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Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

theregister.com

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Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#41

Post by IshKebab »

alephnerd wrote: post #11

Spending roughly $38M per year (as per the Register article) for HRM, EPM, IBP, and CRM in an organization with roughly 22,000 employees [0] and 16,000 students [1] is a fair amount. HNers really underestimate the complexity of software projects in organizations as divided as a large private research university that is also a major healthcare network [2]. [0] - https://governmentrelations.wustl.edu/economic-impact-st…

Spending $2k/year/student on it sounds pretty insane to me. At that price it would be cheaper just to hire an army of secretaries and do it on paper.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#42

Post by rgovostes »

rwmj wrote: post #8
msy wrote: post #4

Workday, Palantir, ServiceNow - a new generation of Accenture/Oracle et al 'consulting' parasites that wine and dine their way into organisations (and governments) and then bleed them dry. There's a reason software spending endlessly goes up but productivity has flatlined.

ServiceNow is so terrible I genuinely wonder how it is ever deployed anywhere. Seriously, do the purchasers never look at it? Is there no product demo at all during the purchase process? Do the sales people actively hide it or something?

I work in a department that has been using ServiceNow for at least 5 years, and I still do not know how to look up a ticket by ticket number. I just pretend I'm following along when my colleagues reference a ticket.

I just spent a minute poking at it: my dashboard page didn't load, then it told me there are no open tickets in the system, then clicking on a different ticket number to open it didn't do anything, and then the server stopped responding. (Edit: it took 48 seconds to load the ticket.)

They also have a little stopwatch button on some pages that pops up a "Browser Response Time" window that tries to put the blame for slow page load times on the user's browser. Weird, wonder why they need that...

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#43

Post by zephyreon »

I work for an R1 university that just launched Workday recently and it has been a total disaster.

Consultants + vendor pitch a nice shiny solution that handles everything & works flawlessly. In actuality it resulted in a net efficiency & productivity loss vs the homegrown systems we came from.

It sure did generate plenty of billables for the consultants though, who mind you, are still contracted over a year later.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#44

Post by rwmj »

rgovostes wrote: post #42
rwmj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ServiceNow is so terrible I genuinely wonder how it is ever deployed anywhere. Seriously, do the purchasers never look at it? Is there no product demo at all during the purchase process? Do the sales people actively hide it or something?

I work in a department that has been using ServiceNow for at least 5 years, and I still do not know how to look up a ticket by ticket number. I just pretend I'm following along when my colleagues reference a ticket. I just spent a minute poking at it: my dashboard page didn't load, then it told me there are no open tickets in the system, then clicking on a different ticket number to open it didn't do anything, and th…

Yes! It always amazes me there seems to be no obvious URL scheme for servicenow.sadcompany.com/ Like, did the developers forget to implement that?

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#45

Post by wmf »

Esophagus4 wrote: post #36

I've always thought it would be interesting to be the guy called in to clean up these messes. That's where I'd love my career to go... being called in to turn around a sinking ship. Technology projects have a habit of going wildly off the rails, especially if you're not at ${bigTechCo} with a really mature software factory pumping out large projects consistently, so it seems like there'd be no shortage of mess to cle…

Nah, it's a horrible job. They box you in so that there is no acceptable solution then blame you for not fixing it.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#46

Post by cootsnuck »

pknomad wrote: post #19
Telemakhos wrote: post #7

I guess I have three questions here. 1) What happened to the days when universities published their own software, like pine from UW? It seems like Washington of St Louis, which offers a PhD in computer science, should have some students capable of writing a database to run the university. 2) Why have universities not collaborated to develop a modular, expandable system for running a university, instead of putting the…

I work at a lab associated with R1 university that has Nobel laureate output so I feel like I have some knowledge in this area: 1. They exist. However, writing a piece of software is not the same thing as supporting them, especially when it comes to dealing with core HR system. This is where SaaSs and similar platform offers lot of appeal. 2. Also difficult because everyone has different needs and at some point certa…

> For transparency, a single software engineer budget is $670K+.

Are you saying that the costs to employ a single software engineer is $670K+? If you mean something else then nvm.

Otherwise that's a ridiculous number to use unless you are specifically talking about places with the highest cost of living in the country where a mid-level dev starts at over $200K.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#47

Post by kotaKat »

johnboiles wrote: post #21

How organizations would pay for Workday baffles me. It is the worst company software I've ever used. It would regularly lose data that managers would input so the best practice amongst EMs was to never put data directly into Workday but instead keep copies elsewhere and only input it into Workday at the last moment. Then if Workday decided to drop your performance feedback you could just paste it again. It must be re…

I'm surprised to see them on a patchwork of applications still and not already on an enterprise-wide system like Ellucian Banner. I wasn't expecting Workday here, though.

That doesn't quite make sense for a college. Students aren't employees, why are we trying to fit them into the same mold as an employee in this nonsense it feels like?

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#48

Post by fluidcruft »

rwmj wrote: post #8
msy wrote: post #4

Workday, Palantir, ServiceNow - a new generation of Accenture/Oracle et al 'consulting' parasites that wine and dine their way into organisations (and governments) and then bleed them dry. There's a reason software spending endlessly goes up but productivity has flatlined.

ServiceNow is so terrible I genuinely wonder how it is ever deployed anywhere. Seriously, do the purchasers never look at it? Is there no product demo at all during the purchase process? Do the sales people actively hide it or something?

We have something called ServiceNow where I work. It's so horrible that I assumed it was in house.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#49

Post by Esophagus4 »

wmf wrote: post #45
Esophagus4 wrote: post #36

I've always thought it would be interesting to be the guy called in to clean up these messes. That's where I'd love my career to go... being called in to turn around a sinking ship. Technology projects have a habit of going wildly off the rails, especially if you're not at ${bigTechCo} with a really mature software factory pumping out large projects consistently, so it seems like there'd be no shortage of mess to cle…

Nah, it's a horrible job. They box you in so that there is no acceptable solution then blame you for not fixing it.

Bummer McBummertown. That seems less fun.

Re: Workday project at Washington University hits $266M

#50

Post by rgovostes »

rwmj wrote: post #44
rgovostes wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a department that has been using ServiceNow for at least 5 years, and I still do not know how to look up a ticket by ticket number. I just pretend I'm following along when my colleagues reference a ticket. I just spent a minute poking at it: my dashboard page didn't load, then it told me there are no open tickets in the system, then clicking on a different ticket number to open it didn't do anything, and th…

Yes! It always amazes me there seems to be no obvious URL scheme for servicenow.sadcompany.com/ Like, did the developers forget to implement that?

Yeah, and there's no search field, either. Surely, this is my misunderstanding and I should click the "Show Help" icon for a product tutorial, right? This pops up a window saying:

> Now Assist offers real-time guidance and support for users seeking help with Virtual Agent. This feature’s generative AI skills blah blah blah

Ok...? There is no input box to interact with "Now Assist" or the "Virtual Agent", it's just like a marketing blurb for some other feature.

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