A Case Study, and the Power of the OATUG Relationship

DeKalb County, Georgia, has always been a leader in metro Atlanta’s public sector. Yet leadership demands adaptation — and by 2021, the County’s loyal Oracle E-Business Suite R12 was showing its age. The organization was living with manual workarounds, juggling spreadsheets, and worrying about what might break next. Following Atlanta’s ransomware scare, questions arose internally about why outdated systems remained in use.

Need for Change—Not Just a Technical One

What began as a technical upgrade quickly became far more. Early on, DeKalb’s leaders decided not to just follow a vendor’s blueprint. Instead, they started asking their peers — especially those they met at OATUG events and through user group calls — what really worked?“ "Our project’s early roadmap took shape thanks to OATUG conference sessions. Hearing practical lessons — not just consulting slides — made all the difference,” says a member of DeKalb’s project core team.

In OATUG, the county found a brain trust — a place where leaders could “pull back the curtain” and get honest advice about pitfalls, shortcuts, and the moments that don’t get captured in PowerPoints. “OATUG’s user community is like an instant expansion of your internal team; you never tackle a challenge truly alone.”

Discovery: Turning Pain Points into Purpose

DeKalb’s team didn’t just do the heavy lifting — they owned the entire lift. Discovery sessions weren’t checklists; they were deep dives into daily frustrations and legacy gaps. People from every department literally brought in sticky notes, marking out where the pain points were in their processes.

Rather than simply migrating old workflows, the County challenged itself to imagine simpler, smarter processes. The project was recognized as an opportunity to reimagine what “good” could look like, instead of just copying the past. This mindset was credited in large part to seeing other government users' transformation stories at OATUG meetups and webinars.

Data Migration: The Team Rolls Up Its Sleeves

Moving from R12 to Cloud Fusion came with no illusions: data was the elephant in the room. The legacy data was often a mess, confessed Dekalb’s project leaders. The team ran mock conversion after mock conversion, joking about naming the test loads because there had been so many. Problems were identified, custom scripts developed, and painstaking reviews were conducted. Here, OATUG’s resource library and discussion boards made a concrete difference — providing sample validation routines, troubleshooting tips, and assurance that painful data issues were normal, not catastrophic.

Where specialist expertise mattered, the County brought in outside help — Deloitte lent their technical muscle, sometimes providing a fresh eye or tools honed from other public sector projects — but made it clear that DeKalb’s experts set the priorities, mapped the data, and called the “go” for every cycle.

Change Management That Feels Real — Not Scripted

Ask anyone on the project what stands out, and it won’t be technology. It’s the focus DeKalb put on change management and internal champions. Lessons from OATUG colleagues highlighted the need for Solution Champions — people who know both the software and the real work. These Champions didn’t just deliver scripted trainings; they led by example, running peer-to-peer practice sessions, answering “off-the-shelf” questions, and sharing honest lessons about what had confused them at first, too.

It was this gritty, honest approach that built buy-in. There were no pretenses about having all the answers. Regular office hours were established: employees could drop in, bring their laptops, and show what wasn’t working. Sometimes, the best solutions emerged from someone admitting that a particular part was confusing. That kind of vulnerability was inspired by OATUG networking events where “folks shared real pain, jokes, and fixes — not just best - case scenarios.”

Project communication was omnipresent — status dashboards, open Q&A calls, confetti for milestone victories, and public recognition for problem-solvers. Keeping everyone in the loop was crucial. People felt invested when they saw progress and knew their voices were heard.

Go-Live and the Transformation Moment

Going live wasn’t about flipping a switch; it was about seeing transformation ripple across the County. Procurement approvals became mobile. Reports were ready in minutes, not days. Piles of manual forms simply vanished. The effect was like switching from driving in the fog to having high-beam headlights —leadership finally had real, actionable data.

Colleagues who once feared “the cloud” started trading dashboard tips, and those Solution Champions became the first line of support — paying forward their learning as enhancements and new releases rolled out.

A Culture of Continuous Improvement — Rooted in Community

Go-live wasn’t the finish line; it was the foundation for ongoing improvement. DeKalb’s staff kept learning, kept connecting — attending OATUG webinars on new Fusion features, trading tips in online forums, and celebrating both triumphs and lessons learned. “Belonging to OATUG transformed a high-stakes project into a career - defining achievement. The wisdom of the group is more than a resource — it’s a competitive edge,” shared a core team member.

OATUG also gave DeKalb context for the future. Staying active in OATUG means today’s problems are solved with an eye towards tomorrow’s opportunities. And while experts like Deloitte played a helpful supporting role at key moments — especially for technical sprints, API challenges, or sharing lessons from similar governments — the DeKalb County team was always the backbone and the brains of the project.

What OATUG Prospects Should Know

DeKalb’s leap to Oracle Cloud Fusion isn’t just a story of modernization; it’s a story of people, perseverance, and the unbeatable advantage of peer connections. The lessons?

“Own the vision,” say DeKalb’s team members who made it all happen. "Let your staff drive process improvement, not just IT or a partner."

Make room for candid conversations and everyday frustrations — solutions get built from details. Lean into the OATUG community. OATUG peers have already solved most “impossible” problems.

Celebrate small wins, embrace open feedback, and turn internal champions into continuous innovators.

As the team reflected: this project was not just about survival — it resulted in a stronger, closer, and more capable organization, ready for anything new Oracle might bring in the future. That success came about not by going it alone, but by leveraging the power of the OATUG community.