The second HER business meeting was held at the Sapphire Conference in Orlando, Florida on 8/24/97. On Saturday night 8/23, John Greaney, SAP's Director of the Public Sector Industry Center of Expertise (ICOE), hosted a delightful dinner for the HER user group and the full membership of the Public Sector ICOE.
The meeting on Sunday morning started with opening remarks by Katherine Cochrane, current chair of the HER group. Given that the attendance consisted mostly of new members, a review of the last meeting was given to bring new participants up-to-date. New members will be sent copies of the charter, the previous set of notes, and a listing of current members.
Each participant introduced themselves and provided an overview of the state of implementation in their school, university, or research organization, including the SAP modules in use or being configured. Speaking about their projects were representatives from Central Michigan University, University of Toronto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cape Town, and the Savannah River Plant (US).
Dr. Herbert Lederer from SAP Germany gave an update of the Funds Management development requests that had been submitted to SAP earlier in the year. Two of the requests - grant handling and carryover rules - were submitted to the developers and are scheduled for completion next year.
Herbert then gave a presentation on what SAP is developing for use of Internet in the public sector. While focusing on the public sector in his slides, he mentioned that universities have much experience with the Internet, and could easily understand his examples from the public sector. His presentation was included with a presentation by John Greaney. A copy of it may be downloaded from SAP's Sapphire home page at <http://www.sap.com/usa/sapphire/>. Select "Breakout Sessions" and then select the "Public Sector" track and "All Days." (You need to have Acrobat Reader installed to view the presentation.)
Katie then distributed a copy of the proposed agenda for the next meeting of HER which will be held in South Africa, and hosted by the University of Cape Town. Andy Duncan, as in-coming chair, requested that the agenda be presented, and feedback solicited, from the membership.
As part of the discussion of the forthcoming agenda, a lively conversation ensued regarding the difficulty that some schools might have in attending a meeting in South Africa. Pursuant to that, a concern was raised regarding the usefulness of continuing the HER organization. Some felt that two meetings a year limited the value of moving development requests to Germany as quickly as might be necessary. Some felt that we were too small a group to have much clout. A variety of opinions were expressed, including the feeling that as only two meetings have been held, it was too soon to gauge the impact of the organization.
Participants from SAP (John Greaney, Carol Alper) suggested that there was value in keeping HER separate. Despite the fact that we are still small, we represent what is hoped to be an expanding market. Other participants were concerned that participating in too many user groups (ASUG, HER, etc.) was time-consuming. They thought that it should only be necessary to be a member of one group that had sufficient clout to forward requirements to SAP and have them addressed.
The conversation concluded with the overall sense that we should go forward as organized and planned. The topic could be revisited in six months time, particularly since then there hopefully would be new members.
At this point, lunch was served and the formal meeting terminated. After lunch, a lively discussion regarding credit card implementation ensued, and MIT presented an ad hoc display of their electronic catalogue and Web-based purchasing page.
The HER chair was officially turned over to Prof. Andy Duncan, in absentia. Jim McNamara (Deputy Project Manager) accepted the position for Andy. Details of the next meeting have been sent out to HER members, but if anyone new had been added and did not receive a copy please send email to Andy Duncan at prismpm@ucthpx.uct.ac.za. A Web-site for the meeting has been set up at <http://www.uct.ac.za/depts/prism/herug/>.
Two items from the agenda were not discussed due to lack of time: 1) a presentation by Marlies Burkhard of University of Toronto on the FM issues; and 2) a question about whether new SAP prospects should attend future meetings. Marlies had a Powerpoint presentation which reiterated some of the remarks of Herbert Lederer on the FM development requests that had been made earlier in the meeting. A copy her presentation will be available on the HER Web-site at <http://web.mit.edu/sapr3/HER/her8_97.pdf>.
On the second issue, Andy Duncan will be conducting an email poll to see whether the membership is for or against HER prospects being allowed to attend future meetings.