ERP for Education - A Sampling of Today's Major ERP Vendors
Oracle
Oracle has designed the E-Business Suite to be a comprehensive, integrated set
of applications for the higher education market that automates and streamlines
nearly every facet of campus operations and administration, including financial
management, human resources, procurement, recruiting, admissions, financial
aid, grants management, project management, regulatory compliance, portal development,
and communication (integrated e-mail, voice-mail, fax, scheduling, and calendar).
Oracle is the only large ERP vendor to offer a calendaring solution.
Available by modules or as a complete suite, Oracle Applications are intended
to help higher education institutions achieve a higher level of operational
insight, facilitating more informed management decisions. Oracle also claims
that the applications create a collaborative environment for teaching, learning,
research, and community service—reducing operating costs by streamlining
processes across a common architecture.
Oracle E-Business Suite, which includes the Oracle Student System, is built
on a unique single data model, which lessens the overall complexity and improves
visibility by consolidating campus-wide information to create a single instance
of information for all applications. For example, the model maintains only one
record for a person, general ledger account, applicant, alumnus, etc. This capability
means a change made to a record in one department will be available immediately
to all other system users.
Oracle’s architecture enables higher education institutions to implement
and update applications with little or no integration, reduce maintenance costs
due to fewer integration points, centralize IT operations to reduce costs and
focus resources on mission-critical initiatives, access real-time data across
the institution, and improve security by reducing vulnerability points.
Contact: Oracle Corp, Redwood Shores, CA; (650) 506-4051;
www.oracle.com.
PeopleSoft for Higher Education
The PeopleSoft for Higher Education solution includes the following roles-based
components: Student Administration, Human Capital Management, Contributor Relations,
Customer Relationship Management, Financial Management, Supplier Relationship
Management, Grants Management, Asset Management, Real Estate (in development),
and Analytics. Within the student administration suite are solutions for creating
a campus community, recruiting, admissions, academic advising, student records,
financial aid, and student financials. The PeopleSoft portal helps institutions
build a virtual campus. On the portal, institutions can integrate PeopleSoft
applications, third-party applications, and institution-based applications.
Using the PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management system, institutions
can break down financial and operational data for better overall efficiency
and service.
PeopleSoft claims to have the only “pure Internet” enterprise
system, a system that is completely Web-enabled. This facilitates a one-time,
one-place installation. It also means administrators can access the system anywhere,
anytime. Also, PeopleSoft’s “Total Ownership Experience” promises
easier use, easier upgrading, and a more cost-effective solution. T'E features
such as the “express installation tool” and a new setup manager
tool reduce installation time from weeks to days and a shorter upgrade time.
Contact: PeopleSoft, Pleasanton, CA; (800) 380-SOFT;
www.peoplesoft.com.
SAP Solution for Higher Education and Research
The SAP solution for Higher Education and Research supports an institution’s
business operations and provides support for teaching and research. It consists
of systems for campus and financial management as well as management of human
resources, grants, customer relationships, product life cycle, and supplier
relationships.
Campus Management is the SAP Student Information System for managing the student’s
“lifecycle” from admissions to graduation. The Grants Management
component has an emphasis on post-award management, budgeting, and resource
control. Customer Relationship Management includes alumni relationship management,
the call center, and Web access. The SAP solution also includes the Learning
Solution, a lifelong learning, distance learning, and curriculum management
system; Business Intelligence, for reporting, data-mining, and strategic enterprise
management; the Enterprise Portal, which comprises the student portal, university
portal, and employee portal for access to and integration of data; and Workflow,
for seamless integration of business process data and transactional information.
These applications run on the SAP “NetWeaver” platform, which
provides a single technical environment for
the integration of SAP and non-SAP applications, and for structured and unstructured
data (e-mail, for example). Although broken down into components, the SAP solution
is actually a single application an integrated approach. The SAP Campus Management
runs on one database.
SAP prides itself on its commitment to R&D, innovation, and user-oriented
design. The innovative Campus Management student information system has been
built by SAP from the ground up from the student perspective, not that of the
administrator. The SAP solutions are designed to be flexible and scalable with
no loss of performance or response.
Contact: SAP, Newtown Square, PA; (610) 661-1000; www.sap.com/.
SAS
SAS offers a life-cycle approach to data collection and management. The component-based
SAS Intelligence Architecture is an open, extensible framework. By integrating
and augmenting current technologies and resources, this flexible framework makes
the most of existing operational infrastructures, scales with growing enterprises,
and adjusts to meet changing organizational needs and goals. The framework includes
SAS’s renowned data integration system, advanced analytics, activity-based
management (a complete modeling environment for analyzing and comparing data),
and performance management. Also included is a portal that enables collaboration
and the sharing of information with appropriate internal and external audiences.
By using SAS Strategic Enrollment Management, organizations can collect data
from any source at all contact points, including legacy systems, ERP systems
and the Web; perform advanced analysis to predict needs without spending inordinate
amounts of time, money or other resources; target audiences for services, campaigns,
and information; and offer program performance and reports to appropriate individuals.
With the financial management system, traditional measures, such as income
statements and balance sheets, can be combined with intangible assets, such
as the lifetime value of alumni. SAS Human Capital Management allows institutions
to plan effective human capital strategies by comparing and measuring best practices.
Contact: SAS, Cary, NC; (919) 677-8000; www.sas.com.
