Here is how SplashBI helped Oxford University transform its financial reporting systems with collaboration and teamwork.
The University of Oxford is famous for producing groundbreaking research and bringing the world its best scientists, writers, researchers and many more. However, it is no secret that even the most prestigious establishments must keep up with the world’s progress and changes to ensure success. To find out about the university’s digital transformation journey, ERP Today spoke to Monika Klim, reporting manager of financial systems at Oxford.
Klim states that in early 2020, due to increased performance demands from reporting against the Oracle EBS system, the management decided to pursue “a more flexible and modern reporting solution.” She explains that the new product would need to cater to reporting across data sources.
“The university wanted to seamlessly transform its reporting systems into a modern future-proofed, easy-to-use and, most importantly, easy-to-train solution. […] EiS eXpress was implemented in 2013 as part of the move from Discoverer to Oracle 12.1. Considering that SplashBI had EiS Express migration utility, their users would be able to seamlessly move their reports from EiS eXpress to SplashBI – so those are the reasons [for our choice].”
How channeling collaboration can lead to effective results
The project had a three-phase structure: starting in January 2020, it migrated most custom reports from EiS eXpress to Splash Version 4 in June. Then, the remaining reports were migrated during the upgrade to Splash Version 5. The final stage of the project was to remove the Oracle FSGs and replace them with GL Connect reports which went live in April 2021.
Klim emphasizes that it was the collaboration between the university IT team, Unix platform services and SplashBI that helped tackle all challenges. For instance, the project was conducted during one of the most challenging periods in modern history – the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, the situation proved to help accelerate the resolution of defects – with the team adjusting its approach and becoming available for a call as early as 7am or as late as 10pm.
“There was no us and them mentality, we all had one goal in mind and we all worked hard together to achieve it.” Additionally, users received “How to” videos on SplashBI functionality, created by the university’s in-house training team. Having step-by-step instructions helped users find the process easy to understand and follow. Klim adds that the project had “great support” from both the central team and the users from the wider university departments during the UAT phase testing.
Reaping the benefits with SplashBI and looking forward to a bright future
Among the benefits gained, Klim lists system availability, stability and increased performance. She adds that GL Connect is one of the most popular tools among users, as it allows them to create their own reports within Excel to report on the general ledger. At the moment, Oxford has 1500 SplashBI users and approximately 350 GL Connect users and looks to grow these numbers as “the university expands its portfolio.”
Looking ahead, Klim shares that the university is considering expanding additional cross-service reporting with Power BI to provide insight by combining data from different systems. Nevertheless, this is still under investigation to determine the most suitable solution.
One thing is clear: However excellent the type of work you produce is, it has to be sustained by a technological stack that is just as excellent. Deploying SplashBI within its financial reporting system has accelerated the University of Oxford’s journey toward technological
advancement, paving the way for even more ambitious projects and growth in the future.
Additional reporting by Stephanie Ball, Deputy Editor.
