Best Practices in Campus ERP
Implementations
IT at McGill: Creating Profound and Positive
Impacts
Roger Rigelhof
McGill University
About McGill & me
 Established 1821
 30,000 students
 Research intensive, Faculty of Medicine
 Annual budget approaching $1 Billion
Roger Rigelhof
 37 years as a Math Prof at McGill
 Project Director of SCT Banner Implementation
 10 years as Associate Dean of Science
 Senator 1984 – 1993, 1996 – 2000
 An Engineering Physics Grad from the U of Sask!
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What we did, and when we did it
 First Senate Report – Spring 1995
 Second Senate Report – Spring 1997
 RFP July 1997
 Purchase SCT Banner -Spring 1998
 Finance “go-live” June 2000
General Person “go-live” for Finance and HR
 General Person “go-live” Aug 2001
 for student and all historical data (450,000
persons)

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What we did, and when we did it
 HR/Payroll January 2002
 Student Web Registration April 2002
 Academic Records conversion July 2002
 Admissions “go-live” September 2002
 Degree Evaluation
 Recruitment
 Imaging
 What’s next –HigherMarkets, Workflow
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What is a Best Practice
 Definition
A best practice is what results when qualitative
comparisons are made between similar
organizations’ business practices.
OR
 A best practice is any activity that an organization
finds successful in accomplishing a task.

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10 Best Practices that worked
1.
Executive management should endorse the project
and remain actively involved throughout the
implementation
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Executive Interest
What to avoid
Project begins
Time
Projects ends
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Project Governance
CIO
Project Sponsor
Project Director
PMG
SIS Policy
CSA
Project Manager
SIS Team
SHARD
FIS Policy
Project Manager
FIS Team
HR Policy
HRPM
Project Manager
HRIS/Payroll Team
Project Manager
Services Team
slide 8
Adapting to change
2.
Executive management should be cognizant about
the institution’s ability to adapt to the
organizational changes that occur when ERP
software is implemented.
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Adapting to an ERP
Productivity
Time
slide 10
Adapting to an ERP
“Go-live”
Productivity
?
Implementation
Preparation period
ERP “Shock”
Benefits
Time
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ERP Shock Relief

SIS and FIS specialists

Funded by IST, coordinated by project manager

Hired by faculties to serve departments

Extremely successful program

Training, liaison, advocates
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More Best Practices
3.
ERP software implementation responsibilities should
be shared between the information technology
department and functional areas where the
software is being implemented.

Policy committees involved senior management

Implementation teams consisted of functional
and IT people
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Best Practices
4.
The project team composition should represent all
functional areas where the software will be
implemented.

Finance System: Core team of managers from
Accounting
 Broad consultation within the entire financial
community – esp for CofA
 Functional specialists in Purchasing, AP, AR,
Budgeting, Grants
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Best Practices
4.
Cont’d

Student System
 Managers from Admissions, Registrars,
Student Records Officers from Colleges of
Arts, Science, Grad Studies
 SROs used to test “mock” registration
 Students used for communication plans etc.

HR/Payroll
 HRPMC (HR Project Management Committee)
met regularly.
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Best Practices
5.
Project team members’ normal job responsibilities
should be reassigned to other employees for the
project duration.

Temporary promotions and backfilling

Replacements were trained before
Implementation started

Finance and HR systems


Managers spent 4 days/week at Project HQ
Student System

100% at Project HQ
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Best Practices
6.
A separate dedicated work environment should be
specifically created for the project team.

Project headquarters

7.
Functional and technical users brought to a work
environment specifically dedicated to the project team
and to building the system.
A project manager should be assigned full-time to
the implementation.

That would be me!

An Academic with some previous experience with
projects
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Best Practices
8.
Implementation information should be continuously
communicated to the campus community.

BannerSpeak – quarterly newsletter

Website

Information sessions before each go-live

Information reports to Deans, Senate Committee
on Student Affairs, Senate Committee on
Information Systems, Computer Users
Committee
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Best Practices
9.
All employees who will use the software should
receive thorough training.

Training room and training team (approx 6
trainers – as many as 30 at times!)

Basic Navigation course plus:
Finance: 5 courses, HR: 3 courses, Student: 23 courses

4,840 Employees attended 1 or more sessions

Detailed instructions for each and every form
As of May 2003:

Total number of sessions:1,166
Attendees:
7,094

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Best Practices
Cont’d
9.




Banner Help Desk , FAQs, How-tos
Hands-on obligatory sessions
You only get access to the forms for which you have had
training
Drop-in labs (bring in your real work)
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Best Practices
10.
Conversion of data from the old software system to
the new should begin early in the implementation
process

For student system:




Converted all electronic “person record” – 450,000
records
Converted all electronic Student records -250,000
Financial data was partially converted
HR Legacy system ( a relatively new system) was
converted.
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A Best Practice that didn’t work
 Vanilla vs. Customization:
 Customization:
Makes end users happy
 Vanilla:
 Lowers TCO

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Vanilla with Sprinkles
When to Customize:
 Compliance to legislation
 Protection of Privacy
 When the student is the user (has big impact, lots of
users)
 Example: Modify Name
 When there is a show-stopper for user acceptance
 Transcripts, Admissions, Self serve data labels
 When there is big disproportional impact on one user
area
 Budget Query for Researchers
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Vanilla with Sprinkles
When to Customize:
 Performance considerations
 Rewriting code
 Web Governor
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Vanilla with Sprinkles
How to Customize:
 Build add-ons rather than baseline mods to tables,
procedures
 Manage development


Develop a standards document
Use version control
 Be willing to throw your add-ons away if the vendor
provides functionality in a future release
 Even when the vendor delivered enhancement isn’t
quite as functional as the local mod.
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Gartner on the Cost of an ERP
The
CFOs
dream
Reality
(Mods)
Ouch!
An upgrade bump
Cost
Reality
(Vanilla)
Project Begins
Project Ends
Time
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What is success, anyway?
 Possible Definition
Success is realizing your vision.
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Our Vision
 Our vision is of a McGill in which the constituents -
faculty, students and support staff, have direct
access to secure data, and the means to accomplish
certain administrative tasks. Thus students and staff
would maintain the appropriate parts of their own
records directly. Students, for example, would apply
to McGill, be able to track their applications, register
for their courses, request student aid, examine their
records, via a form of universal access such as the
Web. Academic staff would receive course rolls,
submit marks, and receive support for academic
advising via the Web.
-Project Definition Document, December 1999
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What is success, anyway?
 Possible criteria



On time, on budget
 Only if the scope doesn’t change!
 Only if Technology doesn’t change!
Are all end users happy
 Unthinkable at an Institution where critical
thinking is valued
Are they using the system?
 If yes, the implementation is a success!
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Banner Stats
 Cumulative Client User Logins:
 Distinct Client Users :
 Typical active client logins:
1,165,323
2,829
400-500
 Distinct Web Users:
95,295
 Distinct student registrations:
49,185
 Typical active web logins:
200-300
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The big wins - Minerva
 For the student – diminished need to understand the
beaurocractic structure of McGill – “everything” is on
Minerva:
 Application for admission
 Course schedule, advising and registration
 Course evaluations
 Transcripts
 Degree evaluation and graduation
 Fees and Income Tax forms
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The big wins - Minerva
 For Faculty –course and advising info on Minerva:
Class lists and grade submission
 Advising transcripts and Degree evaluation
 Real time interface & SSO with WebCT
 For Researchers & fund administrators :
 3 clicks to the bottom line of a Research Grant or
fund
 Invoice Imaging
 PCard reconciliation
 “Push” and “Pull” reports

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In addition
 Employees and Students are empowered to mange
their own personal information including :
 Address changes, phone numbers, emergency
contacts, email, name
 For Faculty and Central Administrators
 An improved appointment process
 An integrated system and Data warehouse



Enhances Institutional Research
Aids consistency and accuracy of reporting
Only one system to learn, not 3
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And Now – Lea and Rick
Thank You!
Roger Rigelhof
roger.rigelhof@mcgill.ca
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