Project description

For the digitization of administrative support processes, universities need future-proof technology platforms that support the specialized procedures and processes. TU Dortmund University, WWU Münster and six other universities in North Rhine-Westphalia are therefore tackling the challenge as a consortium to migrate the SAP ERP systems currently in use to the technologically up-to-date SAP platform S/4HANA for further digitization. At the same time, other universities such as the Hochschule Ruhr West want to use a standardized SAP S/4HANA system for university administration in the future.

As a cooperative project, SAP.nrw is to create a uniform SAP S/4HANA reference template that is as standardized as possible in order, on the one hand, to enable all participating universities to migrate to the new S/4HANA platform with as little effort as possible. Furthermore, in the medium to long term, this will create the possibility of making future developments available once for all participants, as well as making the new entry into SAP low-threshold for other universities.

The project is part of the agreement on digitization (VzD) and is supported by the Digital University NRW (DH.NRW).

Project duration

Project start: 01.07.2022
Project end: 31.07.2025

Universities involved in the project in the consortium:

TU Dortmund University (consortium leadership and project management), University of Münster (project management), German Sport University Cologne, Hochschule Ruhr West of Applied Sciences, TH Köln, Bielefeld University, Duisburg-Essen University, Siegen University, University of Cologne.

Project objectives

The objectives of the SAP.nrw project are:

• to create an SAP.nrw reference template under the leadership of the project-leading universities in close, joint exchange with all participating universities in the consortium and to make it available for local implementations
• to carry out the productive rollout on the basis of this reference system, including the necessary localizations, at the four early adopter universities (TU Dortmund University, WWU Münster, German Sport University Cologne, Hochschule Ruhr West) by 01.01.2025
• Align the reference template largely with the SAP standard
• establish NRW process standards through standardization based on best practice approaches to enable cost-effective joint further development
• to create the prerequisites for cost-effective joint operation by using modern and scalable operating and infrastructure standards.

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