Making Access Easier With Integrated ERP

Citagus implemented Oracle Peoplesoft solution for Sharda University that
wanted a complete IT solution, to reduce time to recruit employees, management
efforts, paper and other direct costs, and improve employee productivity and
increase visibility into operations and inventory

Sharda University in Greater Noida was established under the tutelage of
Sharda Group of Institutions (SGI). It is North India's largest education group
set up by Sharda Education Trust, offering more than 75 educational programs at
its 14 colleges across four campuses. With its firm belief in basic education
delivery system through an application-based learning module by utilizing modern
practices, the university was looking to re-engineer its business processes to
create a stable and auditable environment.

The university wanted a complete IT solution, which will take less time to
recruit employees, reduce management effort, reduce paper and other direct
costs, improve employee productivity and also increase visibility into
operations and inventory. Its present network infrastructure evolved around
1,500 wired connections on a CAT6 environment, backed by over 200 wireless
connections on Cisco access points. All network segments are connected using
edge switches of Cisco 3560E and a fiber module and the entire network segment
connected to central core switch on Cisco 6509E. On the server front, all
computers in the university are part of the domain controller (IBM-5450), which
support additional domain controllers with Microsoft Forefront Threat Management
Gateway 2010 for ISP load balancing, failover and malware spyware detection at
gateway level. Besides, the university has a centrally-based anti-virus system
for the entire network.

As a part of its expansion plans in the field of IT, Sharda University opted
for flexibility. They wanted to find skilled personnel to support the expansion
of the system. They were looking for an application, which would interface with
external applications in the field of education, especially with learning
management systems. However, the university soon felt the need to accommodate
integrated ERP into their IT infrastructure and opted for enhancing its
functionality. "We wanted a student-focused application, which at the same time,
would integrate all support practices of the university. Data security and data
integrity rank extremely high, while data loss should be non-existent. MIS is
yet another key focus point for the application. Apart from standard reports,
the university should be able to extract any kind of report depending on the
kind of data currently being stored in the database," said Vikram Jindal,
Head-Center for Innovation Learning, Sharda University.

The university considered various options, including SunGard, Literom, Agile,
SAP and Oracle PeopleSoft. Ultimately, Oracle PeopleSoft was selected. "We opted
for Oracle PeopleSoft owing to the base functionalities it offers to various
users of the application, flexibility, support from Oracle in terms of updates
and patches, scalability to greater needs without much modification, ability to
interface with other applications (Learning Management Systems) and last but not
least, the wide usage points towards a great acceptance in the education
community," said Jindal. It needs to be pointed out that only a handful of
universities in India have opted for an ERP system to cater to their needs of
which Oracle PeopleSoft Campus Solution has been the most widely accepted in the
educational vertical.

In its implementation stage, Citagus faced an incredible amount of challenge
with the data structure and module in the university. Talking about the same,
Anand Kavatkar, MD, Citagus Software, said, "The university's existing system
had inaccurate data stored in a haphazard manner across multiple databases.
Locating records and migrating them into the new ERP without duplication was a
cumbersome job."

At present, PeopleSoft Finance, PeopleSoft HRMS and PeopleSoft Campus
Solutions are being implemented in the university campus simultaneously in two
phases. "We will be finalizing the crucial part of the ERP with integrated
student, pay and HR records. In the second phase, which will be completed in
early-June, other specifications like hostel records and others will be put in
place," Kavatkar concluded.

The ERP implementation process gave rise to the need for upgrading IT
hardware infrastructure in the university, including servers. Sharing his
thought about the deployment process and Citagus' deployment capabilities,
Jindal concluded, "Citagus Software has been instrumental in the majority of the
implementations and they have done a stellar job here. It was a fail-proof bet
to deploy Oracle PeopleSoft and Citagus Software as the solution and
implementation partner respectively."

Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise solution helps to improve transparency,
compliance and efficiency, by managing the funding and student accounts, under a
consolidated and secure data and personal identity. The application also
promotes data access and re-usability through tightly integrated product suites
and can manage business processes to flexibly configure solutions to fit the
requirements.

Avishek Rakshit

avishekr@cybermedia.co.in