Back to school: GFOA helps college procure ERP system.Although GFOA GFOA Government Finance Officers Association has provided technology procurement consulting services to public agencies for a number of years, we just recently took on our first higher education higher education Study beyond the level of secondary education. Institutions of higher education include not only colleges and universities but also professional schools in such fields as law, theology, medicine, business, music, and art. client. Higher education is one sector in which technological advancements have had a significant impact on operations. Colleges and universities find that they have no option but to keep pace with these advances. Our community college client recognized that a totally integrated enterprisewide solution would improve its ability to provide high quality service to students, faculty, staff, and the community. The generally accepted definition of an enterprise resource planning See ERP. (application, business) Enterprise Resource Planning - (ERP) Any software system designed to support and automate the business processes of medium and large businesses. system (ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise. Evolving out of the manufacturing industry, ERP implies the use of packaged software rather than proprietary software written by or for one customer. ) includes all of the modules necessary to accommodate an organization's financial and human resources-related administrative functions. For this particular client (and most other colleges and universities), however, the student information modules are just as important, if not more so, than the financial and human resources The fancy word for "people." The human resources department within an organization, years ago known as the "personnel department," manages the administrative aspects of the employees. modules. And because college students are one of the most technologically advanced populations, constituent relationship management (CRM (Customer Relationship Management) An integrated information system that is used to plan, schedule and control the presales and postsales activities in an organization. )--including self-service capabilities for applying, enrolling in courses, paying fees, and so forth--is also an important component of the college's enterprise technology solution. The request for proposals released by the college included all of the modules listed in the box on page 52. The expansive scope of the RFP (Request For Proposal) A document that invites a vendor to submit a bid for hardware, software and/or services. It may provide a general or very detailed specification of the system. 1. (business) RFP - Request for Proposal. 2. was rather daunting daunt tr.v. daunt·ed, daunt·ing, daunts To abate the courage of; discourage. See Synonyms at dismay. [Middle English daunten, from Old French danter, from Latin to both the college and to GFOA. However, by following GFOA's proven procurement methodology, which divides the process into manageable tasks, we are now in the process of helping the college obtain the best enterprise solution for its needs. DEFINE THE DETAILED BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS Defining the detailed business requirements for an ERP system is one of the most important tasks in the procurement process, not only because it is an effective way to differentiate product offerings, but also because we recommend that these requirements become part of the product warranty. This can be an overwhelming task for clients. While subject matter experts are familiar with the capabilities of existing systems, they are often unfamiliar with the functionality of modern systems and find it difficult to communicate their needs to vendors. By the time GFOA was hired to assist in the procurement of a new enterprise system, our college client had made significant progress in defining business requirements, especially for the student information system. As a result, we were able to focus on validating those requirements and filling in less complete functional areas. GFOA has a database of baseline requirements from which to draw, so our clients do not have to develop an RFP from scratch. The ability to shop for requirements from a database such as ours makes it much easier to define specific organizational needs and greatly reduces the time it takes to develop the business requirements matrix. DEVELOP A THOROUGH REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS The second step in the procurement process is to develop a request for proposals that succinctly suc·cinct adj. suc·cinct·er, suc·cinct·est 1. Characterized by clear, precise expression in few words; concise and terse: a succinct reply; a succinct style. 2. yet thoroughly presents the organization's needs to vendors. The RFP must request the information needed for the organization to determine which vendor or vendors can provide the best overall solution for its specific needs. Our college client had already developed an RFP on its own, so we simply incorporated some of GFOA's proven requests and clauses. Many of GFOA's clients attract responses from vendors in more than one stratum stratum /stra·tum/ (strat´um) (stra´tum) pl. stra´ta [L.] a layer or lamina. stratum basa´le of the ERP marketplace. GFOA classifies software vendors into three tiers based on the quality of the product offering and the nature of the company. Both Tier I and Tier II software vendors were considered viable options for our college client. Tier I companies offer advanced ERP systems that can be configured to accommodate most industries, including the public and higher education sectors. Tier II software firms offer less technologically advanced solutions than Tier I firms, but their products are designed for a specific industry, in this case higher education. Such products are quite likely to meet the essential business requirements of a higher education institution, perhaps with more robust functionality in certain areas than Tier I systems. Of course, products in different tiers vary significantly in terms of functionality, cost, and implementation effort, among other things. Because our client was considering both Tier I ERP solutions and Tier II niche products, we knew it was critical to prepare the RFP so as to be able to compare responses on an "apples to apples" basis. Comparing project and maintenance costs, implementation effort, and user license structure is particularly troublesome. For this reason, GFOA has developed a series of spreadsheets that force vendors to present information in an understandable and comparable manner. This methodology helps clients evaluate the overall value of a given solution and provides the tools for selecting the best system for their particular needs. The college incorporated these spreadsheet templates into its RFP. For this particular procurement, managing the expansive project scope was a significant issue. The college decided to categorize cat·e·go·rize tr.v. cat·e·go·rized, cat·e·go·riz·ing, cat·e·go·riz·es To put into a category or categories; classify. cat functionality in the RFP as either required or optional. Required functionality included the financial, human resources, and student information modules, while optional functionality included data warehousing See data warehouse. data warehousing - data warehouse , constituent relationship management, enterprise portal See corporate portal. , and document imaging. This approach encourages the selection of the best overall solution based on core functional requirements See information requirements and functional specification. (specification) functional requirements - What a system should be able to do, the functions it should perform. . Once this decision has been made, the college can then determine whether the optional functionality should be implemented concurrently with the core functionality, postponed to a future date, or eliminated. In other words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke" put differently , the college has the freedom to explore the optional functionality without committing to anything. FOLLOW A DETAILED EVALUATION PLAN The system selection process should be conducted according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a formal evaluation plan. The evaluation plan is important for a couple of reasons. First, the plan serves as a project roadmap, defining the schedule, tasks, activities, and responsibilities for the project as a whole and for the members of the project team. Second, the plan documents the evaluation process, ensuring compliance with all relevant procurement policies and procedures Policies and Procedures are a set of documents that describe an organization's policies for operation and the procedures necessary to fulfill the policies. They are often initiated because of some external requirement, such as environmental compliance or other governmental , as well as a fair selection process. The evaluation plan and the documented evaluation results may come in handy Verb 1. come in handy - be useful for a certain purpose be - have the quality of being; (copula, used with an adjective or a predicate noun); "John is rich"; "This is not a good answer" in the unlikely event of a vendor protest. For our higher education client, the evaluation plan detailed each step in the evaluation process, from checking for detailed submittal requirements to contract negotiation. While GFOA consultants provide support for each step of the selection process, the college makes all of the actual decisions. GFOA provided a detailed proposal assessment and requirements analysis (project) requirements analysis - The process of reviewing a business's processes to determine the business needs and functional requirements that a system must meet. report to help the college select vendors for software demonstrations and implementation interviews. Since GFOA analyzes this information on a regular basis, we were able to identify differentiators in the proposals and point out areas for clarification. GFOA also checked the references provided by each finalist and facilitated the software demonstrations so that the evaluators could see as much of the same functionality from each vendor as possible. The next step is to help the college determine which vendor teams to elevate for discovery, a clarification process that occurs between evaluation and contract negotiation. SUMMARY There are a number of high-quality software products in today's market to meet the needs of any public organization. In most cases, these applications dramatically expand an organization's capabilities and enhance the efficiency of its business processes. An organization's ability to select the best solution for its needs depends to a great extent on a well-planned procurement process. Our first higher education client has benefited from integrating GFOA's technology procurement methodology with its own internal process, and the college is well on its way to selecting an enterprise solution that will take it to the next level of education delivery. REQUESTED MODULES: Student Information * Prospect Management * Enrollment Management * Student Administration * Financial Aid * Space Utilization * Student Accounts Receivable accounts receivable n. the amounts of money due or owed to a business or professional by customers or clients. Generally, accounts receivable refers to the total amount due and is considered in calculating the value of a business or the business' problems in paying * Curriculum Management * Community Outreach Financials * General Ledger/Budget Development and Control * Accounts Payable * Accounts Receivable * Purchasing * Fixed Assets fixed assets npl → activo sg fijo fixed assets npl → immobilisations fpl fixed assets fix npl → * Inventory * Project and Grant Accounting * Investment Management * Cost Accounting * Work Orders Human Resources and Payroll * Personnel Administration * Position Control * Applicant Tracking * Performance Evaluation Performance evaluation The assessment of a manager's results, which involves, first, determining whether the money manager added value by outperforming the established benchmark (performance measurement) and, second, determining how the money manager achieved the calculated return * Training * Benefits Administration * Risk Management * Labor Relations * Payroll Constituent Relationship Management Enterprise Portal Data Warehousing Document Imaging PATRICE SUTTON BURGER is a senior manager in GFOA's Research and Consulting Center. She can be contacted at 312/977-9700. |
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