The go-live date for the university’s new HR, Finance and Procurement system (UniCore) is expected to be towards the end of November 2024.

As previously highlighted, the current nature and complexity of our data created some issues when it was transferred to UniCore during Q4 2023. This resulted in the project team finding that the data was not behaving as was expected.

The nature and format of data that is required for UniCore is much more specific than what we hold in our existing systems. More time is therefore needed to ensure we will have the best quality information in our new system.

The exact go-live date for UniCore will be dependent on the project team successfully completing the following activities over the coming months:

• The data from our existing systems will be updated to meet the specific requirements of UniCore, before being transferred over.
• Data that has never been recorded in our systems before will be put into UniCore. The project team will be asking Operations leads in faculties and departments to provide information such as staff working patterns, details about organisation structures, and identify their casual and contingent workers.
• The cutover period will be the time when we will stop using our existing systems, such as Resourcelink and Agresso, so that finalised data can be transferred into UniCore. The project team will rehearse the cutover process to determine the duration and success for each of the steps involved.

Completing these activities will enable us to confirm the sequencing, timing and duration of the cutover period, ensure our data is of the highest quality and determine the final go-live date. A precise cutover timetable will be shared with you towards the end of July 2024.

This will give staff approximately four months to prepare for the processes that will be temporarily impacted during the cutover period.

You will be able to use UniCore to book annual leave, view payslips, access organisation charts, record Appraisal and Development Conversations (ADC), view university jobs, record sickness, make purchases, claim expenses, access reports and record financial transactions for Research projects.

Sessions over the summer months will give staff the opportunity to see live system demonstrations and even try the system for themselves. The approach for staff training will also be shared as soon as possible to enable teams to plan for this.

Since the beginning of 2024, over 250 members of staff have been helping to test UniCore and nearly 5,000 tests have been completed to date. Most of the test results are showing that UniCore is performing how we want it to, but the project team will continue with this rigorous testing to correct errors that have been identified and build high confidence levels with our new system. It is common for system rollouts of this scale to experience some form of teething problems at go-live, but this testing will help to keep these to a minimum.

The revised UniCore delivery plan has been reviewed and challenged internally to ensure it is achievable and realistic. It will now undergo scrutiny by the university’s independent Assurance Partner, PwC.

Thank you for your ongoing support as we work together to launch a modern, integrated, secure and reliable system that will support us in our daily work.

Please visit the SharePoint site or email digitalcore@nottingham.ac.uk if you have any questions.