Umoja Supplier Relationship Management and Portal System Upgrade
Software upgrades have become part of our daily routines, from our mobile devices to personal computers. Umoja is no exception.
The first version of Umoja went live in 2013 in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. In technology years, that’s a long time.
With the evolving needs of the Organization, need for richer functionality and better user experience, Umoja needs to undergo periodic updates.
In July 2018, the Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) module and the Employee/Manager Self-Service (ESS/MSS) Portal were successfully upgraded.
The ESS/MSS Portal is used by about 50,000 personnel globally for many transactions, such as requests for leave, travel, rental subsidy, time certification and more.
While the upgrade was technically necessary, efforts were taken to ensure that the look and feel were not affected, in order to minimize the change impact for the users. Improvements related to the user experience will be undertaken separately with appropriate change management support.
SRM is used globally by nearly 7,900 personnel for transactions in purchasing, requisitioning, requesting services of individual contractors and consultants, requesting insurance as well as payments to troop- and police-contributing countries.
In addition to technical benefits, the SRM upgrade provides several new features to users, such as search functionalities within documents, notifications for reasons for shopping cart rejections, ability to perform mass contract updates and integration with Microsoft Excel for processing of large documents.
For more detailed information, refer to the Job Aid SRM Upgrade – New Features.
The upgrades were a culmination of nine months of extensive planning, implementation and testing, involving Umoja and business teams. The valuable partnership and support provided by Process Owner teams in OCSS, OHRM, OPPBA and DFS were crucial for the smooth transition to the upgraded systems.
The Umoja platform is now ready for the next step - the deployments of Umoja Extension 2 (UE2) across the Secretariat. For updates on the Umoja journey, visit the Umoja website at umoja.un.org.
