Last updated: September 20, 2004
The PeopleSoft suite of products is many things. The majority of what the University of Missouri has purchased and installed can be categorized as OLTP—online transaction processing—which is essentially record keeping software. These modules—human resources, general ledger, purchasing, accounts receivable, admissions, student administration, etc.—are designed to support specific transactional business processes. The software is designed to accurately and efficiently capture and retain information related to a process like making a purchase, admitting a student, or paying an employee.
To build reporting and decision support capabilities, the University of Missouri initially licensed a PeopleSoft application called EPM—Enterprise Performance Management. EPM is designed to extract data from the transactional systems and make it available in summary form and included modules, which claimed to perform analysis of business processes.
The EPM product failed to meet the University’s expectations—it didn't work—and we made formal claims with PeopleSoft. As part of the settlement PeopleSoft provided us with intellectual property in the form of data models optimized for reporting and analysis along with consulting to construct automated processes that extract data from the PeopleSoft transaction systems and place the data into data structures suitable for reporting.
To access the reporting data structures we have licensed software from a company named Cognos. The Cognos system is designed to support web-based point and click reporting and analysis. The University of Missouri’s initial license for Cognos is for a fairly limited number of users—those involved in the Decision Support Project. UM has an offer to convert to an Enterprise agreement that UM can exercise until February. At the conclusion of the project, University of Missouri will review the project progress and success and determine if the Cognos tools justify the larger investment.
Cost Reductions Report (PDF)