Hampshire County Council
P
Schools
Forum
Item 10
16 December 2013
Integrated Business Centre (IBC)
Report of the Director of Corporate Resources- Corporate Services
Contact: Andrew Minall, 01962 846287, andrew.minall@hants.gov.uk
1
Summary
This paper sets out in more detail the Integrated Business Centre
development and the planned changes to SAP.
It also highlights the impacts to schools and the planned rollout,
communication and engagement recognising that the project is fast
evolving and subject to change.
2
Background
Schools Forum received a briefing by the Director of Corporate Resources at
its meeting on 23 May 2012 which outlined the transformation
programme for corporate services.
As part of a review of corporate services within the Council a new, integrated
and efficient function is being developed to deliver transactional
processes and operational support for the County Council and its
partners. This function, currently referred to as the Integrated Business
Centre (IBC) will operate in the following areas:

Finance

HR

Procurement
As part of this development, this will mean a significant upgrade in SAP. SAP
was implemented into schools early 2004 and apart from minor
revisions, has remained fundamentally unchanged. The platform is now
outdated and becoming difficult to support and contain costs. The
interface is also very outdated and not user friendly, processes
inefficient and exposes users to compliance risk and entry errors.
This upgrade should provide a range of benefits to school users including:

Improved user interface.

Processes based on current best practice.

Reduced risk of compliance issues and errors through increased
automation / data validation.
The impact of these changes will include:

Change to look and feel.

Some changes to processes / terminology.

Improved "user experience".

Centralisation of some teams therefore some name / contact changes
for queries.
While there will inevitably be changes to processes through this upgrade to
SAP, the key outcomes schools require can still be achieved, for
example:

Ability to access your school’s information.

Schools will still be able to decide on preferred suppliers.

Ability to manage and control your budget and spend.

Able to report effectively to governors.
After considerable development work over the summer, we are now in a
position to start engaging with school representatives.
3
Timescales
The design of the IBC began in July 2012 and was completed in March
2013, informed by a series of workshops involving staff across all three
organisations. This included working with representatives from
schools, to ensure their needs are met.
The project has now moved into a significant phase of ‘building and testing’
the designs, which will conclude with a phased implementation of the
IBC during 2014. The planned ‘go live’ dates for the IBC are:

Council departments – 31 March 2014

Schools – 30 June 2014

Hampshire Fire and Rescue Service – August 2014

Hampshire Constabulary – November 2014
Individual work programmes are developed for each organisation, which are
specific to them and their timescales for implementation.
4
4.1
Schools engagement plan
Engagement with all schools to date has been through established
communication channels such including scheduled meetings,
newsletters and schools.
-2-
4.2
A Schools IBC user group has been formed from volunteer school
representatives consisting of business management, administrative and
finance staff. The group provides a good cross section of
representatives across phases and areas.
4.3
The groups terms of reference include:

Important role in capturing and representing school views / needs with
feedback into project

Building an understanding of need and implications for change

Encourage awareness in the schools community

Sounding board with first sight of information

Recognition that system is changing / developing
4.4
Future updates will be provided regularly to ensure plans and impact are
shared with schools with engagement and appropriate support for the
changes increasing towards go-live or if there are any areas of the
programme that may impact early.
4.5
The representative group will be consulted and the schools change lead
will ensure that information is provided and communicated effectively to
maximise awareness within schools.
5
Accessing the IBC
The Online Portal
5.1
Staff will be able to access IBC services through a new easy-to-use
online Portal, which will be accessible through Hantsnet. Staff will use
the online Portal to carry out HR, Purchasing and Financial transactions,
including requesting leave, claiming travel expenses, purchasing goods
and services and raising purchase orders.
5.2
Once the IBC 'goes live', it is likely that only staff working within the IBC
will have access to the full SAP system. All other staff will use the new
online Portal for HR, Purchasing and Financial transactions.
5.3
The online Portal is being designed to enable staff to 'self-serve' easily
online, similar to the way that many people carry out day to day activities
online, including banking and shopping. It is envisaged that minimum
training will be required due to the simplicity of the online Portal.
5.4
Illustrative screen shots of some of the portal screens are provided in
appendix 1. These are subject to change but do provide a good
representation of the approach being adopted.
Employee Self-Service (ESS) Lite
5.5
ESS Lite will be available to all staff for easy access to the most
commonly used transactions
-3-

Request leave

Claim travel and expenses

Change personal information (e.g. address, bank details)

View payslips

Notify absence

Notify return to work

Submit timesheets

Submit general queries
5.6
It is expected that the number of functions available through ESS Lite
will grow over time.
5.1
The self service approach is becoming the most common approach used
in organisations and can provide many benefits for both the employer
and the employee. However, it is recognised that this presents a
significant change.
5.2
Initial feedback from school representatives suggests that whilst many
features would be welcome, there could be some challenges in
implementing this approach within schools. This facility is therefore,
being offered as optional to schools.
5.3
Further views on this approach and a small number of schools willing to
pilot the approach would be welcome.
The e-store
5.4
SRM is the electronic catalogue for Hampshire County Council and is a
module of the SAP system which lists all stock items and contracted
goods and services. As part of the IBC project, SRM will be upgraded
and the 'front-end' of the new version will be known as the 'e-store'. The
e-store will provide staff with a better experience when buying goods
and services and staff will access it through the online Portal.
Getting help - the Customer Interaction Centre
5.5
6
The new model is designed to encourage self-service and this will be
backed up by clear guidance and information. However, there will be
occasions when staff require additional help or expert advice. A new
Customer Interaction Centre will be set-up, based within Hantsdirect, to
provide additional support when needed. Agents in the Centre will either
provide the information and advice required or refer more complex
queries to a member of the IBC or Finance/HR operational team. Staff
will no longer have named contacts, however, case numbers will be
assigned for case work (for example, employee relations) so that calls
can be routed as appropriate.
Procurement
-4-
6.1
7
Included within the project is the development of solutions to
substantially reduce the handling of paper invoices from suppliers. Three
approaches are being adopted to reflect the volume of transactions
received:

Electronic Data Interface (EDI) will enable electronic receipt of
invoices directly into SAP

Vendor Invoice Management (VIM) will support the scanning and
recognition of paper invoices and credit notes received into the
Correspondence hub

Low volume, low value transactions which will be unchanged at this
stage
Vendor Invoice Management
7.1
The VIM solution will automate elements of the procurement process
however this requires greater compliance with correct procurement
processes. This will mean that a purchase order will need to be raised in
advance of engaging with a supplier and a goods receipt will need to be
completed.
7.2
This will allow physical invoices to be received centrally through a
correspondence hub, scanned and an automated invoice recognition
process which will initiate payment providing a successful match is made
within SAP (matching invoices to POs and goods receipts).
7.3
Where a successful match is made, it will still be possible to run an SAP
transaction to confirm that the transaction with the supplier is complete.
7.4
If a successful match is not made, then an exception process will ensure
that this is referred back to the school e.g. where a price or quantity
does not match. This will include sufficient information including an
electronic copy of the invoice to allow for corrective action to be taken.
7.5
The change should save processing time, reduce errors and will improve
the governance and control framework through ensuring greater
compliance. Greater compliance will mean, however, that an exception
process will need to be in place in case of emergency and will limit the
ability of some staff who may seek to make an ad hoc purchase without
following the correct system and authorisation process.
7.6
The VIM solution will be rolled out incrementally with suppliers
transferring in waves. After each wave, a testing and evaluation process
will be undertaken prior to the next tranche of suppliers transferring.
7.7
It is planned that the initial tranche of 16 suppliers will transfer in
December with a steady increase over the next few months. The initial
16 suppliers have been specifically selected to minimise impact on
schools. Therefore, it is unlikely that schools will need to procure from a
VIM supplier until mid January 2014 at the earliest.
-5-
7.8
As this will have an impact on schools, initial communications have been
sent to ensure all school users are aware of the change and can operate
with the change to process for some suppliers with further
communication and guidance issued during roll out.
Correspondence Hub
7.9
A Correspondence Hub will also be set up to deal with scanned copies
of invoices. All invoices will be sent to the Hub to be scanned and
electronically matched to purchase orders. This will require the use of
standard information from suppliers including the purchase order
number.
7.10 The customer access model for the IBC and Finance/HR operations is
illustrated in the following diagram.
8
Recommendations
8.1
It is recommended that the Schools Forum note the progress made and
support the approach to engagement outlined in section 4.
8.2
It is recommended that the Schools Forum agrees an approach to
obtaining volunteers for using the new ESS system.
-6-
The IBC home page
Appendix 1
Employee
-8-
Schools
Enter
Starter
Teachers
Pay
Amend
Employee
Records
Manage
Positions
-9-
Manage
Leavers
Acting
Up
Form
Data Entry
SWF
Census
Reports