Texas Woman's University streamlines key processes with Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and HCM

In a decade when US college enrollment has been decreasing—including a sharp decline after the COVID-19 pandemic—Texas Woman's University has kept growing. In 2020, the university reached a record high of 16,441 students enrolled, a 4% increase from the previous year. In 2022, undergraduate applications to the coeducational school increased 36%.

With enrollment growing at its main campus in Denton, Texas, and two health science-focused campuses in Dallas and Houston, TWU found that its software systems couldn’t keep up. It wanted one system that could support financial operations and run payroll for the three separate business centers. As a public university that receives state funding and grants, the school also needed a simpler way to track and report on the expenses of all three campuses together. On TWU’s previous system, remaining compliant and collecting financial data to report to the state was a significant challenge.

The university sought a cloud application that could meet the growing demands of its finance and human resources departments. Scalability, accessibility, and the ability to offer one single source of data for finance and HR were huge priorities. After an evaluation that assessed several software providers, TWU found that Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM best met its criteria. Oracle’s capabilities in reporting, data analytics, and automation made it the top choice for the university to address its scalability and compliance needs. “We involved the heads of HR, the controller's office, procurement, and budget,” says Jason Tomlinson, TWU Chief Finance and Operations Officer. “Across every department Oracle came out on top.”

Oracle Fusion Cloud ERP and HCM simplified reporting for the university by making it easy for the school’s accounting and HR teams to access information across their departments, because it’s all managed using the same data model in one cloud platform. With Oracle Cloud ERP, the school has been able to automate financial processes that were once manual. For example, tracking and accounting for the proper spending of grants that the university receives as a state-funded institution was a lengthy process. With automated billing, TWU saved 29 hours of work per month for that one process.

Oracle Cloud HCM helped the HR department automate hiring workflows. “There were a lot of paper processes and no visibility between departments for this paperwork,” Trevino says. Paper-based processes made it cumbersome to confirm if a new hire was within the school’s budget, as was getting approval for the new hire from the necessary finance and HR team members. Oracle Cloud HCM’s automation allowed anyone who is part of the approval process to access the needed information. With this visibility, the finance and HR departments erased unnecessary steps in the hiring process, increased hiring efficiency, and eliminated the need for hundreds of paper documents that were difficult to track.

After adopting Oracle Cloud HCM for all three campuses, the university moved from monthly paychecks to biweekly payments. “From a recruiting perspective, when you're competing against other employers that pay weekly or biweekly, you're at a disadvantage,” Tomlinson says.

Oracle Consulting assisted Texas Woman’s University with all aspects of the 16-month project, including change management and project management. “Sixteen months is a short timeframe to implement something like this, but they helped guide us through the process,” Trevino says. “It was so clear what the deliverables were and who was responsible for what.” The Oracle Soar program helped TWU move data quickly from its previous environment E-Business Suite (EBS) to Oracle Cloud.