Executive Summary

The University has initiated the Drew 360 Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project, a University-wide initiative that was recommended by the Administrative Technology Committee and approved by the Board of Trustees. With a wide consensus in a participatory selection process, SunGard Banner has been selected as the core software to replace AIMS, along with various other software products that will support University business objectives. The University has also selected Strata Information Group to provide implementation services, including project management services and functional area training and consulting.

On June 28, 2010 the following message from President Bob Weisbuch was sent to the campus community:

June 28, 2010

Dear Colleagues,

This week, the university will embark on an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) project, a long overdue campus-wide initiative that will replace AIMS, our 30-year-old administrative software, with SunGard Banner, a suite of newer, more advanced programs. Some of the benefits we can expect from this new system include:

• A portal that allows individual students, faculty and staff to see information that is specific to their identities and interests
• An online purchasing and procurement process, including online approvals
• A degree planning tool that allows students and advisors to plan and manage a student's entire program of study
• Online applications that tie directly into our admission databases
• The ability to offer students online room selection

The implementation effort will be overseen by an executive committee, which I have asked Alan Candiotti, assistant vice president, university technology, to chair. It will include members of both his staff and Cabinet.

The ERP Executive Committee's first task will be to identify project leaders for each of the major administrative areas. These individuals will serve on the front line throughout the process as members of a cross-functional Implementation Lead Team. I ask that vice presidents, deans and directors support this effort by making sure their departments are represented as needed and participate fully. The project includes a budget for supplemental staffing in areas that are severely impacted by the increased workload.

I have also asked the executive committee to ensure that the conversion process includes a thorough review and updating of our business processes. We would be missing a major and multifaceted opportunity if we did not explore how they might be streamlined or improved upon to better serve students, staff and faculty.

While we have a lot of work ahead of us, I am confident in our community's ability to meet the challenge and am excited about the enormous benefits it will yield for Drew. The leadership of the project is committed to its successful completion and will do its best to keep everyone informed about progress. Alan will be writing with more detailed information in the coming weeks.

Best,

Bob

Project Objectives

The expectations and objectives for the Drew 360 project are:

• Replace and enhance functionality provided by AIMS with the SunGard and third-party software identified in the project scope and retire the AIMS system by December 2012
• Streamline access to University information and processes, both academic and administrative, by delivering a customized user experience for students, faculty, and staff via a portal.
• Provide user offices with the tools for self-reliance, including reporting tools and distributed printing
• Create an environment that encourages quality and continuous improvement
• Preserve the security and integrity of University data.
• Improve staff access to reliable, consistent and timely data, and eliminate redundancies
• Enhance decision-making capabilities via accurate and timely access to appropriate data
• Leverage the investment in a new system by assessing and improving current practices and policies wherever practical in order to improve office efficiency by implementing such measures as:
  • Enabling identity management and single sign-on functionality via a portal
  • Streamlining the purchasing and procurement process with online procedures, including online approvals
  • Providing a degree planning tool that allows students and advisers to plan and manage a student's entire program of study
  • Tying online application data directly into the admissions database

Measures of Success

The Drew 360 project will be deemed successful when:

• The University's faculty and staff can perform their job responsibilities effectively in Banner or other ancillary software according to the Project Timeline.
• The University has retired the AIMS system at the conclusion of the project. 
• The need for duplicate data entry and shadow databases has been greatly reduced or eliminated.
• Ad hoc reporting capabilities are made available to and are utilized for report generation in departments.
• Students, faculty and staff are provided direct access to a single integrated view of personalized information from the Luminis portal and other web applications.
• The University is able to communicate effectively with current students, prospective students, and applicants.
• Use of manual or paper-based administrative processes has been significantly reduced.
• Modern standards-based methods are utilized to integrate Banner data with other University IT systems, including Moodle, Identity Management, Campus Cards, and Facilities management.

Project Scope

Banner modules and other SunGard Higher Education software purchased as part of Drew 360 are:

• Banner Finance (G/L, A/P, A/R, Purchasing)
• Banner HR/Payroll
• Banner Student (Admissions, Student Records, Student Accounts Receivable, Catalog/Schedule, Flexible Registration)
• Banner Relationship Management (Admissions and Recruiting communications)
• Banner Financial Aid
• DegreeWorks (Degree Audit)
• Luminis (Portal)
• ODS (Operational Data Store)
• Banner Document Management Suite (Document Imaging)
• Banner Workflow - not phase one (refers to the SunGard Workflow product. Workflow processes built into Banner are in scope for phase one planning)
• Recruiting and Admissions Performance (Admissions dashboard) – not phase one
• Travel and Expense Management – not phase one 
• EDW (Enterprise Data Warehouse) – not phase one 

Other ancillary software products included in the initial scope of Drew 360 are:

• Ad-Hoc Reporting Tools
• Identity Management
• NOLIJ Transfer (electronic file import for Admissions)
• XLerant BudgetPak (Budget Development) - completed implementation. Interface to Banner to be created.
• Adirondack Solutions (Housing)
• Parking system (Adirondack)
• Classroom and Event Scheduling (EMS)
• PeopleAdmin (HR applicant tracking) – not phase one 
• Judicial system (Adirondack) – not phase one 

"Not phase one" refers to implementation software or activities that will be deferred beyond the go-live dates for the core software modules. These items will not appear in the initial project timeline.

Project Timeline

Key implementation start dates are:

• August/September 2010 - Implementation planing for Finance and Business Process Analysis for Admissions.
• Week of September 27, 2010 - Project kickoff and Readiness and Discovery workshop for Finance, HR/Payroll, Financial Aid, Portal, and Technical teams.
• Week of November 16, 2010 - Readiness and Discovery workshop for Student (Registration/Records, Catalog/Schedule, Bursar, Admissions, and Student Services teams) 
• Week of January 10, 2011 - General Person training/consulting for all module teams and start of regular consulting sessions for all modules.

Key implementation go-live dates are:

• July 1, 2011 – Finance
• July 1, 2011 – reporting tool and ODS
• August, 2011 – Admissions (and Relationship Management)
• October, 2011 – Luminis (prospects, applicants)
• January 1, 2012 – HR/Payroll
• January, 2012 – Financial Aid
• March, 2012 – Student (registration, accounts receivable, catalog/schedule for Fall 2012 term)
• October, 2012 or February 2013 – DegreeWorks 

A detailed schedule of project activities can always be found in the Project Calendar on U-KNOW.

Project Assumptions

The successful completion of the Drew 360 project within the established time line and budget is based on adherence to the following assumptions. Any deviation from the project assumptions due to critical institutional need would affect the project budget and timeline and therefore must be approved by the Executive Steering Committee.

• The Banner implementation will be 'vanilla' – no modifications of the program source code will be made.
• The project will be limited in scope as described under Project Scope, which will include replacement functionality and other enhancements specifically indicated; Other approved initiatives will be included in not-phase-one planning. Given the necessity of meeting the implementation time-line in order to conduct the University's business, replacement functionality will receive the highest priority.
• Replacement functionality refers to the ability to achieve required business objectives, but not necessarily to replicate current procedures. Assessment and improvement of practices and policies is expected.
• No development, modification, or report development will be done on AIMS except as required to comply with federal and state regulatory requirements.
• Given the necessity of meeting implementation goals to support the University's mission, the Drew 360 project and its associated components will be University Technology's highest priority.  New projects that compromise the resources of the project, or major upgrades to enterprise applications supported by University Technology and not identified in the project scope, with the exception of security patches or upgrades mandated by vendor support policies, will not be undertaken. 
• Interfaces will be written as needed to achieve continuity and maintain functionality through the implementation cycle.
• Printing of reports and forms will be done locally in user offices using a laser printing strategy.
• Ad hoc reporting capabilities will be available to end-users.
• Training will be conducted using a "train the trainer" model. Functional consulting will include training for the project teams. End-user training will be conducted by University staff in functional offices with the assistance of ETC training resources.
• The Data Standards team will be responsible for establishing policies and relevant standards for data entry, including the use of shared codes.
• Project documents will be posted on U-KNOW.

Project Risks

Project constraints and challenges ("boundary conditions") include:

• Limited timeline
• Resource limitations
• Department workloads
• Other critical priorities

Project risk factors include:

• Staff turnover for key personnel
• Unforeseen events
• Scope creep

Project Organization and Project Governance

The organization of the Drew 360 project is comprised of a top-level Executive Steering Committee, an implementation cross-functional leadership team (Team Leads Committee), and various project teams and work groups. See Project Organization for an organizational chart and complete list of teams.

The role of the Executive Steering Committee is to provide executive level leadership for the overall project. The steering committee makes the final decision on any policy recommendations or issue resolution. This committee will be chaired by Alan Candiotti, Assistant Vice President, University Technology. Project Sponsors are Howard Buxbaum, Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs, and Pamela Gunter-Smith, Provost and Academic Vice President.

The Team Leads Committee (cross-functional leadership team) reports to the Executive Steering Committee. The Team Leads Committee chair is the Drew University Project Manager, Axel Larsson, assisted by the Strata Information Group (SIG) Project Manager, Monica Crawford. The project managers will provide implementation status reports to the executive steering committee as well as identify issues or policies that may require action by the Executive Steering Committee.

The cross-functional Student Steering Committee provides another venue to address cross-cutting issues specifically related to the various modules of Banner Student. The Student Steering Committee chair is Vice President for Enrollment Management Alyssa McCloud, assisted by the Drew project manager Axel Larsson. The Student Steering Committee will meet as needed throughout the Banner Student implementation and amongst its responsibilities will take the lead in engaging students and faculty in relevant decisions in the implementation.  

The project managers' role is to create or monitor project task lists and project plans, serve as a resource to the module implementation team leaders, serve as liaison to the vendors, and manage resources to keep the project on track to meet production live dates.

The Team Lead members are listed in the Project Organization document on U-KNOW. This committee includes broad representation across the institution. Its responsibilities are to: resolve cross-module issues, identify change management strategies, recommend institution-wide policy or procedure changes, and monitor the progress of the implementation.

Each module implementation team leader is a member of the Team Leads Committee to ensure appropriate communication throughout the organization structure. The team leader's responsibilities include:

• convening team meetings
• ensuring documentation of meeting decisions and action items (to be posted on U-KNOW)
• attending all relevant training and consulting sessions
• keeping a project task list in coordination with their primary SIG consultant
• establishing relevant policies and procedures
• creating training and documentation plans
• forming workgroups to address specific functionality or issues, with invitations to the appropriate subject matter experts

The team leader is also responsible for identifying and escalating any implementation issues to the Team Leads Committee and/or the project managers. Any decision or recommendation that will delay the overall timeline or require additional resources must be approved by the executive steering committee.

Module team members are assigned to their respective module teams based on their expertise within their functional area and their ability to participate in team decisions, development of streamlined procedures, software configuration, testing, documentation, and training. Team members are expected to attend team meetings scheduled by their team leader as well as training and consulting sessions, and to complete project tasks within the guidelines set by their primary SIG consultant.

A primary and backup technical staff member will be assigned to each module team, and will be responsible for supporting or coordinating technical requirements for that team. These may include: hardware/software setup and testing, conversion program mapping, programming and/or testing, interface processes, script-writing, report development, and troubleshooting.

Project Budget

The Board of Trustees have approved a budget for the Drew 360 project based upon the above assumptions and project scope. The budget includes funds for the procurement of hardware and the core SunGard software, as well as the above-mentioned ancillary systems to accompany the ERP system. The budget includes funding for the SIG, SunGard, and third-party consulting resources based on the projected number of service hours required to successfully execute the project. In addition, the project budget includes some funding for staff supplementation and/or additional compensation. Finally, the project budget includes a 10% contingency line to accommodate any unforeseen circumstances.

The project managers (Drew and SIG) will be responsible for the day to day administration of the project budget. They will monitor the use of consulting and other resources to ensure that the project stays within its budget. The project managers will report regularly on the project budget status to the Executive Steering Committee.

The Executive Steering Committee is responsible for approving and supporting a staff supplementation and/or additional compensation plan for the project and the allocation of available funds. The committee will also monitor and approve the use of contingency funds.