University of Edinburgh

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Stage: Initiation Project Proposal 2006/7 Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

Research General

Project Sponsor: Author (Business): Author (MIS):

Ian Lamb Ian Lamb Stefan Kaempf

Date: 27/01/2006

__________________________________________________________________________________ _ Project Proposal Template - Revised December 2005

Initiate: Project Proposal

Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

Contents
1 PROJECT DETAILS................................................................................................3 1.1 Summary.....................................................................................................................3 1.2 Business Objectives....................................................................................................3 1.3 Deliverables and Limits.............................................................................................3 1.4 Timing and Multi Year Projects...............................................................................4 1.4.1 Timing..................................................................................................................................4 1.4.2 Multi-Year............................................................................................................................4 1.5 Risks.............................................................................................................................4 2 PROJECT CATEGORY AND JUSTIFICATION.......................................................4 2.1 Category......................................................................................................................4 2.2 Justification.................................................................................................................4 3 PROJECT BENEFITS AND COSTS........................................................................5 3.1 Five Year Benefits......................................................................................................5 3.2 Other Funding and Staff Resources to be secured.................................................5 3.3 Detailed Benefits and Costs Worksheet...................................................................6

Page 2 of 6

Initiate: Project Proposal

Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

Project Details

1.1 Summary
Edinburgh Research and Innovation Limited (ERI) installed v 4.2.6 of the SUN Systems in July 2000 to handle its financial management and reporting requirements. The system runs on up to 4 concurrent connections to an ORACLE database hosted on CALTON by MIS. Whilst the software continues to meet the operational requirements of the business, v5 of SUN Systems has now been released for a couple of years, and our re-seller (Castle Computer Services Ltd - Castle) is now confident that the product is operating in a stable environment across all platforms. Following a demonstration of the software, then it is believed that there are significant advantages in upgrading to this version. These include A true Windows GUI version of the software Additional functionality for users Additional reporting functions

The cost of the software upgrade is free, being covered by the annual maintenance payable by ERI to Castle, however it is intended that ERI will use Castles technical consultants to carry out the upgrade, which will be separately billable, and the cost of this met by ERI. Castle estimate that the average upgrade time is between 5 10 days with an installation the size of ERIs falling at the lower end of this scale. In order for this upgrade to take place, and to meet MISs own installation methodology, then Castle consultants will require access to a test database server and then to the live server CALTON. This will involve some resource from MIS, estimated at 2-3 days. In addition it would be proposed that the existing database reporting tool, VISION v5 be upgraded to v6. This is a client installation only, and v6 allows the user to report against not only the SUN systems database tables, but also other database tables, for example the ERI Technology database. No MIS resource will be required for this upgrade, and software costs are again covered by maintenance paid to Castle.

1.2 Business Objectives

Objective Number 1 2 Objective Description To bring about additional efficiencies in ERIs financial management and reporting. To create financial platform for VISION 6 to allow reporting against other ERI corporate datasets.

1.3 Deliverables and Limits

Deliverable Number 1 Deliverable Description Implementation Service - allow Castle staff access to MIS corporate servers to install software upgrade

Page 3 of 6

Initiate: Project Proposal

Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

1.4 Timing and Multi Year Projects

1.4.1 Timing
. The preferred timing for this project is Q1 2007, at a date to be mutually agreed with MIS and Castle.

1.4.2 Multi-Year
Not multi-year

1.5 Risks
Risk 1 2 3 Description Connectivity issues with UOE architecture/firewall existing clients for v4 continue to drop connection on a regular basis investigate with test version of new software. Risk that support for v4 of the software will cease in the event that upgrade doesnt go ahead. The software needs to run on Solaris 10 and Oracle 9i

PROJECT CATEGORY and JUSTIFICATION

2.1 Category
Funded ERI will meet the costs of Castle consultants performing the software upgrade and data migration. Software upgrade costs are covered by annual maintenance. ERI pays MIS a hosting fee for hosting this software and it would be anticipated that the cost of the MIS resource to allow access to perform this upgrade will be met by this fee.

2.2 Justification
The project should be able to justify itself on one or more of the criteria as this justification will be used in the prioritisation process. Please put statement or N/A against the following criteria: University Goals And Operational Priorities Excellence in knowledge transfer and commercialisation Quality services Details of these goals and operation priorities can be found in the UoE strategic plan. ERI requires quality systems to support its key business of knowledge transfer and commercialisation. ERI requires modern and efficient systems to provide a quality service to its internal and external customers.

Page 4 of 6

Initiate: Project Proposal

Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

PROJECT BENEFITS and COSTS

This section details the estimated benefits and costs over a 5-year period on the basis of the information currently available and. Section 3.1 should be completed where benefits are expected. Section 3.2 must be completed where additional Funding and/or Resources is required. Section 3.3 is the imbedded detailed costing worksheet which must be completed in collaboration with MIS.

3.1 Five Year Benefits

It is not mandatory to show benefits for projects in the following categories: Essential External Essential Internal Funded, However if the benefits are known or easily calculated they should be included. Please provide some background information on the reasoning and method used to arrive at the benefit figures e.g. where a time saving has been identified as a benefit, please identify how the amount was calculated, providing details of any assumptions made regarding numbers of staff impacted etc.
Tangible Benefits Benefit Assumptions

Those benefits where there is no associated financial saving are considered to be intangible, e.g. increased access to the user community. Please provide details of any intangible benefits and associated assumptions expected for this project.
Intangible Benefits Benefit Increased efficiencies in working by ERI finance staff Better quality management information including cross database reporting Better user experience Assumptions

3.2 Other Funding and Staff Resources to be secured

ERI resources secured

Page 5 of 6

Initiate: Project Proposal

Upgrade of ERI SUN Accounting System

3.3 Detailed Benefits and Costs Worksheet

5 Y Sum ary2 ear m IT Serv ices B enefits Costs 3,725 1,150 Cost/Benefit R atio B NE E FITS IT Services S upport Groups C olleg es T otal COSTS IT Serv ices M Total IS MIS BSG MIS DS - Dev G MIS DS - TS G MIS DS - S G S MIS CSG EUCS Ex ternal Consultancy Hardware S oftware Supp G ort roups Colleges Y 1 : Detailed Resource ear Estim by Stag (in DAY ) ate e S 5 8 3 5 Y 1 ear Cost 1,725 575 1,150 Days Y 2 ear Cost Days Y 3 ear Cost Days Y 4 ear Cost Days Y 5 ear Cost Y 1 ear Y 2 ear Y 3 ear Y 4 ear Y 5 ear Total 4,875 Sup ort p G roup s Colleges T otal MIS day rate Ex ternal day rate EUCS day rate Business Area day rate 230 1,000 230 230

2,000

1,150

IT Serv ices MIS BS G MIS DS G (Dev) MIS DS G (TS) MIS DS G (SS ) MIS CS G EUCS Ex ternal C onsult.

Sup ort G p roup s Business Partner Other

Colleges All

Planning 1 B usiness Analysis 1 S ystemAnalysis &Desig n B uild / Config ure Integ ration Acceptance Deploym ent B enefits Review 0.5 T otal R esource 2.5 Area below here can be used for any detailed benefits costings

2 1 0.5 1 0.5 5

Page 6 of 6