Officials at North Dakota State University hope to get an accurate spring-semester student count by Tuesday, a not-so-simple task despite new software installed last year intended to help with that and other accounting.
"If the number is not correct, that has such a financial impact on the university," said Prakash Mathew, vice president for student affairs.
Staff worked hard the past 10 days to fix the software bugs, and Mathew said he's confident the official enrollment reports will be done by the Tuesday reporting deadline.
Calculating enrollment is one of several things North Dakota college campuses have struggled with since buying ConnectND, a project designed to connect campuses and government with the same software.
The presidents of the first two state campuses to use the software say the initial stages were challenging, but it's becoming more functional.
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"For us, we've almost turned the corner and we're seeing a much more positive outlook," said Pamela Balch, Mayville State University president.
At Valley City State University, it took 1½ years with the software before officials knew exactly how much money the university had, said President Ellen Chaffee.
The campus was written up once by auditors, but not penalized.
Chaffee said mastering the complex software system may take as long as five years, and her only alternative is to make it work.
"For people who haven't arrived at that mindset, the world looks like it's ending," she said.
A ConnectND oversight committee is surveying each campus about their concerns, and plans to make some recommendations at the Feb. 16 Board of Higher Education meeting.
At NDSU and the University of North Dakota, the last campuses to go live with the software, the most critical issue is making sure it properly tracks for nearly a half billion dollars in active grant funding.
The ConnectND project has become a mess, Chaffee said, because it was begun too quickly, with too little money and with unrealistic expectations.
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"We've pulled off a miracle already," Chaffee said of the software implementation. "The fact that it's not perfect should be no surprise to anybody."
Other colleges that have used the same software - called PeopleSoft - spent millions more than North Dakota, said James Kennedy, NDSU's ConnectND implementation chairman.
The North Dakota University System spent $32.4 million on ConnectND through June 30, said Laura Glatt, the system's vice chancellor for administrative affairs.
That figure does not include money individual campuses have spent. NDSU has reported spending an additional $1.5 million and UND reported spending $1.3 million.
Kennedy, who has also used PeopleSoft at the University of Minnesota and Emory University in Atlanta, said ConnectND was more complex than other PeoplSoft projects.
North Dakota campuses installed three modules of the software at once - human resources, finance and student administration.
"That's pretty unheard of," he said.
"I don't think people really understood how large this project was going to be," said Kennedy, who left NDSU last week to work on a similar software project at Indiana University.
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On Friday, Kennedy sent a letter to Balch outlining his recommendations for the project to move forward.
Hiring additional staff with expertise should be a priority, Kennedy said. The response to critical issues has been slow, he said.
Differences among the campuses need to be considered, rather than the current "vanilla" approach, Kennedy said.
Balch said Kennedy's letter will be discussed Tuesday at the ConnectND oversight committee meeting.
To move forward, campus officials should avoid overreacting to individual situations and focus on solutions, Chaffee said.
"Panic and recriminations and blame don't get us anywhere," Chaffee said. "That just stalls us out."
Readers can reach Forum reporter Amy Dalrymple at (701) 241-5590
