History of the Monash University Integrated Adminstrative Systems (IAS) Project

The Integrated Administrative Systems (IAS) Project is the largest single administrative project ever undertaken by Monash. It was a response to the failure of the national CASMAC project, and Y2K compliance problems with existing systems. Monash issued an RFI which sought a solution that would provide a modern highly functional integrated suite of software to replace the existing Finance, HR and Student systems. After an extensive and highly detailed evaluation process the solution chosen was SAP R/3 v 4.0b and Callista with the implementation contract primed by SAP Australia. This includes provision of the integration between the SAP and Callista software.

The contract was signed on 16 Sept, 1998 and the systems were configured and working with Monash data on 4 May 1999. The move to SAP from the legacy systems took place in the first week of July 1999 across all Victorian campuses of the University. The implementation strategy is regarded as extremely aggressive by any standards in the SAP world for an implementation of this size, particularly for a simultaneous conversion of Finance and HR systems with the concurrent change in the Finance business model to a devolved strategy.

Phase 2 of the project which involved replacing the existing student systems with Callista was completed in early 2001.

Phase 3 of the project whcih involves upgrading SAP v 4.0b to 4.6C will commence in October 2001 for completion by April 2002