On April 8, 2014, the Board approved a contract with Infor Public Sector for the acquisition and installation of a new human resources and financial information system in the County. On June 9, 2015, staff reported to the Board on the project’s status after the first-year. On April 9, 2016, staff provided a second status report on the progress of the project. On September 13, 2016, the Board approved a contract with Kinsey & Kinsey, Inc. (Kinsey) for professional services, including system reviews of the County’s Infor implementations. On December 16, 2016, staff provided a status update including an initial review of the findings and recommendations from system reviews conducted by Kinsey & Kinsey Inc. At that meeting, staff was directed to return to provide a fuller review of the findings and recommendations and an update regarding the implementation costs of the Infor system.
Current Status
The Kinsey consultants completed the system reviews before the start of the calendar year and staff has been working alongside the consultants since to make the recommended changes. The work has progressed very well, with just over 30% of the recommendations completed. Two very big wins for the County are the completion of Affordable Care Act (ACA) reporting and Payroll processing. Last year, the County completed ACA reporting outside of the Infor System. This year, with the assistance of the Kinsey HR/Payroll consultant, the County produced the necessary data and reports within the system. Regarding Payroll processing, the County has achieved error-free payroll processes since mid-March. These two examples reflect the cleaning up of the system and the increase in staff knowledge of how the system operates and how to operate the system. As the improvement plan advances, additional successes are fully expected.
An additional high note is the release of the public sector version of the Budget Module (Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management—d/EPM). With this release, the County has moved into the early stages of implementation. Given that the County is currently in its fiscal year 2017-18 budget process, the planned go-live is set for January with the goal of completing the 2018-19 budget in the new module.
Improvement/Recommendation Analysis
Kinsey & Kinsey, Inc. conducted in-depth reviews of the four major systems with the County’s Infor implementation (Finance, Procurement, Human Resources and Payroll). The reviews included a focus on the design and status of the original implementation, business requirements, reporting needs, security, process flows (workflow/automation) and system functionality. Overall, the reviews resulted in 126 recommendations. The recommendations fall into the following five categories.
- Configuration: These are recommendations related to correcting the general setup of the system, including system settings and the mapping between the various modules of the system. The work associated with this category is, for the most part, simple and straight forward. The configuration issues account for 39% of the overall recommendations.
- Procedural: Suggestions in this category are those related to the manner in which the County is using the system. In other words, policies, procedures and practices related to the operation and maintenance of the system. Procedural decisions account for 27% of the recommendations.
- Structural: This category includes recommendations that call for structural changes to the system implementation. These recommendations are complex and the most challenging to accomplish. Items in this category include modifying the General Ledger hierarchy (accounting units) and redesigning Project Accounting (activities). Structural changes represent 14% of the recommendations.
- Implementation: These items propose that the County begins to use or implement various modules, sub-modules, or functionality not currently in use. These modules enhance the efficiency, ease of use and accuracy of the system. The implementations vary from simple to moderate in complexity and are often coupled with items in the other categories. This category accounts for 11% of the overall recommendations.
- Training: Along with the other recommendations, the reviews point to the need to retrain staff on a correct use of the system, or to train staff on the use of tools and functionality not currently in use. This targeted training accounts for 9% of the recommendations.
The Human Resources and Payroll systems (HR/Payroll) combine to account for 44% of the recommendations (13% and 31% respectively), the majority of which fall into the configuration category. Excellent progress and success is underway in HR/Payroll. The re-accomplishing of settings and mapping have proceeded very well, and staff is already seeing positive outcomes. An example is the previously mentioned error-free payroll processing in which the HR module “talked” with the Payroll module and updated the necessary information accurately as designed. The work to correct these mappings is considered a milestone in the improvement project plan.
The Financial system accounts for 28% of the recommendations. The two largest structural changes occur in the financial area—modification of the General Ledger Hierarchy (accounting units) and redesign of the Project Accounting Ledger (activities). Both of these efforts are under way and are considered improvement plan milestones. The plan has both of these efforts culminating in the launch of the new structures for the start of the fiscal year. Additional recommendations include the redesign of existing workflows (automation) and the design of new workflows to provide better tracking, escalation and efficiency.
The Procurement system accounts for 27% of the recommendations. Within this system the majority of the recommendations are procedural. Regardless, the milestone under Procurement falls in the Implementation category and is the activation of Requisition Center (RQC). RQC is a sub-module that allows for a unified approach to purchasing including requisitions and purchase orders. This effort will follow the start of the fiscal year along with the design of a requisition specific workflow/automation.
Finally, the reviews identified Security as an area for recommended improvement (1%). This recommendation comes in two types. The first is structural and regards data level access or the ability to secure data by County department. This change relies on the previously mentioned modification of the General Ledger Hierarchy. The second type is procedural and involves the review of roles and security classes to ensure proper separation of duties within the system. This work begins in earnest after the start of the fiscal year, once the new accounting unit structure is completed and in place.
Status Updates for non-Implemented Systems
Talent Management (LTM)
Talent Management (employee development) is currently on hold pending the work underway on the larger Human Resources system. Nonetheless, the HR Division has begun a process of planning and research in anticipation of resuming the implementation.
Workforce Management (WFM)
Workforce Management (timekeeping) continues on hold awaiting the ongoing work in both the Financial and Human Resource systems.
Project Budget
The table in Att. A - Infor Commitments & Payments summarizes the cost information to-date. The Infor Project started out in April 2014 with $3.4 million contracted cost approved by the Board. In the ensuing two years, additional work was necessitated and several change orders totaling $1.9 million were processed and approved by the Board on 2/9/16. Since then no change order has been processed, except for minor corrections. Thus far, out of the $5.5 million total spending approved by the Board, the County has incurred cumulative costs of $5.3 million and made $4.9 million in payments on these costs. These cost data are within acceptable range, bearing in mind that our consultant from Government Finance Officers Association had advised us at the outset to expect total system costs in the range $5-$8 million.
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