UT System Finance > Enterprise Resource Planning

DASH

What is the University of Tennessee’s DASH Program?

After two decades of service, the University of Tennessee’s Systems Applications and Products platform—known throughout the university as IRIS—will no longer be supported in 2025 as software providers are moving the industry to cloud-based solutions. Given the central role that IRIS plays in processing all of UT’s financial and human resources activities, UT officials began planning in 2019 for the transition to a new, cloud-based enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, known as DASH (Dynamic Administrative Systems for Higher Ed).  We are working toward a systemwide go live of finance, human resources, and payroll in the summer of 2024. 

 

Thank you, Governor Lee and Legislators

The Tennessee General Assembly passed a historic budget last April. Among other items, it allocated $50 million nonrecurring for UT System and $120 million nonrecurring for other public universities to assist with implementing a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution. Thank you to our legislators and Governor Bill Lee for making this important investment in public universities across our state. This key investment will transform the way we do business. Click the “Benefits” URL on the left to view the anticipated benefits and why UT must proceed with this change.  

 

What are we doing now?

We have kicked off the implementation project and are in the design phase. A series of workshops are being held to verify design of higher education standard processes and prioritize the critical reports needed for the business to function. We are assessing the change impact to the daily work of employees and establishing plans to help them transition from IRIS to DASH. The application environment is being prepped and we are planning for data conversions and integrations in advance of the configuration phase. View the “Timeline” page to gain more insight on the phases of the implementation. 

 

Year in Review

Much has been accomplished this past year as we have begun this transformation from IRIS to DASH.

  • UT and Accenture partnered in reviewing 24 process and 159 sub-process areas in finance, human resources and payroll for our Business Process Reimagination. About 300 employees systemwide participated in reviewing and reimagining current and future work processes.
  • Over this past year, UT staff from across the system worked to identify a replacement for IRIS, which has been in place for almost 20 years. Oracle was selected through a publicly competitive process to provide the new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), known as DASH.
  • Accenture was selected through a publicly competitive process as the system integration partner for the DASH ERP implementation project.
  • The initial Chart of Accounts engagement included defining the structure of the financial chart of accounts, serving as an accelerator as the Project enters the design/blueprint phase for financial workstreams. The final set of actual values will not be solidified for some time, as segments and values may continue to be refined during the design phase.
  • Months of work have already occurred on the DASH project by statewide resources to successfully arrive at this point and we are excited to officially begin the implementation process.
  • DASH will launch in the summer of 2024 and will improve our users’ experiences and allow us to be more agile and dynamic in our finance, human resource and payroll functions.