First-place winner Human resources Derek Martin, Oklahoma State University Student Union

From "mess" to success

Oklahoma State University student union streamlines HR management with Microsoft Office System

Computer support specialist Derek Martin, hired in December 2003 to revamp the Oklahoma State University Student Union's human resources (HR) technology system, could tell right away that the 20-odd applications involved in the process were "a convoluted mess."

Employees submitted requests for time off, changes to their personnel profiles, and other information using paper forms that HR staff members then had to type into spreadsheets and databases. Most documents that required manager review and approval were routed through interoffice mail or hand-carried to recipients.

"The HR reporting process has been a very complex, time-consuming job that involves a lot of redundant work and a lot of manual steps," Martin said. "The amount of paper involved and the chances for error are incredible."

Efficiency and automation mean jobs go faster

Seven months later, as the Student Union began deploying a new system that Martin built on a foundation of Microsoft Office System programs — including Microsoft Office SharePoint® Portal Server 2003, Microsoft Office Access 2003, Microsoft Office Excel 2003, and Microsoft Office InfoPath™ 2003 — the complexity and inefficiency of the old IT framework were already fading into memory. The new InnerView system will not be fully deployed until fall 2004, but Martin and his colleagues already give the technology high marks for being easy to use, automating tasks that used to be done by hand, reducing their reliance on paper forms, and generally making everyone's jobs go faster.

"By using Microsoft Office tools that our employees are already familiar with and adapting them to support our objectives for this new system, we're achieving the results we need with minimal changes in how people perform their jobs," Martin said.

Duplicated work, paper forms abound in previous system

The OSU Student Union houses many departments, programs, and services for university life, from business and conferencing services offices to the bookstore, food court, and other merchants. More than 250 employees' personnel files, payroll records, and other HR records are managed by the system.

The old system's applications, databases, paper forms, and mainframe computer appliances had grown over the years as departmental managers identified new requirements that couldn't be handled with existing tools. Also, because the university is a public institution, much of the HR data must be entered into the Oklahoma state government mainframe computer as well. Few of the technology components were integrated with each other.

"Very little of the work was automated or coordinated, so HR employees were spending most of their time at the end of each pay period transferring information from paper forms into the computer," Martin said.

A single platform to store, share, and use data

Martin wanted to standardize as much of the process as possible on a single technology platform; enable data for different business processes to be stored, shared, and extracted by different applications; automate as many steps in the workflow as possible; and use software tools that were already familiar to employees wherever possible to reduce the amount of training required. He evaluated at least 15 different technology products before settling on Office Professional Edition 2003 and SharePoint Portal Server 2003 as key building blocks for InnerView. The Student Union began testing InnerView with a small group of employees in June 2004.

"Almost all the Microsoft technology components we needed for this system were already installed on the Student Union computer system or available through the university's licensing agreement, which made the project a lot less expensive than if we had purchased a completely new software application," Martin said.

Data centrally managed with Microsoft Office System

InfoPath 2003, which streamlines the process of gathering information through dynamic online forms and facilitates the reuse of information across other programs, is among the cornerstones of InnerView. Each employee's personnel information is contained in his or her "People File," an InfoPath form stored in the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 data repository. Employee information can be viewed, reported upon, and incorporated within other Microsoft Office System programs as well as InnerView itself.

Martin is in the process of replacing the Student Union's current time sheet management software with a Microsoft Visual Basic® .NET application that is built into InnerView. Employees will be able to make new entries, view past records, check their personal-leave balance, submit a personal-leave request through SharePoint Portal Server 2003, and find out whether the request has been approved — details that used to be available only by contacting an HR coordinator.

What used to take hours now takes minutes

Integrating the time sheet and personal-leave data in one system also enables department managers to review and approve reports directly within InnerView by using SharePoint Portal Server 2003. What used to take hours for a manager with 100 employees now can be done in a matter of minutes. Also, managers are automatically notified of new requests through e-mail, so they can be processed in minutes rather than days.

Excel 2003 also performs calculations and data accrual tasks that employees formerly did manually, such as reconciling employees' time sheet entries with current personal-leave and sick-leave balances. When data needs to be uploaded to the state government mainframe, InnerView generates an Excel 2003 file in the required format. An HR coordinator can now key the information into the system quickly without doing additional calculations or research. With the next version of InnerView, Martin's goal is to enable managers to upload the Excel 2003 file with the push of a button.

Fewer systems to manage, greater employee productivity

InnerView has received raves for its simplicity as well as its more efficient data-management capabilities. Microsoft Office System tools have replaced 15 of the 20 applications previously involved in the Student Union HR process. "By reducing the complexity and the time required to manage the system, we're freeing up a lot of hours for other tasks," says Martin. "We're also eliminating a lot of overhead costs associated with licensing and maintaining so many different applications."

Martin also has channeled his growing knowledge of Microsoft Office System technology into several related projects, including the launch of a new Web-based calendar of events for the Student Union that draws upon data stored in a central SharePoint Portal Server 2003 location. Other future projects include inventory and work-order management systems.

"The more we do with the Microsoft Office System products, the better and better our IT system gets," says Martin. "We've been able to deploy some really cool programs without a lot of difficulty, and a lot of the credit for that goes to Microsoft."