University staff voice 'urgent, profound concern' as Oracle finance system delays payments

The UK’s University of Edinburgh continues to struggle to pay staff, students and suppliers months after the introduction of a new Oracle Fusion-based accounting and HR system. The University’s Senate, a representative body made up of students and academics, has written to the institution’s management to voice “urgent and …

[Pascal Monett]

"we will continue to keep them informed with progress"

2022/11/15 : We are still having issues

2023/02/03 : Still not working

2023/08/10 : The database appears to be stable when there is no data in it

2024/05/13 : We just might get this working by September

2024/09/09 : Ah, I guess not after all

2024/12/13 : We'll keep you posted next year. Merry XMas everyone !

[b0llchit]

Re: "we will continue to keep them informed with progress"

2025/01/01 : The Oracle licenses expired causing a clearance of the database. Backups were found non-functional. Project will probably be abandoned by next year.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "we will continue to keep them informed with progress"

Tell me you know nothing about Oracle without telling...

Oracle never use any form of software license keys or anything of the sort.

You can freely download and run the software. This is because Oracle are trusting lovely and cuddly and dont want people struggling with such things*

* Or maybe LMS compliance teams have realising that this gives customer more than enough rope to hang themselves and their first born

[Anonymous Coward]

Responsibilities sought?

Oracle + integrator sued for losses? Approving manager told to start refreshing his CV?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Responsibilities sought?

Edinburgh's a Russell Group uni.

"One simply does not get fired at a Russell Group uni"

[Aladdin Sane]

Re: Responsibilities sought?

They're now the head of bogs and drains.

[Headley_Grange]

"..which required us to interrupt financial processing for a period over summer to allow us to test the system and transfer huge volumes of data.."

I've worked on a couple of ERP replacements and neither required interruption of day-to-day operations while they were being tested - and given they were in FMCG I bet they ran a lot more data than Edinburgh Uni. I can't think of any good reason why they'd need to interrupt the old service before being able to transfer data and test the new one. I can think of plenty of bad reasons for doing so, but I bet sorting out the current mess will cost them more than the savings they thought they could make by not doing proper data validation, testing and parallel running for a couple of cycles before going live.

[Captain Scarlet]

I can, because the Consultant said so.

[Headley_Grange]

I was the consultant!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that customers moving to Fusion SaaS migrate across much data at all. Only open transactions and fairly static stuff. The rump of it is just retained in archive for regulatory reasons.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't think of any good reason why they'd need to interrupt the old service before being able to transfer data and test the new one.

When $UNIVERSITY_WORKPLACE (not Edinburgh) changed purchasing software last year, everything was paused for a couple of weeks, because our IT people are dreadful, but the backlog was cleared within another couple of weeks, because they aren't as bad as Edinburgh's.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

.....at the head of this article....perhaps because the University needs the help of a higher power to assist with Oracle?

I think we should be told!

[Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

For the same reason the article starts "The UK’s University of Edinburgh. This is now a US centric publication and accuracy in or sensibility towards any other region is entirely by accident.

Oh and FYI, that noise you can hear is the crowd of angry Scots coming to complain their premier university is being lumped in with England and the rest.

[BringBackDabbsy]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

Scotland's premier university, in its own mind perhaps!

[Headley_Grange]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

"Oxbridge is being replaced at the apex of UK universities by “Stoxbridge” after St Andrews overtook Oxford and Cambridge at the top of the latest Guardian University Guide."

The Grauniad, 24th Sep 2022

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

> "Oxbridge is being replaced at the apex of UK universities by “Stoxbridge” after St Andrews overtook Oxford and Cambridge at the top of the latest Guardian University Guide."

They're very optimistic on the power of their own rating system.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

I must admit, a similar thought crossed my mind too. You'd never see a US university simply described as a "US university". They ALWAYS specify the State, not the country, assuming the that rest of the worlds readership will understand. Likewise, will El Reg start referring to various European universities simply as "in the EU" now?

It's one thing to adopt a US style guide, quite another to dumb down to Fox News levels of knowledge ;-)

[Dan 55]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

I especially love it when two letter-state abbreviations are used.

DC means Deliverance Country, doesn't it?

[skswales]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

It even has a State Theme Tune

[Kane]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

"It even has a State Theme Tune"

Squeal, Piggy!

[doublelayer]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

Curiously, someone was complaining last week about a company being identified as from Bavaria rather than Germany, so it seems that the writers can't please everyone no matter what level of regional names they use. I have a feeling that pointing out that neither statement was incorrect won't convince people, but I've done it anyway.

[Dan 55]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

Quite easy I would have thought... Germany and Scotland.

[Citizen of Nowhere]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

Probably because the assembly hall is in New College, the building pictured, which is home to the School of Divinity of the University of Edinburgh.

[Commswonk]

Re: Why Does El Reg Have A Picture Of The Assembly Hall Of The Church Of Scotland......

the building pictured...

...along with The Mound, curiously devoid of traffic on what is clearly a nice day, judging from the male pedestrians wearing shorts.

Unless Holyrood has made The Mound a traffic-free zone the photographer must have had a long wait for an empty road...

[Anonymous Coward]

“The University recently implemented a new finance system, which required us to interrupt financial processing for a period over summer to allow us to test the system and transfer huge volumes of data. This has unfortunately led to a backlog of some payments,” they said.

The senior Edinburgh Uni person with whom I just ate lunch tells me that's complete bullshit. It's not a backlog from the summer; it's a near total inability to raise contracts or pay people right now. Apparently there has just been a university-wide online meeting with 1,000+ people present and the mood was ... ugly.

[Richard 12]

A backlog of some payments

I suppose not processing any payments at all is technically a backlog of "some"

[Brad Ackerman]

IOW they can frak up as well as the US DoD. Congratulations. I think.

[Commswonk]

The... person with whom I just ate lunch...

How very nice; some elegant grammar, well worth an upvote for that alone. Brightened a miserable wet morning here. :)

[Tron]

Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

Edinburgh University offer degrees in Computer Science. But you probably wouldn't want one on your CV if the alma mater is famous for failing to get their own software working.

Maybe the comp. sci. department could give them a hand to get it all working?

[doublelayer]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

If they work like every other university I've seen, they have a computer science department with its own implementation of nearly everything that avoids as many of the systems from main university IT as they can. I've seen that structure quite often, and while every other department uses the main systems, CS eschews them all for homebuilt alternatives that, although they're a bit uglier and not as organized, also don't go down or lose data. I think the CS faculty both know how to build things well and that they will be happiest if they only use their product but don't open themselves to supporting the rest of the institution with it.

[Julian Bradfield]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

You used to be right, but over time we've slowly abandoned more and more of the in-house stuff and moved to using central university systems. It makes sense, really, provided the central systems have most of the functionality of in-house and the increased workload is not too high.

As for advising the centre on how to procure and install a large complex system...they don't want to know.

[LionelB]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

Spot on. Somehow at least, quite against run of play, we've managed to retain our own dept. IT guys, who actually have a clue.

(Annoyingly, though, Central IT Services managed to wrest the HPC from our control. This obviously involved firing all the experienced admins who actually knew how to configure an HPC system, and replacing them with cheap grads who actually do not. It is now literally* unusable. At least we've had some small success sneaking our own jerry-built and under-powered -- but functional -- system in under the radar.)

*Yup, literally literally.

[LionelB]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

Hm, I too work at a University with a fair reputation in computer science - and a diabolically inept IT services department. When I have a problem (usually network-related, obviously) requiring IT Services action, once the ticket is eventually responded to (2-3-∞ weeks - no, of course I can't just ring them or drop in, whatever were you thinking?), in a curious role-reversal I get to play helpdesk.

[ecofeco]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

Maybe the comp. sci. department could give them a hand to get it all working?

But then who gets the brown envelopes of stock options and board positions?

[Dan 55]

Re: Tricky things, computers. I didn't get where I am today by seamlessly migrating systems

No true Comp Sci department would ever sully their hands with real-world problems.

[ecofeco]

Oracle you say?

I think I see the problem.

[Strahd Ivarius]

Re: Oracle you say?

One does not simply migrate from one Oracle system to another Oracle system

[Missing Semicolon]

Transalation

“We are acutely aware of the impact that this is having on some of our staff and students, and we will continue to keep them informed with progress"

... but we get paid, and our fat pensions are still being topped up whatever, so fundamentally you can just eat it. Whatever happens, no blame or responsibility can possibly be attached to us, so any problems are not really problems.

[Roger Kynaston]

Procurement conversation.

Busniness Analyst: OK we need to replace our ageing ERP application. This meeting is to decide how to achieve this with minimum disruption and the most cost effective solution.

Sales Droid: There is this fantastic new technology where you can host it remotely and so save a fortune on your CAPEX budget. It also increases resilience and scaleability.

BA: Sounds great.

Systems Manager: What clout platform does this run on?

SD: This is a new integrated ERP package based around an established technology stack built on the best of breed Oracle products.

SM: Right, can I stop you there. There is no way that this will be affordable or efficient. We should look for another product.

BA: Great! When can we start implementation?

And the rest is history