Timelines and budgets


This initiative is comprised of several large scale projects and it’s not easy to say how long the entire project will take, but working estimates are based on a five-year timeline.  There are a lot of processes that will have to be reviewed and revised in all areas. To minimize the effects of Project FOCUS, many of these smaller projects will happen consecutively rather than concurrently. The project will require a lot of hard work from employees and stakeholders, and thus will take quite a bit of time to complete. Project FOCUS leadership is committed to ensuring faculty, staff and students receive all the information, training and encouragement they need as we set off on this journey together.

Costs associated with an initiative of this scale and timeline can be difficult to project. Project FOCUS is not intended to be a draw on the operating budget and will initially receive funding from carry-forwards and provisions. As the program moves forward, new sources of funding will be sought.  

The preliminary budget for the first initiative under Project FOCUS, FOCUS Financials, is projected at $545,000. This budget will be revised once more is understood about the project. 

Colleague software licensing costs are already part of UNB’s annual operating budget. The aim of this initiative is to ensure UNB is getting better value from that ongoing expense. It is anticipated much of the expense related to Project FOCUS will be in people hours – both UNB stakeholders and external consulting from Colleague specialists. In some situations, it may be necessary to incur new and ongoing licensing costs for additional Colleague functionality or complementary partner solutions to meet the identified needs of the university. 

Project FOCUS will result in labour and data efficiencies across the university. It will make employees more effective in their daily tasks by reducing the time spent on operations and manual data entry, to name but two examples. Employees will have the opportunity to focus on more proactive tasks.