2006 will be a milestone year for Purdue! With the huge OnePurdue initiative to implement an ERP solution, there are many things happening that will affect just about every Purdue employee and student. When SAP was chosen as the ERP software, it was determined that Coeus, which we had already been using as a budgeting tool, should play a more important role. (Click here to read more about how Coeus and SAP are related.) To better meet all the needs involved, both from a functional and a technical standpoint, we had to upgrade Coeus. In addition, because of the OnePurdue directive to implement all vendor software "plain vanilla" or without any customizations to the programming, we are upgrading without any modifications to the system.

A vanilla implementation has two very distinct characteristics. On the one hand, it makes it much easier for us to accept future versions of the software from the vendor, because future versions will build on past versions. If we didn’t change anything, we can just install the new software right on top of the old and not worry (too much) about whether anything will be broken. On the other hand, a vanilla implementation often means we have to adapt our business practices to meet the functionality of the software, and that means training and possibly even restructuring.

With Coeus it was no different, but there is one important factor in this case: Purdue is more in a position of influence over the future of Coeus than is common with a software vendor, because in this case the “vendor” is another research institution: MIT. That means that, because our vanilla implementation means we’re able to install new versions easily, and because we can have a direct influence on what new features Coeus should include, we’ll be able to continue upgrading Coeus in a way that will actually complement our business practices, not contradict them.