Background

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a university in possession of vast sums of financial data, must be in want of a budget system.

OU has never truly had a comprehensive, institution-wide budgeting system.  Historically, budgeting was a highly manual process using the data available from multiple PeopleSoft reports, and inputting into Excel or similar formats for compilation and analysis.  Some units adopted ‘shadow’ budget systems, such as QuickBooks, in an effort to optimize reporting and analysis of PeopleSoft budget and expense data.  Such adoptions resulted data discrepancies between central administration and end user departments, reporting inefficiencies, and budgeting difficulties at the institutional level. 

With the goal of overcoming our budgeting challenges, OU researched available budgeting systems, and issued an RFP in April, 2020.  From the vendors who responded, OU chose Workday Adaptive Planning as its software, with Deloitte as implementation partner.  Contracts with the vendors were finalized in July, 2020, with planning and implementation immediately following.  This project is being implemented in conjunction with our PeopleSoft Financials and HCM updates, with an expected go-live date of January, 2021.  During this time, the Budget Office also distributed a survey to 60+ users on campus as part of an effort to better understand how end users on campus budget and learn about areas of improvement.  Results of the survey, which you can view here, were used to inform Adaptive reporting and technical processes.

Adaptive was chosen for its dashboarding capabilities, reporting and forecasting functionality, and ease of use.