• Oracle today announced that Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), a private art college in Baltimore, has upgraded to Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0.
• MICA completed its upgrade of PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management, Campus Solutions, Contributor Relations and Enterprise Portal on time and on budget. Continuing with its strategy to standardize on an integrated suite of applications, the college currently is upgrading to PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management 9.0.
• Founded in 1826, MICA is the oldest fully accredited, degree-granting college of art in the country. A PeopleSoft Enterprise customer since 1999, the college initially deployed the applications to automate manual administrative tasks. Since its initial implementation, the college has nearly doubled in size and today has more than 1,800 undergraduate and graduate students and nearly 918 faculty and staff members.
• To support its growth and gain further benefit from automating core administrative processes, MICA evaluated multiple enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor solutions in 2007. The college chose to re-commit and upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 because the solution offered the scalability and functionality necessary to support the institution's rapid growth without increasing costs or IT staff, and because Oracle had deep expertise and experience working with higher education institutions.
• MICA is utilizing functionality within PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 Human Capital Management applications for HR Administration, Payroll and Base Benefits; additionally, the college has also deployed PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.0 Campus Solutions for Academic Advisement, Student Records, Student Financials, Financial Aid, Recruiting and Admissions, Contributor Relations and Campus Community.
• The college also leverages PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal to deliver the applications in an integrated, self-service environment to faculty, staff and students. The portal upgrade has improved the user experience for the majority of MICA's students and faculty that work on Mac computers and Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari Web browsers.
• Since upgrading, MICA can now offer online bill/tuition payment, course registration, academic advisement, pay advices, grading and class rosters.
• With the upgrade, MICA scaled its systems overnight without experiencing a disruption in operations. For example, the student system grew to support more than 2,500 users from just 58.
• MICA faculty, staff and students have offered positive feedback, and have adopted the new applications with little or no training. Users appreciate the portal's simplified interface and the ability to complete tasks such as payroll deductions, records maintenance, tuition payment, course registration and academic advisement directly in a self-service environment.

ROI: Cost Reductions and Improved Strategic Focus

• Since implementing PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0, MICA has reduced operational costs and enabled staff and faculty to focus on strategic and institutional priorities by eliminating many paper-based systems and streamlining many processes.
• The registration process was completed faster this year, enabling better decision making on fall 2008 admissions. Prior to implementing online registration, processing took 3 staff members 20 business days per year. Today, only 5 days are spent monitoring student access to self service registration.
• Since implementing online payments, payment plans, and account view, MICA's student accounts office has reduced paper flow by one-third and improved overall customer service.
• Implementing online pay advices has saved 8 hours of staff time during each per pay period - adding up to nearly 200 hours saved per year - and enabled significant postage savings.

Supporting Quotes

• "MICA was fortunate to have the three things that make a successful ERP implementation - a good system, good people using it and executives who support it. Our upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 was one of the smoothest upgrades I have been involved with, and we were able to deliver systems ahead of time and on-budget. Today, our PeopleSoft systems are embraced by users, and we believe we have only begun to realize the cost and efficiency gains," said Ted Simpson, director of administrative systems for MICA.
• "MICA's upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 demonstrates the value and scalability of the PeopleSoft solution for growing organizations of all sizes. Oracle's commitment to evolving and extending the value of our customers' current investments as part of our Applications Unlimited program, while providing best-in-class solutions and unsurpassed expertise, confirms Oracle's position as an industry leader," said Doris Wong, Oracle's vice president and general manager of PeopleSoft Enterprise.

Product Functionality

• PeopleSoft Enterprise Release 9.0 is standardized on the Oracle(r) Fusion Middleware platform, including Oracle XML Publisher, enabling customers to lower implementation costs, simplify upgrades and reduce the complexity of maintaining integration points with next-generation technology.
• Developed through collaboration with customers, PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM Release 9.0 enables organizations to deploy enterprise-wide talent management strategies and configurable business processes to increase efficiency and operating performance.
• Oracle's PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Release 9.0 is a feature-rich student information and alumni donor management system. An adaptable solution, the application serves all sizes and types of institutions including small, private universities, community colleges, research institutions and large, public, multi-campus systems.
• Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management 9.0 features enhancements to core financial accounting, asset lifecycle management and enterprise service automation applications. Additionally, it includes new features in PeopleSoft Enterprise Internal Controls Enforcer, a key product designed to enable users to automate and enforce internal controls required under Section 404 of Sarbanes-Oxley.
• Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal is a world class portal solution with many robust content and collaborative features. It is ideal for customers wishing to deploy a virtually unlimited number of communities for their enterprise and provides unsurpassed integration into PeopleSoft's Enterprise applications.

Supporting Resources

About Maryland Institute College of Art
MICA's undergraduate and graduate programs have consistently been ranked among the nation's top programs in visual arts and design. Founded in 1826, MICA is the oldest fully accredited, degree-granting college of art in the country.