UNI first adopted the SAP R/2 system in 1992 with help from SAP and IBM. This marked the start of UNI's migration from its in-house developed COBOL-based financial systems to SAP. A key reason was SAP R/2's functionalities and benefits to users, especially the savings in resources spent on manually generating reports.

Following the success of the SAP R/2 system UNI upgraded to the SAP R/3 system release 2.2B in 1994, taking advantage of client/server technology, while working with HP Services as its implementation partner. The system provided greater transparency, up-to-date information, easy data access, fully shared data storage integration, and a user friendly and intuitive graphical interface that gave users greater flexibility and control. This freed up the university's Computer Department (HCD) staff for more strategic work, such as security enhancement.

In 1998, UNI upgraded to the SAP R/3 system release 3.1 H and implemented new modules of the system to improve UNI's business procedures and to ensure Y2K compliance. In 1999, UNI moved to the SAP R/3 system release 4.0B and later, 4.6A, and added other new financial modules. KPMG was involved in the implementation. Consequently, accounts were changed to meet departmental needs, the number of modifications was reduced, and process flow was streamlined.

UNI upgraded to the new SAP R/3 system release 4.6B in 2000 and implemented additional modules. During the implementation, the university hired an experienced contract programmer to aid in writing the reports to meet the tight schedule. The material...