School Board Gets Update on Implementation of New ERP Software

BRADENTON – An update on the Manatee School District’s new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software was presented at Tuesday’s school board meeting by Chief Information Officer Patrick Fletcher, who advised that the project to implement the new PeopleSoft system still has a scheduled completion date sometime in April 2017.

ERP software allows large organizations to manage their businesses through a system of integrated applications for technology, human resources and other office areas. The school board approved the purchasing of PeopleSoft’s ERP software in March, and implementation of the complex software into a complex organization can stretch to over a year.

The original implementation target of April, said Fletcher, was driven out of a business need: "We start hiring in an April time frame and stop hiring in a September time frame."

With the I.T. department working on implementing other software in addition to PeopleSoft, Fletcher told the board that due to competing interests for the department’s finite resources to focus on, he would not have final confirmation of PeopleSoft’s implementation date until likely November, when the department is slated to complete implementation of the district’s FitGap software.

"If by November, we’ll be past FitGap," said Fletcher, he would then be able to give the board final confirmation on whether staff would be able to make the April deadline for Peoplesoft. "This is the date that É makes sense for the organization and this is the date I think we should target," he said, adding that if the due date for going live with Peoplesoft needs to be moved, doing so now would do little good.

"The sooner you move it, the more likely you are to move it multiple times," said Fletcher. "If I want to move it past April, I’ll give (Superintendent Dr. Greene) a reason why ... (but) if I move it, I only wanna move it once."