Overview

Scope

Corporate Planner software applications provides a complete solution for all corporate performance management, operational management, integrated financial planning, strategic management and financial consolidation requirements. Corporate Planner is completely modular and can be used to implement components for specific requirements.

For the university, Corporate Planner is specifically used to provide data for MI reports. These reports are required to produce the University's: Full Economic Cost (FEC) i.e. the full cost of research to the University allowing overhead costs to be added on to the Grant bid  and Transparent Application to Costing (TRAC) returns. In addition, the tool is used for budgeting and planning, known internally as the Transparent Model (TM).

Objectives and Deliverables

Priorities are written to MOSCOW rules i.e.  M = Must Have; S = Should Have; C = Could Have; W = Would like.

• M = has to be satisfied for the final solution to be acceptable in terms of delivery dates, compliance, viability etc.
• S = high-priority requirement that should be included if possible -workarounds may be available
• C = a nice-to-have requirement
• W = would like but will not be part of this project

• O = Objective
• D =  Deliverable

Benefits

• The key benefit to progressing with this project is to allow the University to continue to comply with its statutory obligation to provide accurate FEC and TRAC reporting.
• An on-going ability to budget, plan and TM report.
• The project would provide a robust solution which would support Finance meet it statutory requirements during the  build and transition to the replacement new Core System. 
• In moving to the latest software release, one can ensure that as an organisation we are not using a version that is out-of-support.

Out of Scope

• Work to migrate from Corporate Planner to the new  Core system.
• The rebuild of Windows 7 PCs to Windows 10. This will not be undertaken by this project (See dependencies).  

Dependencies and Constraints

• The current version of Corporate Planner is not compatible to Windows 10.  One of eight team members has Windows 10 installed. The remaining seven members presently use Windows 7.

• The Project Manager is to coordinate with a separate project team (Karen Stirling) on the upgrade of users from Windows 7 to Windows 10.
• Corporate Planner will be run in conjunction with Core for an estimated 12 months following Core go-live (see assumptions) to ensure system functionality is in place.

Assumptions

The Core Systems programme timeline has been planned with the following target go-live dates:

Notes:

• There will still need to begin the work for TRAC in Corporate Planner as there is a  risk that the new core system would not fully capable. 
• The Jan 2021 TRAC return would be run in Corporate Planner and Core to ensure that the new core system provides the same result. 

Success Criteria

• Quality - The upgrade has no detrimental impact on use. 
• Cost - The project is delivered within the forecast and approved budget.
• Time - The project delivery meets the reporting obligations for November 2019.

Project Milestones