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Home My WebLink About2003-07-15 City Council (2)TO: City of Palo Alto City Manager’s Report ........................................HONORABLE CITY CG~CIL ATTN:FINANCE COMMITTEE FROM:CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES DATE:JULY 15, 2003 CMR: 362:03 SUBJECT:QUARTERLY UPDATE ON THE ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION (RESOURCE AND FINANCIAL TRACKING SYSTEM, RAFTS) This is an informational report and no Council action is required. BACKGROUND At its July 22, 2002 meeting, Council directed staff to proceed with the project for a new Resource and Financial Tracking System (RAFTS). This included approval of: the purchase of a software license and services agreement with SAP, Inc; a professional services agreement with ea Consulting, Inc., to conduct the software implementation; and an agreement with the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) to assist with implementation oversight. Council requested that staff provide quarterly reports on the status of the project. This is the fourth status report, which contains an update on work completed since mid-March 2003, Phase I implementations, and a plan update for Phase II. DISCUSSION The RAFTS project will be implemented over two phases in an 18-month period. Phase I went live on July 1, 2003 and includes the following functions: f’mancials, project management, procurement and inventory management, and service and work orders. Phase II includes payroll and human resources (HR), and will go live late December 2003. Since the last report to the Finance Committee, staff completed several milestones including meeting the go live date of July 1, 2003. For the most part, the desired results were better than expected with only minor glitches. Other accomplishments for the period include: CMR:362:03 Page 1 of 4 Phase I Work ¯Integration testing - over 30 business scenarios were created involving various modules so that staff could determine if the information would process as expected. ¯Interface testing - tests verified that data required from other systems would successfully load and read through SAP. In addition, data sent to banks and other public agencies were successfully tested. ¯Master data conversions programs - several conversions were completed and loaded into SAP. This included data such as vendor files, materials listings and purchase orders. ¯System authorization tables - the project team tested the user and role authorizations; the City Auditor’s staff will review the tables during the month of July. ¯Training materials - staff prepared and printed all materials for formal end user classroom training, including bound, professional training manuals and user guides, as well as data for classroom exercises for reinforcement of the lessons. ¯Super User training - Over 40 staff members who work regularly with high volume transactions or in specialized areas were trained to assist in end user training and support. The areas covered were purchasing, work orders, service orders, inventory, projects and financials. ¯End user training - during the month of June over 400 employees were trained as part of the train-the-trainer program, with additional ongoing training and open lab hours as refreshers starting in this month. ¯Three citywide RAFTS sessions were held to update all staff on the project progress and to demonstrate the system’s capabilities. This included a highly successful RAFTS Day conference-style display of the SAP system to City staff. ¯As of July 1, over 300 employees had access to the new SAP system. A few checks due the first week of July were produced and mailed, over 300 capital projects were loaded, thousands of vendor names and addresses were transferred, over 1,300 purchase orders were transferred, and 1,060 work, service and internal orders were entered. ¯System performance validation - The system’s performance is at the optimum level. ¯The interfaces to other programs successfully transferred information into SAP, including Utility payments and other cash receipts. ¯Major revisions and enhancements were completed such as customized reporting for budget-to-actual, dunning letters, checks, invoices, purchase orders, packing slips, and parked documents reports. ¯Hardware fail-over testing was completed successfully. ¯Total system backups with cycling of tapes and off-site storage are in place for disaster recovery. CMR:362:03 Page 2 of 4 Phase II Work ¯In March, work on the HR/Payroll module was kicked off by assembling a team, gathering requirements and laying out an implementation plan. ¯HRJPayroll and Technology staff started SAP system training at SAP facilities. ¯Blueprinting of the HR/Payroll module started. ¯Project room was set up for the SAP HR team on the 2nd floor of the Civic Center. This provided a closer working environment between consultants and City business experts in HR and Payroll. Items to be Accomplished in the Next Quarter ¯Continue end-user training for Phase I ¯Review of system reports with live data and the development of new reports based on organizational needs Sign off on Phase I of the implementation including identification of issues and a resolution plan ¯Conduct the month-end closing process ¯Continuation of system performance validation ¯Verify business processes implemented ¯Start revision of policy and procedures ¯City Auditor review of system controls and authorizations ¯Conduct preliminary analysis of benefits in comparison to legacy systems ¯Prepare the first quarterly financial report to the Finance Committee ¯Continue gathering requirements for Phase II ¯Prepare training plan for Phase II and identify additional Super Users The RAFTS Phase I status chart (Attachment A) provides a picture of the completed steps from project start to the implementation and go live on July 1, 2003. In addition, staff has included other high-level project documentation to assist in understanding the magnitude of this undertaking. Attachment B reflects the Phase I consolidated project master plan, which indicates at a high level the steps that were taken to complete the first part of the implementation. Attachment C displays a list of project deliverables completed. This is a list of the items that ea Consulting had to deliver at the various intervals to receive payment. Attachment D is a listing of the project team members. It is important to acknowledge that City team members spent a great deal of time on the project while still performing their regular duties. Many of the exempt employees worked beyond their shift hours to ensure success of this major undertaking. CMR:362:03 Page 3 of 4 RESOURCE IMPACT There are no resource impacts as this is an information report. Staff has included a budget-to-actual report for the project (Attachment E) The project was on time and on budget. The expenditures to date for the project totfil $3.1 million from a total project budget of $5.2 million. ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT Approval of this agreement does not constitute a project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); therefore, no environmental assessment is required. ATTACHMENTS Attachment A: Attachment B: Attachment C: Attachment D: Attachment E: PREPARED BY: Phase I status chart Phase I consolidated master plan Phase I project deliverables Project team membersProject bud~ Assistant DireCtor, ASD RON Manager, DEPARTMENTAL HEAD APPROVAL: Technology Director, AdlNnistrative Services CITY MANAGER APPROVAL: ’---- . , , ~- EMII~r-HARR! SON Assistant City Manager CMR:362:03 Page 4 of 4 z.<uJ.J Iii o ~ oooooooo r... U 0 0 l oo ._. ,It