Upgrade or customize? StarGarden helps minimize internal resource costs


Upgrading

This Fire Department was using an earlier version of StarGarden, and relied on customizations to meet their changing requirements.



Too Many Customizations = Overtly Complicated Maintenance


The Fire Services system had become overly complicated due to using a largely customized version of StarGarden that had been installed in the early 1990s. These complications led to issues in their organization:

 

  • Users were frustrated with the complexities of the system
  • The StarGarden system administrator was finding it more and more difficult to support the users
  • The system was entirely dependent on one or two technical resources to keep it running and produce the weekly payroll
  • Management was concerned about their dependency on key resources and feared an abrupt system failure and breakdown

StarGarden was called to help simplify and streamline their HR and payroll system

How did StarGarden help? 

  • StarGarden encouraged Fire Services to get back as closely to the standard product version as possible
  • StarGarden consultants created a list of the old customizations, which Fire Services used to verify whether they were still needed
  • Customizations that were required were upgraded to the latest standards and implemented into the new release of StarGarden
  • From the lists of customizations, StarGarden consultants were able to create testing plans for Fire Services to verify that the system and its customizations worked as expected and required

 

  • All of the complicated pay and benefit requirements were mapped out and reviewed in the system.
  • The users were able to simultaneously test and learn the new payroll system that they had participated in customizing; their input was reviewed and changes made to accommodate internal procedures.

By upgrading to the latest release of the StarGarden product, Fire Services was able to:

  • Reinstate support and have redundancy for their critical resources needed to execute the payrolls.
  • Take advantage of regular updates as well as the functionality improvements that had occurred in the years since they originally installed the system.
  • Include user input in the upgrade to make the system work better for them.
  • Train their Internal users to be more efficient at using the system
  • Relieve their management of their concern about having support redundancy for such a critical application