Oracle Reference Page

As part of the transition to Oracle, St. Olaf will suspend hiring, equity increases, promotions, FTE changes, and title changes from November 17, 2023, through December 31, 2023.

We are at the stage in the Oracle project where we are doing a final review and cleansing of the data in Lawson. The last day that we will be entering new data into Lawson is Thursday, November 16, 2023. During the following week, we will complete the cleansing of our data, which we will then “freeze” and load into Oracle. The “cutover” from Lawson to Oracle will occur during the final week of November and first week of December. We will then undertake intensive testing of Oracle and our data to prepare to go live on December 16, 2023.

We will still be in a period of transition. Non-exempt staff will enter their time in Oracle – with support from the Oracle team. Payroll for exempt staff will still be done in Lawson and paid out at the end of December. Faculty and staff will still be able to look at budget reports in Lawson through the end of December. 

Every transaction between November 17, 2023, and December 31, 2023, will not be entered in Lawson but, instead, will be entered manually on a spreadsheet, and then entered – again manually – into Oracle once we go live. Even with the suspension of these transactions, there will still be a significant amount of manual entry of data during the six-week period and after we go live.

If you are currently trying to hire a new employee, please try to hire the person before November 16th or delay the starting date until after December 31st. If you believe that the role is critical to the operation of the college, please speak to me, and I will address the situation with Human Resources.

Human Resources will also not be posting new jobs during the suspension. The end of November and December are, thankfully, the slowest time in the year for hiring new employees.

There were many (many) factors that went into our decision in choosing which cloud solution St. Olaf chose. Along with a proven background and decades in the industry, Oracle has agreed to work with the HESS Consortium, a group of private, non-profit colleges and universities, to go through this transition together. Currently there are 80+ member institutions considering the move to Oracle with 7 already having started the process.

We’ll be periodically updating this website but we also plan to send employee-wide emails when the need arises.