Donella Steel Patrick Haston

1. Sharing our Oracle E-Business Suite Donella Steel Patrick Haston

2. Today, we will cover: • Who we are • What we are doing • Why we are doing it • How it’s going • Some lessons • Q & A

3. Health Warning • We’re here to tell you the whole story • The good, the bad and the ugly… • Health Warning - Oracle employees may wish to leave the room!

4. Who we are

5. Who we are – Scottish Natural Heritage • We are a non-departmental public body, advising the Scottish Government. • We look after all aspects of nature and landscapein Scotland – “All of nature for all of Scotland”

6. Our objectives • High quality nature and landscapes that are resilient to change and deliver public value • Nature and landscapes that make Scotland a better place in which to live, work and visit • More people experiencing, enjoying and valuing our nature and landscapes • Nature and landscapes as assets contributing more to the Scottish economy

7. Who we are • Donella Steel – Programme Manager • Previously SNH’s Head of Finance • Patrick Haston – Technical Manager • Previously SNH’s Software Development Manager • SNH is lucky to have a strong EBS support team, backed up by skilled developers and DBAs

8. What we are doing

9. What we are doing • Sharing our instance of the Oracle E-Business Suite • Finance, HR, Payroll, iProcurement, iExpenses • Working in partnership • Single support team • Sharing as much of the configuration as possible • No current plans for sharing functions such as Payroll/Accounts Payable

10. Why we are doing it

11. Why we are doing it • Save money • Improve the service • Future opportunities • For our partners, it’s a relatively quick, low-cost way of getting a great ERP supported by an experienced team

12. How it’s going

13. How it’s going • Changing Partners • Oracle Licensing Challenges • Resourcing the Programme and Projects • Achievements • Next Steps

14. Changing Partners • Since Donella first suggested this several years ago… • We started with Visit Scotland and Historic Scotland • Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise expressed an interest • Historic Scotland stepped back while they completed their merger with RCAHMS • Highlands and Islands Enterprise decided to retain their current applications for the medium future • The Scottish Legal Aid Board had to upgrade their Oracle Finance instance to R12 and decided to merge it with HR • We’ve also talked to several other organisations…

15. Changing Partners • So who are our partners? • Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Legal Aid Board are actively implementing the eBusiness Suite • Visit Scotland are members of the programme board and are looking at options for implementation during 2015 once Homecoming 2014 is complete.

16. Oracle Licensing Challenges • Oracle agreed to us using BPS licences for the partners • The changing partners and their different requirements meant constantly revising the quotes • It seems that every quote needs to be signed off internally in Oracle back in the US. • Scottish Legal Aid Board wanted to move from perpetual to BPO licences, but Oracle insisted that they pay 125% of current costs

17. Resourcing the Programme and Projects • Programme team not set up until the Programme was initiated • Struggled to initiate the Programme without a dedicated team in place • Eventually Programme Manager appointed to initiate the programme • Programme team positions open to partners • Partner project roles have been identified and resources are being allocated to these roles • We have awarded a contract for specialist support and advice

18. Achievements • Programme initiated – November 2013 • A series of webinars to demo Oracle – January and February 2014 • Combined analysis workshops with all partners – March and April 2014 • Requirement specifications issued – May 2014

19. Next steps • Design work due to complete at the end of June • Scottish Legal Aid Board • Build begins in July • User Acceptance Testing begins in September • Parallel Run 1 in October • Parallel Run 2 in November • Go Live in December 2014 • Scottish Enterprise • Build begins in February 2015 • User Acceptance Testing begins in April • Parallel Run 1 in June • Parallel Run 2 in July • Go Live at the end of July 2015

20. Some lessons

21. Some lessons • Be patient • Getting started took absolutely ages – no-one would commit without knowing the costs and timescales, yet without their commitment SNH wouldn’t release people to work on a project that might never happen. You need a senior manager prepared to take a leap of faith. • Believe in yourself • Oracle is one of the best ERPs available. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good product. You have configured it to work well for your organisation. If you can find another organisation similar to yourself, then there’s no reason your configuration won’t work for them too. You can do this.

22. More lessons • Oracle Licensing • Be determined. Keep pushing for the best deal. The bigger the volume of business you can put Oracle’s way (ideally on the same invoice), the better the discount the local sales team can give you. • Staying Legal • In the public sector we have to adhere to some complex EU procurement rules. We got legal advice to make sure that we did everything we could to minimise risk to ourselves and our partners. We ended up publishing a VEAT notice (twice) to announce our intentions so that we would know of any challenges before we started.

23. More lessons • Working in partnership means giving up control • We’re not entering into a customer/supplier relationship. We are setting up a joint steering board to make decisions collectively. This means we won’t be able to do as we please with the system without the approval of our partners. We don’t think this has fully sunk in yet within SNH. • Look for opportunities • We were delighted when the Scottish Legal Aid Board came along because they have been Oracle users for even longer than us. We’ve already learnt a great deal from them and we hope to learn more. We’ve also been open to reviewing our processes where the partners have better ones.

24. More lessons • Senior Management backing • Without the support of our Senior Managers, all the way up to CEO level, this couldn’t happen. We wouldn’t have been able to propose the compromises required to bring the organisations into alignment (technically and business processes). And Donella would not have been released to initiate the programme. • Getting people’s time • Everyone has been very enthusiastic and up for change. But few people have been released from their day job, so scheduling meetings and workshops has been a challenge. With a large project like this you’re going to bump into busy periods like financial year ends, and it’s going to be hard for some key people. There’s no easy answer, so build in a contingency for this.

25. More lessons • Technical alignment • Because we’re all using the same instance, we’re using exactly the same version. Some of the patches we’ve applied are specific to certain versions of Excel, for instance the Web ADI patches. This means that we all need to be on similar version of Excel (Excel 2010 + 64 bit). • Joining networks • We’ve discovered some hidden dependencies on joining our networks. Once SWAN arrives things will be easier, but at the moment every time we join our network with another, the people we’re already connected to need to be consulted. This has taken time we hadn’t planned for.

26. Your Questions

27. Donella Steel donella.steel@snh.gov.uk 01463 725131 Patrick Haston patrick.haston@snh.gov.uk 01463 725103