Brief Profile of University of Dammam (UOD):

Key Issues:

The early implementation of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions at the University resulted in a bug-ridden, heavily customized solution something that made its upgrades very difficult, if not impossible that did not meet the needs of the University.
The system was not integrated properly with the other software solutions in use by the institution.
Plans by the University to deploy a business intelligence solution to tap into the rich vein of data were not possible till all the modules were made fully functional.

Sapphire’s approach to resolve issues:

University of Dammam decided to engage Sapphire to evaluate the implementation of PeopleSoft Campus Solutions and make it functional by doing away with the needless customizations and replacing, where possible, with delivered functionality.
The overall methodology which Sapphire adopted fundamentally included implementation audit, up-gradation of business processes, migrating the solution to delivered systems, implementing new systems.
Sapphire infrastructure team was also called upon to migrate the existing PeopleSoft Campus Solutions environment to Linux and configure/size the environment such that it could take the load for concurrent enrollment of tens of thousands of students.

Achievements, Benefits and Current Status:

Sapphire achieved all of the above objectives and it was indeed a proud day when tens of thousands of students were able to enroll successfully into a functioning Campus Solutions system.
The deployment of the business intelligence solution has meant that University of Dammam’s senior management is in a position to slice and dice information. This would enable them to gauge trends and risks thereby enabling them to take the right decision at the right time.
A fully-functional bi-lingual application has been rolled out successfully.

University of Dammam (UOD)