Talent2 admits fault over Novopay

LATEST NEWS

Computerworld is New Zealand's only specialised information systems fortnightly.
Subscribe now for $100 (23 issues) and save more than 37% off the cover price!

Get the latest news from Computerworld delivered via email.
Sign up now

Talent2 CEO John Rawlinson says school administrators have had difficulty adapting to new system

By Randal Jackson | Wellington | Thursday, 22 November, 2012 | 26 Comments

Talent2 CEO John Rawlinson says both his company and the Ministry of Education were at fault for misjudging the readiness of school administrators to use the new Novopay teachers pay system.

“We tested the live data for every pay period and compared it to the Datacom output (Datacom ran the previous pay system) but we couldn’t test the readiness of the sector to adapt to a new way of doing things,” he says.

He says some school administrators were part-timers and some found it quite hard to learn the new system despite training.

Rawlinson was talking to the media yesterday after a clause in the contract preventing Talent2 from commenting on the troubled project was removed.

He says the technical issues were few and far between. “The big engine works well, though we’ve still got some development to do.”

The software is built on the latest version of Oracle, he says.

“We were trying to automate a lot of stuff. There were a lot of awards that had to be entered manually and needed some work arounds. But largely the software was working well.

“Most of the errors were caused by humans. There were minor interface issues with third parties, and interface issues with some schools. That caused a big backlog.

“The biggest issue is dealing with that backlog and getting transactions into the system.

“The good news is that once we’ve cleared the backlog, we’re going to make a step change in the accuracy.”

“There were a lot of challenges around the data, and a lot of work done on data cleansing.”

Comments

Disgusting response from Talent 2 As someone who has worked closely with over 100 New Zealand schools I feel I have to ask this question. Does Talent 2 really believe that most errors are the fault of school staff when 90% of principals who responded to an NZPF survey said their latest payroll had errors in it? And 70% said errors from previous periods had still not been resolved? When schools can view data on the same pay period through two menus and bssic things such as the total amount paid does not match from one screen to the other? When schools are paying teachers theyve never heard of who live in distant parts of the country? The training was totally inadequate and the software is diabolically bug ridden. Blaming the schools is cowardly, unprofessional, and somewhat delusional.
Posted by Anonymous at 18:53:21 on November 27, 2012

Flag abuse

SSC SSC are poking into this debacle
Posted by Anonymous at 13:45:37 on November 26, 2012

Flag abuse

The NovoPay Issues List. Its a joke! Check out the key issues list form the Novopay site to see who wasn't ready for go-live. Basic testing should have flushed these issues out.

http://www.novopay.govt.nz/Site/Service_Desk/Known-issues.aspx

Posted by Anonymous at 21:07:34 on November 25, 2012

Flag abuse

What a Joke! These guys were not prepared at all to work with the education sector. The training was hideous and unprofessional. User guides hopeless. They sent out pieces of paper as training notes, then updates their online user guide with more updates as if administrators have nothing to do but to go thru the guide many times! Why not have a user manual that was tested and correct the first time and sent out to all schools. Then for almost every question you have with the helpdesk, they tell you to fill in manual forms because the system is not doing what it was intended to do! Administrators become the scapegoats.
Posted by Anonymous at 21:35:41 on November 24, 2012

Flag abuse

Don't blame others if you can't design a simple system that works! It is funny how he blames it on administrators, yet when they input hours in the system, the reports shows days. When dates are entered correctly, the reports don't show, so how are administrators able to reconcile? What is entered successfully into their online system does not reflect in the payslips or reports. Then, when there are error messages, administrators are told to submit manual forms (too many forms by the way!), and they blame the administrators for creating more paperwork and backlog! If everything worked electronically, why are there so many manual forms. When forms or requests are sent, you then get request numbers one after another. When you chase for update for the same problem or form, you get another request number....you can get over 5 request numbers just for the same problem. How are administrators able to do other work if they have to keep tab of all these numbers! The whole planning, implementing and training for this system was going nowhere from the beginning. Don't blame the administrators who are working endless hours just trying to get everyone paid! By the way, even the "Search" tab on the Novopay homepage don't work! What does that say about their system????
Posted by Anonymous at 21:26:15 on November 24, 2012

Flag abuse

Don't blame others if you can't design a simple system that works! Search works fine for me, just tried it again to be sure maybe it's you or your setup? . Which makes me think what does that say about the rest of the problems you describe.
Posted by Anonymous at 23:11:02 on November 24, 2012

Flag abuse

Why new system ? Why a new system ? What was so wrong with the previous system ?
???
Posted by Anonymous at 13:50:56 on November 23, 2012

Flag abuse

Why new system ? Cost a fortune to run, had just as many problems (as you would expect with 100k pays, a few hundred errors each month) was basically old fashioned, hard to change and based on very legacy technology with little scope to support change - pretty much like the supplier of it . I believe they had like 150 people keeping it going basically school account managers doing things manually. That enough reasons? There are more.
Posted by Anonymous at 19:32:15 on November 23, 2012

Flag abuse

Why new system ? Very old legacy system yet did not have these bugs

1.Travel does not show as kilometres but as either H (hours) or D (days) but the mileage entered is shown correctly"

2.a bug that causes long or hyphenated names to appear twice in the payroll.
Some of the comments are based on belief - the fact is it was better than the present implemented system.
Get facts - compare the cost of the old and the new?
If you know the facts why not publish it?
How long overdue was it? Did you review the PWC Audit report from 2011?
Did you watch TV3 tonight and the e-mail saga - from the wonderful new system.
If the past supplier was legacy the new one is significantly worse. Lets not say worse but pathetic and costly$$$$
Posted by TESTER NZ at 21:41:33 on November 23, 2012

Flag abuse

Why new system ? Bugs can be fixed and will be I'd imagine. Might take some time but with all the attention being lavished on it by commenters like yourself who clearly have some inside knowledge and probably some income riding on the old system will be fixed quite quickly as you keep pointing them out. Whereas the old system was flawed beyond repair clearly as it was replaced. Oh and I doubt any believes version 1.0 of the old system when it came out way back then was perfect so comparing what was probably version 100 of one system with version 1 of a new system is pretty flawed. Things move on suggest you do as well.
Posted by Anonymous at 23:06:44 on November 24, 2012

Flag abuse