PeopleSoft gives Dakota students hands-on access: 'the applications are designed to work together out of the box, and they do.'.

Dakota State University teamed with PeopleSoft to bring enterprise software into the classrooms of higher education institutions around the United Stares. Today, more than 30 schools across the country access PeopleSoft applications hosted remotely from Dakota State's Center for Remote Enterprise Systems Hosting (CRESH). "This program enables colleges and universities to integrate PeopleSoft's industry-leading enterprise software into their classroom curricula more quickly and cost effectively," says John Webster, PeopleSoft programs director at Dakota Stare University.

"Basically, CRESH operates as an academic application service provider (ASP), which allows higher education institutions across the country to offer students anywhere, anytime hands-on experience with the latest, industry-leading enterprise software from PeopleSoft," explains Webster.

Through its CRESH ASP program, Madison, SD-based Dakota State University provides schools access to PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management, Human Capital Management, Customer Relationship Management, and Supply Chain Management through PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal. Before Enterprise Portal was available, remote access to PeopleSoft applications was provided through a homegrown portal.

"With Enterprise Portal, we are able to seamlessly connect all the PeopleSoft applications and make them available for remote access. It sounds obvious that applications from the same vendor would work well together, but this is not what we've found. However, PeopleSoft applications are designed to work together out of the box, and they do," says Webster. "Enterprise Portal lets users access applications through one, super-sweet, customizable interface."

Empowering End Users

Enterprise Portal has distributed administration with fine-grained control that allows Dakota State to empower its users but still maintain control. "When my development team found single signon, you'd have thought they'd found the Holy Grail," says Webster. Enterprise Portal natively supports single signon out of the box through the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture[R]. This architecture provides seamless signon capabilities across Enterprise Portal and all PeopleSoft applications.

With single signon, users can complete a human resources transaction in Human Capital Management and then click a link going directly into a Financial Management transaction without reentering a password. It also allows Enterprise Portal to aggregate content from several different PeopleSoft applications into a single, integrated display. "Not only does single signon improve usability for end users, it also saves a huge amount of administration time for out technical team," says Webster.

For Dakota Stare University, managing application costs is an ongoing concern because costs incurred as part of its PeopleSoft implementation have to be passed through to its clients. "Keeping costs to a minimum is crucial for us. We're a nonprofit group trying to deliver services at a zero gain to us, therefore, the total cost of ownership is very important," says Webster. "The total cost of ownership is much less than it would be if we were using another application. PeopleSoft applications are cost effective and cost identifiable. There are no hidden costs--what you see is what you get with PeopleSoft."

Promises Delivered

"Enterprise Portal was the missing piece of the service puzzle. By putting it in place and utilizing it as the foundation for our PeopleSoft offering, we are able to do really cool and important things that add value for us and for out customers," says Webster. "With Enterprise Portal, we were able to access our applications without caveats. PeopleSoft delivered what they said they were going to deliver, without any add-ons or little things in the background we'd have to worry about. PeopleSoft has been an excellent partner, which in turn has allowed us to cost-effectively provide a valuable solution to our customers."