Frequently Asked Questions

General

As SBU continues to grow and change, current finance, budget, human capital, and business operations needs are also evolving across Divisions, Departments, Schools and Offices. The University is moving forward, and perhaps now more than ever, it has become of critical importance that the systems we use to support our efforts help fuel this momentum, drive enhancements/improvements, and enable our faculty and staff to continue to reach past the norm, past the status quo. Starting now will give our teams ample time to build, test, implement and operate in a new ERP before PeopleSoft sunsets in 2034.
Several ERP systems were evaluated, and Oracle was selected as the vendor that could best meet SB’s needs. Four modules will be implemented:
- Enterprise Data Management (EDM)
- Enterprise Performance Management (EPM)
- Human Capital Management (HCM)
- Finance
1. Access to quality, real-time data: The Oracle system will migrate enterprise data from numerous legacy systems at SB into a single, cloud-based software application and centralized database. Sharing information and data across the institution will move from our current state of discordant hardware and disjointed systems, into an environment where sharing data will be streamlined, consistent, less risky and less reliant on manual integrations and labor-intensive processes. This will enable SB teams to aggregate and analyze information in transparent, holistic and powerful ways, leading to knowledgeable, data-driven decision making.
2. Modern and robust real-time reporting: Existing reporting tools are lacking modern capabilities and are not aligned to support real-time business planning and financial management efforts, creating a complex data reporting environment. Modern, robust reporting capabilities, inherent in Oracle’s ERP will provide standard, automated financial and HR reporting, analytics and oversight tools, along with improved and integrated controls. Individual areas will have the data needed to be empowered to make timely and accurate decisions that positively impact efficiencies and productivity while also supporting financial stewardship, accountability and institutional priorities.
3. Simplified and standardized business processes: Utilizing Oracle will allow for SB’s financial and human capital data to be housed in one, consolidated system. Our teams will spend less time on data gathering, manual integrations and labor-intensive reconciliations which have resulted in inconsistent and overcomplicated business processes. The process of transitioning to a new ERP will also aid in the identification of inefficient, non-standardized processes and organically drive the alignment, or redesign, of SB’s financial and business practices to become more modern and standardized.
4. Better employee experiences: The new ERP will modernize and transform the way HR operates by providing employees with self-service options for many HR functions and transactions that currently take time (and resources) within our HR division. A modern, web-based user interface can be accessed from anywhere, and will allow SBU to shift our HR teammates' focus away from current, labor-intensive processes and into strategic support, recruitment, employee experience and retention of faculty and staff.
5. Empowering faculty: Streamlining HR processes, and automating many of the steps involved in hiring a new member of our faculty or staff, will reduce the amount of time and effort faculty members will need to expend in order to make critical hires for their area, allowing SB to continue to fill our faculty positions with the best candidates in the world.
6. Preparing for the future: Each of the above will allow for SB’s internal teams to shift their focus from burdensome, time-consuming processes over to strategic planning and support efforts for long-term initiatives and goals for the institution. Oracle’s ERP system will rid SB of existing, highly-customized systems and provide a modern, sustainable platform that supports long-term viability and SB’s continued growth and mission to advance academic, research and healthcare in our global community.
We anticipate that this large initiative will pay for itself over time through improved resource allocation that helps to identify how the institution can increase revenue and prioritize expenditures. In addition, many intangible benefits will result from this implementation. Implementations of this nature within a higher education setting often do not directly result in labor savings across the University enterprise, nor do we predict a cost savings to the University in this way, however, it is anticipated that SB will have the ability to redeploy existing labor in order to better support the academic enterprise. Burdensome, time-consuming processes will be reworked to become streamlined and efficient. Staff will be relieved of tedious, labor-intensive procedures allowing their focus to transition into strategy and planning rather than process support. Managers and leaders will benefit from access to aligned enterprise data for enriched human capital management and financial planning needs.

It is also worth noting that the Finance & Administration leadership team is exploring additional funding sources, including the SUNY Capital Fund earmarked for IT investments.
Oracle's ERP has been successfully implemented at numerous institutions that are similar to Stony Brook. In fact, during the initial stages of this project, our senior leaders met with many of these institutions to ask about strategies, successes, areas for improvement, and other valuable insights that we will be working hard to include during Stony Brook's implementaiton. By and large, the biggest insight we learned was the importance of communication and change management to all stakeholders involved in the project. In response, we have instituted the Office of Change Management at Stony Brook, and developed a thorough and far-reaching communications plan, that will work to ensure all stakeholders have the information they need throughout the duration of this multi-year implementation.
Yes and no. Stony Brook University Hospital (SBUH) will be using the Human Capital Management (HCM) module of Oracle for State employees. However, SBUH will be staying with the Lawson system for financial accounting.
The Stony Brook Foundation (SBF) will be on our instance of Oracle (WolfieONE), similar to what we do today for PeopleSoft. Today, SBF utilizes the on-premise PeopleSoft system so they'll be changing to the new system in Oracle.
Yes. While academic student records will remain in PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, when a student becomes an employee of Stony Brook University, a record will be created and maintained in WolfieONE, as the student will be a part of the employee population which is being managed. In this case, two records will exist: the existing Student Record in Campus Solutions and a new record in WolfieONE. Two separate records will be maintained and managed in each system.
SB Reporting will still be available, but it will not be needed for a number of reports. Training will be provided around which reports are available from Oracle and which should be pulled from Oracle.
Today, the budgets to actuals information is completed manually between the accounting team and the budget office, and it takes us about 4 months to complete. The information that's available now (on the BFP&A website) starts at the highest level (enterprise) and then peels back the bits and pieces (to explain the Academic and Research enterprise). We are going to pivot with the new system, as one of the goals is to have auditable financial statements. We'll start from the auditable financial statements and then peel back the management pieces that get to Academic and Research. The information will still be available, but we are going to be changing how we get to that information and it will be presented a little differently.
This is still to be determined, as the answer is largely dependent on where the WolfieONE data is originating from. Data in WolfieONE will be up-to-date, but some boundary systems that WolfieONE pulls data from may have a different cadence for transferring data into WolfieONE (i.e. a nightly data patch), where data may not be real-time. Rest assured that we will note any nuances like these on instructions related to reports in WolfieONE.

Chart of Accounts

The CoA structure will be developed through a review of the current requirements and structure, a review of leading practices in the industry and with Oracle, and a strong collaboration with various stakeholder groups who will have insight and be impacted by changes.
- - Create a systematic integration of all financial data
  - Provide a framework for monthly financial reports
  - Provide full GAAP financial statements
  - Encompass and involve all related entities and stakeholders
  - Provide a shared chart of accounts structure so campus users can continue to see All-Fund reporting
  - Translate the “new” chart of accounts into the SUNY specific reporting format
  - Provide upload capabilities to SUNY
The new CoA structure was developed through a review of the current requirements and structure, a review of leading practices in the industry and with Oracle, and a strong collaboration with various stakeholder groups who provided insights and expertise.

The new Chart structure is comprised of 9 segments (one of which is not currently in use and allows for future growth) and 15 attributes, compared to 8 segments and 59 attributes in PeopleSoft in the current state.

The new structure is more flexible, utilizes each segment for a unique and well defined purpose, and gives us the ability to leverage hierarchies to the fullest extent.

The new CoA segments can be combined to create queries, and facilitate the external financial reporting that is one of our goals for this project, in terms of auditable financial statements, and accrued financial statements.
Anyone who enters or manages transactions across a number of systems that will integrate with WolfieONE (Oracle Fusion Cloud) will be impacted to some degree, as well as anyone who uses reporting tools (financial, budgeting, or HR reports).
We plan to clean up our existing chart prior to going live. In the new chart, we will look to name accounts to be more aligned with our schools.

The new chart will cleanup any PeopleSoft description issues, by aligning them with current naming. If the SUNY Account descriptions remain an issue, we plan to discuss this with SUNY to determine if they will allow for description changes.

Any and all change requests must be initiated in Enterprise Data Management (EDM) and go through the EDM approval workflows. The changes will be made by EDM administrators, with a greater oversight (by the Controller’s office) than in the current state to ensure chart governance principles are being observed.
The inherent Oracle platform (cloud system) that Stony Brook is implementing is tracking those effective dates around the CoA comparable to the effective dates in our current chart of accounts already.

If we are interested in the effective dates of when values can start being used, Oracle takes care of that inherently within the system. For transactions posted, the budget year segment will come into play if carryover funds are utilized, as part of the process in determining when those funds are used.
This will be a fund source (this pertains to PATEO codes for grant-funded activity and we will crosswalk those to the new funding source segment). A new PATEO org segment/field in WolfieONE will align with RF departments. RF expenses and liabilities will flow from EBS to WolfieONE.
It's important to note that today, Stony Brook does not create our own set of financial statements. We rely on consolidated financial statements from SUNY. One of our project goals is to begin using our own system, and make WolfieONE the system of record to the greatest extent possible.

In the example given, payroll is a challenge, as we do not process our own payroll. However, we are exploring all avenues for our future state, and how we might be able to create our own data sets. Doing so would free us from having to rely on 'after-the-fact' reports, SUNY BI connections, or delays that we currently experience.

WolfieONE will become the system of record for RF and State employee data. Other employee populations may have access to WolfieONE, but will continue to use their boundary systems for some processes, and as such, should leverage certain reports from those systems, or the future state data warehouse (FDI), which is also a part of WolfieONE, rather than from the General Ledger (ERP) or HCM. Training will be provided closer to go-live on the data source for specific types of financial, HR and budget transactions.
No. In the new chart, we will be utilizing a hierarchy where assets and liabilities will roll up into a summary hierarchy.

This is different from fund type in that oftentimes users will have a single source of funds that could have both a restricted and unrestricted portion (they conflict with one another, if you're attempting to put them into one segment with one value). By having two separate segments, users will be able to simply have restricted or unrestricted as the fund type and designate one source as the fund source for the account. This predicament will be eliminated.

The account segment will tell the end user (and the system) whether the transaction is an expense, revenue, liability, etc.
The RF numbers and Report Center are not going away. SBF will be on Oracle. Processes, mapping, and build out may cause some of those account numbers to experience change as we work through the Chart of Accounts, but the RF components will not be changing.

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