Encompass – UM’s Enterprise System Project
Since 1999, the university has relied on SAP as the campus enterprise platform that houses our student information system, financial system, human resources/payroll system, and is integrated with our financial aid system, Sigma ProSAM. This platform has served us well for the past 23 years, and it has grown and evolved with us. Since its initial implementation, we’ve added and integrated services with and into SAP, to also include research and other business and operational services, increasing our reliance on it. This is a mission critical system for our institution and the use of such a solution is instrumental to our continued operations. Well, the time has come for UM to either upgrade or replace our existing enterprise system and decide our path forward for the next two decades. With the rate of change and evolution of technology, our institution has decided to explore what the marketplace has to offer in this space while assessing our current state which will help us identify the best options for us. To aid UM in the evaluation of the current enterprise systems available and in making the appropriate strategic decision, CampusWorks has been retained as the consulting partner for this project. CampusWorks is an industry leader in this realm, having provided this service to over three-hundred higher education institutions. The enterprise systems solution will impact our campus as a whole and assist with modernizing our processes which will allow us to better serve our faculty, staff, students and researchers. The project will be broken down into phases and descriptions of each phase can be found in the table below with projected timelines.
Scheduled Demonstrations
All are invited to view product demonstrations from four vendors as part of Project Encompass’s goal to modernize the campus’s student information system, human resources/payroll and the financial information system. Demonstrations will be conducted over Zoom. See the UM Today announcement for details.
Project Scope
Readiness Assessment
An evaluation designed to help institutions identify the cost roadmap, specific challenges, and future improvement campus-wide opportunities. This phase begins to set the pins for the organizational change management necessary for a successful enterprise system migration.
- Envisioning the Future Educational Series
- Trends in Higher Education
- Ideal Student Experience
- Vendor Discovery/Showcase
- Readiness Insight Survey (students/faculty/staff)
- Focus Groups
Reimagined Future State
A complete review and reimagine of the best practice future state student, employee, and institutional processes to ensure that the University of Mississippi achieves the ideal student and employee experience via the enterprise system migration and the resulting unique enterprise system needs.
- Recruiting and Admissions
- Finance
- Financial Aid and Student Accounts
- Advising, Degree Audit, Student Planning
- Human Resources
- Academic Scheduling and Planning
- Registration and Curriculum Management
RFP Development
Encompasses capturing all unique and planned transitions wanted in an enterprise system migration surfaced during the previous phase(s). CampusWorks’ scenario-based RFP development identifies and articulates the enterprise system requirements to ensure a competitive procurement aligned to the University of Mississippi unique business needs for all functional departments.
- Work with institution team to refine and finalize requirements
- Prepare final RFP for distribution
Evaluation, Selection & Negotiation
Details a well-defined and proven enterprise systems evaluation, selection, and negotiation process designed to collaboratively identify the right enterprise systems platform and implementation partner and ensure the final solution’s procurement fits into University of Mississippi budget.
Evaluation, Selection & Negotiation
Assist the University with the evaluation of vendor responses, including vendor demo scripts, scoring analysis, and facilitating discussion