during training, or read in the online help, or discuss with a 24/7 IT Support Center representative all come from the same source. There are no plans nor any discussion of outsourcing the 24/7 IT Support Center function.
What do we get for our increased personnel costs in terms of output?
What do we get for our increased personnel costs in terms of output?
Full Question:
Why, if our new computer systems will be better and faster, do they need more people to operate? What do we get for our increased personnel costs in terms of output?
Reply:
In reality, the new systems will not require substantially more people to operate. The increased personnel costs are a result of the Mosaic Project accounting for many costs not currently accounted for in IT today. The project has worked hard to provide an ‘all inclusive cost' for the new administrative systems. Therefore the project's staffing numbers are inclusive of functional staff (business analysts) that perform IT related tasks, in addition to the technical staff that is usually accounted for. The new systems being put in place by the Mosaic Project will definitely provide much more functionality to the entire campus community than our current systems. The list of new capabilities is extensive and includes enhancements such as: As a follow up to the question raised in Faculty Senate, here is what our budget looks like for Year 5: % of TOTAL $ The Year 5 budget is very speculative at this point. However it is consistent with what was presented to the Faculty Senate. Note that a large portion of the people expense is functional people. Change is difficult and initially staff members will be less proficient. Over time, they will ascend the learning curve and become proficient with the new systems as well. We are providing many opportunities and methods of training which helps to reduce the curve, however it does not eliminate the initial inefficiencies altogether. Some of the inefficiencies will be overcome with automation at go-live and some later.
Mosaic Estimated Five Year Technical Budget
ITEM
FTE
AMOUNT
Hardware & Software
0
$4,277,046
44.4%
Managerial Staff - UA & Contract
1
$1,972
0.0%
Functional Staff - UA
25
$2,068,460
21.5%
Functional Staff - Contract
0
$0
0.0%
Technical Staff - UA
30
$3,292,744
34.2%
Technical Staff - Contract
0
$0
0.0%
Other Allocations
0
$0
0.0%
TOTAL
56
$9,640,222
Why is The University moving forward with the Mosaic Project during this time of financial uncertainty?
Why is The University moving forward with the Mosaic Project during this time of financial uncertainty?
Full Question:
- Considering the current state of the university's financial situation, I'm not at all sure Mosaic is a good idea to implement right now. We may need a new infrastructure for all these aspects of the university, and we may need it badly, but I think we need to keep classes open first. People are talking about closing down large proportions of the university. Let's wait and see what's left before we build an infrastructure for it, and before we devote money we don't have even for basic operating expenses to building new infrastructure. Otherwise we will have wasted money we don't have, that could have been used to keep things running for at least a few more months, on building an infrastructure that won't work for what little of the university is left after the cuts. The people working on Mosaic may not want to be put on hold, but if large parts of the university are shut down, they'll lose their jobs too.
- This seems ill-timed in light of the current fiscal crisis. Whatever the eventual need to upgrade the university computer system might be, the expense of this (at least $20 Million) should be delayed until the more pressing educational institutional issues have been resolved.
Reply:
We know that many are asking how we can afford such an ambitious project during a time when The University of Arizona is facing so many economic challenges. The simple answer may be that we cannot afford not to. The current suite of administrative systems is 30 years old and poses significant risks from an operational and compliance standpoint. Modernizing these mission-critical systems and re-engineering the associated business processes will position the UA for the future. In the face of these extraordinary pressures, we are investing for the long term. The five-year budget for Mosaic is $80 million, with a contingency of $10 million. Almost all of the implementation work is scheduled for the first three years, with years 4 and 5 representing the ongoing post-project operation, including maintenance, support, etc. Also, the budget presented to the campus and to the Regents is a more fully disclosed inclusive budget than is frequently done. For example, internal transfers of project monies to departments providing staff to the project are included. If we were to focus on the first three years, and on the "out of pocket" expenditures, we would be looking at something closer to $40 million. Funding for this project is from several sources. A 15-year loan is being established with the pay-back from existing administrative systems funds. The balance of funds will be from University allocated resources using one-time monies and sufficient permanent dollars to sustain the ongoing systems operation and maintenance at the end of project implementation. If we delayed the project now, the funds expended to date would become a sunk cost and starting anew would be more expensive, both in resources and lost opportunities. It would be like starting all over again. The project is doing well so far, with some parts doing better than expected, and others not as well as expected. On an overall basis, however, the project is in good shape and is on budget. The monthly status reports give a more detailed overview of project status. (See http://www.mosaic.arizona.edu/.) We are very mindful of bringing to the University what we've been entrusted to deliver. Based on the participation and cooperation of all those on campus with whom we've been working, we are confident that we are on the right track.