Mega-university celebrates 10 years of trouble-free financials

SA`s UNISA distance learning university, which is among the 11 largest universities in the world, has celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Oracle Financials implementation.

UNISA moved off its locally-developed general ledger system in June 1992 to become the first SA organisation to go live with the Oracle solution.

This was necessary to comply with government`s new financial reporting needs as the previous system was not database driven.

UNISA has just two in-house support staff. One is a database administrator; the other, Retha Marais, who was on the initial financials implementation team, provides applications support.

"Financials has been extremely stable," she says, adding that proof of this is the fact that she only works half-day. Her busiest time is during upgrades such as the move to Oracle 11i currently being undertaken totally in-house.