True Blue Fusion Vision and Timeline

True Blue Fusion seeks to improve the administrative experience for faculty, staff, and students, by implementing standardized best practices within a cloud-based system for all users. This level of change requires a multi-year commitment, involving comprehensive strategy, dedicated resources, and consistent efforts. To achieve this goal, core areas of the university’s administration (i.e., Human Resources, Payroll, Financials, Procurement, and related reporting) will operate in a continually evolving environment designed to streamline business processes, enhance security and reliability, and improve access to high-quality, real-time data. This level of change requires a multi-year commitment, involving comprehensive strategy, dedicated resources, and consistent efforts. See below for more details on some of the key activities that will take place throughout the project.

Launch (January – May 2025)

The Launch phase is a critical stage in establishing a solid foundation for the project by ensuring that all necessary personnel, tools, documentation, and strategies are in place. Key activities include:  

• Establishing Project Governance and Strategy: Documenting strategies and plans that will guide the project and establishing the guiding principles that will keep True Blue Fusion moving forward. 

• Design Workshops & Familiarization Sessions: Providing stakeholders with a first-hand look at Oracle Cloud functionality to inform process design decisions. 

Define (June – October 2025)

The Define phase focuses on understanding and documenting the project’s requirements and design. This phase is crucial for setting a clear direction for the project and ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned. Key activities include: 

• Business Process Mapping: Analyzing current processes to identify opportunities for increased efficiency and documenting the revised processes and affected groups. 

Develop (November – April 2026)

The Develop phase focuses on configuring and prototyping the new systems and solutions. Key activities include:  

• Conference Room Pilot Testing: Using the data gathered in the Define phase, an initial version of the system will be configured, and the project team will conduct two iterations of preliminary testing to ensure the new solution meets MTSU’s requirements and objectives.

• Stakeholder Engagement Activities & Readiness Workshops: At this stage of the project, we will invite additional campus stakeholders to the True Blue Fusion initiative by offering learning opportunities and providing access to various communication channels. 

Confirm (May – October 2026)

In the Confirm phase, the newly defined processes and supporting technology are validated to ensure the solution is ready for deployment to the campus community. This includes: 

• System Integration Testing (SIT): Two rounds of hands-on, end-to-end testing of business processes within the new system including data conversion from existing sources like Banner and integrations.  

Transition (October 2026 – January 2027)

The objective of the Transition phase is to verify that users are adequately prepared to operate within the new system from day one, ensuring a seamless transition. Key activities include:  

• Cutover: Cutover is the official transition from Banner and our current business processes to Oracle Cloud and the optimized way of working – the exciting act of flipping the switch is referred to as “Go-Live”, which is targeted for January 2027. 
• End User Training (December 2026 – as needed) will be delivered to all impacted users through various modalities and is intended to provide contextual and tactical knowledge required to operate successfully in the new system and will be ongoing for as long as needed. 

Realize (January 2027 and beyond)

The goal of the Realize phase is to ensure users are adopting the new system as expected and are familiar with the support mechanisms in place. Training will continue to be offered to end users and a help desk will be staffed to support system and process questions related to the transition.