WaveWorks!
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WaveWorks! Spotlight: What’s Changing with Human Resources in Oracle Cloud
As part of Tulane’s ongoing WaveWorks! transformation, the Human Capital Management (HCM) module in Oracle Cloud is set to deliver major improvements for supervisors, employees, and HR processes across the university. These updates aim to increase visibility, streamline workflows, and enhance the overall employee experience.
Key highlights include:
- Real-Time Workforce Insights: Supervisors will gain access to live dashboards and analytics through Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) system, helping identify trends and manage teams more effectively.
- Streamlined Hiring and Onboarding: All faculty, post docs, staff, and student workers will be hired directly in Oracle Cloud. Once hired, employees will complete onboarding, compliance tasks, and required training within one centralized platform.
- Talent Development Tools: Supervisors will now be able to set goals, track performance throughout the year, and access tools for succession planning and career development.
- Improved Benefits Experience: Employees will use the system for benefits enrollment and life event changes, with added features like a cost calculator and more intuitive navigation.
- Simplified Compensation Processes: Leaders will have easier access to team compensation details and history, including enhanced support for one-time payments (ICPs) with better tracking and visibility on paychecks.
- New Time & Labor System: Tulane is replacing Kronos with Oracle Cloud Time and Labor, including new app-based time clocks with facial authentication and supervisor visibility into time submissions.
- Enhanced Leave and Payroll: Leave requests and balances will be easier to manage, and payroll processing will benefit from cleaner data and optimized workflows.
- HR Help Desk Launch: A new digital assistant will allow employees to ask basic questions, access HR knowledge articles, and submit support tickets, helping HR identify trends and respond more efficiently.
These significant upgrades and improvements reflect Tulane’s commitment to building a more unified, data-informed, and user-friendly HR experience for all employees.
2025: The Road Ahead in Our Transformation Journey
With the strong foundation built last year, there is plenty of excitement ahead for the coming 12 months. Here are some of the key milestones we look forward to achieving this year:
- Delivering the third (beta) iteration of Oracle Cloud at Tulane (“App 3”) for HR and Finance, which is now being intensively reviewed by Tulane subject matter experts in through the end of March. Members from our extensive project team will spend over 225 hours totals across many review workshops and self-guided walkthroughs.
- These reviews will help us confirm the functionality meets our needs, validate the many types and extent of data in the system, and identify enhancements to our new system
- Planning for all the changes in work processes which Oracle Cloud will bring so that we support all our colleagues with tailored communications and effective training
- Comprehensive testing, including data validation, reporting, integrations with other systems, payroll, and user acceptance
- Launching extensive training programs in 2025, including train-the-trainer sessions in the summer, followed by learning opportunities for all Tulane users—10,000 in total!
- This end-user training will start in October and continuing through the end of the year and beyond
- Preparing for go live! This includes launching:
- The ERP (Finance) and HCM (HR) in January 2026, and
- The EPM for the Budget and Planning Team in in October 2025 and then across the entire university in February 2026
Training and support will be extensive, offered in multiple formats, and designed to ensure everyone is prepared as we approach go-live.
Please stay tuned for updates on project progress, communications, training, and events throughout 2025 as we prepare for this transformative era at Tulane!
Preparing WaveWorks! Transformation - February 2025
With 2025 well underway, the WaveWorks! project team is now working hard to prepare for us for go-live in January next year. Let’s take a look back at all the achievements of the team members in 2024 to create a strong foundation for success!
Last year was full of major accomplishments, including:
- Officially kicking off the WaveWorks! project
- Building a strong and dedicated core team, now over 130 colleagues
- Launching four key workstreams: ERP (Finance), HCM (HR), and EPM (Budget and Planning) and IT
- Establishing a productive working relationship with our integration partner, Drivestream
- Engaging over 80 colleagues in Interactive Requirements Design Workshops (over 160 hours total time in sessions) to determine our design requirements
- Using these requirements to build the first (beta) version of Oracle Cloud for Tulane (“App 1”), which was tested and reviewed in over 270 total hours in workshops and self-guided reviews
- Incorporating feedback from App 1 to create the second version (“App 2”) in the fall of 2024, allowing Tulane subject matter experts to again spend many hours familiarizing themselves with Oracle Cloud and identifying additional enhancements
- Tackling the challenges of migrating data into the new system and planning how to integrate it with other IT systems
- Making significant progress on the demanding project to rationalize and harmonize Tulane’s Chart of Accounts, which underpins how we structure, manage, and report on finances and administer our institution
In all, 2024 was a year of major accomplishments—well done, everyone!
President Mike Fitts highlighted WaveWorks as a vital strategic initiative in his State of the University sessions. During 2024, President Fitts, Provost Robin Forman, and COO Patrick Norton also recognized the hard work of so many colleagues, commending them for their successes.
Latest News - January 2025
State of the University
The State of the University is a landmark yearly event at Tulane – a welcome opportunity for colleagues to meet and hear from President Fitts about the strong state of our institution, notably our continued growth and success for the benefit of our students, faculty, research community and staff. Initially postponed when Hurricane Francine passed through part of Louisiana, these sessions were held on each of our three campuses, Uptown, Downtown and the National Primate Research Center.
Borrowing a page from the great David Letterman (with attribution!), President Fitts – now in his tenth year leading Tulane - highlighted the top ten reasons he loves Tulane. One of these was the continued building we undertake, but not just new physical infrastructure. He notably explained how building our new IT platform would improve efficiency across operations. “We are transforming the way we work through a massive project called WaveWorks,” said President Fitts. “We are moving to an Oracle Cloud-based system that will be continually enhanced and updated.”
These events were another opportunity for the WaveWorks team to connect with Tulane faculty and staff to ensure that colleagues know about the project.
Employee Appreciation Showcase
In October 2024, Tulane hosted the Employee Appreciation showcase event in the Kendall Cram & Qatar (LBC). As this event showcases so many of the fantastic programs and resources for Tulane faculty and staff, it was a terrific opportunity to connect with the Tulane community, learn about services and professional and personal development opportunities, and – especially - help expand awareness about the WaveWorks! Project.
The WaveWorks team shared insights about the project, with colleagues stopping by the stand, who also took home flashlights and lip balm, branded with the WaveWorks logo, along with brochures explaining the project.
It was great to observe that many who stopped by were familiar with the project and some of the key changes we will all experience in January 2026, when the project goes live. In all, an enjoyable opportunity to connect with colleagues in many different roles at Tulane and share information about the project benefits!
Celebrating WaveWorks! Contributors
On June 3, some 60 members of the large team working on the WaveWorks! Project to implement Oracle Cloud at Tulane gathered to celebrate the major milestones achieved over the last several months.
These achievements notably included completing the "App 3 Review", over six weeks during which team members spent many hours in workshops learning about and enhancing the third (beta) iteration of the of the Oracle cloud system for finance (ERP) and HR (HCM). These teams are also now on their way to completing the system integration testing phase, during which they are evaluating how are other systems connect with Oracle Cloud.
On the EPM side, the team has been working hard on the development of this Oracle Cloud budget and planning module, in preparation to kick off their second app review this month. And our IT team continues to work hard on systems integrations, on validating our data in the new system and planning for a smooth migration.
Executive sponsor Patrick Norton, Tulane's Chief Operating Officer, joined the celebration, and expressed his thanks for all the hard work the teams have done and continue to do, paving the way for a fundamental transformation of how we work at Tulane, with future capabilities which today we can only dream about.
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Who is involved in this project?
Our Executive Sponsors, Steering Committee and project Team members are all apart of this project.
What support will be provided to us for our move to Oracle Cloud?
Tulane will be closely supporting all our users in the Oracle Cloud journey with training, embedded learning right in the Oracle Cloud modules, training of super user coaches in schools and departments, reference materials, and a dedicated support team to answer queries.
Do we really need to replace our current systems?
Yes! Tulane is currently managing financial and operational needs through Oracle EBS, which reaches end-of-life in 2030. There will be minimal vendor investment in this legacy product in the next 10 years. Likewise, the current financial system setup utilizes multiple applications in silos, which hampers our ability to do business in a streamlined, integrated fashion. Some units have had to create shadow systems for data retrieval and reporting to mitigate these issues. In a recent assessment, 50% of HR-related and 30% of Finance-related processes were noted as pain-points for end users and/or central administrative staff. Finally, our systems for finance, as well as for HR, were designed and configured sub-optimally, resulting in platforms that hinder process effectiveness and efficiency, do not provide necessary analytical tools, and negatively impact the services provided to all Tulane colleagues.
Oracle Cloud will offer leading edge functionality to support our HR, finance, and budgeting processes as well as the end-user experience.
What does the term "ERP" mean?
ERP stands for “Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP),” and while this term sometimes generally refers to business enterprise-level IT platforms (and indeed we used it in this way in the past), in Oracle Cloud “ERP” has a very specific meaning: it is the Financial Module of Oracle Cloud. Therefore, at Tulane the ERP will refer specially to this Oracle Cloud finance module.
Isn’t Oracle the existing system we want to replace?
The Oracle Cloud platform is a completely different system than the Oracle EBS system in use at Tulane, a legacy Oracle product which reaches end-of-life in 2030. Oracle Cloud will offer transformative functionality to enhance our work and professional lives at Tulane. You can view the key benefits to learn more.
When will the new systems be implemented?
We anticipate going live with Oracle Cloud in January 2026. You can view the project timeline to see more.
Will I be able to contribute my thoughts, ideas, and suggestions to this project?
Absolutely! We will offer a myriad of ways for faculty and staff to contribute their thoughts, reactions,ideas, and suggestions throughout the project. In fact, we invited over 160 colleagues across Tulane in representative roles to give their input on the selection of the vendor. There will also be frequent opportunities and multiple ways for everyone to provide suggestions and comments on new work processes related to the system. Opportunities to participate will include contributing to project work streams, system testing, events such as in forums and town halls, as well as occasional user surveys. You can also reach the project team on this email: WaveWorks!@tulane.edu
What is Drivestream?
Drivestream, an Oracle Cloud Partner, has over 20 years working with 200+ organizations on transition to the cloud and has performed over 270 Oracle Cloud projects for clients. Drivestream will support us across the all phases of the project, including preparation, development, testing, launch and post-go-live support.
Advisory Committee
The Advisory Committee for the WaveWorks! Project will be composed from across all of Tulane, notably from our schools, centers, and department. The Advisory Committee will meet periodically upon achievement of milestones, to hear updates on progress. to provide important input on the direction of the project and to advise on key decision points and project plans.
ADKAR
The Prosci ADKAR® Model is one of the two foundational models of the Prosci Methodology. The word “ADKAR” is an acronym for the five outcomes an individual needs to achieve for a change to be successful: Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability and Reinforcement.
Apps
"Apps” refers to the multiple interactions of Oracle Cloud for Tulane which will be reviewed by Workstream members to ensure that the functionality meets Tulane’s needs and that our data is successfully migrated or integrated with the Oracle Cloud platform.
Drivestream
Given the breadth and complexity of the WaveWorks! project, we are partnering with a leading systems integration firm, Drivestream. We chose Drivestream as our partner after an in-depth selection process to support us across the all phases of the project, including preparation, development, testing, launch and post-go-live support.
Drivestream Academy
Drivestream Academy is a key resource for all of us at Tulane to learn more about Oracle Cloud and the core modules of the software we are deploying.
EPM
EPM is an acronym for Enterprise Performance Management. In the Oracle Cloud environment this is a module which offers functionality to support budgeting, reporting and planning. Process supported include: annual budgeting, account reconciliation, production of financial statements, multi-year forecasting, Integrated multi-system reporting and analytics, and productivity reports. The other core modules are ERP and HCM.
ERP
ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning. At Tulane and within the Oracle Cloud environment, ERP refers to the Finance module of the Oracle Cloud suite of solutions which support all finance functions, such as grants management, expense processing, accounts payable and receivable, capital projects, procurement, and general ledger. The other core modules are HCM and EPM.
(Note, sometimes this term is used to refer broadly to an entire suite of business management software to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities. But at Tulane it refers specifically - and only – to the financial software of Oracle Cloud.)
Executive Committee
The WaveWorks! Executive Committee is the ultimate leadership group leading the project. It is composed of our project’s Executive Sponsors: Patrick Norton Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer and Robin Forman Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs and Provost, project leadership, senior executives from Oracle, and leaders from Drivestream. The role of the Executive Committee is to set strategic direction for the project, provides active and visible sponsorship, communicate regularly to the project team and to the Tulane community, and to provide our Executive Sponsors with insights to make strategic decisions on issues escalated by Steering Committee.
HCM
HCM is an acronym for Human Capital Management. At Tulane and within the Oracle Cloud environment, HCM refers to the human resources module of the Oracle Cloud suite of solutions. HCM supports all HR functions, such as compensation and labor distribution; payroll, time & attendance scheduling; recruiting, talent management, and learning; employee onboarding and off-boarding; and centralized employee data/profiles. The other core modules are ERP and EPM.
IRDW
IRDW is an acronym for Interactive Requirements Design Workshop. The goal of an IRDW is to identify and validate core requirements for Tulane in each module of Oracle Cloud (ERP, HCM and EPM) so that these requirements can be integrated into the configuration of these modules for the university. Numerous IRDWs have been held at Tulane, and participants are the project.
Module
We refer to the specific functionality within Oracle Cloud as modules. For example, modules would include functionality such as accounts payable or procurement within ERP or recruitment and benefits within HCM.
Oracle Cloud
Oracle Cloud is the cloud computing service and platform offered by Oracle Corporation providing servers, storage, network, applications and services through a global network of managed data centers. After extensive research by Tulane and our intensive and rigorous request for proposal (RFP) process, involving many hours of demonstrations with the leading cloud vendors, we chose Oracle Cloud as the best fit for Tulane’s strategy, requirements and mission.
Prosci
The Prosci Methodology is recognized as a leading change management methodology utilized my organizations around the world and is being rolled out across Tulane as part of the WaveWorks! project. It is a structured, adaptable and repeatable approach to enable the people side of change and deliver organizational results. Change practitioners apply the Prosci Methodology to create change management strategies and plans that increase adoption and usage on their critical change projects and initiatives. (Source: Prosci, Inc.)
