University staff fall back on Excel to work around mis-coded transactions in Oracle system
- Reference: 1715157014
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/05/08/edinburgh_university_oracle/
- Source link:
More than two years after the Fusion HR, payroll, and finance system went live, the university's Biology Department noted that transactions are still mis-coded. One insider told The Register they were using Excel spreadsheets to get an unofficial ledger of spending to make up for the system's shortcomings.
The Register understands the problems are indicative of ongoing issues with the system, internally called People and Money (P&M), throughout the £1.3 billion budget institution.
[1]
In December, an independent report from PA Consulting showed how before the implementation, senior managers missed warning signs that the project was not ready. The [2]report commissioned by the University Court , an independent governance body, said problems related to change management aspects of the project that were not given sufficient attention before it went live.
[3]
[4]
"Some users, who tried to provide constructive input and feedback, felt that they were considered disruptive by leadership and not listened to," it said.
An internal email seen by The Register this week said: "The implementation of P&M has been very difficult and resulted in a lot of additional work for colleagues."
[5]
It noted that the School of Biological Sciences was not allocating costs to respective research projects. "Currently we have 5,204 transactions totalling £385,558.14 sitting within a general research fund which should be sitting on individual research grants, and this number is rising all the time," the email said.
An insider told The Register that the P&M software system offered a poor choice of default code, and allowed for confusion between general ledger and project codes, leading to "this particular mess."
"Many of us are flying blind, or keeping our own unofficial ledger in Excel, or having to bother the finance staff regularly to get balances. Finance staff are excellent but working with a weird system that was imposed on them," they said.
[6]
The Register has offered the university the opportunity to respond.
[7]When red flags are just office decoration: Edinburgh Uni's Oracle IT disaster
[8]Oracle partner gets multimillion top-up after Edinburgh Uni disaster
[9]Academics have 'no confidence' in Edinburgh University's response to its Oracle disaster
[10]Edinburgh Uni finds extra £8M for vendors after troubled ERP go-live
In February, the university awarded systems integrator and support company Inoapps [11]an additional £3.6 million ($4.5 million) contract fee for "changes in requirements and additional work" on the Oracle implementation that left staff and suppliers paid late in 2022.
The additional fee took the total contract value to £37 million ($46.4 million) on a deal originally signed for £25 million ($31.3 million). In March last year, the company [12]got an extra £8 million ($10 million) for "changes in requirements and additional work."
In May, the university's Senate, a representative body made up of students and academics, said it had [13]no confidence in the institution's management of the Oracle migration. Management failed to answer "vital questions about the payment backlog resulting from the implementation," it said.
Last month, the [14]Court said the university had updated it on the People & Money system improvement plan.
"The University's executive leadership was continuing to work towards full implementation of the recommendations of the independent report on People & Money, and Court would continue to exercise appropriate oversight of this," it said. ®
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[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/08/edinburgh_university_oracle_report/
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[7] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/08/edinburgh_university_oracle_report/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/06/oracle_partner_gets_35_million/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/edinburgh_uni_senate_report/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/edinburgh_uni_finds_extra_8m/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/06/oracle_partner_gets_35_million/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/21/edinburgh_uni_finds_extra_8m/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2023/05/03/edinburgh_uni_senate_report/
[14] https://www.ed.ac.uk/news/staff/2024/court-meeting-22-april-2024
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Does Fusion work anywhere?
It seems like this product is the death-knell of any institution that uses it; I'd imagine that no-one would want to touch it with a barge pole now.
What are good competitor products?
Who got paid?
The real question with these kind of disasters is:"Who got paid by whom to push this through?".
It may not be payment in direct currency, but the "old boy's club's you scrub my back, I'll scrub yours" would certainly count for payment too. We can be sure that the "stakeholders on the floor" (AKA the low-life employees who have to use this crap) were not heard.
Re: Who got paid?
This doesn't sound like a problem with the tool - it's the processes and the people. If you want to book something to a job number or account that I'm responsible then I should get to approve it before it goes on the system, precisely to stop this sort of thing. That's how it's worked when I've owned a budget; on some systems it was electronic approval and on others I got paper timesheets and signed them before an admin entered them. Either way, nothing came out of my projects unless I understood and approved it. It sounds as though people were (are?) able to book to any old job number with no approval for the transaction before it went on the system. It also sounds like crap project management: hmm - I've had 3 FTEs on this job for 6 months and so far the spend is £500 against a forecast spend of £50k. Wow, what a top manager I am - on-track for a massive underspend and big bonus.
Productivity improvements?
All those amazing productivity improvements we gained in the late 90s are now being reversed by the 'upgrade' process.
Re: Productivity improvements?
Forget the rise of the machines, it's the rise of the MBAs in the past couple of decades which will finish us off.
Translation needed
“senior managers missed warning signs that the project was not ready”
Aka “senior managers ignored warning signs, hoping that they would be resolvable by blind optimism”
"continue to exercise appropriate oversight of this"
Oh, you mean the appropriate lack of oversight that got them into this situation in the first place ?
That is so reassuring.
Nothing changes does it
Whacking great flashy system and everyone uses Excel, that trusty ol' butt saver.
I hate the thing, but you've got to admit, we'd all still be in caves without it.