🚀 go-pugleaf

To: Beverly Dale,
> ...                                                                   rgeback
> As with every other system we have looked at, this system thinks in dollars.
> Because our administrative users will still need to be billed in dollars the
> issue becomes even more complicated.  Any suggestions??
>
> Beverly Dale
> Coordinator of Computer Accounting Services
> University Computer Center
> Oklahoma State University

Howdy, from one OSU to another!
First suggestions, then philosophy:
Try offering some fixed-costs services instead of charging for every
itty-bitty cpu second, disk track, and print line.  Your systems analyst
could earn his/her pay *very* well with several schemes for review.
Base charges on numbers-of-students served, number-of-staff-in-dept,
number/size of expected reports, percentage overhead(to pay your staff),
possibilites are endless so get close to your marketing folks.
Eliminate dollars, clams, and units from measuring computing activity.
Out-source your mainframe service (there are guidelines for hiring a
service bureau based on how much you spend now).

When you deal with both sides of the house (Admin and Academic), the
distinction among whose "dollars" are used and "what" they are used for
becomes a rather fuzzy.
Example:  Professor X wants to process his class/grades data and even
report such to the Registrar.  He might also use a workstation as a
terminal to connect to a mainframe(s)for admin stuff and later in the
particualr session, X will do a little work on the current research
project.   Are you going to ask X to logoff/logon depending on which
program is used?  Does it become (yet another) ethical issue on which
dollars are used for which purpose?
Is this close enough to home?  Apologies if it's too far off base...

At The Ohio State University in Academic Computing Services,
we eliminated the concept of "computing dollars" in favor of a "Central
Funding" approach where we do no chargeback at all, but we do provide
utilization reports using Merrill's MXG  product.  It is so much better
than the MARKIV and PL/1 monster we used to have!  Lab staff collect
utilization of PC/Mac workstations.   UNIX folks do their own accounting.

The Admin side of the house still performs Chargeback for paying
customers using some kind of homebaked system (I forgot which).
They are a "Cost Recovery" department and they have hizzies every
time the hardware changes (efficiency ratios may govern "how much
computing you get per buck").  Especially in budget crunches!

You could use technology as the vehicle:  create a nest of UNIX
mini-mainframes and networked workstations from central funds and the
existing networks you have going.  That is, hang the cost recovery
on the "older technology" and do not charge for the newer (less
expensive hardware).  The migration will happen faster that you think!

Oh! I guess this doesn't solve your software problem.  It kills it!
The only probelm with UNIX is the staff it takes (currently) to
maintain all those itsy-bitsy functions.
What you may find are some issues revolving around Oklahoma's concept
of a computing paradigm.  This is where I should stop.
Good luck selling your ideas to management!  It took me five years
with a lot of help.

Sam Fairchild
Former Manager of Accounting Programming
Academic Computing Services
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