CSU hires experts to repair software

Thursday, February 24, 2000

By RONALD RUTTI

PLAIN DEALER REPORTER

Cleveland State University trustees yesterday approved spending as much as $4.6 million more to fix the flawed student information software.

The money, which will include an estimated $500,000 for a backup system to help ensure that fall registration goes off without a hitch, will come from the schools reserve fund. The school currently has $7.2 million in reserves, said President Claire Van Ummersen.

CSU intends to pay a consulting company, SAIC/SoftLink, up to $2.49 million for a years work to try to make the universitys PeopleSoft Inc. software package work properly. Among four other companies hired to provide consulting work was the Hunter Group, which could get as much as $946,400 for its efforts.

Joseph Nolan, a CSU vice president heading a task force to fix the software problems that have plagued the student financial aid program for almost two years, said as many as nine consultants could be on campus at one time.

CSU interviewed three companies that submitted bids to help unravel the computer mess after trustees determined an action plan submitted by PeopleSoft was inadequate. Nolan said SAIC and Hunter were picked to do the bulk of the work because they are working at other colleges where PeopleSoft products are not working.

PeopleSoft was hired to replace a patchwork of outdated programs at the university. Some of its systems are working well, but the student aid version has plagued several registration periods. The original cost of the program was to be $4.2 million. Van Ummersen said yesterday the cost was up to $11.1 million. The $4.6 million authorized yesterday will be on top of that.

Van Ummersen said there was a backup system known to work that could get the school through the fall registration. CSU will put the system out for bids and buy one. "We cant take the chance of not processing aid for our students," the president said.

Trustees met in a closed executive session for more than three hours yesterday. They discussed hiring the consultants and also renewed talk about suing PeopleSoft for damages. Nolan said no decision had yet been made on a suit. http://www.cleveland.com/news/index.ssf?/news/pd/cc24csu.html

-- Carl Jenkins (Somewherepress@aol.com), February 24, 2000

Answers

Had they used the services of an integrative team in the first place they MIGHT not have had the problems.........

Plenty of blame here for LOTS of people.....

CHuck

-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), February 24, 2000.

ALL that Money,just to keep Track of a few Remedial School Flunkies?

-- ZU Blvd? (get@with.losers), February 24, 2000.

Anyone know who holds the paper on that company?

-- another government hack (keepwatching_2000@yahoo.com), February 24, 2000.

Who holds the paper on PeopleSoft? They're public. Check stock symbol PSFT.

There have been a number of lawsuits against ERS houses lately, like PeopleSoft and SAP. Seems to me that the bulk of the problems come from clients who pick sloppy and fly-by night outfits to do the actual implementation, though. Pick some cut-rate team to do the heavy lifting, and you deserve what you get.

As a consultant, I've dealt with universities who have bought ERS software before, and I absolutely hate it. In my experience, university clients were pushy, arrogant, tight with a buck and expect 18-hour work days from consultants.

Sorry, Professor. I don't need your business. I can go elsewhere.

I have to agree with the poster who said that there's plenty of blame to go around here. My gut feeling is that CSU deserves a healthy serving of it, as well as the consultant team.

Not to say that all university clients are that way, but I can see how things got so bad at CSU. Pick an immature product like the PeopleSoft Student Administration modules and try to rush to implementation -- that's a sure recipe for disaster.

Don't feel sorry for 'em. Not one bit.

-- He Who Works On PeopleSoft (consultant@nospam.org), February 25, 2000.