Adopting New Ideas
Organization Profile
- Industry: K-12 Education
- Location: Livingston Parish, Louisiana
- Employees: 4,800
- Students: 25,500
- Tyler Client Since: 2003
- Tyler Products Used: Enterprise ERP, Time & Attendance, Content Manager
Challenges
For many years, employees at Louisiana’s Livingston Parish Public Schools used a proprietary financial and payroll management system developed by a neighboring district. Although it was billed as one system, the solution’s financial management and payroll management functions didn’t play well together; furthermore, creating any type of report was a cumbersome process that involved a lot of paper.
After a thorough review, Livingston Parish Public Schools decided to switch to Tyler Technologies’ integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Enterprise ERP, to increase the performance and efficiency of its financial management processes and support its payroll needs. It was looking to automate document capture and storage, reduce manual data entry, and streamline workflow to move toward a paperless model.
Solution
The district went live with payroll in January 2004 after creating its accounting structure and chart of accounts with the Tyler implementation team. While Business Manager Kimberley Stewart recommends tackling financial management first, she credits Tyler’s implementation consultants with effectively guiding the district in the set-up process.
“We have shared our chart of accounts with other districts in Louisiana because it covered every detail and was so effective,” said Stewart. “We want to help as many of our peers as possible to find the kind of success that we have in our years using Tyler.”
Results
Livingston Parish Public Schools often works collaboratively with other districts to determine and implement best practices. To this end, Stewart points to two of the most impactful annual events that her team attends — the Louisiana Association of School Business Officials (LASBO) event each year and Tyler Technologies’ Connect annual user conference.
“We attend Connect every year, and it usually triggers a round of updates when we get back to the office because we’ve learned a new way that we can make use of our ERP solution,” said Stewart.
One of the most impactful updates for Livingston Parish Public Schools, to date, has been the transition from using Enterprise ERP as a desktop application to using Enterprise ERP as a web-based application. Prior to the switch, whenever users encountered issues, the parish was forced to connect directly into individual computers, troubleshoot, and reinstall the client.
Today, the ability to provide on-demand updates to every employee in the parish’s active directory with just the click of a button has been instrumental in saving time and money. Livingston Parish Public Schools was able to cut the time its employees spent troubleshooting problems in half.
Information-sharing at industry events has also prompted Livingston Parish Public Schools to make some of the following updates to the configuration of its ERP solution over the past 17 years:
We’ve worked with Tyler for 17 years, and they have consistently been a step ahead of us with respect to updating our technology and processes; we’re never waiting for Tyler to catch up to modern technology — they are usually encouraging us to join them where they’re at.
Matt Lavigne
MIS Director, Livingston Parish Public Schools, LA
- Invested in software to manage time and attendance, as well as advanced scheduling. Livingston Parish Public Schools now uses Time & Attendance to offer employees self-service functionalities and to closely manage overtime, job costing, and labor data to reduce expenses.
- Increased efficiency with Employee Access.. Employee Access is a fully customizable employee portal available to school employees in real-time over a secure internet connection. Employees can easily monitor and maintain personal and employment information, including paid time off, accrual requests, pay history, benefits selections, job openings, performance evaluations, announcements, and more.
- Added the ability to track employees by employee number. Employees with the same first and last name in Livingston Parish Public Schools’ Employee Access system were difficult to find and track through Enterprise ERP. The parish updated Employee Access to include employee numbers and is now able to track employees with duplicate names.
- Invested in Tyler’s Planned Annual Continuing Education (PACE) program. The PACE program is a subscription-based service designed to support clients who are committed to maximizing their ERP investment. Livingston Parish Public Schools is working with Tyler consultants to pinpoint where it can be more efficient, and to upgrade its use of Enterprise ERP based on those recommendations.
“As a parish, we’ve truly flourished with Tyler as a partner,” said Matt Lavigne, MIS Director, Livingston Parish Public Schools. “Every year the Tyler team, along with our peers, pull us out of our comfort zone with new updates, ideas, and capabilities that have consistently changed our processes for the better.”
Today, Livingston Parish Public Schools is flourishing with its modern, integrated ERP solution.