System Upgrade

The existing finance system Agresso is being upgraded as part of a sectoral project managed by Educamapus, that procure and implement some of the Institutes' key systems.  The project commenced last December and User Acceptance Testing commenced in march and has been ongoing, thanks to the hard work and dedication of the staff in the Finance Office to keep the project on track as well as setting up for remote working.

We are now approaching the go-live stage of the implementation, however this will result in two weeks of downtime, when we will not have access to the finance system for transaction processing.  No purchase order can be raised or no invoices processed during this period.  An email notifying all staff was sent on 1st May 2020.

Key Dates

• 11th May  - Last date for receipt of approved invoices to be included in last payment run 
• 12th May -  Last date for receipt of requisitions to have an order processed before shutdown
• 13th May - Last payment run
• 15th May - System down from pre-upgrade reporting checks (PM)
• 18th May - Upgrade process
• 2nd June -  System down for post upgrade reporting checks (AM)
• 2nd June - Go Live on Version 7.5 - system available

Agresso Name Change

Whilst we all refer to our finance system as Agresso, it's name was changed some years ago and it is now known as Unit4, Business World.  This is the name you will see when you logon to the system in future.

Technical Details (for those interested !)

The upgrade will bring us from our current version 5.5, which is now nearly 10 years old to the latest version 7.5.  This involves significant technical work, firstly to convert from an Oracle to Microsoft database server and then to move from our current hosted installation with DXC in Dublin to a Private Cloud on Microsoft Azure. After that the software will need to be updated an configured.  The main improvements are in the web version of the product, which offers more functionality and is easier to use and importantly for invoice approvers, will no longer require VPN access for off-campus access.  

Future Plans

Following the upgrade (Phase 1), we will be looking at implementing some new functionality over a number of phases.  Some of this will be linked to our proposed merger with IT Tralee.  These include using the workflow to bring more of our forms online and automate the approval workflows, implementing web requisitioning to remove the need for paper requisitions and making a phone app available for approvals.  There will also be a much improved reporting function, but this will take some time to configure correctly. The timing of this new functionality has yet to be agreed.