The process to replace Austin Community College District's Colleague software continues to move forward.
At its December 2 regular meeting, the Board of Trustees voted to approve contract negotiations with Workday, Inc. to implement and provide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software after a months-long evaluation process.
"This is such an important investment for the college and the implementation of this is critical," says Trustee Mark Williams. "This is the backbone that makes the college hum and if we don't do this well it affects everything else we do."
The college's ERP system is an ecosystem comprised of human resource management, finance, and student information services software. Replacing the current ERP system is one of the initiatives identified in the five-year IT roadmap as part of the modernization and process improvement plan.
"We need to adjust the way we think about ERP to properly align with the current generation of applications, architectures, and technologies. We can't solve today's problems with 20-year-old systems. The capabilities and speed required to support digital organizations are changing constantly. ERP applications have evolved to become more open and flexible to support these changes. Mobility, flexibility, automation, reporting, and integration are key to improving our students' success," says Imad Costantini, vice president of Information Technology.
"There are only a few systems out there designed to deal with an institution the scale of ACC, and when you throw in student systems, you get to a small subset of systems capable of dealing with our volume — there are not a lot of players out there," says Vickers.
Workday, Inc. was one of only four responses the college received through its request for proposal (RFP). A cross-section of ACC stakeholders, including employees from Business Services, Academic and Student Services, Human Resources, and IT were invited to take part in the evaluation. The group held vendor demonstrations in September. Each employee was provided an evaluation score sheet that allowed them to share their feedback, which was included in the final scoring.
Workday, Inc. outranked the other companies with a score of 88.25 percent.
Once the contract is finalized, the college will select a software integrator to make sure all systems work together.
A comprehensive implementation plan is expected in spring 2020. The college is developing a microsite dedicated to the ERP process to provide regular updates. The site will launch in January.