draft EFFICIENCIES draft

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Much of the value of an administrative system is the business process efficiencies and service improvements it enables. The cumulative effect of these vastly exceeds each individual instance, making precise measurement and costing of the total very difficult. A series of examples, itself incomplete, serves to exemplify the effect on staff productivity and service to the college.

GRANT ADMINISTRATION

Grantors require that we report according to their budget schema and in their fiscal years. These data must be reconciled to CARS-based accounting. Currently, about ten staff members contribute time to this process. The alternate vendors have grant administration modules that do the work.

VALIDATE TRANSACTIONS

Our transactions cannot be validated against our account code scheme before attempting to run the transaction and then intervening because of an error. Alternate vendors validate transactions before they are run.

PERSONAL DATA REVIEW

Alternate systems offer individual review and update of personal information over the Web. For example, change of address, marital status, etc. are accomplished by the user rather than necessitating intervention by staff.

CONTRACTS

Human Resources and college hiring centers, e.g. the Provost's office, exchange spreadsheets in multiple cycles before contracts are complete and entered into CARS. Alternate systems offer field-level security of contract data, enabling one office to enter (and "own") selected elements of a contractual agreement, while HR or another central office securely handles the rest.

SECURITY AND PERMISSIONS

Too many people now can get into too many places within our CARS system. This is because the system offers crude management of security and permission levels, necessitating overly broad access to enable staff to do their work. Alternate systems offer granular control of access permissions.

AUDIT TRAILS

CARS' implementation of logging and recording transactions is not efficient and we have implemented it in a limited way. Alternate systems provide higher risk management by smoothly integrating audit trails.

TIME ENTRY

Macalester employs about one thousand students and tracking their time and pay currently is a manual operation. Alternate systems automate time-entry through the Web and integrated with the back-end payroll system.

AUTOMATIC CALCULATIONS

Alternate systems offer automatic data calculation that currently is maintained on the side in spreadsheets at Macalester. For example, Macalester handles calculation of vendor interest charges on non-student accounts receivable with a spreadsheet and typewriter.

STUDENT SERVICES

Either through a proven and flexible portal or through a Web page, alternate systems offer students room and board contract and event sign-up online.

POSITION BUDGETING

Macalester programmers had to customize CARS to offer this rudimentary function in a limited way. Alternate systems offer position budgeting as an expected part of the base package, enabling management of our staff resources.

SCREENS

CARS design necessitates drilling down through multiple screens whereas alternate systems have responded to the need for data consolidation on cumulative screens, saving staff time.

OFF CAMPUS ACCESS

Fully developed, contemporary systems support secure access from off campus, enabling Admissions and other travelers to stay productive on the road. This is generally done using Web technology.

OPEN STANDARDS

Jenzabar evidently is developing a relatively closed, proprietary system whereas alternate vendors are supporting partnerships with third-party vendors and open standards. For example, the portal products of at least two alternate vendors are written to the open-standards of uPortal, which is widely adopted in higher education.

12/15/03