LAKE SunSystems Newsletter

Welcome to the September edition of the newsletter for LAKE Customers.

Do you have a plan for what to do when disaster strikes? Is the plan up-to-date? Has the plan been tested? These are just some of the issues considered in this month's service focus on Contingency Planning.

This month's news item features an extract from a Proactis Spend Control case study for a leading not-for-profit education consultancy and service organisation:
CfBT Education Trust.

Best regards

Adrian Howard
General Manager
0113 273 7788

LAKE NEWS

CfBT Education Trust

• Proactis Spend Control
• SunSystems Financials
• SunSystems Vision

CfBT Education Trust is a leading education consultancy and service organisation. Established 40 years ago, CfBT Education Trust now has an annual income exceeding 100 million and employs more than 2,500 staff worldwide who support educational reform, teach, advise, research and train.

Key Requirements:

• A single e-procurement system across the organisation to track the full procurement lifecycle
• 
  
• To introduce rigour in the purchasing process
• 
  
• To enable the reporting of commitments, accruals and actuals
• 
  
• To reduce delays to processing and settlement of invoices
• 
  
• To implement a system that is proven and reliably integrated with SunSystems
• 
  

Proactis - the ideal solution to work alongside SunSystems

"Proactis was the ideal solution due to its interface with SunSystems. From the outset, it appeared user friendly and incorporated all of the required functionality, such as the automatic generation of commitments, and self-service reporting and dashboard functionality."

"LAKE's demonstrable experience as an implementation partner was key in our decision as to which supplier to go with."

CLICK HERE to download this news items (pdf format)

FOCUS ON SERVICE

Contingency Planning

In the picture to the right, Dilbert is your IT Manager. He has a magic wand. That's lucky! All you have to do is cry for help and he waves the wand, utters a few commands and order is restored... If only!

This short discussion does not promise to be a prescriptive analysis. It is, however, an illustration of the issues involved in planning for those unexpected events that, unfortunately, do occur from time to time.

If you would like to discuss the issues raised in this article, please contact your Account Manager.

Adrian:
What do we mean by Contingency Planning in the context of SunSystems or Proactis?

Ruth:
"It needs to be recognised that there are different levels of severity. The planning process involves working through different scenarios, working out the appropriate action, and then communicating to everyone involved their responsibilities...

.. Some scenarios are the result of human error - someone moves a work folder, for example. A scenario of this kind requires a different level of response to the case where a server disk is full or a server has failed."

Adrian:
Who should have responsibility for agreeing a plan of this nature?

Ruth:
"A common mistake is to regard this as an IT issue. Ultimately it's the Finance and Procurement systems that may be down and therefore it's the responsibility of the Finance management to ensure there is a plan."

Adrian:
Are there some principles that would be generally applicable to all kinds of organisation?

Ruth:
"Yes, there are. And first amongst them would be to have a plan!...

.. the plan needs to be resourced. As part of the planning process, it is important to decide who has both the skills and knowledge to, for instance, restore yesterday's transactions. And having decided that, it is necessary to make sure that people are aware of their role and responsibility in that regard...

.. there should be procedures for dealing with incidents. For example, there should be procedures that enable you to check that you have accurately returned to exactly the position you were in at 5:30pm the previous day...

.. the plan should also be tested, not only when first established but also on a scheduled basis. And that means testing different scenarios...

.. the plan needs to be kept up-to-date, because people move on and circumstances change...

.. and it is important to determine realistic timescales for, say, restoring a system with yesterday's data."

Adrian:
Why is it so important to have a plan?

Ruth:
"The time to formulate your plan is not when you are in the middle of a crisis. It leads to frustration when problems occur and can result in costly mistakes being made. By planning ahead you can save time and money as well as your blood pressure!"

Adrian:
How can LAKE be of assistance?

Ruth:
"As previously, it is important that all interested parties are involved in the planning process. That way there can be no doubts or misunderstanding about responsibilities...

.. LAKE has an important role in planning and testing. We have the experience that will help you identify holes in the plan and we have the detailed knowledge of SunSystems and Proactis to, for instance, help you determine what needs to be saved and restored for given circumstances."

SUNSYSTEMS & PROACTIS TRAINING

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