With JAGGAER Adopt Premium interactive guides, VCU senior staff streamline training and ensure compliance for the system’s 2,000 users.
About VCU
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university. It’s known for its diverse academic programs and strong emphasis on research and creativity.
Location: Richmond, Virginia, US
Size: 25,000 employees, 29,000 students
Business Challenge
Maintain compliance with procurement processes and reduce the impact of the cyclical hiring nature of universities.
Why JAGGAER
Create dynamic guides within JAGGAER One that provide step-by-step solutions and self-guided walkthroughs to the most common questions and compliance challenges.
Through the embedded intelligence capabilities of JAGGAER One, VCU experiences:
- Established group-wide capability and consistent compliance across their 25,000 employees
- Streamlined onboarding and training to support cyclical and student staff
- Significantly reduced time spent on training
Executive Summary
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a vibrant public research university in Richmond, Virginia, sought a more effective way to maintain procurement compliance across its dynamic workforce. With 25,000 employees and nearly 2,000 users of the system, the university faced ongoing challenges with compliance and errors due to the cyclical nature of its hiring. Training adjunct professors and student staff that only used the system a few times a year was timeconsuming and unsustainable.
VCU found a way to strengthen compliance by streamlining training with JAGGAER Adopt Premium. Step-by-step guides reduced onboarding time and ensured all users knew exactly how to procure their requisitions and stay in compliance. The platform’s intuitive design empowered users to quickly access the information they needed, improving efficiency and minimizing errors. Thanks to this solution, VCU transformed its procurement processes, freeing up valuable time and resources for more strategic tasks while creating a more self-sufficient, capable user base. Compliance is now seamless, even with the flow of new and returning staff, positioning VCU as a leader in procurement efficiency and innovation.
Ensuring Compliance in a Dynamic Environment
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), a public research university in Richmond, Virginia, is known for its diverse academic programs and strong research capabilities. Managing procurement compliance across its 11 schools and five colleges is critical, especially given the university’s large workforce of 25,000 employees and nearly 29,000 students. Compliance with both university policies and state regulations is essential to VCU’s operations, and procurement plays a pivotal role.
The challenge VCU faced was maintaining compliance with its procurement processes along with the dynamic and cyclical nature of its workforce. With a steady flow of adjunct professors, part-time staff, and student workers who often have limited time or exposure to the systems, maintaining compliance was an ongoing struggle. New hires often lacked familiarity with the system, and even returning staff members sometimes forgot procedures, leading to errors that could compromise compliance and result in maverick spend.
Patricia Shazer, Assistant Director of Business Solutions, noted the burden this placed on the team. “It was hard because we had to balance the people that were new and had never seen the system and those that had already been using it,” says Patricia. “So, we were constantly training. And we don’t have the time to do that with the other day-today things that we need to take care of.”
Traditional classroom training sessions and a massive 300-page manual became overwhelming tools that required significant time and coordination, detracting from more strategic tasks. The existing approach was not sustainable given the volume of requests from 2,000 system users and the waves of staff in and out.
Replacing training manuals with interactive guides
Mindful that educating employees shouldn’t have to take so much time and effort, Patricia was on the lookout for a solution. As part of the implementation team when JAGGAER was first brought on as their Procure-to-Pay Solution, she was already familiar with how it centralized their processes for efficiency.
“A lot of it was just trying to get things moved into one system. Just because we have a lot of different systems it tied together. And we did use the state system previously, but it didn’t offer us all of the benefits with the procure-to-pay process. So, I think that’s probably one of the big selling points” she says. “Having those all together was a big selling factor for us.”
So, when she saw the capabilities of JAGGAER Adopt Premium being showcased at a conference, she already knew it was primed to help VCU maintain compliance across university staff.
“I was really impressed with the things that Adopt Premium was able to do,” she says. “And I thought: ‘Gosh, this is wonderful. Our people could have one place to find everything and not have to search for videos or manuals, looking through pages of things, wait for training, or message us with questions.’ It makes sense for us.”
The implementation phase was only a few weeks, included full JAGGAER support, and has resulted in 15 guides created to-date. Now, JAGGAER Adopt Premium ensures that new staff members are well-versed in using the procurement platform almost from the get-go and allows existing employees to refresh their knowledge quickly, ensuring compliance with university processes and state regulations.
“Some of the guides that we developed actually click people through the process,” says Patricia. “It’s really good because, for example, we have a lot of adjunct professors that use the system to shop but they may sometimes be gone for a few months at a time. When they come back, they need to order again but can’t remember how to do so. Now, they have the option to go into Adopt Premium, select the guides they need, point and click, and go through.”
Reducing Errors and Saving Time
JAGGAER Adopt Premium has transformed VCU’s approach to compliance. The guides help ensure that even with different staff coming and going, procurement is consistently handled according to policy and state regulations. This shift not only streamlined onboarding but also reduced errors that previously arose from a lack of familiarity or infrequent system use.
Adopt Premium’s integration with VCU’s ticketing system further enhanced efficiency. When users submit a query, the system automatically suggests relevant guides, providing immediate support without direct intervention from Patricia’s team.
“We have the ability to customize the answers to some of the repetitive questions within the system,” explains Patricia. “So, when those questions come in, we don’t actually have to physically respond, the automated response just guides them in the right direction with Adopt Premium. And some of the end-users have reached out to us and said: ‘I didn’t even realize that was there. That was so easy’.”
This automated, guided approach not only cuts down on repetitive training but also fosters a culture of self-sufficiency among VCU’s staff. The university is now able to maintain compliance consistently, even amidst frequent changes in personnel, freeing up staff to focus on other critical tasks.
Extending Compliance and Efficiency to Vendors
Looking forward, VCU plans to further extend the benefits of JAGGAER Adopt Premium by incorporating vendor interactions within the guides. The goal being to simplify vendor registration and integration processes, enhancing relationships and compliance management across the board.
Dedicated to continuous improvements, the team is going to take advantage of the full 360-degree view of interactions and compliance within Adopt Premium to provide a clearer picture of how the key tools are being used. This will contribute to improvements in the existing guides and will continue to help the team shape some new ones.
“With the guides, we can not only show people the right way of doing things but also call out repeating mistakes and specifically say ‘don’t do it like this’. There are fewer errors, and our end-users don’t have to wait for somebody to get back to them, so they can get their requisitions through the system a lot quicker. I’d recommend Adopt Premium to any JAGGAER user.”
Conclusion
VCU’s adoption of JAGGAER Adopt Premium has fundamentally changed how the university manages procurement compliance. By using interactive guides that cater to the unique needs of its diverse and everchanging staff, VCU has been able to streamline onboarding, reduce errors, and maintain compliance across all levels of the organization. This approach has not only saved time but also improved the overall user experience, setting the stage for continued success in procurement operations.
– Patricia Shazer, Assistant Director of Business Solutions, Virginia Commonwealth University
