CLIENT SUCCESS STORIES
HELPING ORGANIZATIONS ACHIEVE THEIR GOALS
Florida A&M University Provides Better Service to Students by Leveraging Oracle Student Financial Planning
Florida A&M University
Florida A&M University Provides Better Service to Students by Leveraging Oracle Student Financial Planning
FAMU sought to replace its legacy PeopleSoft Financial Aid application with Oracle Student Financial Planning application. With many of FAMU’s students being first-generation college and economically disadvantaged, FAMU wanted to be proactive and utilize technology to better serve them.
Key Project Highlights:
- Improve student and parent financial literacy and communications.
- Decrease overall student debt after graduation.
- Streamline and simplify the financial aid process by improving business practices, moving away from current manual systems, and increasing outreach to students.
- Ability to load 11,000+ student data records in a single day.
National Park College Expands its IT Team’s Efficiency and Flexibility with Application Management Services
National Park College
National Park College Expands its IT Team’s Efficiency and Flexibility with Application Management Services
Using Sierra-Cedar’s Application Management Services (AMS), NPC outsourced a wide range of PeopleSoft functions, including production support, patching, and project work for all three PeopleSoft pillars. This strategic move allowed NPC’s internal IT staff to increase focus on other institutional objectives including learning and student success.
Key Project Highlights:
- Decreased IT support costs with targeted use of subject matter experts and offshore resources, when needed.
- Increased ability to maintain applications with latest functionality and security protocols.
- Resolved production support issues more quickly by routing to Sierra-Cedar’s PeopleSoft application specialists.
- Achieved NPC management IT objectives without increasing internal staff headcount.
A Transition from Traditional Hosting to AWS Using Re-Architect Approach
Real Estate Client
A Transition from Traditional Hosting to AWS Using Re-Architect Approach
Sierra-Cedar successfully transitioned the client to AWS in approximately seven months and serves as a strategic vendor by providing comprehensive hosting, application management, and consulting services that align with the client’s global business demands and IT requirements.
Key Project Highlights:
- Sustained the demands of complex user role and connectivity requirements.
- Implemented application, technological, and security integration updates as part of AWS transition activities.
- Enhanced user reporting capabilities for global workforce.
- Innovated new solutions that adhered to strict security standard protocols.
The University of Wisconsin System Boosts Efficiencies and Streamlines Processes with its Upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.2
The University of Wisconsin System
The University of Wisconsin System Boosts Efficiencies and Streamlines Processes with its Upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.2
The University of Wisconsin System (UW System) engaged Sierra-Cedar to lead the upgrade of its Shared Financials System (SFS) applications (Financials and Supply Chain) from PeopleSoft 9.1 to 9.2. SFS is used to process, track, and report on all financial transactions across the UW System. The project’s goal was to improve the existing PeopleSoft system by increasing use of delivered functionality, streamlining current business processes, and reevaluating and reducing existing customizations.
Key Project Highlights:
- Improved process efficiencies, laying a solid foundation for UW System’s upcoming move to the Cloud.
- Reduced the number of UW System customizations, streamlining application maintenance.
- Implemented delivered Fluid functionality such as Dashboards, Work Centers and Mobile Capabilities, enabling students and faculty to take advantage of many self-service features.
- Aligned with Oracle’s PeopleSoft Update Manager (PUM) Quarterly Update cycle, eliminating the need for future upgrades.
University of California, Office of the President Transitions to AWS with Sierra-Cedar Cloud Managed Services
UCOP
University of California, Office of the President Transitions to AWS with Sierra-Cedar Cloud Managed Services
University of California, Office of the President (UCOP) sought a system that could lower operational maintenance and infrastructure costs, better handle demand spikes, and facilitate scheduling adjustments without manual workarounds. In June 2020, UCOP sought to transition 21 environments (PeopleSoft HCM, Informatica, PeopleSoft UPK, and an Enterprise Reporting Solution) to Amazon Web Services (AWS) by December 2020, which was an exit deadline from its current data center and managed services provider. The project needed to support UCOP’s scaling needs and state mandated payroll processing timelines as well as integrate with third-party applications (MuleSoft, Inflight/Drupal, STAT, and GoAnywhere).
Key Project Highlights:
- Improved performance resulting in significant reductions in payroll processing times
- Integrated system solutions that sustain demands of enterprise usage and adhere to security standard protocols
- Controlled costs and scalability with the ability to increase and reduce resources on demand (no surprise invoices)
- Built-in redundancy for disaster recovery and more time for internal staff to focus on business-critical items
- Used Sierra-Cedar’s A2M2 methodology (Analyze, Architect, Migrate, and Manage) to move environments to AWS
- Continue to use Sierra-Cedar’s FlexOps® automation and orchestration platform to manage infrastructure deployment,
versioning, drift detection, automation remediation, and change control
MYK LATICRETE Builds on its Success by Automating HR Business Functions with Oracle HCM Cloud
MYK Laticrete
MYK LATICRETE Builds on its Success by Automating HR Business Functions with Oracle HCM Cloud
MYK Group was using manual processes for all HR and Talent Management processes. This project had a number of objectives including the elimination of paperwork and manual spreadsheets as well as the creation of a central time tracking system. Sierra-Cedar India successfully implemented a three-phase rollout and is currently engaged in ongoing production support.
Key Project Highlights:
- Improved system with the complex business processes seamlessly adapted for smoother transition
- Easier and faster decision-making process based on business & personnel performance and cost parameters
- Standardized performance cycle, compensation cycle, and error-free expenses processing
Coppin State University Multiplies the Effectiveness of its IT staff with Application Managed Services
Coppin State University
Coppin State University Multiplies the Effectiveness of its IT staff with Application Managed Services
By leveraging Sierra-Cedar’s application managed services, Coppin has been able to reassess and strategically realign its internal team’s activities to focus on IT services that advance institutional goals such as an enhanced student and user experience.
Key Project Highlights:
- Received regular updates of new and improved functionality within the PeopleSoft applications
- Increased bandwidth for IT resources – an annual savings of approximately 900 IT person-hours
- Deployed improvements of student and user experience more frequently with regular application updates
Lake Michigan College’s Migration to AWS Brings Cost Savings, Improvements to Performance and Security
Lake Michigan College
Lake Michigan College’s Migration to AWS Brings Cost Savings, Improvements to Performance and Security
Sierra-Cedar AWS architecture specialists worked closely with LMC project leaders to develop and execute LMC’s comprehensive AWS migration plan. It included strategic IT governance, security, connectivity, and ongoing monitoring of LMC’s migrated applications. The project lasted two months from planning through execution.
Key Project Highlights:
- Retired tape library resulting in more than $25k savings per year
- Automated cloud and on-premise system patching processes using AWS System Manager, saving staff 40 hours per month
- Enhanced data security by automating security monitoring of cloud environments using AWS Security Hub
- Re-platformed its Drupal public website using infrastructure-as-code and cloud managed services
- Increased flexibility to respond to Covid-19 challenges
- Ability to scale support footprint up or down quickly by provisioning future requests for resources in AWS
The State Bar of California’s Journey from JD Edwards to Oracle Cloud Applications
State Bar of California
State Bar of California’s Journey from JD Edwards to Oracle Cloud Applications
The State Bar of California replaced its Oracle JD Edwards system with Oracle Cloud Applications: Financials, Procurement, Budgeting, Human Resources, and Payroll. The goal was to improve processes, utilize business intelligence, and enhance the user experience in a highly secure environment. The State Bar partnered with Sierra-Cedar for the implementation as well as on-going Optimization Services.
Key Project Highlights:
- Improved business processes by adopting Oracle Cloud’s delivered business practices
- Reduced carbon footprint by attaching documentation to a transactions
- Increased employee capability with remote/anywhere access
- Eliminated future upgrades with Oracle’s Quarterly Updates
Lucas County, Ohio Streamlines Business Processes by Migrating from PeopleSoft to Oracle Cloud Applications
Lucas County, OH
Lucas County, Ohio Streamlines Business Processes by Migrating to Oracle Cloud Applications
Lucas County decided to replace its PeopleSoft applications to standardize and streamline its business processes across all county departments and agencies. Lucas County partnered with Sierra-Cedar to implement Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning Cloud (Financials, Expense Management, Cash Management, Procurement, Supplier Portal, and Contracts), Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud, and Oracle Planning and Budgeting Cloud (Line Item and Personnel Budgeting).
Key Project Highlights:
- Faster system performance as it is optimized to meet the County’s transactional volume
- Efficiency through automated workflow notifications and approvals
- Quarterly updates with new and improved functionality without the requirement to upgrade
- Enhanced reporting and analytics
Arizona State University Migrates PeopleSoft Campus Solutions & Human Capital Management Applications to AWS Public Cloud
Arizona State University
Sierra-Cedar Successfully Migrates Arizona State University’s PeopleSoft Applications to the AWS Public Cloud
For five consecutive years, Arizona State University has been ranked #1 in the U.S. for innovation by U.S. News & World Report. ASU’s University Technology Office (UTO) supports this innovation with its commitment to true, human-centered technological initiatives. A component of the UTO’s top ten goals for 2020 was to complete the migration of its PeopleSoft applications to Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of its Cloud objectives. ASU engaged Sierra-Cedar to complete its migration of PeopleSoft and supporting applications to the AWS Cloud and to provide post-transition managed services support within AWS.
Key Project Highlights:
- Migrated PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and Human Capital Management applications to AWS in less than seventy hours.
- Accomplished and sustained a high level of performance one day after go-live as ASU entered a busy enrollment and usage period.
- Facilitated the build and ongoing management of ASU’s PeopleSoft applications in AWS using Sierra-Cedar’s FlexOps automation and orchestration platform.
- ASU projects a reduction in its managed services spend by 20 percent per year over the next three years.
BITS Pilani Modernizes its PeopleSoft Systems by Migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
BITS-Pilani
BITS Pilani Modernizes its PeopleSoft Systems by Migrating to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
BITS Pilani partnered with Sierra-Cedar India to migrate Oracle PeopleSoft ERP applications from a private data center to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to standardize and streamline its ERP infrastructure. Sierra-Cedar’s migration services included design of PeopleSoft Architecture, creation of automation to configure infrastructure, migration of Oracle Databases to OCI Database Cloud Service, and production cutover with post-production support.
Key Project Highlights:
- Considerable savings on Capex (hardware refresh, procurement) and Opex (operational & maintenance costs)
- Quicker response to infrastructure level incidents (10 hours to < 1 hour)
- Reduced lead time to bump-up infrastructure components to support student registrations peak load
- Additional capacity made available in a fraction of time than in the past
- Streamlined support processes for infra and application administration support with Sierra-Cedar
- Integrated platform and cloud services enabling more insight into the PeopleSoft system
PeopleSoft Financials & Supply Chain Management Upgrade to 9.2 & Transition to Sierra-Cedar’s Private Cloud
Global Non-Profit
PeopleSoft Financials & Supply Chain Management Upgrade to 9.2 & Transition to Sierra-Cedar’s Private Cloud
This project consisted of an upgrade of the PeopleSoft Financials system from 9.1 to 9.2, a transition of the upgraded PeopleSoft system to a cloud environment, and ongoing managed services. The overall goal of the project was to deliver the upgrade smoothly with minimum impact on its users and internal resources.
Key Project Highlights:
- Improved user experience and capabilities and will be supported by Oracle for years to come
- Implemented PeopleSoft Test Framework to automate testing process and keep up with Oracle’s quarterly updates
- Improved PeopleSoft application support services with experienced PeopleSoft consultants
- Increased total value with predictable monthly fees for infrastructure, operational, helpdesk, DR, and application support
Ramsey County Leverages AWS to Minimize Risks & Meet Regulatory Compliance Requirements
Ramsey County
Ramsey County Minimizes Risk & Meets Regulatory Compliance Requirements with Amazon Web Services Solution
With the help of Sierra-Cedar, Ramsey County realized the benefits of the cloud and created a highly available application architecture for a critical application. Now as it pursues its cloud strategy, Ramsey County has the capability and agility to leverage AWS for other critical applications and continues to rely on Sierra-Cedar as its fully hosted cloud provider.
Key Project Highlights:
- 24/7 availability with zero downtime
- Automatic scalability for peak workloads
- End-to-end encryption in transit
- Automated deployment stack
- Zero downtime for operating system patching
BWAY Hits Aggressive PeopleSoft HCM System Upgrade Timeline
BWAY Corporation
BWAY Hits Aggressive PeopleSoft Upgrade Timeline
Using the development team in India, BWAY completed its PeopleSoft 9.0 upgrade on time and at a lower implementation cost than it was likely to achieve using onshore resources. BWAY’s team was able to review and test the application during its business hours, while the Sierra-Cedar India team processed modifications and completed development work during the company’s nonbusiness hours. The convenience of having information available for testing at the start of the business day enabled BWAY to achieve its aggressive upgrade timeline.
Key Project Highlights:
- The Sierra-Cedar India team took on high-level functional requirements, translated them into technical specifications, and quickly prototyped a solution, overcoming initial concerns about differences in time zones and potential language barriers
- The upgrade project was a resounding success and the relationship continues as BWAY and Sierra-Cedar India work on future enhancement initiatives.
DOTComm Reduces Costs & Gains Flexibility through AWS
DOTComm
DOTComm Reduces Cost & Gains Flexibility through Amazon Web Services
Sierra-Cedar and DOTComm worked together to architect and deploy the infrastructure to host Hyperion in AWS. Three AWS services were deployed. Amazon Virtual Private Cloud (Amazon VPC) was also deployed to segregate its network with a site-to-site virtual private network.
Key Project Highlights:
- Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) as the compute layer for the Hyperion metadata store
- Amazon Elastic File System (Amazon EFS) for application binary storage
- Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) for secure, durable, and highly scalable object storage
Kansas State University Migrates Production HR System to AWS in under 48 Hours
Kansas State University
Kansas State University Migrates PeopleSoft Production HR System to AWS in Under 48 Hours
Kansas State’s data center, located in the basement of Hale Library, sustained extensive water and smoke damage as a result of a three-alarm roof fire. With only a few days to meet an upcoming deadline that required the PeopleSoft HR system to be operational for payroll processing and transmission, Sierra-Cedar worked with Kansas State’s staff over the Memorial Day weekend to migrate Kansas State’s production HR system to AWS.
Key Project Highlights:
- Migrated the university’s PeopleSoft HR production environment to AWS
- Established a security-aware architecture
- Helped improve batch processing and OLTP performance
City of San Jose Saves Money & Time by Leveraging Sierra-Cedar’s Upgrade Lab for PeopleSoft HCM Upgrade
City of San Jose
City of San Jose Saves Money & Time with Sierra-Cedar’s Upgrade Lab for Oracle’s PeopleSoft HCM Upgrade
As support for HRMS 8.0 SP1 was coming to an end, the City of San Jose was ready to take advantage of the latest functionality and platforms offered by HCM 8.9—such as the various delivered eApps. To complete the upgrade on time and on budget, the city sought the help of an experienced application management services provider.
Sierra-Cedar took a blended upgrade approach to the application upgrade, using both traditional onsite consultants for functional tasks and the CMS lab for the technical portion of the upgrade. As a result, the city achieved cost and time savings, reduce technical infrastructure burden, and obtain the high level of knowledge transfer and training it desired.
Key Project Highlights:
- Project management, technical and functional consulting for PeopleSoft upgrade from HRMS 8.0 to HCM 8.9 using Sierra-Cedar’s CMS Upgrade Lab
- Training through Oracle’s PeopleSoft UPK tool
Cox Enterprises Gains Efficiencies in PeopleSoft HCM System Workloads with Application Management Services
Cox Enterprises
Cox Enterprises Gains Efficiencies in PeopleSoft HCM Workloads with Application Management Services
Cox Enterprises’ Work Request Group had been using an on-site and offshore support model from another vendor for the past five years. However, this relationship lacked quality resource retention, industry-leading procedures for analysis and development, and effectively managed services governance. When the work backlog began to increase and cause frustration for internal customers and management, Sierra-Cedar reviewed the existing procedures and implemented an optimized global delivery model.
Key Project Highlights:
- Offshore resources were quickly ramped up to address Cox’s backlog of work requests and take over tax update and quality assurance functions to reduce the workload of their on-site analysts.
- The utilization of senior-level offshore resources provided a significant cost savings for Cox Enterprises without compromising delivery quality.
University of Virginia Completes PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Implementation on Time and Under Budget
University of Virginia
University of Virginia Completes PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Implementation on Time and under Budget
The University of Virginia was challenged to replace a homegrown legacy student system that had been heavily customized for 20 years and included interfaces to multiple applications. Within the university’s highly decentralized organizational structure, unique business processes and the customized nature of the legacy system had permitted a variety of approaches to processes. Flexibility in the legacy system’s data usage protocols meant that converting data into the PeopleSoft system with its rigorous data validation and edit constraints would be challenging.
Key Project Highlights:
- Completed the highly complex implementation project on schedule and under budget
- Prompted collaboration on data definitions and new business processes across the various schools
- Implemented a local expert model that helped promote critical buy-in among home schools and departments
- Achieved the university’s objective to provide an efficient and effective student information system that supports its mission, integrates with existing systems, and adapts to growth and change
AMA Education System Implements & Integrates PeopleSoft Campus Solutions for Future Growth & Improved Efficiencies
AMA Education System
AMA Education System Implements & Integrates PeopleSoft Campus Solutions for Future Growth
AMA Education System (AMAES) recognized the importance of reimplementing its ERP applications to take advantage of various capabilities available in more current versions of the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions applications. A major challenges was to bring all AMAES-owned colleges and affiliated colleges under one system where proper rules could be defined and followed. Additionally, the current system was capturing student data in multiple systems, making it difficult to consolidate all the data. Plus, there were complex rules for calculating tuition fees for the students, and some of the calculations were being handled manually.
Key Project Highlights:
- AMAES now has a foundation to include all the owned and affiliated colleges into one system.
- AMAES is closer to its goal of providing the university community with an efficient and effective student information system that supports its mission, integrates with existing systems, and adapts to growth and change.
Canon Leverages Functional & Technical Consulting Services for Migration to PeopleSoft HCM System & Planned Upgrade
Canon
Canon Leverages Functional & Technical Consulting Services for Migration to PeopleSoft & Planned Upgrade
Following a merger, Canon engaged Sierra-Cedar, its longtime technology consulting and implementation provider, to provide functional and technical consulting services to support the migration and conversion of Océ North America’s HR system data from ADP into Canon’s existing PeopleSoft system. The conversion included over 4,000 employees and the go-live was a success. Sierra-Cedar then went to work on Canon’s PeopleSoft upgrade from 8.9 to 9.1.
Key Project Highlights:
- Sierra-Cedar’s consultants helped Canon’s small team support PeopleSoft applications.
- Sierra-Cedar consultants’ knowledge-sharing network worked to Canon’s advantage.
The State of Kansas Leverages PeopleSoft Hosting & Managed Services to Improve Business Processes & Operate More Efficiently
Kansas
The State of Kansas Leverages Hosting & Managed Services to Improve Business Processes & Operate More Efficiently
For many years, the State of Kansas has relied on Sierra-Cedar to optimize its PeopleSoft applications. Sierra-Cedar has continually assisted the state with each HRMS and Financials upgrade to the current versions. The state awarded Sierra-Cedar a five-year contract for providing PeopleSoft and Oracle BI hosting and disaster recovery services, using the Sierra-Cedar data center and administrative personnel. The state gained many efficiencies by migrating on-premise HCM and Financials applications to the Sierra-Cedar Hosting Center.
Key Project Highlights:
- Empowered the State of Kansas to focus its existing resources on core mission objectives rather than day-to-day maintenance or system upkeep
- Reduced down-time due to hardware/system issues or failures and eliminated out-of-pocket expenses for on-site hardware
- Reduced time required to apply or complete major application upgrades
- Made it easier to stay current with application updates, bundles, fixes, and patches