| | Office of Change Management
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| eNewsletter | November 2024
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Resources Edition: By now you’ve hopefully heard of WolfieONE, and might be curious about how your role will be impacted once the system is rolled out at Stony Brook. This is a great time for a resources-focused edition of our monthly eNewsletter, dedicated to providing you with information about where you can learn more about the aspects of WolfieONE that matter most to you!
ICYMI: WolfieONE is a strategic transformation initiative that entails implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Human Capital Management (HCM) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) ecosystem at SBU, supported by Oracle Cloud, to power our financial, budget, HR, technology, and business operations. Key drivers, besides moving from on-premise to cloud-based modern systems, include improving employee morale and institutional reputation.
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1. Recent Wins and Up Next
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Want to stay on top of our journey towards implementation? The WolfieONE timeline offers a high-level glimpse of project phases and their estimated dates of completion.
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Recent Milestones:
- System preparation for Stony Brook’s data migration from PeopleSoft into Oracle Cloud.
- Oracle Cloud demos showed the workstream leads and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) how we can best leverage Oracle’s functionality and guided workflows (easier to navigate and view your list of “things to finish”), moving away from manual processes and paper forms, digitalizing transactions and benefitting from an intuitive interface.
- Project leadership has honed in on how we can build WolfieONE in a way that ensures consistent data and standard processes across departments and units.
- The majority of process maps (or the steps a specific process will take in WolfieONE) for ERP and HCM have been completed (80% of new process flows have been approved or are in final review).
- For the EPM module, project leads and SMEs participated in a demo and interactive sessions highlighting key segments and functionality, and aligned on data residency, which means where to store and access the finance and budget data, for other Stony Brook entities, such as FSA, Hospital, and Clinical Practice.
Up Next:
- ERP and HCM will complete the third Sprint of the Build phase. A Sprint is a 4-week cycle of working sessions in which the project leads perform a walkthrough of activities and tasks in the Oracle environment, and tweak the configurations as needed.
- Taking Human Resources data (employee data) from legacy systems and loading the data into Oracle Cloud.
- Design will be finalized for budgeting, forecasting, and financial planning processes to be performed in EPM, instead of the Campus Budget Module and spreadsheets.
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2. Sunsetting Systems and Tools
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While some legacy systems will be sunsetting as part of the WolfieONE implementation, there are others that will interface as boundary systems (part of the in-flow or out-flow process of data transmission) and work seamlessly with WolfieONE. See the full list on the WolfieONE Systems and Scope page.
One Note: The noteworthy system that is staying in place is the student side of SOLAR, including faculty usage of SOLAR for academic data. The PeopleSoft student data and student receivables will be staying the same as it is in the current state.
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Change Leader Network: On November 14th, the Change Management team hosted an educational session for over 70 Change Champions, to deliver foundational knowledge and increase understanding of the various WolfieONE workstreams. This will enable the Champions to articulate the upcoming changes to their peers. Some of the topics we covered in this session included:
- Change management methodology and the change curve
- Chart of Accounts (COA) definitions and segment usage
- Oracle Cloud overview: ERP, EPM, HCM
- Business process breakdown (for example: General Ledger, Receivables and Fixed Assets in ERP)
- HCM known change impacts
The next Change Champion Training will be an in-person, holiday themed, interactive session on December 13th. We plan on continuing to educate the Champions on ERP change impacts, share the plan for Champion activities from January through March 2025 and introduce the Champions’ toolkit. If you would like to nominate a Champion from your unit or area, please ask their supervisor to fill out this form.
Chart of Accounts (COA) Training - Who is Impacted: The new COA impacts all who manage, process, approve or post accounting journal entries and reconciliations, anyone who creates or uses financial reports, fixed assets, HR Administrators (particularly those responsible for managing their direct reports’ salary costing to the right departments), and users of boundary systems such as Concur, WolfMart, and Raiser’s Edge. Formal training will be provided and will be crucial to leveraging future state reporting tools. Champions will be educating their peers on the foundational concepts needed prior to formal training.
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4. Spotlight and Shout Out
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Stony Brook's Michael Danielson: To say that Michael Danielson is a critical team member for the ERP workstream is an understatement! With more than 20 years of experience at Stony Brook, Michael brings a wealth of knowledge in accounting, IT, student financials and budget, just to name a few. In addition to being a gifted and knowledgeable accountant, Michael also brings levity and fun to our meetings with great jokes and beautiful photos he’s taken over the years. Thank you, Michael, for all your hard work – we appreciate you and are grateful to have you on the team! - Cassandra Amadio, SBU Controller
Michael's response: I’ve been involved in the WolfieONE project from the start, beginning with the Chart of Accounts and then the ERP implementation. I am extremely excited to be part of this project. It will provide Stony Brook enhanced financial visibility, enabling managers and leadership to make financial decisions with increased accuracy and operational efficiency. WolfieONE will also improve real-time reporting which is critical in today’s environment. I am very lucky to be working alongside my hard-working colleagues, both at Stony Brook and with our partners at Deloitte.
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We use a lot of acronyms! In this land of new terminology, if you need a compass, take a look at our Glossary of Terms, which contains a growing list of project-related vernacular and is designed to support easier adoption and understanding of this project, and the changes that will take place.
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7. Important Links and Resources
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