Lone Star College System Uses Comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning to Enhance Student Services and Handle a 25%-per-Semester Growth Rate
 
 

Lone Star College System Uses Comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning to Enhance Student Services and Handle a 25%-per-Semester Growth Rate

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Lone Star College System is the largest institution of higher education in the Houston area and the second largest in Texas. The institution has approximately 85,000 students across five comprehensive colleges and eight satellite centers. Lone Star spans 11 partnering school districts and offers more than 100 academic and technical degrees and projects.

Lone Star is one of the fastest growing institutions in the nation, increasing its enrollment by approximately 5,000 students per semester. This unprecedented growth rate had significantly strained the institution’s legacy enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which included 25 shadow systems and was not flexible enough to meet the demands of faculty and staff in a timely manner. In addition, the system lacked the visibility necessary for Lone Star administrators to make accurate business and operational decisions.
   
To enhance service delivery to students and improve operational efficiency, Lone Star Oracle installed a comprehensive and integrated ERP system, when the institution named iStar, using Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications—including PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, PeopleSoft Financials, and PeopleSoft Human Resources. With the implementation, Lone Star acquired the capability to provide a robust, flexible, state-of-the-art system to aid students in achieving their academic goals and assist faculty and staff in completing their jobs.

One example is the online class registration process Lone Star established to prevent long registration lines. After launching the online system, a record 66% of students registered for classes through the Web, drastically reducing onsite queuing challenges. Lone Star also enabled faculty and staff to update personal information and credentials, submit timesheets, adjust financial information, and request vacations online. More than 1 million users logged onto iStar the first month after it was implemented.

In addition to student services, the new environment increased reporting capabilities and institutional visibility for administrators by providing key stakeholders with easy access to critical institutional information concerning enrollment figures and projected revenue and expenses. This enabled Lone Star officials to improve operational efficiency and make well-informed decisions regarding hiring new faculty and allocating resources between departments.

Lone Star worked with Oracle Consulting to establish new innovative functionalities in the solution. In consideration to the institution’s abundance of continuing-education students, Lone Star established a range of payment types to cater to a variety of students, including faculty who take classes. The institution also implemented an easy-to-use, online Texas residency application for students to immediately determine their residency status.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Lone Star College System

  • “Oracle provides the solutions we need to handle our rapid enrollment growth. By leveraging PeopleSoft Financials, PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, and PeopleSoft Human Resources, we have improved our operational efficiency, enhanced service delivery to students, and can provide timely and accurate information to key stakeholders.” – Susan Garland, Executive Director, ERP Applications, Office of Technology Services, iStar Project, Lone Star College System

  • Replace a legacy ERP system—including more than 25 shadow systems—with a more comprehensive and integrated system capable of maintaining functionality, as Lone Star’s enrollment increases by 25% per semester
  • Enhance ERP functionality to meet growing user demands, such as enabling online class registration processes to prevent long registration lines and intuitive Web processes for faculty to access class rosters, adjust financial information, and update professional records
  • Increase reporting capabilities and institutional visibility to assist decision-makers in academic planning, institutional research, and departmental resource allocation
  • Establish ERP governance and eliminate the need for users to request customizations
  • Develop an easy-to-use system for Lone Star administrators to manage the student lifecycle—from admissions to graduation—and easily prepare student records when a student graduates and continues his or her education at a four-year institution
  • Create multiple payment options for various types of students, including traditional and continuing-education students

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Installed a robust and flexible ERP system using Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Applications—including PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, PeopleSoft Financials, and PeopleSoft Human Resources—to create an integrated environment that maintains one source of data for the entire institution
  • Established a universitywide IT policies and procedures framework—while still providing some autonomy to individual colleges—to streamline business processes and reduce redundancy
  • Delivered many self-service capabilities for students, including e-mail access using one log-in, bill payment, transcripts access, and interaction with professors, using PeopleSoft Gradebook
  • Developed online class registration processes, which enabled a record 66% of students to register for classes through the Web
  • Aided faculty and staff by enabling online functions, such as updating personal information and credentials, submitting timesheets, adjusting financial information, and requesting time off
  • Enhanced administrative decision-making by providing key stakeholders with easy access to critical institutional information concerning enrollment figures and projected revenue and expenses
  • Reduced the need for paper documents, as many faculty processes—such as viewing class rosters, inputting grades, and communicating with students—can be done completely online
  • Worked with Oracle Consulting to establish an online Texas residency application for students to immediately determine their residency status and requirements
  • Established multiple online payment features to handle the budgetary needs of traditional and continuing education students
  • Separated PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and PeopleSoft Human Resources into two databases to increase flexibility and create one record for each user, including users who span multiple contact types—for example, faculty who are also students at the institution

Why Oracle

Lone Star chose Oracle after working with Gartner on the RFP process. Lone Star found Oracle’s solutions to be integrated, robust, and agile, which are the critical features the institution identified. In addition, Oracle was flexible in agreeing to work with a historically underutilized subcontractor for onsite consulting work. Oracle Consulting worked with Lone Star’s in-house team on new functionality never implemented at an institution before, such as establishing an online Texas residency application for students to easily determine residency status.

Implementation Process

Lone Star began the implementation process in September 2009 and gradually installed its systems at varying times. Lone Star first implemented PeopleSoft Financials in January 2010 and later implemented the other solutions between April and December 2010. The institution implemented PeopleSoft Campus Solutions in four phases between June and December 2010.

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