Carnegie Mellon chose Oracle over SAP and Computron....
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Carnegie Mellon University to Implement Oracle(R) Public Sector Financials and Grants Management Systems
Oracle Systems Expected to Improve Data Accuracy, Decision Support
PITTSBURGH, March 30 /PRNewswire/ -- Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL) today announced that Carnegie Mellon University, one of the nation's premier research institutions, will implement Oracle software to upgrade the university's system for tracking funding and finances. Carnegie Mellon expects Oracle systems including Oracle(R) Public Sector Grants Management, Oracle Public Sector Financials, and Oracle Applications for the Web, as well as tools such as Oracle Express(R) online analytical processing (OLAP) products and Oracle Financial Analyzer, to provide the university with better ways to manage its financial information.
Carnegie Mellon chose Oracle over SAP and Computron to replace a hard-to- access mainframe system that requires excess time, paper, and manpower. A key differentiator was Oracle Public Sector Grants Management which addresses the financial reporting requirements of research grants. Oracle is the only company the university considered that offers such a feature.
With Oracle Public Sector Grants Management, organizations can track grants and contracts from notice to final reporting. For Carnegie Mellon, a key capability of this application is its multifunding feature, which allows users to manage complex funding relationships such as one award funding many projects or one project funded by multiple awards. Oracle Public Sector Grants Management supports standard government reporting formats and keeps track of internal reports and reports required by the funding agency. Carnegie Mellon also will take advantage of Oracle Public Sector Grants Management's complete project status reporting, using standard calculations such as actual-to-budget variances and user-defined variables.
Oracle Public Sector Financials will help the university reduce paper and eliminate shadow systems created out of frustration with the current slow, labor-intensive systems. Today, Carnegie Mellon manually distributes over a thousand paper accounting reports each month. These are two to three months out of date due to delays getting the invoices, receivables, journal entries, and travel expense reports posted. In addition, Carnegie Mellon annually creates comprehensive financials, and internal management reports that often rely on estimates, risking accuracy. The university expects the Oracle system to improve fiscal consistency by integrating Carnegie Mellon financial information into one system. Carnegie Mellon plans to go live with Web- enabled applications in July 1999.
The Oracle system will provide timely access to accurate data and enable Carnegie Mellon to produce interim financial statements. In addition Carnegie Mellon expects Oracle Financial Analyzer and Oracle Express to improve forecasting and budgeting by enabling users to perform ad hoc queries and data manipulation on their desktops.
"It takes us an incredible amount of time to obtain useful information from the old system, and the system isn't user friendly," says Jeff Bolton, Carnegie Mellon vice president of planning and budget. "After an extensive review, we determined that Oracle would provide us with the most flexible, most extensive set of financial tools currently available."
"Carnegie Mellon will benefit from Oracle's public sector solution that has been specifically designed and developed for higher education business needs," said Frank Bishop, Oracle's vice president of development, global public sector. "We have a dedicated development team who is continually working to enhance and expand Oracle's solution for the higher education market." |
