Macalester is a long-time user of Jenzabar CX (formerly "CARS") for administrative functions. The Advancement and Financial Aid departments maintain independent solutions in addition to various other third party implementations that must exchange data with Macalester's ERP system. These were independent decisions that have netted us a variety of databases, servers and reporting tools. Since a Jenzabar corporate restructuring and management change in year 2000, the company's services are inconsistent, product strategy is changeable and probably a mismatch to our needs and delivered software is often unreliable. Since five neighboring colleges are CX clients and share these concerns, Macalester entered into a collaborative needs survey, RFI assessment and collaborative strategy study. College Presidents and CFOs affirmed the process on August 25, 2003. Macalester's methodology for user department surveying was adopted as a template by the collaboration and set up a joint criteria-writing exercise among the collaborating colleges, held on October 8. These are intended to guide vendor demonstrations in early December and subsequent decisions in January. In order to keep staffing overhead to a minimum, the consortium focused on integrated solutions or that which incorporates third party software, the integration of which is supported by the vendor as opposed to unintegrated software that demands in-house development. The planning phase described here is meant to more thoroughly analyze these options.
To determine the value, including approximate costs, of viable administrative system solutions, other than integrated ERP, so that the best options for the College can be compared meaningfully.
By the end of the Board of Trustees Technology Committee meeting on January 9, we will have determined which broad upgrade strategy is the best value for the College and whether Macalester wishes to continue in collaboration with our current planning partners (Bethel, College of St. Catherine, Northwestern, and William Mitchell School of Law).
Our viable upgrade strategies are (1.) and (2.) Alternates (2.a) and (2.b) are options that can be determined following January 9.
1. Continue planning an integrated ERP solution in collaboration with our partner colleges. (The solution offered by Agresso-America is included in this category).
1.a. Plan an independently implemented ERP solution.
2. Plan a best of breed solution that may be comprehensive or may target particular functional areas in a manner that supports overall efficiency and effectiveness.
2.a. Plan to upgrade only the functional area(s) that are of highest strategic importance to the college or most in need of system improvement, in a manner that supports overall efficiency and effectiveness.
2. b. Plan to upgrade all functional areas in a manner that supports overall efficiency and effectiveness.
The stake-holders and contributors to the process include
All stake-holders and contributors will be kept informed of progress and given opportunity for input.