Orange County Convention Center

Orlando, Florida | June 3-5, 2014

Implementing ESS/MSS Travel and Expenses with

ACH reimbursements at Orange County Public
Schools (OCPS)
Jermaine B. Patterson & Mark Ninah

OUR SELF-SERVICE JOURNEY

LEARNING POINTS
Direct the Rider: Prepare for the
journey
Motivate the Elephant: Harness the
emotion
Shape the Path: Understand the
environment and adapt
Monitor and improve the process

DIRECT THE RIDER

RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Prepared a solid business case; statutory initiatives were given priority
Initiatives compared by key financial measures
Awareness to delivering and realizing benefits within the same fiscal year

Initiatives
TIF
SSN
Internal Accounts
ESS COA
ESS ACH
ESS W4/Travel Reimbursement
FMIS
ESS Benefits Enrollment
ESS United Campaign
SRM II

Total
Effort Planned
(months) Go Live Investment

Total
Benefits

Pay Back
ROI

(Yrs)

Statutory
8
3
6
5
9.5
8

Jan-12
Jul-12
May-12
Aug-12
Apr-12

$ 772,000
$ 60,000
$ 369,000
$ 350,000
$ 579,000
$ 706,000
$ 1,500,000

$ 4,800,000
$ 222,375
$ 606,000
$ 250,000
$ 136,000
$
22,000
$
80,953

622%
371%
164%
71%
23%
3%
5%

0.80
1.35
3.04
7.00
21.29
160.45
92.65

DIRECT THE RIDER

Established visible executive leadership
Communicated a clear strategy and
destination (e.g. project logo)
Awareness and Education
Site visit to other organizations
Designed and blueprinted in our sandbox
system

Agile development methodology

Functional specs for all FRICE objects were
converted to Agile stories
Managed story point capacity vs. story point
demand
Agile stories completed in two week sprints;
enabled faster testing and confirmation of
system functionality

MOTIVATE THE ELEPHANT

Created a cross-functional
Pilot Team for functional
demos and design reviews
Feedback sessions at all levels
helped to confirm
requirements and drive
consistency, adoption
Soft launched at fiscal
yearend, district wide go-live
at start of school year
Promoted benefits of going
paperless (e.g. quicker, ACH)

KEY OBSERVATIONS/BEST PRACTICES

OCPS

Comparison

Private Industry*

Credit Cards are district

billed/district pay

Credit cards were corporate

billed/individual pay

Low volume card activity

High volume card activity

High in-county vs. low out-ofcounty

Low in-county vs. high out-ofcounty

Automate Fund Manager

approval via work flow without
altering org structure

No Funds Management;
Approvals were by the Manager
or forwarded

Paperless; increase throughput

and value-add

Paperless; increase throughput

and value-add

System automates accounting

entries and enforces business
rules

System automates accounting

entries and enforces business
rules

* Private Industry observations are based on 13 years of private industry experience at Fortune 500 companies.

SHAPE THE PATH

Key Workflow Requirements:

Leave Requests must workflow to the Chief/Manager (A012) of the employee for approval.
Travel Assistants must report directly to the Chief/Manager to receive the workflow for that work location.
District funded travel must workflow to the Budget Owner for approval.
Grant funded travel must workflow to the Fund Manager for approval.

1
Employee/Traveler

Travel Assistant

Travel Department

Approver

Leave Request

Expense
Report
Creation

Leave Approval

Expense
Report

Expense
Report

Expense
Report

Pre-Validation

Validation

Approval

SHAPE THE PATH

Seek to understand then to be understood
Familiarized ourselves with the business function (FIN_TRAVEL_1) in sandbox
Listened and responded very deliberately to drive the change

Leveraged the power of SAP

Organizational hierarchy & configuration drives everything
Trip Schemas -> expense types -> wage types -> symbolic accounts -> G/Ls

Push the system; expect that it can be done and do it!

User Exit: Do not allow expense report to be saved if fund is closed
Cleared/reconciled ACH payments using the BAI file

Automated security by coordinating ECC, Portal, and AD security

Some customization was required
Grant Fund approval requirements (e.g. ZBAR table)
Included Secretary/Bookkeepers (e.g. budget custodians) into the workflow

SHAPE THE PATH

Soft-Launch & Training
Used a self-help, at your fingers training
strategy
Trained process and role changes
Identified and addressed issues that were
not exposed
Established advocates, change-agents
during soft-launch
Organizational Change Management
Crafted effective communications with
end users, team members, and other
stakeholders to drive awareness
Executive Steering Team sponsorship and
leadership helped with adoption

MONITOR AND IMPROVE

FOLLOW US

THANK YOU
THANK YOU FOR PARTICIPATING

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SESSION CODE: 2404
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