Umoja and Citrix Receiver

If you have any issues with logging in through Citrix and/or have this dialog 

Citrix Receiver: You have not chosen to trust “COMODO High-Assurance Secure Server CA”, the issuer of the server’s certificate bothering you

This note is for the people who use apple products to login to Umoja. The access gateway to Umoja is possible in two ways namely the VPN connection and the Citrix connection. This blog is to make sure you have the steps to install necessary components make sure your Citrix connection works perfectly. The setup process is a three step process such as:

1. Installation of the Citrix receiver
2. Downloading the necessary certificates and
3. Installing the certificated in apple keychain.

Let me explain you them in order

Installation of the receiver

Go to citrix download site (http://www.citrix.com/go/receiver.html) and your computer will automatically detect the appropriate receiver for you. If not choose the receiver 12.1 for mac

Once the dmg file is downloaded follow the normal instruction to install the citrix receiver onto your computer. Once it is complete, you will have this icon in your applications stalk.

If you try to access the citrix without proper certificates installed you will get an error like this:

What I find interesting is that both Safari / Chrome didn’t complain about the trust. This most likely has to do with the way the certificates are chained. Where the browsers “see” the entire chain (AddTrust External CA Root "COMODO High-Assurance Secure Server CA "; ) the Citrix Receiver only sees the server certificates and expects the signing certificate in the keychain.

Downloading the certificates:

First we need to get our hands on the certificate of the signing party (in this case the COMODO certificate). One way of retrieving the root / intermediate certificate is by downloading it from the signing part, COMODO provides a download portal containing all their root / intermediate certificates 

Go the url: https://support.comodo.com/index.php?/Default/Knowledgebase/List/Index/71

and click on the two certificate links as marked and download them. The download link is available after you click this URL and scroll through the bottom of that page

Save the two certificates in an easily accessible folder for the next step

Installation of the certificates

Now you’ve got the certificate file you can import it in the Keychain. Just like installing any other application, once you know how it’s done it’s easier than brushing your teeth. 

Go to the folder you had downloaded the certificates and double click on the certificate file. This will open the Add Certificates dialog where you can select the Keychain (login), all you then have to do is click on Add. 

Once it is done, you need to make sure the certificates are marked as trusted certificates. To do that you need to click on View Certificates. If you had forgotten to click, open Keychain from Launchpad.

Select one of the COMODO certificate that was installed before (double click)

Open the Trust section and make sure the option 'Always Trust' is selected against the first option 'When using the certificate'. 

you can access Umoja without any issues.

Thanks to my colleague Conor O'Brien and Ben for helping in this issue. 

Good day!

Global Service Delivery - Implementation of Shared Service Model

Executive Summary

The value of shared services – beyond cost savings

Today’s shared service value proposition extends beyond cost reduction, the historical driver for shared services. Organizations, including other UN agencies, have achieved ‘proof of concept’ of shared services models. They are now seeking to maximize the value provided by their shared service models. These benefits extend beyond cost savings to provide increased quality, decreased risk and overall a more streamlined organization which is able to better focus on the strategy and mission. 

Today’s shared service value proposition includes: 

Umoja brings in United Nations an opportunity 

I believe UN has a significant opportunity with its shared services proposition. Other UN agencies have successfully implemented shared service models and have continued to grow the centers, as the benefits to the organization and the mission have been clearly demonstrated. Based on the current scope of the centre, we believe approximately 30,000 UN employees stand to benefit from reduced time spent on low value transactions which can be redeployed to the mission and higher value add activities. Of these, approximately 2,500 are programme staff - belonging to organizations such as OCHA, UNEP and UNHABITAT who will be able to devote the freed up time on mission focused activities. A further few thousands are operations staff who can repurpose up to hundreds os thousand’s of their productive hours per year to higher value operational activities, such as Programme compliance, Peace keeping missions and operational excellence, rather than transactions. 

Consolidating these activities within a shared service centre also helps UN to mitigate the risks of fraud, waste and abuse as the centre provides clear segregation of duties, specialization and efficiencies. A shared service centre can help UN better respond to and serve countries in emergency or conflict situations, by providing greater flexibility to ramp up capacity and by removing unnecessary activities, and staff, from high-risk security environments. Lastly, shared service centers are often a logical next step for organizations that have implemented a global ERP system, such as Umoja, as it provides clear opportunity to maximize the benefits of that investment through specialization of knowledge. 

Summary of the Options Analysis 

I took my experience & opportunity to  evaluate the organizational position and accessed the shared service models – a scalable and agile framework based on the existing infrastructure and staffing and focussing on a  multi-location model. The analysis included a cost-benefit analysis of the model, both from a financial and non-financial perspective, location analysis for candidate locations and costing purposes, and implementation considerations for such model. The Financial perspective is based on a certain amount of heuristics and assumption.

The analysis can be summarized as follows: 

Location Analysis

United Nations and the Peacekeeping operations, in a way currently do have the service delivery model established and operational in one or more legacy systems. This island of automation can be utilized as the first step in the global delivery model. Just to quote, the Peacekeeping operation already have an established and serving service center in Entebbe, Uganda since 2010 and serving approximately 16,000 UN Personnel and 9 UN missions. It includes, Payroll, invoice processing, education grants and travel requests & claims. Same with HQ and HQ away from New York such as UNOG and ESCAP operating in a shared service center modes in certain areas to certain entities.

Transactional Cost Savings

Transactional Cost will be the cost per transaction based on some of the industry based benchmarks and may vary slightly with respect to the implementation within public sector model

For peacekeeping missions, I’ve calculated the total volume of transactions and converted this to a full time equivalent (FTE) calculation to understand the total amount of work that would be taken out of individual mission and performed by the SSC. This approach used global volume data for all offices, and validated activity times per transaction with a representative sample of approximately 10 other mission/offices. 

Analysis of headquarter (HQ) transactional activities and volume used the same approach above for processes which are performed on a part time basis by a number of different individuals, such as invoice processing and payments. Other HQ processes were analyzed as ‘lift and shift’: these are processes, such as training and payroll, which are currently performed by a full time post in HQ. This post would be a one-for-one match to a post in the GSC i.e. it is lifted and shifted. HQ processes were assumed to be operating at an already efficient level, so no efficiency gains were applied and the total number of FTEs required for HQ currently would be the same as FTEs required in the GSC. Moving these posts to a low cost location allows for a considerable cost savings. 

Cost Benefit Analysis

One off implementation costs consist of HR transition costs, IT investment costs, facilities and build out costs, and project costs to implement the SSC. For a comparable model of UNICEF, who were planning to implement a global service center model is predicted, taking a conservative approach, are estimated to be $29.2 million for a single GSC, and $32.5 million for a multi location model.  This costing may be taken as a baseline to understand the benefit of this approach and the final agreement on the implementation will affect this estimate drastically.

The estimate of the annual operating costs include staff costs (transactional staff, management and administrative costs) and non-staff costs, such as IT operating costs and overheads (rent, maintenance, telecommunications, security). Total annual cost of running a centre is estimated to be $17.2 million per year for a single GSC and $21.3 million for a multi location model. 

Since with this model, UN and Umoja will be using the existing  service centers which will reduce and or eliminate the implementation costs and will be focussing on the capacity building at the existing locations. Also with the UMOJAs flexible service delivery approach combined with ‘lift and shift’ approach the operating cost can be managed effectively.

HR Transition

While most of the FTE worth of low value, transactional work is removed from offices through establishment of an SSC, this does not necessarily equate to the same number of employees to be separated from their posts. 

United Nations will have to develop an HR Transition Plan to further describe the strategy and approach for supporting impacted staff and some of the key points related to this approach. In addition, UN will also need to consider the ‘retained organization’ – that is, those employees whose job responsibilities change as a result of the establishment of an SSC, through reduced transactional work (and therefore the ability to refocus on the mission and/or higher value operational activities). 

Implementation

Implementation of an SSC is a large and complex initiative; successful implementations are more likely when there is executive sponsorship, strong project management, sufficient project budget, and a strong change management and communications plan. 

The one of the key principle is the organizational maturity in understanding, absorbing and  deploying the structure as it fits and improves the efficiency.

A typical SSC can take up to one year of preparation before the centre goes live. This preparation phase includes negotiations with governments, build out of facilities and technology, recruitment of staff and development of standard operating procedures and service level agreements. Post go-live, processes and functions are migrated over the to SSC on a risk based approach – with lower risk processes being migrated first, and more complex processes later. The overall timeframe for implementing a single GSC, including preparation, would be approximately 30 months based on the experience with the other similar organizations. This will be removed, if we utilize the existing infrastructure as a starting point and then later do the fine-tuning and adjustment as and when necessary.

Steady State Governance

Strong governance mechanisms are critical to the ongoing success of the SSC and the realization of intended service levels, quality and risk reduction. The organizational structure and setting of the Service centers will also directly reflect in the successful implementation and performance of them. 

Moving forward 

I have taken a conservative approach in my analysis – underestimating savings and over estimating costs where necessary. As part of shared services implementation, it is a recommended practice that the cost benefit and business case analysis be a ‘live’ analysis that is continuously updated and monitored by the project team in order to ensure that the project remains on track to deliver the intended benefits. 

Changes to an organization’s service delivery model raise lots of questions, particularly around the impact on staff, implementation, and governance. It is not necessary to have answers to all these questions in order to make a decision to move forward – these are all common components of project planning and implementation. They require inputs from multiple stakeholders and, as such, should be given due time and consideration as part of the planning phase in order to arrive at appropriate solutions and decisions. 

Executive overview of Operating Model in HR- A Perspective 

By Siva Kumar

Prelude

Every project which is transformational, needs a perspective to appreciate the complexities at the same time provide the decision makers to understand the overall picture, identify potential risks and benefits and be able to make choices based on rational and practical point of view.

Umoja is a transformational project and has lot of moving parts and it needs to be understood from the architectural perspective to better appreciate tall the features as well as the limitations. On a whole, the core objective of any global ERP implementation is to implement a consistent and state of the art transactional and reporting system supported by a performance management system. The success of such projects heavily depends on the way in which the services are delivered across the globe. This feature is often referred in the business world as a global delivery model or Global service delivery model. Umoja is such project and the objective of this document is to establish the options for the operating model for HR based the global delivery objectives. I also wish to shed a light on the overall approach I had with the OHRM leadership in building the architectural components and the journey for the past 3 years in realizing the strategic outlook established in the first place.

Global Delivery Model

Global Delivery model is defined, “The optimum combination of processes, end-to-end methodologies and quality procedures, with high-quality skills and resources available internally or externally, in requisite quantities, on a global basis, that enables organizations to maximize the quality of their solutions while minimizing the overall cost and delivery time of their IT services.” ¹ 

Since Umoja is going to be  a global system, the model definition suits perfect, but we now focus on the main focus areas that will allow us to achieve the objective as explained above. There are four main focus areas that drive the enablement of the GSD model. They are

Governance: Which establishes executive oversight and Organizational Policies

Organizational Structure: Dictates and defines the organizational Design, Roles and Responsibilities and tagging of centralized and decentralized activities.

Operational Procedures: Implemented through Enterprise Architecture, Developing and deploying consistent transactional services across the eco-system and emphasis on geographic focus.

Performance Management: establishing a Performance management framework to clearly track and establish cost and performance transparency and a feedback loop to the other pillars for necessary corrective actions.

The beginning

Around the world, over the past two decades the HR function has undergone a process of transformation – with varying levels of success. Recognizing the critical linkage between talent management and business success, OHRM leadership were looking that their HR functions to play an increasingly strategic role in achieving business objectives. At the same time, they are looking to wring costs from HR service delivery, as well as manage program spend, in order to redirect funds to other business imperatives. 

As a starting point, OHRM leadership had already working forward with a service delivery model in which transactional services, program design, and strategic business support are carried out by three groups within the HR function: 

▪ HR Business Partners consult with business leaders on people issues 

▪ Centers of Expertise (COEs) focus on the design of HR programs and policies 

▪ Shared Services Centers deal with day-to-day HR service  delivery 

While this model has improved HR performance, exceeding the capabilities of a model in which HR services are aligned purely functionally, the leadership felt has not enabled HR to meet the ever-increasing expectations of business leaders or fully support business needs. When we sat down and started asking them, what exactly were their pain points, they started deliberating and came up with a list of twelve main concerns, either directly or indirectly about the model that were implementing and/or planning to do with the legacy systems. They are:

• Not Strategically Driven
• HR capability - Less staff ownership
• Limitation to provide top-notch transactional Services
• Limited satisfaction in self-service technology by employees and managers 
• Lack of support for line managers
• Ineffective geographic focus

I started working out the model, with the Umoja transactional services and the support structure that were evolving with a competing model for the next generation HR service delivery model with a non-destructive  reconstruction. 

Then we started to work on a seven-step roadmap to realize the transformation framework to achieve the requires functionality. Based on my experience and the organizational maturity with respect to the new system, we had devised four major milestones in achieving the endpoint and to be ready for the deployment when it comes to HQ and cluster 4. The transformation framework was consulted with the OHRM leadership and they took care of the management task of preparing the organization to change. The transformation framework is an industry standard practice for an enterprise architect, where the goal is to identify the start and end state and clearly draws the blueprint to achieve the same.

Realization

Once the Framework is established, the road map was drawn to facilitate the first milestone. Every part of the roadmap was discussed and got the sign off from the process owners so that the clarity on the direction and ever changing business needs were also clearly addressed. the road maps and the main execution containers are:

1. Foundation: The OHRM leadership were told of the nature of the ERP project and the necessity of their commitment and conviction on this journey. The fowling are the key elements that were discussed and agreed upon with the leadership.

• Top-Down: Requires Management Directive/Decisions
• Governance: Must be clearly and explicitly defined
• Reliance: on fact-based decisions
• Shift: Some locations must shed transactional services to drive & implement new approach

2. Drawing Board: SAP as a software provides two clear hierarchical structures to enable and establish service delivery model. They are Enterprise Structure that drives the financial part of the business and the HR organizational structure that drives the Human resource part of the business. In many, if not all private sector organizations, the two will be more or less same. However in UN, there were a vast difference, and it was indicated that the HR organization structure will be used in principle, however there might be a need for a transient operative structure to manage the exceptions and outliers. It was agreed that we will provision a design plug in order to establish an operative structure in the middle, based on the HR organizational structure.

3. Architecture: The enterprise roles were built as a job function and elaborate discussions were made with the process owners and various stakeholders to establish the enterprise role catalog and were all duly signed off.

4. Build: During this process, the processes that were handled by different job functions were consolidated. One of the main consolidated constructs was the HR Partner that encompassed both PA&Contract part and Entitlement part. There was a provision established for an HR Administrator, who can act on behalf of the staff member if needed.

5. Extend: As the roles were build, We made a clear tagging to these roles as various control point levels. The roles were categorized as ESS roles, Global Roles, Central Roles, Entity roles and within Entity roles. Since we have the control points separated from the roles, we were able to bring the operation center role fairly simply as a natural and organic extension process.

6. Provision: The Enterprise role which dictates what you can do and the control points dictating where you can do, we were able to achieve an absolute automation of role provisioning and workflow management.

7. Deployment: Once the model is built and ready, we deployed in three major roll outs and we were able to realize the flexible and scalable nature by deploying various features as below:

Stand Alone: MINUSTAH, ESCAP

Operation Center: Nairobi Operation center including UNON, UN-HABITAT and UNEP

Hybrid: UNAKRT managed by New York & Payroll by ESCAP

Exception: Once in Umoja (transitional)   

Standard and typical models under the service delivery will have only one construct, which is the composition of more than one entity under an operating center model. This is a very clean approach and is very stable, scalable and agile model - with respect to the changes in the service delivery location, changes in the business process decision, etc. However, based on the existing working agreements and the functionalities around and supporting the HR services can not be in a position to operate in the same model simultaneously (such as procurement, travel etc).

To satisfy that requirement, we have established a operative model, that will be established in the design time as and when an operation center is established. The following architecture explains the nature of the HR operations only and will give an indication that the same model can be brought in to other structures, if needed in a later time.

SAP and Umoja as a solution can provide two options that are technically viable and will provide the necessary functionality. However, we leave it to the process owners to decide a model that will suite them as a sustainable and scalable solution.

The models are:

Enhanced service delivery model

In this model, the budgetary structure is kept as the same for operative structure. Any components or part of components that need to be managed in part by another entity needs to me moved under the managed entity. Technically this solution is very easy, as there is no change to the composition of the entity model. Since the structure used is one and unique, the access component and the workflow component are one and the same.

This model brings in a lot of value, however may change the underlying budgetary structure, that may not be encouraged by organizations that want to keep the budgetary structure always in line with the actual budget allocation and consumption.

2. Managed service delivery model:

In the managed service delivery model, the Budget structure is delinked from the operational structure, however will model on that. This way the managing entity can encompass a part of another organizational unit under its operations. Since there are two distinct structures, the access and workflow will also change. 

With the example below, the three part organizations will be managed both by their parent entity and the operational entity, however, when a staff member under this unit creates a request, it will only be routed to the operational structure head and will ignore the budget structure. This way the geographic focus can be achieved to a greater degree. This model will suit all the organizations, that have wide spread geographic presence - can be better managed by the nearby operation centers.

Conclusion

Umoja project have three distinct models that can be used to leverage the service delivery within HR and travel modules. As explained, the same functionality can be spread to other processes at the alter stage, based on the requirements. 

References:

Gartner Glossary - http://www.gartner.com/it-glossary/global-delivery-model

HR service Delivery Model - Bersin & Associates’ 2013 High-Impact HR Organization® 

The HR Transformational Framework - Mercer Signature Events

SAP Developer network - HR service Delivery & Outlook, March 2012 Budapest