District outlines Frontline and Red Rover ERP/HCM transition; July 1 go‑live targeted with contingency planning

San Francisco Unified staff and representatives from Frontline presented the board with a detailed update on the district’s planned migration from SAP/Empower to a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) and human capital management (HCM) stack consisting of Frontline (ERP) and Red Rover (HCM).

Scope and rationale: District leaders said SAP had become expensive to stabilize and maintain and that Frontline/Red Rover are widely used in California K–12 systems. The project aims to consolidate multiple legacy systems into an integrated payroll, HR and finance platform, reduce manual file transfers, and provide a single source of truth for staffing and budget data.

Timeline and phasing: Staff described a two‑phase rollout. Phase 1 focuses on mission‑critical functions required to ensure accurate employee paychecks (HR, payroll, core finance functions) and is targeted for a July 1 go‑live. Phase 2 would add secondary modules (additional finance workflows, extended vendor integrations) after the initial launch.

Testing and risk management: The district completed an initial payroll simulation on a small employee sample and reported the calculations aligned with expectations. Staff said the primary remaining risk is data quality: extracting and cleansing personnel and payroll data from numerous legacy systems requires manual adjustments before migration. To reduce risk, the district plans multiple full payroll simulations, daily Frontline/Red Rover/IT coordination meetings, on‑site vendor support and formal contingency planning.

Contingency and costs: Staff presented a contingency plan that includes delaying go‑live if critical swim lanes are not verified; a later target date discussed was January 2026. Staff said some temporary staffing and contractor support (e.g., short‑term payroll/accounting specialists) may be needed to accelerate data cleanup; the board was asked to consider those investments relative to ongoing SAP maintenance costs.

Operational impacts and benefits: District presenters said the new architecture should cut the number of disconnected systems to two integrated platforms, reduce duplicate data entry, and permit public and internal dashboards to draw from consistent payroll and staffing data. Staff also said the district is piloting Frontline budget tools for principals and will continue training and change management supports for site leaders.

What the board asked: Commissioners asked about contingency steps if the system does not perform on go‑live, the availability and cost of short‑term staff to help with data cleanup, how principals’ budget work will be supported during the transition, and whether internal dashboards will be extended to school site councils. Frontline and district staff said they will continue frequent testing, can perform expedited pay corrections when issues occur, and are exploring expanded license coverage for site leaders, funded in part by a planned Salesforce grant.

Next steps: The district will continue payroll simulations, provide status updates to the board, and recommend whether to proceed with the July 1 go‑live or to delay based on testing outcomes.