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CSHL is in the process of selecting a new ERP system (moving from ancient Lawson system), with Workday and Oracle currently in contention. I'm looking for input from a core business/operations manager, core director or anyone else who has recent experience with either of these systems they would be willing to share - good and bad. A lot of our current information/perspective is from finance and HR, so I'm hoping to add voices from the research-user side of things so all of our hopes and dreams come true (or at least things are improved a little bit, particularly for budget management/reporting and procurement).

Thanks!

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Sydney Gary
Director Research Operations
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Cold Spring Harbor NY
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Dear Sydney, 

As a core director / supervisor, I like Workday ... but my baseline was pretty low with our previous system ;)  Happy to discuss via phone / video call.

My brother in-law retired from Workday (he went on site and implemented the system) and worked for another provider.  I am pretty sure he would very open to sharing his opinions, but I can share that in his humble and informed opinion, Workday is a great solution.  I trust him because I know him, but I hope that since he is retired and there is no COI, would you value his opinion too.

Frances

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center

weisgarf@mskcc.org

646-888-2354 (office)

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Frances Weis-Garcia
Director, Antibody and Bioresource Core Facility
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center - Zuckerman Research Center
New York NY
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We also just did the Lawson -> Workday transition here at VAI; we've been using workday for about 4 months. As a core director, here's what I like/dislike so far.  Likes: pulling reporting info is easier at a Core level - reports out of Lawson never worked for me.  Team management and tracking vacations/team absences is much easier. Dislikes: Procurement!  Despite a lot of work from our great procurement team there are some real sticking points: 1) approval levels are absurdly low and you have to go through ALL of them - we regularly make 100K+ purchases, and instead of just sending them to our finance director immediately, they now have to go through 2 more levels of approvals, slowing down ordering times.  2) My team cannot see what someone else has bought, so orders are occasionally duplicated. 3) the process of putting in an order can be quite slow, and we often have to figure out non-descriptive error messages in order to submit properly.

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Marie Adams
Genomics Core Director
Van Andel Institute
Grand Rapids MI
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My institution transitioned from Lawson to Oracle about 6 months ago. It has been an extremely difficult transition. My perspective, as a general employee who interacts with procurement, travel, and HR/time-card workflows: everything has at least double the number of steps to complete in Oracle that it did in Lawson. There is zero efficiency improvement, just a lot more effort for everyone. As a core manager who used to get helpful monthly finance reports detailing expenses and revenue for my facility: those disappeared and haven't returned yet. I haven't gotten a clear answer as to why they disappeared, or if/when they may return. 

Change is inevitable. Some changes are easier than others. Something as complicated and far-reaching as this will never be easy. Maybe someone in some department got a significant workflow improvement out of this switch. If so, I haven't found that person yet. So far, everyone I ask (Core Operations Managers, Research Administrators and Managers, and regular employees) shares my perspective.

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Laura Lewis-Tuffin
Cellular Imaging and Flow Cytometry Specialist
Mayo Clinic Florida
Jacksonville FL
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