FC 107/19 |
Hundred and Seventh Session |
Rome, May 2004 |
Progress Report on Administrative Information Systems |
1. This report provides information to the Finance Committee on progress made with the Administrative Information Systems (previously titled Oracle Project) between February 2003 and January 2004, and plans for the period February 2004 – January 2005.
2. During the period from February 2003 to January 2004 the main focus of work was on further strengthening the financial applications following the successful upgrade of Oracle Financials during the previous reporting period.
3. As recommended by the External Auditor, work progressed on the review and revision of existing materials and the preparation of further documentation necessary to constitute a comprehensive corporate accounting manual. A new intranet site was implemented and is now being used to communicate authoritative policy and procedural documentation to user groups.
4. Further improvements were made in the interface monitoring environment comprising the documentation of existing interfaces and development of reports to provide positive assurance on the correct functioning of interfaces between Oracle Financials systems modules, and also between the Oracle Financials systems and other financials systems.
5. The adoption of a split currency system of assessment required the development of new reports to support corporate and budget holder requirements for the monitoring of Regular Programme resources. Work commenced in this area and will be completed in 2004.
6. An exercise to verify and improve the quality of vendor and banking information was initiated. This will facilitate the streamlining of Accounts Payable business processes and result in lower bank charges and more efficient payment processing. This work will continue in 2004.
7. Changes were made to the Atlas travel system and procedures to simplify the processing and certification of lumpsum entitlement payments.
8. The implementation of a new data set in the Data Warehouse of information sourced from the Accounts Receivable financial sub-ledger was completed. This will enable the development of management reports and financial analysis of Member Nation contributions.
9. The development of a new reporting environment for fixed assets data and development of new reports to improve management reporting in this area were completed.
10. In accordance with the decision approved by the Information Management & Technology Committee (IMTC) and the Director General, the migration of the OS390 server ("mainframe computer") to The United Nations International Computing Centre(ICC) in Geneva was completed.
11. The work plan for the period February 2004 – January 2005 will focus on the following:
12. The cost of work undertaken in relation to Oracle Financials is being funded wholly from arrears:
Actual |
Forecast | |||
Year |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
Total |
RP Allotment |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
Arrears Allotment |
$216K |
$1 557K |
$1 579K |
$3 352K |
13. In line with the practice of applications upgrade followed by the Oracle Corporation and other package software providers, FAO requires to upgrade existing applications on a periodic basis (every few years). Such upgrades involve significant costs (the most recent upgrade in August 2002 was solely technical in nature with no functional improvements yet cost approximately US$2 million) and in view of the recurring nature of such exercises, upgrade costs should be foreseen as part of the regular budget of the Organization, possibly as part of the Capital Expenditure Facility.
14. The Organization’s Programme of Work and Budget (PWB) 2004-05 was successfully prepared using PIRES capabilities. This included linkages with Field Programme Management Information System (FPMIS) for the collection of extra-budgetary information.
15. Considerable analytical, consultative and development work was completed in 2003 for modules of the Departmental Programme Managers’ Toolkit (DPMT), but no systems capabilities were released. The solution for Annual Assessment, a key module of the DPMT, has since been combined with the development of the new Programme Implementation Report (PIR), and the prototype has been developed and was well-received.
16. The pilot project to investigate work measurement approaches based on an enhanced Work Measurement Survey (eWMS) was completed and submitted to the Field Programme Committee through the Working Group on the Participation of the Technical Departments in the Field Programme.
17. Collaboration with AFH on integration issues between planning systems and HR systems continued. Functionality to support the collection of data and review of post actions proposals was developed as part of the PWB module, based on AFH specifications.
18. Provisional 2004 allotments were calculated and released in December 2003 using a new PIRES module that provides details of the allotment calculation for reporting and analysis.
19. Integration of PIRES data with the corporate data warehouse started, beginning with the loading (through the Oracle General Ledger) of institutional and working allotment data
20. The PIRES Project Team prepared a proposed work plan for 2004 which was reviewed and endorsed by the PIRES Inter Departmental Working Group (IDWG) in November 2003.
21. The resources available to the project were significantly expanded in June 2003 with an allocation from the arrears. In its submission for this allocation, PBE provided a broad updating of the proposed project outputs and work plan provided in the Project Charter. The revised outputs represent a new performance baseline for the PIRES Project.
22. Within this framework, the following outputs will be completed during 2004:
23. The resources from the arrears have permitted the PIRES Project to stabilize its integrated team structure for 2004-05. The utilization of the arrears and RP resources is foreseen as follows:
Actual |
Forecast | |||
Year |
2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
Total |
RP Allotment |
$ 588K |
$ 444K |
$ 444K |
$ 1 476K |
Arrears Allotment |
$ 96K |
$ 366K |
$ 360K |
$ 822K |
24. An important lesson being learned is that those aspects of PIRES, which have been most easily and successfully developed and implemented, are those which did not require major integration with other systems. Future work on modules, which by their nature rely on integration between systems (e.g. the Corporate Budget Monitoring and Forecasting, the DPMT, RP/FP Interactions, the PIRES/Oracle HRMS interfaces), will need to put more weight on the organizational structures in place to manage corporate systems development.
25. During the period from February 2003 to January 2004 the HRMS project staffing issues highlighted in the previous report were successfully addressed by the implementation of a new staffing policy for the project. Project posts were established in April 2003 and filled from September 2003 onwards.
26. The recruitment process, although fast compared to the organization average, has introduced a six-month delay in the project timetable, and therefore progress has been slower than anticipated in the last report. The new target date for implementation is end of 2006.
27. The project is built around three phases:
28. Phase I is still in progress and is planned to be completed in the second half of 2004. The documentation of current Human Resource processes has been completed for the following areas:
and is almost complete for Payroll.
And work has started for
- HR planning
- Policies and Procedures
29. A contract has been signed for high level external assistance to support the identification of areas for streamlining current HR processes and procedures.
30. The HRMS system scope will be defined in detail following the Gap Analysis. At this point the degree of fit of the Oracle software to the updated FAO requirements will be ascertained and solutions for the resolution of functional gaps identified.
31. The documentation of the current processes and the identification of process improvements are planned to be completed by the end of 2004. The gap analysis will start in the last quarter of the year.
32. Recruitment to project posts will be completed no later than the third quarter of 2004.
33. As prescribed by the PRINCE2 methodology adopted for the project a contract for Quality Assurance services will be issued and the first of a series of regular quality review reports will be produced by the external contractor towards the end of 2004.
34. A User Communication plan has been prepared and a User Group established. The plan includes periodic meetings of the User Group, with involvement of its members in key project activities, participation in Business Improvements workshops and formulation of recommendations for change, regular project bulletins, videoconferences with Regional Offices, regular contacts with other field offices, a project website, participation of the users in the Conference Room Pilot and in the user acceptance activities.
35. The cost of the project in the biennium 2002-2003 was US$1 443 000 of which US$286 000 was funded from arrears. While a definitive estimate will not be available until completion of Phase I and, in particualr, the Gap Analysis, a new project cost estimate has been prepared totalling US$19 000 000 to cover the remainder of the project (2004-06). This represents a reduction of about US$1 700 000 compared to the previous estimate, contained in the progress report FC 102/27.
36. The breakdown of the available resources is as follows:
Actual |
Estimate |
||||
Year |
2002-2003 |
2004 |
2005 |
2006 |
Total |
RP Allotment |
$ 1 157K |
- |
- |
- |
$ 1 157K |
Arrears Allotment |
$ 286K |
$ 4 689K |
$ 9 004K |
- |
$ 13 979K |
The current forecast spend for the project in 2005 is US$8 200 000, while the estimate shows US$9 004 000 available to commit before the end of the biennium under the conditions of Conference Resolution 6/2001. This would leave a balance of US$800 000 on the arrears allotment for the HRMS project.
37. According to the Conference resolution 6/2001 it was planned that the project would be funded from arrears. Due to the reduced level of arrears available to the project and based on the new project cost estimate there is a potential shortfall of approximately US$6 100 000. The project is an essential element of the FAO Human Resources Management Reform, for which the Finance and Programme committees have recommended adequate funding is made available, as also noted by the Council in November 2003. It will therefore be necessary to identify alternative sources of funds for the project once the definitive costs estimates can be made available.
38. Options for further cost reduction have been identified and will be analysed in detail following the Gap Analysis to quantify cost savings. Primary options currently being considered are training-of-trainers and execution of some of the system development tasks from a lower cost geographic location.
39. Due to the delays in the project it will not be possible to fully deliver the arrears funded portion of the project by the end of the 2004-2005 biennium. A mechanism to carry over the unspent balance into 2006 therefore needs to be devised.