GO LIVE DATES: HCM (HR): March 20, 2026 ERP (Finance): April 13, 2026 EPM (Budget & Planning): May 1, 2026
Latest News: Jobs Structure Initiative & WaveWorks Training
Standardized Jobs Structure Initiative
In alignment with WaveWorks, Tulane University is implementing a standardized job structure to bring greater consistency and clarity to how staff roles are defined across the institution. This initiative supports professional growth, internal mobility, and long-term workforce planning while ensuring that our role structure reflects leading practices in higher education. To learn more, please visit the Job Architecture webpage.
Enroll in your WaveWorks Training Now!
We are just weeks away from going live in the new WaveWorks Platform (HR on March 20 and Finance on April 13).
You can now sign up for vital training sessions which typically run 1 or 2 hours. They are for all faculty and staff and are offered in person on each of our campuses and as online webinars.
Topics include: Introduction to the WaveWorks, to Procurement (to buy goods and services), to Expenses, Employee Self-Service, Manager Self-Service, and more.
Over 125 sessions to choose from, but we encourage you to book now to get your preferred location and time!
URGENT: Required Actions Before Current Systems Shut Down
The WaveWorks project - our system-wide transition from EBS/legacy systems to Oracle Cloud - is now in a critical phase known as “Cutover”. During the Cutover period, certain HR, Finance and Budgeting tasks need to be performed by specific deadlines, after which our legacy systems will be shut down.
Please don’t delay! Once the deadlines have past, such tasks will only be possible after we go live on March 20, 2026 (HR) and April 13, 2026 (Finance). Please carefully review upcoming deadlines and required actions on the cutover page.
A Vital WaveWorks Milestone Now Complete
We’re rolling right along towards our March and April 2026 launch of WaveWorks, Tulane’s Oracle Cloud transformation, which will replace many of the systems we use every day.
So, what is “UAT” and why is it so important?
This fall marked an exciting moment: the launch of User Acceptance Testing (or UAT) - one of the major phases before our new WaveWorks system goes live in Spring 2026.
Over three months, some 300 colleagues, invited as UAT participants, walked through real Tulane financial, HR and budgetary processes in the WaveWorks system. Their role: to make sure everything flows exactly as it should, to identify enhancements, and to give insights for user training.
UAT is thus critical to ensuring that when WaveWorks officially launches, you will experience a system that functions well and that all users have the training and support they need. End-user training is planned to kick off in the second half of February, so more information will be coming later this year.
Want to learn more about the WaveWorks Project? Check out the short overview video.
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, career development, and employee learning. The new Learn module also enables managers to share and assign training, recommend development opportunities, and monitor completion to support continuous growth.
- 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.
WaveWorks Update: EPM Transforms Budget Planning
As part of the WaveWorks initiative, Tulane is replacing Anaplan with Oracle’s Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) system to enhance budgeting and long-term financial planning. The new system integrates seamlessly with Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), streamlining data and improving transparency.
Key highlights include:
- Position Control Enhancements - EPM will link directly to Oracle Cloud HCM, eliminating fake vacancies by pulling real positions nightly from HCM, allowing accurate budgeting and reporting on vacancies.
- Streamlined Budget Request Process - Budget requests can now be submitted along with supporting documents directly in the system—no more emailing attachments separately.
- Improved Merit Pool Visibility - Merit pools will now be visible by labor distribution account (rather than by division), giving departments more accurate and granular insights.
- Merit vs. Non-Merit Breakdown - The new system will send separate merit and non-merit data to HCM, allowing employees to view full breakdowns of their July 1 salary changes.
- Enrollment Templates for Graduate Revenue Planning - Graduate enrollment data will be tracked by cohort within EPM, allowing for collaborative planning and enhanced insight into revenue-driving programs.
The Oracle Cloud system updates will bring greater accuracy, integration, and efficiency to the budgeting and planning process—supporting Tulane’s long-term financial sustainability goals.
ERP Workstream Leading Enhancement Efforts For Our Financial Systems
As part of Tulane’s WaveWorks initiative, significant improvements are coming to our finance systems through the implementation of Oracle Cloud. These changes will modernize and streamline our financial processes, provide tools for enhanced analysis, and consolidate most of our financial data in one system.
Key updates include:
- A Comprehensive Finance Module: General ledger, projects, accounts payable, accounts receivable, procurement, fixed assets, expenses, cash management, and labor distribution will all be supported in Oracle Cloud.
- Improved Budget & Reporting Tools: Users will gain online access to departmental budget statements and transaction-level reporting. New drill-down features will enable users to view approvals, procurement details, and real-time dashboards.
- Faster Year-End and Monthly Closings: Our new system will streamline closing processes, improving reporting and audit timelines.
- Enhanced EIT and Internal Job Order Systems: Tulane is implementing a new Electronic Interdepartmental Transfers (EIT) system and re-imagining internal purchase and job order processes with a user-friendly, tech-driven approach.
- Encumbrance Tracking: A long-requested feature, encumbrance visibility will improve budget-to-actual planning and show expenses that are committed but not yet paid.
- Procurement System Returns to Oracle: Procurement and card systems (Purchasing Cards and Travel & Entertainment cards) will transition into Oracle, consolidating all finance tools into one system.
- Advanced Accounts Payable Tools alongside Oracle Cloud:
- A new tool for managing small, one-time payments (e.g., guest speakers or vendors) without vendor setup delays.
- AI-driven automation for auditing procurement card and AP transactions, as well as sorting and processing invoice emails.
- Enhancements via the Projects Module: More activities (e.g., grants, gifts, endowment accounts) will move to the Oracle Cloud Projects module, allowing better tracking, management, and transparency—especially for faculty with multiple funding sources.
These improvements aim to make Tulane’s financial systems more unified, transparent, and efficient—creating one core system for managing financial activity across the university.
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.
WaveWorks! Team Members
Resources
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 WaveWorks journey with training, embedded learning right in the WaveWorks 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).
When will the new systems be implemented?
We anticipate going live with WaveWorks in Spring 2026.
Go-Live dates:
- HCM (HR) March, 20, 2026
- ERP (Finance) April 13, 2026
- EPM (Budget & Planning) May 1, 2026.
You can view the project timeline to see more.
How to contact the team?
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.
What is the Job Architecture Project?
Tulane University is implementing a standardized job structure to bring greater consistency and clarity to how staff roles are defined across the institution. This initiative supports professional growth, internal mobility, and long-term workforce planning while ensuring that our role structure reflects leading practices in higher education.
Over the past several months, Human Resources has partnered closely with managers and senior leaders across Tulane University to carefully review staff roles and ensure they are accurately represented. This has been a thoughtful and collaborative process grounded in fairness, consistency, and organizational alignment.
As Tulane University prepares for the transition to Oracle Cloud, some staff job titles will be updated to reflect this standardized structure. In certain cases, titles may look different from those previously used. These updates are intended to promote consistency across the university and alignment with external benchmarks. They do not reflect a change in compensation, job responsibilities, reporting relationships, or professional standing. They also do not change the important work you do or the meaningful contributions you make to Tulane University’s mission each day.
The updated system titles will appear in Oracle Cloud at go-live on March 20. If your title is changing, you will be notified prior to that date.
With the shift to Oracle Cloud, we are introducing business titles, which are commonly used in many industries across the country. Staff may continue to use their current approved business titles (likely your current title) in day-to-day communications and externally facing mediums.
Managers will provide additional information and are available to answer questions. We appreciate your engagement and partnership as Tulane University continues to strengthen its people practices in support of our institutional mission.
To learn more, please visit the Job Architecture webpage.
What happens to Microsoft Office, Mailchimp, Instagram and Facebook accounts?
These will not be affected.
What can service dept tell IT service requestors that are worried about needs during shut down?
Service requests can be submitted through Service Wave as usual. This system will not be frozen.
What, if any, data will not be carried over to the new systems?
- Financial data will be converted as follows:
- FY25 (July 2024 through June 2025) will have balances only converted at the account and natural account level.
- FY26 (July 2025 through March 2026) will have all transactions converted.
Cognos will still be available for historic financial reports.
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 WaveWorks 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 WaveWorks 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.
EPM
EPM is an acronym for Enterprise Performance Management. In the WaveWorks 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 WaveWorks 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.
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 WaveWorks environment, HCM refers to the human resources module of the WaveWorks 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.
Module
We refer to the specific functionality within WaveWorks as modules. For example, modules would include functionality such as expenses 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. WaveWorks is powered by Oracle Cloud, the secure online system that supports the new tools and services you will use for HR and finance. 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 Tulane's official methodology. It 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.)
