June 22, 2011
Administrative Computing Advisory Committee
June 22, 2011
Present: Jim Fergerson, Julie Anderson, Rod Oto, Sue Traxler, Joel Cooper
Absent: Linda Thornton, Dan Bergeson, Julie Thornton, Roger Lasley
Guests: Linda Borene, Julie Latham
Agenda:
1. Approve Minutes from April 5th meeting.
2. Update/discuss next steps for Recruitment+ replacement search – Linda Borene
3. Update/discuss next steps for Colleague reporting tools – Julie Latham
4. Overview of ITS summer projects – Joel or Sue
Approve Minutes from April 5th meeting.
The minutes of the April 5th meeting were approved with no changes.
Update/discuss next steps for Recruitment+ replacement search:
Linda Borene joined our meeting to give us a status update on the search to replace Recruitment PLUS software. In early June five committee members attended the Recruitment PLUS User Group meeting where they were able to see 15 vendor demonstrations. They left the conference with two top choices, Datatel Recruiter and Technolutions Slate. Linda handed out a document which outlined side-by-side feature comparisons of the two products, along with Recruitment PLUS for reference. The cost for Slate is $50,000 per year and the initial cost for Datatel Recruiter is $212,700 plus $37,000 per year maintenance fees. Discussion centered on price differences, future longevity of Technolutions, aggressive timeline to implement Slate (this fall), and how this commitment would affect the workload of other departments. Linda is working on putting together a proposal now and she also invited ACAC committee members to demos this week of both products. After input is gathered, Linda will return to our meeting to make a recommendation of which product they would like to purchase as a replacement to Recruitment PLUS.
Update/discuss next steps for Colleague reporting tools:
Julie Latham along with members of the reporting tools selection group each gave us their view of the two products they are researching: Microsoft SSRS and DROA (Datatel Reporting and Operating Analytics). Prior to the meeting, the committee was also provided with a report that outlined the pros and cons and costs of each product. The committee had a lengthy discussion that included issues related to budget, training, learning curve, staff time, future of the Business Objects world and more. In the end, essentially either DROA or SSRS could do most of what we need them to do for reporting, but the bulk of the discussion centered on issues of total cost of ownership. The major tradeoffs are dollars vs. labor (from both ITS staff and end users) vs. ITS projects that could not be supported while implementing either system.
DROA costs more, but comes with pre-delivered data models and an existing community of Datatel and Business Objects users. SSRS essentially has no dollar cost up front, but the cost comes in terms of ITS staff labor to build the data models from scratch. Both options would divert ITS staff from other projects. Both also have costs to end users in the offices to respond to the needs to help test and validate the implementation on a tight timetable.
At today’s meeting, we were unable to reach a firm consensus of which tool to go with, so we are meeting again next week. A final decision needs to be made soon so that the process of implementation can go forward quickly.
Overview of summer ITS projects:
We did not have time for this agenda item.
Meeting adjourned at 3:05pm.
Submitted by,
Candyce Lelm