After the rocky launch of Harvard's new financial systems last year, University officials say that all plans for the next phase--the integration of the human resource information systems that administer payroll and other such functions--now remain on hold.

Officials can now input grant budgets, expense reports and other financial management tools using the new online tools. But the human resources functions originally scheduled to be implemented by now will not be up and running for at least a year--and even that schedule is pending approval.

This past spring, staffers across the university expressed concern that what was then called Project ADAPT was not user-friendly--and even more concern at what they thought was a lack of communication between the central administration and the faculty.

They feared that the University would push forward with phase two, saddling staffers with another layer in a system that was already slowing them down and frustrating them.

But University officials say they are turning over a new leaf--symbolized by the decision to rename the project and divide it into separate programs. They say they learned from what had gone wrong during the initial phase, and add that before they give the go-ahead for the second "Human Resources" phase, they will solicit the input of system users.

"A decision has not been made," says Assistant Provost for Information Technology Daniel D. Moriarty.

A Promise Kept

After the restructuring of the project, a large part of it now falls under the management of the central administration's Office for Administrative Systems.