SIGLA: a flexible, portable and reusable ERP system for Research Management

Our paper describes an example of how new sophisticated applications can be introduced to support the management of large and widely distributed organizations belonging to the Public Sector and in particular to Research, Development and Education. We present SIGLA, the integrated planning and financial accounting system developed and maintained by CNR (the Italian National Research Council) in order to support the financial resource management process, from guideline and objective definition, to budget production and result verification. This application allows strict control of the actual financial resource usage and a crosscheck between objectives and results of research activities. The design and implementation of the system started at the end of the year 2000 and the system is still evolving, following the re-organization of the Council. We start with a brief description of the circumstances which lead to re-defining CNR's organizational model and thus to designing and implementing CNR's new financial accounting system from scratch. We then provide an overview of the organizational model supported by the application. Afterwards we describe the application in terms of code metrics, programming languages, high level inputs and outputs, technology platforms, documentation and hosting environment. An important point in successfully introducing complex tools into a large organization like CNR is to ensure fast learning of the basic (and possibly the advanced) functionalities. Exhaustive documentation is surely a good asset but may not be sufficient, especially when time is a critical factor. In the paper we describe the training strategy we established, mainly based on tutorials and distance learning tools. Last but not least, we present the structure of the helpdesk service which supports users in their daily routine. We conclude the paper with the description of our field experience in running the application and some remarks about SIGLA's reusability.