MySAP: ERP for Education
Enterprise resource planning, also known as ERP, is an administrative management
system that integrates all facets of a business—planning, human resources,
payroll, accounting, and marketing—on a common software platform. On a
campus, ERP would also include curriculum tools and student services.
Although these functions are often handled by separate campus systems that
don't necessarily communicate with one another, ERP provides an integrated
solution within which all facets of an organization and its data can interoperate.
Most of the big ERP firms market products for higher education, including SCT
Corp., SAP AG, PeopleSoft Inc., Oracle Corp., and JD Edwards. For the most part,
these vendors have taken a corporate solution and refashioned it to fit the
specific needs of the nonprofit academic sector.
In mySAP Higher Education & Research, SAP's solution for colleges
and universities, a core ERP back-end
solution is combined with a Web-enabled front end called mySAP.com. The core
comes from SAP's solution for business and industry, and includes customer
relationship management, e-procurement, financial accounting, business intelligence,
and human resources. SAP anticipates moving the entire product onto the Web
at some point, ultimately offering customers a choice between the traditional
setup and Web-based service.
MySAP Higher Education & Research integrates with SAP's standard business
operations tools to support research, teaching, and learning, as well as core
campus administrative functions. According to Malcolm Woodfield, president of
the SAP Public Services Business Education unit, SAP plans to roll out three
components of mySAP Higher Education & Research in 2002: campus management,
distance learning tools, and grants management.
Campus management enables student application processing, timetable and individual
study plan development, class registration, and self-service portals. This product
also supports curriculum development and provides tools for exam preparation
and student assessment.
The new distance learning component, called SAP Learning, will support asynchronous
learning and training by providing a shell that customers can populate themselves.
SAP Learning will manage content delivery, course auditing, fees, registration,
and add/drop functions.
Note, however, that SAP is not in the content development market; although
its systems can work hand-in-hand with content platform providers to integrate
content, SAP d'es not plan to compete with their content development focus.
SAP Learning is an outgrowth of SAP's successful training tools, which
have been completely reconsidered to fit the academic environment.
MySAP Enterprise Portals are a key part of the package. The solution simplifies
the configuration of portals and also handles basic functions such as registration,
security, personalization, and incorporation of content and services.
The solution uses role-based access, enabling entry only to those systems for
which one has authorization. For instance, role assignments permit students
to plan their spring course schedules, but not to access the schedules or grades
of their classmates.
MySAP also provides tools for managing grants and facilitates project management,
forecasts the required resources, and ensures that projects follow their intended
schedule. Program management is integrated with the financial accounting and
reimbursement functionalities so that everything tracks together.
So far, the majority of SAP's clients in higher education have been at
top-tier schools such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, although
the company says its market share at all levels is growing.
Along with its position in the commercial market, SAP touts its customer service
record in higher education, claiming that all of its implementations in colleges
and universities have come in on time and under budget.
Keeping in mind the cultural and organizational differences between academia
and the corporate world, SAP looks for ways to integrate its core solutions
to fit the customer.
To do so, SAP works with a client and a business consultant partner to develop
a road map for applying SAP to the particular institution, looking for efficiencies,
at both the macro and micro levels, along the way. Such efficiencies may include
flattening internal hierarchies, streamlining processes, and simplifying records
management.