New HR and Financial Management System in the pipeline
In the early summer of 2021, we will replace SDU’s HR and financial management systems with a new common system. This will benefit everyone in the organisation, especially those of you currently working with HR or finances both at the faculties and in the Central Administration.
Two large cogs contributing to the operation of the entire SDU are set to be replaced when this bleak November is long gone and sunny days are here again. In the early summer of 2021, SDU's current HR and financial management systems will be replaced by a new common system.
If you don't work with HR or financial management somewhere at SDU today, it may hard to grasp the challenges of having systems that aren't talking together. And to understand how much easier it's supposed to be with a new system.
Still, you may at some point have run into hurdles in that regard; for example, if you have changed your surname. Because today, this kind of correction has to be done manually in several places, which may cause a lot of hassle if not done correctly.
'Today, information has to be re-entered over and over again, especially in the HR area. Now we'll be getting new platform which can contain all the information we need about an employee, so going forward, we will only have to correct and enter information in one place. This means that all data reside and can be edited in the same place and used across the organisation', says Head of HR, Mads Niemann-Christensen.
Many have to contribute
It's obvious that you don't just replace such large systems in a jiffy. It's a large collaborative project across the entire organisation, where both IT, Financial Service, HR, all faculties and departments are involved. And this is a collaboration that HR and Financial Service feel very strongly for. This is the reason why, among other things, mass meetings with several hundred participants have been held recently.
'We put great effort into communicating widely and involving others where possible. It's important to us that the entire organisation helps to seize the change that the new systems will bring,' says Deputy Director of Economics Nicolai Sørensen.
The system selected is a standard system (Oracle Cloud, HCM and ERP). This means that there will be updates four times a year with what Oracle considers best practices within HR and financial management. There are also many associated modules, which SDU can apply if the need arises.
'When you run a standard system in such a diverse organisation, the organisation must be prepared to adapt its processes. We will make an SDU-adapted setup within the framework of the standard system. We'll see improvements in a lot of areas, but there will also be things that are no longer possible. In collaboration with the faculties and departments, we are working to find out where the biggest changes are, so we can prepare for them. Human Resource Service and Financial Service in the Central Administration will provide all the necessary instructions and courses. The organisation must succeed in this together for the benefit of all', Nicolai Sørensen emphasises.
Simpler and more agile system
The new system at SDU will allow us to enter into a greater collaboration with the other universities, as the system is also used by our colleagues in several places around the country.
'In this way, we can better develop together because we are part of a community that drives a continuous development within HR and financial management', explains Programme Manager Mette Thomassen.
She has no doubt that the new system will make everyday life a little easier for everyone. In the first wave, not everything will run smoothly, but we'll be implementing new cogs in a system that we can build on as the needs arise.
'The new systems should make it easier to keep track of all our basic data. We have 20-year-old systems that are not connected today, and now we will have one unified system. We need to the reduce the amount of double entries, the number of orphaned emails and Word documents, and we need to make it easier to collaborate across the organisation', emphasises Mette Thomassen.
Would you like to know more?
The new system is scheduled to be rolled out in May and June 2021.
You can follow the project at: https://sdunet.dk/da/administration/projenester/nythrogoekonomisystemprojekt.
If you would like to receive news regularly about major milestones, please email Mette Thomassen at mettho@sdu.dk.