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About HRMS

Project Overview

Motivated by the realization that the University's 20 year old computer-based central accounting systems contain many limitations and inefficiencies, in June of 1991 the University embarked on a formal review of these systems. One of the major conclusions to come out of the review was that the University should replace the current software in four major areas, including the human resources and payroll related information systems.

Towards this end -- following an extensive vendor review -- the University entered into an agreement with Oracle Corporation in the fall of 1994 to partner in the development of Canadian Human Resources and Payroll applications. Following completion of the analysis phase in May 1996, the University was advised by Oracle that the original estimates for the delivery of a Canadian product had undergone a significant prolongation. This would delay final implementation from January 1997 to January 1999.

Over the summer of 1996, the University reviewed its options and determined that it could not delay or postpone addressing these critical areas for a minimum of another two years.

As a result, in September, 1996 the University ended the HR/Payroll partnership with Oracle, and entered into an agreement with PeopleSoft Canada to acquire and implement the PeopleSoft Human Resources application. PeopleSoft is a leading supplier of client/server business applications with a major focus in the areas of Human Resources and Payroll. They already have many implementations of their HR products in higher education institutions in the U.S. and Canada.

In November 1998, the University went live with the PeopleSoft HRMS application, implementing human resources and payroll functionality. When the system went live, the primary functionality focus for the system was payroll. To that end, many interfaces were also developed and they include: plant operations, alumni, general ledger, UW directory, graduate student earnings, potential instructors, direct deposit and pension. Some bolt-on functionality was also built, including: staff salary increases, bank reconciliation, positive pay, and budgets & encumbrances. Within the PeopleSoft delivered system, generally, HR uses position management, employment tracking (from hire to retire), payroll and year-end functionality. Reporting is achieved through the regular development cycle, as well as the use of the Cognos Impromptu tool.

To keep the system "current", we have upgraded from version 6.01, to 6.02, to 7.51, to 8 SP1, to 8.9. The Oracle database has also been upgraded from as early as version 7 to the current version of 10g. The machines have gone through multiple upgrades of both memory and disk. The Team's mandate is to keep the application current with all tax updates, and (as of 2009) all bundles.

As part of a two year review, the Human Resources project had identified the following issues:

  • The upgrade, tax update and bundle schedule is extremely difficult to sustain.
  • The project team has difficulty finding resources (both human and monetary) to implement additional delivered functionality in HRMS. Since this review, we are dedicating resources and time to implementing some limited Enterprise Learning Management (the Safety Office implementation was Fall 2008, while other areas on campus have been implementing throughout 2009), and Recruitment (2009)
  • Implemented payroll functionality can be labour intensive.
  • Reporting using Cognos Impromptu can be difficult and labour intensive. The Project Team is in the process of building a new datamart to improve this situation (2008-2010).
  • version 9.1 will be released in late 2009. Fall 2010 to Fall 2011 is seen as the best window of opportunity for the upgrade