State of Maine orders review of $54.6m Workday project as it alleges delivery failure and threatens cancellation
- Reference: 1617199506
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/03/31/maine_workday_dispute/
- Source link:
If the state ends the project, it will be the second time it has abandoned efforts to modernise its HR system, having cancelled an Infor-base project in 2018.
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The state's Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability has requested a review of the project including implementation issues related to personnel and timelines, budgets, spending and payments to vendors, contractor performance and officials' response to implementation.
COBOL-coding volunteers sought as slammed mainframes slow New Jersey's coronavirus response [3]READ MORE
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According to [5]the official document , Maine went out to bid for a comprehensive human resources management system to replace the state's 30-year-old mainframe payroll-only system in 2015.
In 2016, the northeasternmost US state contracted with Infor to provide the HR system and the pair planned to have the system up and running in 2018. That contract was "terminated for lack of delivery" in June 2018.
Later in 2018, Maine contracted with SaaS vendor Workday to provide both an HR system, this time expecting a go-live date of 2020. That date has since been revised to 2022.
The document says the total project spending earmarked until FY 2023 is $54.6m.
The Office of the Attorney General is reviewing and handling the contract dispute between Workday and the State of Maine, the document added.
In a [6]letter dated 25 February , Kirsten Figueroa, commissioner for the Maine Department of Administrative and Financial Services, wrote to Workday giving it notice that should it fail to remediate issues with the system within 30 days, the state would proceed with immediate termination of its professional services agreement with Workday.
The letter alleged Workday has failed to provide a Labor Cost Distribution solution that meets its requirements, resulting in "significant delays in the project." It said Workday's proposed solution was a finance module workaround, and was not provided until all testing phases had been closed for the April 2020 launch date. "To date, this item is yet to be successfully and completely configured," the letter said.
Meanwhile, Workday has failed to provide "ad-hoc reporting capabilities" promised in the terms of work. The state discovered this functionality "could only be achieved if all security roles were removed," the letter alleged.
On 11 March, [7]Figueroa wrote to the Joint Standing Committees on Appropriations and Financial Affairs saying that annual subscriptions were set to be $1.5m per year for modules including HCM, Cloud Connect for Benefits, Recruiting, Payroll, and Time Tracking.
Using its current multiple legacy software systems led to integration problems, inherently inefficient processes, and incompatibility with supporting systems that are no longer supported by vendors. She noted the "significantly out of date computer systems" also required knowledge of computer languages that are no longer taught. She added that the problems had led to "considerable administrative burden and/or cost for the upkeep and functionality of these legacy systems" as well as "vulnerability to cyber-attack and/or malfunction."
In its case for terminating its Workday agreement, the state said it would seek $22.2m repayment from the vendor "due to incomplete deliverables and failure to meet the State's requirements."
"The Office of the Attorney General is continuing to evaluate next steps on the contract dispute," the letter said.
A Workday spokesperson insisted to The Register that the firm was doing its part and was "committed to partnering with the State of Maine to successfully complete this project."
"However," the mouthpiece said, "technology deployments are highly collaborative and require all parties, including customers, to participate and deliver on their commitments, and we have been doing our part to try and engage with the State to move the deployment forward. The State of Maine has no basis to terminate our agreement for cause."
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The state of Maine has been contacted for a response. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/09/maine_workday_dispute/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YGScnKOo1YVGDRU5ChiprAAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2020/04/05/new_jersey_cobol_volunteers_mainframes/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YGScnKOo1YVGDRU5ChiprAAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/6376
[6] https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/6265
[7] https://legislature.maine.gov/doc/6263
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YGScnKOo1YVGDRU5ChiprAAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Been there
It costs $55M because the company is making a profit - $55M would probably more than cover the cost of the state hiring programmerss to not only write, but also maintain, the system. But then some politicians friend will not be making money.
Re: Been there
I can imagine if the gov org has an old mainframe system there's a ton of old archive data to convert and import, various utils to write. No doubt due to budget cuts they probably made all the State of Maine gov employed IT developers redundant a few years ago and that $55m is to have WorkDay hire their own developers at some horrendous hourly rate!
Replace COBOL with Python?
$54M would probably cover the maintenance of the old system and COBOL programmers to maintain and possibly update the existing code - which seems to have been working for 30 years? Writing a new system is not a bad idea but then we're dealing to Version 1.0 of the new code (LOL) so it's going to have new bugs and issues which means a few more years of rewrites before it meets the current performance standards.
There must be a better way to build these systems
It was done 30 years ago probably in COBOL on a mainframe that probably has less compute power than the average PC. I think the problem word in this instance is 'comprehensive' as it tells the vendor that you don't know what you want, but you think you can afford the best.
Re: There must be a better way to build these systems
Think of the best and worst project managers you've worked with and the stupid ideas they've had.
Now imagine an external company saying they can handle the data conversion for 30 years worth of data held in some obscure IBM mainframe formatted store and not bothering ask the PMs how much archive data to covert and the PM simply not thinking about it, so WorkDay are going ahead with months of transformation work.
Re: There must be a better way to build these systems
How much easier would it be to run the Cobol on some modern hardware than convert it. I'm fairly sure Maine hasn't had the 100,000,000 times increase in staff that we have in computing power in the last 30 years.
Big systems IT disasters?
I always preface my posts by saying I don't work in IT, but am interested observer and it intersects with my job as a scientist a reasonable amount.
There seems to be a common theme of these mega ERP systems being a nightmare. Presumably the majority do go smoothly, we just never hear those stories??! It must be mature technology, or as a society we sort of know how to do these things? People must have some expectation of these projects when they get started (on both sides).
Been there
" The state discovered this functionality "could only be achieved if all security roles were removed," the letter alleged.
Long ago I had to implement an online sensitive records sharing system to deploy an application provided by a government agency. This was in the days of Win NT4, but they'd written the application for Win 95, so it had to run with administrator privilege via the web browser. In vain I pointed out the hazards.
But BTW, why does an HR system cost $55M to implement? Maybe because they saw you coming?