University of Auckland, New Zealand’s largest university, serves students via five campuses across the country. The university uses Oracle PeopleSoft for human resources, finance, and its student management system to support its 40,000 students and 8,000 staff. Since 2017, the university has trusted Rimini Support™ for application and infrastructure support for its PeopleSoft systems.  

When the university decided to pursue a modernization strategy, it reached out to Rimini Street’s Rimini ONE™ solution that provides end-to-end outsourcing for enterprise applications, databases, and technology software. “We’re taking an adopt approach rather than an adapt approach. A modernization program like that isn’t just about putting in new technology, it’s an organizational change – a big journey for an organization of our size,” explained Jo Batchelor, Head of Product Engineering at the University of Auckland. With Rimini Street’s expertise in its PeopleSoft systems, Batchelor can focus the internal team’s time towards a new journey.  

Unified Services Model Ignites Modernization Initiatives

The project focused on its human resources, finance, and student management systems. Since each is a significant project on its own, the team decided to tackle them separately. PeopleSoft HR had been running at the University for close to 20 years, making it an ideal first candidate. The issue with their PeopleSoft system was less about the lack of new updates, but more about the need to create a robust, engaging experience for their end users. At the time, they had built multiple workarounds with up to 27 different tools to perform one function. The number of processes and systems to manage became a challenge for the team to keep up with and hindered their ability to focus on modernizing.  

The university chose Rimini Manage™ to take over the management of its PeopleSoft HR system. “What really helped me endorse the move to a managed services agreement was Rimini Street’s approach of learning from us, then having that shadowing process, and then proving that they actually understood the way of the university,” said Jo.  

University Realizes Multiple Benefits from One Partnership

The Rimini ONE program did more than just enable the move to a new system, but also helped the university build out a proactive roadmap. “It’s really empowering to have Rimini Street as a true partner. Their team gives us greater confidence and capabilities as we go through this complex migration journey,” said Batchelor. Additionally, the unified solution helped address the skills shortages that made it difficult to find the deep PeopleSoft expertise needed for such a large-scale project. Replacing one skilled resource for its PeopleSoft HR system would require hiring two very experienced engineers to fill the amount of existing knowledge and skills needed.  

Rimini Street has that level of expertise on staff, saving the university the time and effort of recruiting, onboarding, and training. Batchelor can fully devote internal resources to work on the modernization program instead of trying to manage the current system, fix issues as they arise, and learn new systems at the same time. Because Rimini Support had already built up an intimate and detailed knowledge of the University’s PeopleSoft systems and operations, Batchelor felt confident adopting Rimini ONE for the project. “Rimini ONE really provides that partnership to help us be better at what we do,” said Batchelor.  

Their existing PeopleSoft platform no longer receives new updates or new critical security patches. Based on internal analysis, the team determined maintenance and protection of their current version was more impactful than upgrading. 

Their Rimini Street team prepared a Rimini Smart Path™, a customized plan that defines strategic recommendations based on business needs. With the rising number of IT vulnerabilities and risks, the team recommended that the university perform a security audit of its PeopleSoft platforms. The audit revealed the scope and amount of data across its HR and finance systems that needed protection. Rimini Protect™, with zero-day solutions, provided an extra layer of protection that the university couldn’t afford to be without.  

Comprehensive Service Drives Long-Term Relationship

As they embark on their 10-year ERP replacement roadmap schedule, “I appreciate the amount of time that Rimini Street dedicates to us, to not only talk about our current technology systems, but to also offer advice and help us strategize,” said Batchelor. Their Rimini ONE program, including Rimini Manage, Rimini Support for PeopleSoft, and Rimini Protect keeps Batchelor and her team focused on futuristic projects and initiatives, while helping them build internal capacity to evolve into its next-generation ERP landscape.