Overview
Background
The University is embarking on a programme of work to procure and implement a SaaS based ERP solution covering Finance & Procurement, HR and Payroll.
This project has been established to do two things:
- Produce an integration blueprint, that documents and specifies all integrations to and from the new SaaS solution.
- Select and implement an integration middleware product set to develop, manage and support these integrations (and future integrations in the University landscape.
The overview details scope, objectives and deliverables for the project as a whole.
This brief is being used to focus on the selection of the middleware product and the remaining work to do in that direction.
There is now a need to verify two candidate integration products to determine which is the best functional and operational fit for the University. There will also be a financial evaluation on the terms of the GCloud purchase.
Scope
The scope of this validation and confirmation exercise is as follows:
- There are two alternative products to evaluate (WSO2 and MuleSoft). The requirements report produced a shortlist of 4 (also including Talend and Oracle) but the omitted products are not available via the GCloud procurement route.
- The proposal is to utilise the free trial period for each to process a set of scenarios using the tool and evaluate each according to a number of factors.
- The scenarios and evaluation factors need to be defined. The scenarios will focus on ERP integration requirements but also include a number of other scenarios identified at a high level during the requirements process.
- The overall evaluation method needs to be defined i.e. how to combine product performance and cost considerations to reach a final recommendation.
Objectives
The objectives of the validation and confirmation exercise are:
- To agree a set of use cases to be used with trial software to validate the functionality and operability of the candidate software. These use cases will represent ERP integration requirements and a selective set of wider integration types, to be agreed by key stakeholders.
- To agree a set of measures by which the validation will be assessed(e.g. usability, flexibility, technical considerations, scheduling etc).
- To process the use cases and document outcomes.
- To evaluate both tools using the agreed measures.
- To produce a combined evaluation of technical and commercial rankings.
- To recommend a toolset.
- To implement the product/service.
Deliverables
Related deliverables will be:
- Documented use cases
- Agreed technical validation measures
- Results
- Commercial assessment
- Combined evaluation
- Recommendation report
- Implementation plan
Benefits
The requirement for the integration middleware is documented in the approved Core System Strategy documents.
The current approaches to interfacing vary markedly and there is a need to adopt common standards, techniques and tools.
SaaS solutions do not allow access to underlying databases and offer a range of utilities and APIs that require coordination and management in their adoption.
It may be possible to utilise aspects of the ERP proposed solutions to deliver these requirements (instead), but there is no guarantee that these products would satisfy wider development needs beyond the ERP scope.
Success Criteria
The main focus of the success criteria is that the use cases and assessment criteria reflect the current and likely future requirements of the University, both for SaaS Core integration and for other areas of the estate.
There are also key limitations. The infrastructure to validate the tools end-end across source and destination systems is not there in many cases, and of course currently we do not have an ERP to utilise. A degree of simulation and stubbing will be necessary.
Project Milestones
(Please copy and paste from Milestones log)