Success Story
From a One-Time Implementation to a Multi-Year Planning Partnership
Higher Education
What happens when a six-month implementation becomes a long-term strategic partnership? This success story explores how the University of Colorado Boulder partnered with Tru and Anaplan to standardize planning practices across schools, colleges, and support units — starting with a merit process that went from spreadsheet chaos to 800 employees processed with only 8 corrections.
Industry
Higher Education
Platform
Anaplan
Use Case
Merit Planning, Budget Development, Center of Excellence
Connect With an Expert
Before Tru
Like many large universities, CU Boulder ran its merit cycle the hard way: spreadsheets passed back and forth between units and HR, version confusion, and errors that meant redoing work for individual employees.
Beyond merit, the campus had no standard set of practices around its planning cycle. Different schools, colleges, and support units did things differently. Getting a complete picture meant going to 20 different people and dividing up the work.
And when the budget team first partnered with Tru, they expected a familiar vendor experience: a one-year, one-time implementation. Pay for the build, go live, and figure out the rest alone.
"We went into this thinking it was a one-year, one-time implementation... and it's been great that that hasn't been our experience with Tru."
Why Tru and Anaplan
CU Boulder needed more than a tool. No one on the internal team had Anaplan experience, and leadership worried they were missing key opportunities for refinement and automation simply because they didn’t know what to ask for.
The team hired an internal Anaplan analyst, but that person didn’t have higher education experience. What made the difference was a partner who could bridge both worlds: deep knowledge of how budget planning actually works at a university, and the platform expertise to design and build against it.
"One of my real challenges is that I don't know what I don't know about a planning tool like this. Tru's been really good at helping us design a roadmap that encapsulates everything we should be expecting from Anaplan and helps us design the builds to get there."
The Partnership
Now in year three, CU Boulder’s engagement with Tru has evolved from implementation into an ongoing Center of Excellence partnership. Together, the teams have:
- Rebuilt the classified staff merit process in Anaplan, replacing spreadsheets and email chains
- Modernized the continuing budget roll
- Established one standard set of planning practices across schools, colleges, and support units with flexibility built in so the tool works for everyone
- Developed a strategic roadmap of future builds
- Trained and built up internal staff capability alongside every build
"The greatest benefit is having that stable base of people and the working knowledge the Tru team brings to the table — as well as building up our staff and training them to get to a higher level than we can do on our own."
The Impact
800 employees. 8 corrections.
In its very first merit cycle run through Anaplan, CU Boulder processed roughly 800 classified staff members and needed to rework only 8... a process that previously ran on error-prone spreadsheets and email.
One source of truth
Instead of going to 20 different people and dividing up the work, the team looks at one connected model. Everyone works from the same place.
Standardized planning practices
For the first time, stakeholders across schools, colleges, and support units follow one way of doing things, with enough flexibility to fit each unit's needs.
Growing internal capability
Through the Center of Excellence, Tru builds up CU Boulder's own staff — raising the floor for what the team can do on its own, not just delivering a tool.
A roadmap, not just a go-live
The partnership extends beyond implementation to refining, enhancing, and expanding the model, with a clear plan for future builds.
What's Changed
Three years in, CU Boulder’s budget team operates differently. Planning cycles run on standardized practices instead of institutional memory. Merit runs through a connected model instead of inboxes. And leadership can direct the campus’s planning strategy without needing to know every technical answer.
"Tru has enabled me to be a leader in our Anaplan tool for our campus without having to know all the ins and outs and has helped me design a strategic roadmap, which is what I'm responsible for in the system."
"The support that the Tru team has given us in this new engagement has really been the crux of our success in the past year."
Ready to Do the Same?
Tru Consulting helps institutions move beyond one-time implementations to sustainable, connected planning. Through multi-year partnerships and Center of Excellence engagements, the team brings higher education expertise, cross-institutional experience, and the platform knowledge to help your team grow beyond go-live.