Univ. of Wisconsin's 30-Year-Old Payroll System Needs a $40 Million Fix

jaroslav writes "The University of Wisconsin is attempting to update a payroll system they have had in place since 1975, but spent $28.4 million in a 2004 attempt with no results, and now is experiencing new overruns in cost and time after 'not hav[ing] the full picture of how complex this project would be.' The current estimate of the redesign is $12 million and years of further work on top of the money already spent."

Comments

I dont understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can an upgrade cost $40m?

Re:I dont understand.

[eyrieowl]

First, it's not really $40m, it's only $40m b/c they're doing it 2x. It's closer to $20m.
And...it's not just upgrading, as pointed out. It's a complete new system. Any system as old as their previous system is probably in need of replacement rather than simply refactoring and basic updating.

I just did some back of the envelope calculations. So...outside firm bids. Let's say that we'll have 24 minions (basic programmers, project management, requirements, documentation, etc). We'll say they average $70k/year salary. We'll double that for overhead, so $140k/minion/year in salary & overhead ($3.36 mil). Let's say those 24 minions have 8 middle management/tech leads/etc on top of them. We'll say they make on average $100k/year, so $200k/year/manager ($1.6 mil). Finally, we'll say there are two top dogs (architect, partner) on the project. We'll be conservative and put them at $150k/year ($600 k). Now everyone is going to need computers. Let's say $2k/computer ($72 k). This new system isn't going to run on their old hardware, so we'll get them new fancy hardware for $10-$15 million. Finally, the good folks in the payroll dept at the university need new hardware as well to use the new system, so we'll put them down for 20 computers at $2k each as well ($40 k). Grand total is between $15.7-$20.7 million. Granted that this is still less than the $28.4 they actually spent, but clearly there was some overcharging and incompetence going on, so we'll put the extra $8+ million down to false-starts and other poor decisions made by the consulting firm. And, when you're all said and done, the simple project ends up being quite expensive. I have no way of knowing how my cost breakdown compares to how their money was spent, but it makes reasonable sense.

Bad Title

[Red Flayer]

Who am I kidding, right?

Their payroll system doesn't need a 40-million-dollar fix. That's just what they've ended up spending on it (hypothetically, once the $12 MM hot cash injection fixes all the problems).

The University should just scrap the system and go with a commercial payroll vendor. Bigger organizations have done the same, and there's no shame in it.

$40 MM is insane. That's over four years of tuition for 4500 students at UW-Madison.

No use throwing good money after bad.

Re:Bad Title

[Red Flayer]

PeopleSoft is not a commercial payroll vendor.

It is an ERP system, the payroll module needs to be heavily customized for any large implementation.

If they need an ERP, fine... but then it's not just a payroll system costing $12 MM additional, is it?

Serves me right for NRTFA, but *some* accuracy could *maybe* be hoped for?

Re:Bad Title

[mmaniaci]

Theres an infinite amount of shame that you accrue once you go to PeopleSoft. I don't know of anything better, but PeopleSoft is a steaming pile of shit, much like any other enterprise tool that tries to do it all. Its all just fodder that managers eat up like hotcakes because of the promise of higher productivity, and won't change until the next generation of IT professionals comes in and kicks the old clods off their thrones. Now that we have a generation of IT professionals that were born and grew up in a world with computers, I have plenty of optimism that enterprise bloatware like PeopleSoft (Microsoft *, Novell, FootPrints, Cadence, etc) will slowly but surely be replaced by modular programs that actually do a task, and do it well.

Re:Bad Title

[Anonymous Coward]

won't change until the next generation of IT professionals comes in and kicks the old clods off their thrones.

My, aren't we quite the bigot. This is going to come as quite a surprise to you, but, there's a lot of people in the world. Some of those "old clods" are actually intelligent, knowledgeable and experienced in their fields, including IT. Hell, some of them even post on Slashdot, I imagine.

And, at least one of them thinks that, in addition to being a bigot, you're also an asshole.

Re:Bad Title

[thousandinone]

Now that we have a generation of IT professionals that were born and grew up in a world with computers, I have plenty of optimism that enterprise bloatware like PeopleSoft (Microsoft *, Novell, FootPrints, Cadence, etc) will slowly but surely be replaced by modular programs that actually do a task, and do it well.

Now that we have a generation of automobile drivers that were born and grew up in a world with automobiles, I have plenty of optimism that traffic jams, drunk drivers, and general automobile idiocy will be replaced by conscientious drivers that actually obey traffic regulations and don't put themselves and other drives at undue risk.

Wait...

Re:Bad Title

[fishbowl]

"It is an ERP system, the payroll module needs to be heavily customized for any large implementation."

The same can be said for any payroll system, in any environment that doesn't fit some simple, canned model. I know a thing or two about business software, where I've made my living for most of my life, and in particular, I understand the complexity of a university system payroll.

Some of the posters here seem to have no concept of just how mind-boggling a university payroll administration can be. Even with fully functional automation, it is often a full-time effort involving many individuals, just to have the distributions and deposits done on schedule -- the direct deposit slips aren't even in the mail before you're working on the next pay period.

I've worked in that world. Don't even *mention* the rules with state pensions. Or the paycheck for a faculty member who is both a tenure track professor *and* a contractor *and* an executive of an extension department. (That example is real, my last boss before I left academia.)

The university I worked for is heavily involved in the Kuali project (http://www.kuali.org/communities/kfs/) because the fact of the matter is, there really isn't a COTS solution that fully meets the requirements a university system has for business software. And a university budget does not usually even come close to what it takes to get custom work out of SAP or Peoplesoft or whatever.

You can defend the "30-40 year old system" or "COBOL" or whatever, until some event, such as not being able to replace your AS-400, or when the scale has grown to the extent that the system literally cannot produce a paycheck for everybody in the time available before you're making late payments (and then settling summary judgments due to your failure to meet contractual obligations, I've seen it happen) or your accouting capability no longer meets the requirements of the state (didn't stick around long enough to see that, but I think it's coming.)

I honestly don't know whether Kuali is a "dead on the vine" or "promising project", but certain pieces of it have been used as band-aids to take some of the load off a dying system.

None of this should surprise anyone with ERP experience, since ERP systems have been scaled up in a frankenstein manner for as long as there has been business software :-)

18 million dollars is about right for a four year project with 30 professionals in your core organization. (And in a university setting that includes 200 students, office leases and IT infrastructure.)

Examine the requirements of a state university's payroll system and then think carefully before bidding less ...

Re:Bad Title

[dangitman]

Now that we have a generation of IT professionals that were born and grew up in a world with computers,

I dunno, that generation seems to be generally less knowledgeable about computers than those who grew up when computing was in its infancy. Do you think that the generation that grew up with mobile phones is more knowledgeable about radio frequency engineering and communication protocols? They might know how to send a text message, but it doesn't mean they understand anything about the underlying technology.

Re:Bad Title

[doconnor]

Actually a generation of automobile drivers that were born and grew up in a world with automobiles are much better drivers then those who haven't. The rate of accidents are much higher in developing countries where most drivers are first generation drivers.

Ref: http://www.gwynnedyer.com/articles/Gwynne%20Dyer%20article_%20%20Smeed's%20Law.txt

Re:Peppy

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like some other recent fiscal rationalization I've observed:

$700+ billion for "bailouts" of important so-and-so's is OK because we spent more than that in Iraq.
Spending $800+ billion on "stimulus" is OK because we spent more than that in Iraq.
$1 Trillion in new health coverage for 43 million uninsured is not a problem because we spent that much in Iraq.

Make No Mistake! (tm)

Oh, ffs

[ledow]

I'm sorry, but what a heap of crap.

It's a payroll system. Yeah, it's a biggee, and yeah, it's got a lot of old information in it most probably. It's written in an old language (Oh no! The end of the world! Soon we might not be able to understand our systems! Hold on... we just had three attempts and replacing it with something new and FAILED because we didn't know half the stuff it was running). But you're not telling me that MILLIONS of dollars and YEARS of work by supposedly professional IT companies isn't enough to get ANYTHING working well enough to say "We don't need to worry about that part any more". You can get an OS written for that sort of money, or kit out an entire borough of schools with an integrated network.

What's *more* disgusting is that by the looks of it, the IT people at the University are probably barely getting a look in - it's being project-managed by external companies. Come on, stop faffing about; seriously, this is just stupid. Get your *existing* IT team, hire a bunch of programmers directly (hey, you're a University... I wonder where you can get a crapload of cheap, intellectual labour nearby, trained in the art of programming properly and designing the systems from the start, supervised and educated by people who have spent years using their technical, professional and theoretical expertise in the subject?) and just write the damn thing from the ground up. It wouldn't cost anywhere near as much money/time as you have wasted on a single company out of those that tried to sell you crap. Oh, and you can make it do what YOU want any time and you'll have the programmer's hanging around for the next few years with an incentive to keep the system running properly ("What grade did I give you for that paper on your design of the new payroll system? I've revised it, it just crashed.").

If it's THAT damn big, you want to start breaking the thing up into pieces, anyway. Anything that you can't find out all that it does in that many YEARS, you really want to be breaking into smaller and smaller parts and replicating them one at a time. Don't pretend that you're the only place on Earth that has that amount of employees, that amount of computer data, and require mordernisation.

Get rid of the project managing companies, get rid of the "slice-off-50%-for-myself" companies, get rid of the stupid contracts that REWARD failure, and give the project to people who will give you a system that will not only last for ever but be documented and updated and revised and bug-fixed and converted for ever and a day.

Re:Oh, ffs

[stephanruby]

What's *more* disgusting is that by the looks of it,

It's disgusting. I agree, but not for the reasons you mention. Usually, it's just because the people at the top of a University have no clue about technical matters. To get to be a Regent for instance, you need good political skills, or you need to be rich, or you need to be part of a well-known, rich, and powerful family. Sadly, many crucial technical decisions that involve a ton of money get made around a large conference table, or they get made on someone else's expense account, or they get made by an alpha male who was a great footballer during his College years -- so he thinks he's qualified to do anything.

Get your *existing* IT team,

When your most capable existing IT staff already works 50 hours a week, and is already exempt from receiving over time. Why would they want to participate in such a project and give up an additional 30 hours of time for basically zero money and a ton of heart-aches? What's the upside? No, man. A competent IT staff knows when to say "no".

And even if such an IT staffer was interested in doing such a project in the first place. He might just be better served in starting his own open source project. At least with an open source project, you would have more freedom and flexibility, and if you're any good, you can pick your own customers/users, and assuming you were careful -- you can take the project with you if you leave to another employer.

Same thing with Professors. Don't you think they have better things to do? like research, publishing, or teaching? Even Richard Feynman, he said the only reason he got anything done, was because he was adamant about refusing the drivel committee work that his schools were always trying to pawn off onto him.

hire a bunch of programmers directly (hey, you're a University... I wonder where you can get a crapload of cheap, intellectual labour nearby,

Yeah, if you think that throwing more bodies at a problem is a solution, or that changing bodies every six months following the school year is a good idea, then may be you should read "The Mythical-Man Month" by Frederick Brooks and "Peopleware" by DeMarco.

trained in the art of programming properly

Ah, I see. You must have gone to a school where they actually taught you programming. Good for you. I know those schools exist, I've just never been to one. So you'll have to forgive my ignorance. In my school, they taught me "how to think", and they taught me the "Science" of Computers. Believe me, I was as shocked by this news as anyone else. The programming, I had to learn it on my own, preferably before or at least during the first week of class. Now don't get me wrong, when I got out of there, my ego was huge and the knowledge I gained was tremendous, but I was still an idiot by then and I still have the nagging suspicion that I might still be an idiot now -- ten years later (I'm just less of an idiot hopefully).

Now, this is not to say that I approve the way projects are done in a major University system like this. It's just that I hope you begin to understand that Universities have some deep institutional problems that can not be solved by low level people. And that the people at the top, they don't really care, their pocketbooks and/or their egos are well fed by the existing system as it is, so they don't see any major need for a change.

Re:Oh, ffs

[atamido]

Most university IT groups don't have stellar project managers, which is the one thing that a project of this scale (and criticality) needs.

This. Most universities pay their IT departments crap because they can get them so cheaply filled by students. Most students don't have a full academic education, and almost none have real world experience. The ones that do have the education and experience get higher paying jobs at private organizations. Having a university IT department manage a project of this magnitude is asking for trouble.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Nutria]

Four good coders could "do-over" a payroll system in five years no matter how complex it was

Sure, if you have good specifications.

Re-engineering a 30 year old system that's been accreting features for 30 years, though, isn't an easy task.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[b0r1s]

4 coders ignores the fun parts defining requirements, assigning tasks, testing, QA, regression testing, all the fun things that the first group neglected that caused it to be unfinished.

Sometimes youngsters look at a task and go "That's easy, I could totally do that in 2-3 months". Then there are people who have done it who stand back and laugh at them for being naive.

This is a B-league project, A-leaguers avoid it

[cryfreedomlove]

The real problem here is that best of breed software developers have too many great opportunities that are more inline with their passions to work on this backwater payroll system. This leaves the unmotivated drones managed by Dilbertesque managers to run with this ball.

Re:Prospectus

[wilder_card]

If it is a typical complex, highly-customized business system, it will have:

1. years and years of poorly- or un-documented code patches, fixes, etc.
2. lots of legacy code which is no longer used but never removed
3. Dozens of external systems which extract information from it, probably each in a different way
4. large amounts of critical information not written down but scattered among different user groups

So, I'd say your Phase 1 above is a vast under-estimation. And the idea that you can farm it out to an external organization, especially one without close personal contact with users, is pure fantasy.

At the end of your process you'll have a system that does maybe 20% of what the users actually need, and 50% of which is stuff no one needs any longer.

Managers often have profound ignorance.

[Futurepower(R)]

We see a lot of stories about this kind of thing on Slashdot. Often it is a politician showing that he or she is completely ignorant of technical issues, but wants his or her foolish opinions to be respected.

Maybe it wouldn't be sensible to attend a university that has such technically backward management.

The world will be a better place when all the managers retire who were raised without computers.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Lord Ender]

This is true. What they need to do is simplify their payroll policy. Then they could use a much cheaper system--possibly even COTS + a consultant.

Corruption

[FooRat]

Sorry, but I have a pretty good idea what corruption looks like, and this stinks to high hell of corruption, the odds are about zero that it's anything else. Computers and how 'complex' they are great premises for corrupt bureaucrats to launch 'projects' that become huge money holes.

Re:Prospectus

[Alethes]

I'd simply mod you up if I could, but I can't so, I'll comment instead.

Speaking from extensive experience in data integration and migration from legacy (no, I really mean ancient) systems, this really is just a simplified version of what really happens in successful projects of this scope. Having also seen the nightmare scenario that UW is going through, I can guarantee that the failure lies in a lack of project management. With a budget that large, it didn't even require good project management. All they needed to do is actually have documented specs. Something as simple as here's a list of everything our current system does that we need to keep, these are the additional features we want to add, and here's the process we have to use to ensure data integrity. A Post-It Note even?

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[crispin_bollocks]

Yup, that's why Paychex, ADP and many others are worth every penny. Anyone with more than 10 or 20 employees is incurring a lot of overhead doing their own payroll.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Bigjeff5]

This is why projects like this end up costing $40 million after failing with $28 million.

The fact is, you don't know shit about the problem, but you assume you have it all worked out, so you throw out a number and just say go. Then, when you start to realize with it will take to comply with city, local, state, and federal tax laws, as well as privacy laws, laws like S/O, not to mention INTERNAL company payroll needs. It's not too bad if it is a small organization operating in one little area, but as soon as you start crossing boarders of any kind, shit gets fucked up. Laws and regulations you've never even heard of almost certainly apply.

And you have to program it to comply with -all- of it. One little mistake could cost the organization millions.

There is a reason large organizations have teams of accountants/programmers, tax lawyers, accountant/lawyers to deal with this shit. It's not easy.

See my sig, I can't say it better than that.

I just want to know

[microbee]

Who were fired?

Re:What is so special about this university?

[duffbeer703]

OMFG, you've figured it out! All of these years we've been supporting all of these complex systems, and all we had to do all of this time is avoid the complexities! You're a genius!

So, Kreskin, what do you do when one of the unions that represent a good chunk of your employees brings you to Federal court and wins a judgement requiring you to give workers employed between June 5, 1989 and December 31, 1994 who were on maternity leave a pension credit and healthcare refund equal to 8% of their average pension contribution during that period, paid in 104 bi-weekly portions?

Stuff like that happens all of the time. What are you going to do? Go to jail for contempt of court?

Re:Here's the real story

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure that your providing the full story but from what I have heard regarding the project is that there were two problems:

1. Opposition and lack of adoption by employees.
2. Arrogance and irresponsible behavior (ie politial and monetary) on the part of many involved with the project.

The problem has been a matter of technology but people acting out of negligence and greed. It is hurting UW-Madison in more areas than this project.

UW needs to fix its retention problem, reign in it's spending on buildings no one wants, cut back on political appointees, and get back into the business of educating students.

Re:Efficiency

[duffbeer703]

I've worked for government, small businesses and Fortune 50 corporations. In my experience, government is just as screwed up as a big corporation. The only difference is that most big corporations purge some people every year, and government tends to have more overhead of workers doing little/nothing.

It works out to be about the same. 15-20% of corporate people are busy sucking up to the boss and 15-20% of government people are making paper airplanes or whatever.

Government generally has professional staff who have some sort of clue, just like in the corporate world. The difference is that there is another layer(s) of management about the professional managers and directors -- political appointees. Usually the political types know they are dumb and stay out of the way, but sometimes they decide to flex their power -- resulting in many a dilbert moment.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Anonymous Coward]

this is why we need to get rid of 99% of these fucking laws and live in a free society again

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Anonymous Coward]

One little mistake could cost the organization millions

Too late it already HAS cost MILLIONS with no end in site...

It sounds like a death march program. A do over is in order. *MANY* people involved with this current fiasco need to be fired. It sounds like ego has run the day. With 'perfection' getting in the way of getting any sort of proper job done.

Im sorry there are MUCH MUCH MUCH MUCH larger organizations out there that have a system in place. You can *BUY* these sorts of systems for much less.

It sounds like they need someone to come in and say 'the buck stops here'. Instead it sounds like they have hundreds of suggestions with all of them going in. With no one saying 'that is the dumbest thing in the world why should I have my guys working for 4 weeks on this 1 feature only *YOU* will use once'.

Perhaps the one you work on is going good. Good for you. But 70% of large projects fail because they 'wanted to get it right before coding anything'. Well they didnt get jack. They need to start small and circle their way out and add in more and more both requirements and code and design. With someone who has enough to say 'thats nice but it doesnt fit and we are going to do it this way'. They need a jerk.

I would bet cold hard cash that is what sort of project it is. I have seen dozens of disasters such as this in my career. I do not work with them. Many times they are totally unwilling to fix anything. In this case it will take the chancellor of the school saying 'it *WILL* be fixed and I am firing the blowhards among you to make it work.' They have toxic people there who are set in their ways and unwilling to do anything just because 'its always been done this way'. This will not happen. Until the whole top of the organization thinks its time to fix it and actually *FIX IT* zip will happen. In that type of organization I doubt anything will ever happen that sort of place is a 'buddy system' where only if you know someone do you get in.

Re:FRIST!!!!

[MrBigInThePants]

I am a software architect and ex comp sci. lecturer.

I guarantee you are being exceptionally naive.

Par for Course for Peoplesoft Migrations

[Senjutsu]

$20 million+ rollouts for Peoplesoft systems on University campuses are the norm, not the exception. Their salesforce hooks in clueless upper management with tales of little customization and off-the-shelf savings, and then comes the roll-out consulting costs and news that any use of Peoplesoft for financials requires highly complex, site-specific customization at exorbitant consulting fees.

Data migration from the old mainframe systems always turns into a nightmare, cost overruns are legion, political pressure to meet deadlines causes internal staff to rack up huge overtime at huge cost, Oracle licensing runs well into 7 figure territory, etc, etc

This money was gone the second they selected a Peoplesoft "solution", management just didn't know it at the time

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Kjella]

I further bet that if the school administration first spent 6 months coming up with a streamlined pay scale system and pigeonholed all the employees into it, the new payroll system would be a LOT easier to set up and maintain.

I'd rather try to handcode it in assembly with a blindfold than renegotiate salary with everybody. Even if you're essentially doing nothing at all you'll have employees and unions reading over it with a fine-tooth comb screaming at everything.

Re:Stanford's conversion

[binaryspiral]

PeopleSoft is the devil's anus boil... every conversion I've seen to PS has been a loss in money, efficiency, and control.

But their sales force is top notch in convincing upper management (you know, those folks who will never actually have to use it) that they're going to go out of business with out it.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[oldhack]

Dream on. Imagine asking your employees to take pay cuts so that the payroll system can be simpler.

100% spot on

[codepunk]

Who wants a job doing a payroll system using a third party tool set based on old languages and technology....doomed from the start.

I don't know about the rest of you guys but I have never looked at our payroll drone and wished I had his job.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[schon]

Even if you're essentially doing nothing at all you'll have employees and unions reading over it with a fine-tooth comb screaming at everything.

And not just unions - university academic unions.

I worked for 2 1/2 years in a university CS department, and (as one of my co-workers so adroitly put it) they start screaming about "academic freedom" when you talk about changing their parking stall.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[johnlcallaway]

I remember trying to install a system 15 years ago to replace an in-house system that was very easy to maintain. They wanted to move all of the input down to the departments so they didn't have to fill out forms, so decided to purchase a payroll system (not Peoplesoft). I remember giving the estimate to the general manager of the company, and he literally accused me of bulking up the estimate for job security, we should just be able to 'plug it in'.

My response?? 'Sir ... you can either change the software to pay based on the union contract, or you can change the union contract to match what the current software can do.' There were over a hundred pay types and calculations that the existing software wouldn't do that would require me to write new types and plug them in. i was going to have to modify the labor reporting system to generate data for the new system. Then there were issues like 'Should we reissue badges, or maintain a cross-reference table forever.' since the current employee IDs were not compatible with the new system. There were also reports that were going to have to be generated because it didn't match our accounting system feeds, so I was going to have to manipulate the data in order to get it into the accounting system. Plus all the reports that were needed to go back to managers of employees and other departments.

No ... it wasn't going to cost $12M, or even $1M. But if a company of 1,000 people with only one union contract and salaried workers was going to take 6 months to install, I can't imagine what a University with dozens of unions and who knows how many different pay calculations would take. The requirements gathering alone would take months, then longer to get some sort of consensus on the requirements. No install is ever a true replacement because of all the 'features' everyone wants to have.

And a system that size I would never trust to the coders to test. You would need a decent sized QA team to run initial functional tests then increasingly more complex integration tests. And that is before you even get to the parallel test that will probably be required to run for at least a couple of months with data being feed from numerous system and out to other system which will also have to have testbeds setup.

Then having to deal with changing requirements while writing the system, since payroll changes won't just stop because it's going to take a year to design, write, and test it. Union contracts will be redone, new tax laws will come into play.

Sure ... you can parameterize lots of stuff to make it easier to make changes since payroll basically consists of a few basic types of pay, deductions, and disbursements. But you have to be sure that all the possible parameters can be accounted for since adding some in later can be very expensive.

And a 3rd-year CS major would have no clue whatsoever since they have never spent years supporting such systems and don't know what the fuck they are talking about or how complex payroll really is.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[johnlcallaway]

I nominate you to go to all the different unions and get them agree to simplify their pay scales in order to save the University money.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Bigjeff5]

Some companies do this, they'll spend $500k on the system, claim it works, turn it over and razzle dazzle the project manager who signs it, then pocket the remaining $35.5 million. Of course, they don't pocket the $35.5 million after they are done, they pocket it up front and all throughout the project, so that by the end they've spent their $40 million, and then some most likely.

Then when it doesn't work the company just points to the paper the PM signed and says "You said it worked just fine, we're not supporting it any further."

I've got a quarter that says that is how the $28 million failure went.

Some kids are profoundly ignorant.

[BrokenHalo]

Often it is a politician showing that he or she is completely ignorant of technical issues

Payrolls are hardly technically challenging. By way of perspective, 30 years ago I worked at a computer bureau, which for those too young to remember such a thing, was a shop where businesses brought in their handwritten input data on paper forms, and our keypunch ops would encode it on to mag tape for us to process on our Burroughs B3700 computer.

We ran our in-house payroll package for everything from public services to market gardens, and there is no reason why it wouldn't work just as well today, other than that it was written in COBOL, which isn't so trendy any more.

The world will be a better place when all the managers retire who were raised without computers.

The managers who used our packages were ALL raised without computers. That did not make them incapable or stupid. The world will be a better place when kids stop belittling their elders for no factual reason.

Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Glancing over the comments to this article, it's very obvious who are the people who have a respect for complex, legacy systems, and who are the people who have no fucking clue what they are talking about.

Re:FRIST!!!!

[richardkelleher]

I have to believe there are hundreds of universities that already have working payroll systems. Look at as many as you can, select the one that works best, purchase the basic product, pay the university in question for their mods and steal their configuration. Get a bunch of work study students and a decent consultant or two to migrate your data. Project complete!

These people are just pissing money away on junk!

I worked for a company (large company, thousands of employees, worldwide sales and marketing, multiple manufacturing operations in multiple countries) that had a horrible 5+ year SAP implementation with obscene amounts of customization and they spent less that that!

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Anonymous Coward]

Err.. how about offering a pay grade improvement paid out of the saving from not needing this overly complicated new payroll system? Duh.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[Facegarden]

this is why we need to get rid of 99% of these fucking laws and live in a free society again

Yup! Nothing says fairness like letting the big guys push everyone around!

Because that's what happens when you eliminate 99% of laws.

This reminds me of all those "punk" people that think everything would be better if we had anarchy...

Uh, yeah, it would be great if there was no transportation system and no police and no judges and everyone with a bigger stick could push me around.

I know that's not exactly what you said (you said 'these' laws, probably meaning crazy tax and payment laws) but just gutting a legal system is never a good idea, it needs to be fixed, not abandoned.

-Taylor

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[N1AK]

You simply don't know enough about the situation to make that judgement, I've only got a few years project experience and one thing that never ceases to amaze me is how hard it is to envision a project without being involved in it. You may be able to play buzzword bingo with the best of them and stick software lifecycle and project management terminology throughout your post, you may in fact be the creme de la creme in both these fields, but you still know less than a percent of what needs to be known about this job to understand it.

But that is why you are a programmer.

[Anonymous Coward]

An administrator, politician or manager who is good will sort those problems out so you can mirror the new situation in your technical solution.

In one occasion I had 50 machete wielding farmers complaining about a client's process, basically my client was marking the plots of land in a place where private ownership of land was introduced for the first time, the measurements in the field were not matched by the system's results, as a consequence some people were given deeds referencing smaller plots than they actually had.

They were not happy (and brought their machetes, which I can tell you, were not an empty threat).

Between my client's manager and yours truly we talked to them about what the problem was and the solution (consider that many or they were illiterate, not only computing illiterate...)

For some of us negotiating with an angry union will frankly be a walk in the park.

Before you bet...

[jotaeleemeese]

What are you basing your optimism in?

I (and many other old timers on this thread) are telling you in no uncertain terms how the cookie crumbles, so what is your evidence that what you are saying could actually be done in the way you say?

What you are suggesting is stupid and naive (a word I have seen used several times on this thread, and rightly so), that you are moderated "Interesting" a the moment just comes to show how few people in /. are familiar with the complexities of such systems.

Re:That's a nice budget you got there

[jabuzz]

Offer $$$ though, and most if not all will take it.

At the last university I worked at in the UK, there where a small number of people that for historical reasons got paid in the middle of the month where everyone else was month end. A little application of $$$ in offering all those people a bonus to change to month ending, and you have a simplified payroll you only have to run once a month and everyone is happy.

There is at least $40 million here to ease the pain, plus the lower running costs. There is fundamentally a lack of imagination on behalf of managers here. Not that this surprises me.