JUNE 2024 - MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

Welcome to the inaugural edition of the WaveWorks! Monthly newsletter—a dedicated space where we'll keep you informed and engaged with all the latest updates on our transformative initiative. But first, you might be wondering: What exactly is WaveWorks?

WaveWorks! is our project name for the groundbreaking initiative to implement Oracle Cloud, our new cloud-based information technology platform. This platform will be the backbone of our finance, budget & planning, and human resources operations, replacing our current aging systems. But the shift to Oracle Cloud is not just about modernizing our technology—it's about adopting best practices in our daily work in all these critical areas and unlocking vastly improved functionality for our entire organization.

Now, you might be asking, why is Tulane embarking on this change?

The answer is simple yet crucial: our current system, EBS, is nearing its end of life in 2030. By transitioning to Oracle Cloud, we ensure that our work is not only enhanced with tools, processes, and efficiency but also that we are better able to support and achieve our core mission and objectives as an institution.

As we embark on this two-year journey, subscribe to WaveWorks! Monthly for regular updates, insights, and exciting developments as we build this modern foundation to benefit everyone at Tulane.

Enjoy this month’s newsletter!

Discovering Oracle Cloud: The First Steps

Learn more about Oracle Cloud as we prepare the implementation through the WaveWorks! Project. We're committed to offering extensive training resources to Tulane's faculty, staff, and student workers, starting with our project workstreams in 2024 and with training, coaching, and support for all users in 2025.

These resources will eventually include live training for hands-on experience, asynchronous courses, and guidance from super users and colleagues who are experts in using the system. For now, we recommend exploring the helpful online overviews of Oracle Cloud and its core components provided in the links below.

These learning resources are hosted by our project implementation partner, Drivestream, in their Drivestream Academy website, and, in certain instances, by Oracle. To access these resources, users will likely need to create a Drivestream Academy account and possibly an Oracle account. Visit the WaveWorks! website for instructions on getting started.

Tulane Today Article: Cloud Transformation with WaveWorks!

The March launch of the WaveWorks! Project, aimed at transforming our business processes and IT by implementing Oracle Cloud, was spotlighted in a recent Tulane Today article. Over 80 colleagues who worked for many months to prepare for the project launch attended this kickoff.

Patrick Norton, our project co-executive sponsor, began the session by highlighting why this transformation project is vital for us to benefit from business and technological innovations, operate at the highest level, and keep pace with our growth while offering an excellent user experience.

Provost Robin Forman, co-executive sponsor, underlined the project's impact on reinforcing Tulane’s status as a premier research institution through better systems to support our faculty, research community, staff, and student workers. Judy Vitrano, General Manager of the WaveWorks! Project, described the great team assembled to support the project, while executives from our system integration partner Drivestream and from Oracle shared insights and advice for project success.

Read the full article in Tulane Today.

Project Workstreams: Streamlining Success

The WaveWorks! project at Tulane is organized into distinct workstreams, each dedicated to a specific domain: HR, Finance, Budget & Planning, and IT. Each workstream operates as a team of functional subject matter experts responsible for informing and guiding all phases of the project, from design to implementation within its focus area.

By leveraging deep expertise and collective community knowledge, these workstreams are pivotal in ensuring that the configuration of Oracle Cloud and our new work processes meet our needs as an institution, that our data migrates successfully to the new cloud platform with seamless integration with other systems, that the system functions as expected, and that we identify how best to support all our users.

Supported by Executive Sponsors Patrick Norton and Robin Forman, and the WaveWorks Steering Committee, the workstreams will drive this transformation at Tulane. They also have plenty of support: project management and change management experts from Tulane, Oracle executives, and a team of consultants from Drivestream, our system integration partner, are all on hand to assist. Drivestream will notably assist us in all project phases, including preparation, development, testing, launch, and post-go-live. Learn more about workstreams.