The discovery phase of the Enterprise Resource Planner (ERP) modernization project was launched in 2023-24.

Enterprise Resource Planning systems are comprehensive and integrated software solutions used by organizations to manage, streamline and automate administrative processes and functions across departments while centralizing data to enhance integration and reporting/

This approximately 18-month process aims to document the entire ERP ecosystem at Carleton, which includes more than 1,000 custom reports, 500 custom forms and 200 custom applications, ahead of a project to transform our ERP in a simple and cloud-native manner.

“The work we are doing as part of our ERP discovery phase will help the entire university improve the client experience, simplify workflows and adopt a cloud-first posture,” said Joseph Nelson, Director of Enterprise Applications.

A key prerequisite project for this was the launch of an enterprise-grade Configuration Management Database (CMDB) to help us fully document our processes and understand the connections between vendors, contracts, applications, services and clients.