In the Fall 2004 semester, the web portal “OurFAMU” flawed and sent out duplicate refund checks. The glitches have since been configured, and officials feel confident that spring 2005 disbursements will be a breeze.
“The system flawed because of change,” Beverly Barrington, project director of Enterprise Resource Planning said.
The official system, PeopleSoft Software, administers software systems for financial management, student administration, payroll and human resources at FAMU.
“We are dealing with a complex integrated system,” she said.
She also said there are a number of things, such as registration, that can cause system inefficiencies. One mishap is said to knock the whole system off balance.
As of Jan. 12, about 45 students were on hold for duplicate refund checks.
“A ball park figure of about 75 percent of the money was received back,” said John Crutchfield Sr., director of student financial services.
“We have an account of all the attached money.”
The University has now implemented a program called “Positive Pay” with Capital City Bank.
The University implemented this program to let students’ financial institu-tions know ahead of time which checks are cashable.
There have also been tutorials to help better the system.
“A team of 50 FAMU employees are working to configure the system, and meet the business needs of FAMU,” Barrington said.
“It is important to know that in each time we do something, we learn something,” said Bryan Terry, director of financial aid.
Barrington said the financial aid department has been trained with student financials. ERP also trained the faculty to input their grades. She said more training is ongoing and about 90 percent of student grades were inputted through the new OurFAMU system.
“I thought that the tutorials were good,” said Rick Campbell, professor of English. “I used it from my home computer and it worked.”
Campbell mentioned that for future reference he would like to see the ERP system used for academic advisement.
Crutchfield said the OurFAMU system is shaping up. He said a new online book voucher system allows students to place money on their RattlerCards for books. He came up with the idea and with the help of ERP, students avoided hours spent in book voucher lines in student accounts.
“It wasn’t complicated at all,” said Latrice Wiggins, 18, a psychology student from Miami.
Wiggins said a friend told her about the online book vouchers and all of the instructions were online.
“I received it in three days just as the instructions read.”
Barrington said the OurFAMU system is starting to shape up to function like its name says it should.
“It’s when we all come together within a family of service.”
Contact Anthony S. Ray Jr. at aj_24@hotmail.com.