"All of a sudden, an IE icon appeared, and people wanted to start using it," Murray says. "Users wanted to know if the default browser were changing and if so, why. We had a whole smorgasbord of 'What's this?' calls." But once Murray and his team explained to users that the changes were related to the ERP project, the calls subsided.
Helping users understand why the ERP project was happening in the first place, though, was a major concern for Children's. Posters, internal e-mail messages and director-level missives got the word out, but the focus was on the big picture. Also, Andersen was coordinating the initial user training, but Murray was concerned that little attention was being paid to user support post-launch. The hospital's existing helpdesk needed to be integrated into the long-term support of the ERP application. Training and policies needed to be established so calls could be answered properly from Day 1.
When the issue was brought up in meetings with Andersen, it was paid "lip service," says Murray. Finally, Children's assembled a multidisciplinary group--an "A-team" of ERP support comprised of eight to 10 human resources, finance and helpdesk personnel who provided end-user support during go-live. Since that date, the A-team has received nearly 700 phone calls asking for help and information.
This group has yet to be integrated with the hospital's helpdesk and does not use its BMC Remedy trouble-ticket system to track calls. Fortunately, users have gotten more comfortable with the ERP system, so the group has shrunk to one or two "Jacks-of-all-trades," Murray says.
Until this group is "triaged" into the helpdesk, he says, Children's has two support models: one for its PeopleSoft application and one for every other hospital application.
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