In part one we identified some of the main reasons large PeopleSoft projects fail.  Now let’s discuss how we mitigate these risks and implement for our clients successfully.

Risk: The solution is not tied to the business objectives.

• As outlined in previous blogs, one of the first activities we conduct is the BluePrint Workshop. The workshop identifies all of the project objectives, classifies them as strategic or tactical, prioritizes all of the objectives, identifies how we are able to measure each objective (after all, if you can’t measure it, it is challenging to determine if it was met).  Finally we attach project success criteria to the objectives.  These objectives are a part of the project charter which is expected to be signed off by the executive sponsor.

Risk: Scope is not managed.

• Every project has a well defined scope change management plan with appropriate escalations and approvals.  Preferable is the approach that any change to scope once the fit/gap is completed requires a change order whether it is the smallest seemingly insignificant change or a very large change.  All changes have must be approved by project management and executive sponsorship to be fully approved for the project.

Risk: Organization is not prepared for change.

•  A full time organizational change management lead who is experienced with preparing organizations for change associated with PeopleSoft engagements should be deployed on the project.  Organizational change preparedness is so much more than simply communication in that is requires its own discipline, expertise and dedicated skillsets.

Risk: Project team skills are not appropriate and unavailable.

• During the BluePrint Workshop we identify the required resources required from both the client and MIPRO.  For each client resource we identify the very specific role and responsibilities along with the percentage of time they are required for the project.  This information again becomes part of the project charter.  Additionally, as outlined in the charter, these are the resources required to achieve the objectives of the project and be on time and on budget.  We conduct a sanity check of resources against project objectives.  We expect the executive sponsor to support the project and ensure the identified resources are available for the anticipated timeframe.

Risk: Executive Sponsorship is not strong and not visible.

• The role of the executive sponsor begins immediately with the BluePrint Workshop where the executive sponsor outlines why the project is important to the organization and identified corporate level objectives (that we then tie to the project objectives).  The executive sponsor signs off on the project charter along with his/her expected role.  We put the executive sponsor into the change process, issue escalation process and organizational change process.

Risk: The system is not sustainable by the client.

• Knowledge transfer is the cornerstone of our SD3 implementation methodology.  Not only do we staff with the best and brightest, but we align resources directly to the appropriate client counterparts.  Our design allows for the MIPRO team to understand the client business and for the client to understand PeopleSoft.  By the end of the project we expect our clients to know as much as we do about PeopleSoft so they can sustain the system.  Additionally we ensure shortcuts are not taken on testing and training.  This is achieved if we plan appropriately upfront and execute well.

Risk: End users are not trained

• There are multiple factors used to ensure end user training.  The first is a training strategy developed up front, early in the project.  We also recommend a training lead to develop and lead the training efforts. UPK is a very valuable tool to help ensure end users are trained.  We time end user training to coincide as close to go live as possible.  As noted prior, with the proper planning we do not find ourselves in situations where the timeline is crunched and the project is looking for ways to cut corners (which usually results in training being reduced).  Having the right staffing, dedication to training and planning allows us to ensure end users are trained appropriately.

OVERVIEW

PeopleSoft Forms and Approval Builder is part of Common Components 9.1, therefore available for use throughout all of the PeopleSoft HCM and FMS modules.  It allows a business analyst or other non-developer PeopleSoft application expert to create simple forms and establish an approval for the content.

HOW-TO

Begin with creating the form using the Design Form Wizard.

Navigation:  Main Menu > Enterprise Components > Forms > Design a Form

1. Basic Information – enter information about the form, including effective date and a description.
2. Instructions – enter instructions that will be available for users accessing the form.
3. Form Fields – enter the fields that will be available for users accessing the form.  Fields of a variety of data types are displayed in one or two columns.  You can enter a short and long label, indicate if a field is required, designate a prompt record, and define a prompt control for the field against an existing field and record.
4. Attachments – indicate if any attachments should be made available to users accessing the form, for example a policy or template document.
5. Publish to a Menu – designate where the form should be accessed on the PeopleSoft menu.
6. Approval Process – designate the chain of approval the form should go through, if needed, and if the fields on the form should be locked down after submission, approval, or not at all.

After creating the form, it can be previewed in design mode, prior to activation onto the PeopleSoft menu.  Activate the form to make it available to users on the menu as designated.

When a user accesses a form, three tabs are available.

1. Form
2. Instructions – displays the instructions entered during form creation.
3. Attachments – provides access to any attachments assigned during form creation and allows the user to upload a form as well.

As an added bonus, you can connect data collected on a form to one or more component interfaces in an effort to eliminate redundant data entry.  (Example:  new vendor request form can feed into adding a vendor.)

Note, this feature intended only for the creation of new records through a simple single page front end, not maintaining them.

I hope you have found this introduction to Forms Builder helpful.  I believe this is a powerful, yet simple feature you can leverage to either remove custom pages or automate currently manual processes to stretch your PeopleSoft investment even further. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m always happy to chat.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Prior to jumping into the world of PeopleSoft consulting, I spent many years implementing accounting solutions, as well as conducting instructor-led training for those applications.  In my years, I had some great classes, and I had some that just plain left me scratching my head.  Was it me?  Probably not: nobody except the lead developer knew the software better than me.  Was it my delivery?  I didn’t think so: I resonated with people and their survey forms said so.  Was it the material?  Okay, maybe….sometimes accounting software doesn’t compare with the world news, or the latest celebrity gossip.

It took me a while to recognize characteristics of the adult learner and how the dynamics of the people in class impacted the whole class.  I can’t remember who shared this with me, but my world became crystal clear when I recognized the three types of learners – explorers, vacationers, and prisoners.

Explorers are there because there is a world waiting for them and they want to know about it.  They hang on every word looking for opportunity to be better, do better, or just make things better.

Vacationers are there because they just want to get out of their day job.  It is an interesting break from the mundane.  Needless to say, their heart is not always invested in what you are trying to say or do.

The last group is the prisoners.  These are people who are forced to be there.  Imagine their reaction when their boss said “I need you to attend this training”.   It should come as no surprise when you catch these people doing everything except what you want them to do.

I share this with you because I am often perplexed about the amount of time spent in today’s world in meetings, conference calls, planning sessions, etc.  The next time you have to run a meeting, maybe you should do a quick inventory of who is in the room and what category they fit into.  Chances are pretty good that the prisoners won’t volunteer (or accept responsibility) for anything, much less grab an idea and run with it, and the vacationers will agree to anything as long as it does not create more work for them.

As a consulting company, we work with many organizations implementing new software.  That often means adopting new systems, implementing new business processes, and challenging the client to see things in a new and different way.  Of the three types of people I have described above, who do you think tends to perform well in these scenarios?  And more importantly, how many of these people are on your project right now?  If the answer is “not enough,” you may have just found who is killing your project.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

2012…what’s in store for you this year?

If Santa didn’t leave you an upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.1 under your tree, nor PeopleTools 8.52 in your stocking Christmas morning, you may need to take control of the situation yourself.  Whether you are losing support for your current PeopleSoft applications or you finally have managed to set aside some of your hard-earned budget, this could be the year you pursue making your PeopleSoft applications work even harder for you, and Oracle has provided more than 200 additional features through 9.1, PeopleTools 8.52, and the subsequent feature packs.

A couple of highlights:

Forms and Approval Builder.  This new feature is part of Common Components 9.1, therefore available for use throughout all of the PeopleSoft HCM and FMS modules.  It provides a business analyst or other non-developer PeopleSoft application expert to create simple forms and establish an approval for the content.

Enhanced Search Capability.  PeopleSoft 9.1 allows users to perform global searches across multiple indexes and return the results organized by dynamic facets (segments), then take action based on search results, without having to navigate the menu to do so.  Additionally, the Last Search Results link allows a user to return to the results of a recent search and perform additional actions or to access additional results.  Keyword Search allows for a global search across multiple components throughout the PeopleSoft application, and can be used to review more than the 300 record restriction applied to traditional field based searches.

Manager Dashboard.  This feature provides an at-a-glance view of important information to help managers know where they need to focus.  PeopleSoft Administrators designate which pages are available for managers and a user can further personalize the content details and layout.  Highlights of the Manager Dashboard include:

• Alerts and Approvals pagelets indicate what transactions need immediate attention and navigate directly to the transactions through the pagelets.
• The Direct Line Reports pagelet categorizes data for each employee across a variety areas of interest, including Job Details and Compensation, then drilldown as needed into the application for details.
• Pivot Grids enable you to easily analyze, filter, and slice relevant organizational data, including switching between various chart types for more productive analysis.
• Quick Links.  This feature provides easy access to frequently used items without having to navigate the application to access them.

Credit and Collections Workbench.  The new workbench in PeopleSoft 9.1 Receivables provides a one stop shop where receivables users can review action items, analyze customer information, and work to improve their collections-related efficiency by utilizing risk-based scoring.

Approval Framework.  The new Approval Framework, formerly referred to as the Approval Workflow Engine, is available throughout the Financials, Supply Chain, and Human Capital Management applications.  Notification Emails provide links directly into the transactions requiring approval, and approvers have the ability to push transactions back a previous approver, as well as add ad hoc reviewers and approvers as needed.  You can use the Approval Framework as delivered for existing approvals or to build additional approvals needed to support your business needs.

You can find out more about PeopleSoft Enterprise 9.1 applications by logging in to My Oracle Support at support.oracle.com.  For a conversation about mapping out your PeopleSoft applications strategy and roadmap for 2012 and beyond, don’t be afraid to contact us.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

It’s clear that 2011 was the year of the cloud, with many traditional enterprise vendors accepting that the cloud is something they can no longer denigrate or ignore. The ‘cloud’ buzzword has been (sometimes annoyingly) tossed around for upwards of two years, but last year is when it hit critical mass in terms of action, not just marketing and positioning.

Chris Kanaracus, writing for IDG News, highlights a few enterprise trends we’re seeing and hearing in everyday conversations. These give real heft to the notion that the cloud is something everyone should be thinking about and/or planning around. It might not be happening right now, and it might not be top priority for you, but ignore this medium- to long-term direction at your peril.

Here’s one that struck us:

SAP buys SuccessFactors, Oracle buys RightNow, both accept cloud reality

Collectively, SAP and Oracle spent nearly US$5 billion this year to acquire software vendors based in the cloud.

Each sought different types of technologies, with SAP’s purchase of SuccessFactors boosting its human-resources software offerings as well as general cloud know-how, and Oracle’s RightNow buy giving it an array of customer-support capabilities.

But the deals have a common thread, marking a sea change for the traditional on-premise software world, said analyst Ray Wang, CEO of Constellation Research. “[It] signals the realization that cloud deployment will be the predominant approach.”

We do a massive amount of Oracle work, and what we’re hearing from Oracle and our customers is very real and perfectly synchonized: the cloud is real, it’s mature, and it’s time to start figuring out how it can help enterprise IT. It’s not just for early adopters or skunkwork labs anymore.

Along similar lines, you can’t ignore perhaps the biggest story out of Oracle, one that’s sure to mold future IT decisions for a long, long time:

Oracle delivers Fusion Applications

It took a while, but Oracle finally managed to deliver the first wave of its next-generation Fusion Applications, and its launch strategy also showed how cloud computing has influenced the enterprise software market.

The company has taken pains to stress that Fusion Applications can be deployed in a highly modular fashion, with no need to remove existing systems, and at a time of customers’ choosing. Users will also be able to run the software both on-premises and in cloud form, although some of the details of the latter remain to be made public.

Oracle’s strategy is partly a nod to reality, since few customers will rush to rip and replace their core ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems with new software, and Oracle also wants to ensure early users are successful. But its message of easier, more flexible consumption for Fusion is straight from the cloud-vendor playbook.

Now more than ever we are being asked by our clients to come in and help them simply assess: put executive/organizational expectations on a piece of paper somewhere (harder than it sounds, trust us), inventory current systems and capabilities, and plan roadmaps. Such basic blocking and tackling, but given the churn and change in what ‘enterprise IT’ will mean in three years, so important. We offer clients two very powerful planning workshops: our BluePrint Project Services and PeopleSoft Architecture Assessment, both of which are popular. Lately, we’ve been doing a lot of our BluePrint workshops, largely because of the reasons discussed a few hundred words ago: things are changing, and smart planning has never been more important.

Questions? Don’t be afraid to drop us a line. Always happy to have conversations.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Talk about an undersold feature. Dave Bain over at Oracle’s PeopleSoft Technology Blog has the scoop on something Oracle should be talking about more:

One of the real gems in the PeopleTools 8.52 release is the certification of PeopleSoft applications running in the Safari Browser on an iPad.  It is nice that PeopleSoft is not constrained by technology like Adobe Flex/Flash, so announcements like this “Adobe drops plans for mobile Flash support“ do not limit our mobile solution to custom mobile development.

There are parts of PeopleSoft applications that operate better on iPads than others.  One of the best is Workcenters.  Workcenters were new to PeopleTools 8.51 and we are starting to see more and more adoption of them.  Workcenters are roll based landing pages that eliminate difficult navigation by providing access to most links, pages, and reports a user in a role needs.  One of the nicest I’ve seen is the Supply Manager Workspace.  Here are some links to screenshots of what a WorkCenter looks like on an iPad:

• Here’s the standard PeopleSoft Login Page
• The Supply Manager Workspace looks great full screen on an iPad
• iPad has a great user interface to zoom, here’s a screenshot of an upclose view of an analytic.
• Touch one of the analytics and it drills into the details.

Go ahead and give it a try.  WorkCenters and Dashboards are starting to show up across applications.  For a quick one to try, navigate to the PeopleTools->Integration Broker->Integration Network WorkCenter.  It’s new in PeopleTools 8.52.

As iPads penetrate the enterprise, you’re going to see more software certified for Safari, the iPad’s browser. It’s an incredibly competent browser today, and it only gets more so with every iOS upgrade. We’re excited to see Oracle/PeopleSoft recognize this.

Likewise, we have a lot of clients interested in getting help with upgrading their PeopleTools deployments. If this sounds like you — or you just want to chat about it — we’ll be happy to discuss with you whether our PeopleTools Upgrade packaged service is right for you. Just drop us a line. No pressure, no BS.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

In previous blog posts I wrote about the value of XML Publisher, and I’ve outlined instructions on how to create an XML report.

In the video blog below we take it a step further and show you how to create a simple XML report with a chart and table.  We take you from the creation of a query, downloading the XML data, and creating an XML template to defining our XML report within PeopleSoft and making it available for scheduling.   This how-to video you should leave you with enough information to start creating simple XML reports.  As always, we are happy to help and if you are in need of XML experts to supplement your report developers, please drop us a line.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

Great timing and/or intuition. Just when everything coming from Oracle has been heavily Fusion-centric, the company is expect to confirm its ongoing commitment to its wide array of non-Fusion applications. Here’s Anh Nguyen, reporting for Computerworld:

The company first announced its ‘applications unlimited’ policy back five years ago, its pledge to continue investing in and developing the applications that existed before Fusion indefinitely. These include E-Business Suite, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft and Siebel.

In his keynote presentation at the conference, Rajan Krishnan, VP of applications product development and product management for EMEA at Oracle, will review the upgrade releases for the applications over the past few years and provide a technology roadmap for the future capabilities of the applications.

Krishnan will also outline different approaches that users could take to adopting Fusion technologies.

That’s pretty much what we’re hearing. Everyone knows Fusion is eventually something that will creep its way into their IT strategy meetings, but in the meantime the concerns are much more tactical. Issues like, “Will Oracle continue to invest in and support my application infrastructure?” and “Will Oracle give me a cogent, reasonable plan to slowly adopt Fusion technology?” are two things we hear on a near-daily basis. Good to see Oracle’s reading off the same page as its customers.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

With all of the talk focused on the new Oracle Fusion HCM applications with their on-premise, on-demand and SaaS options, it seems that the old PeopleSoft workhorse of 9.1 HCM applications may have been forgotten.  But wait!  Here comes the latest feature pack (v2.0) which shines some new light on the PeopleSoft HCM suite.

PeopleSoft 9.1 HCM Feature Pack 2.0 has a Fusion flavor to it: usability enhancements through the expanded use of related content, highly configurable/flexible dashboards and embedded reporting and analytics.  While Fusion takes all this to a different level, taking some of the Fusion concepts and including them in PeopleSoft 9.1 better positions Oracle to stave off the Workday strategy of poaching their existing HCM client base.

Workday has been, in the past, been able to position itself with HR as the more user- friendly alternative to the many-clicks, menu-driven navigation and pages that PeopleSoft customers have endured over the years.  With Feature Pack 2.0, Oracle has shown that it has authoritatively produced a user-friendly, efficient and modern user experience.

The embedded reporting now available with PeopleTools 8.52 can be used to counter Workday’s embedded analytics story.  It still requires PSQuery to extract the data, but the flexibility and presentation of the data lends itself to providing the user the data they want to see in the way they want to see it.

With the Feature Pack releases, Oracle is also combating Workday’s strategy of saying that it will take Oracle years to provide new functionality and it’s a major upgrade to do.  While Feature Packs aren’t released as often as a SaaS product releases (and many organizations can argue this is a good thing), it certainly provides customers with significant new features and functionality in consumable doses.

So while it is the same old workhorse of the integrated HCM suite, it is starting to have a whole new look and focus.  Take a look at the latest Feature Pack and let us know what you think. In the meantime, here’s an overview of PeopleSoft Pivot Grids and how they represent your data based on PSQuery.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.

As I talk to customers about their PeopleSoft solution, it is interesting to me how often the discussion now seems to involve some flavor of a global solution. For one project, it’s as “simple” as a single location in Ireland, but it drives a need for consolidations and multiple currency calculations. For another project, we are engaged on a worldwide consolidation of multiple plants onto the PeopleSoft SCM applications.

These projects present many challenges for the implementation team, project management, and the overall success of the project. I recently came across an article on CIO.com entitled How to Achieve Global ERP in which Rick Veague, Chief Technology Officer, IFS North America provides an excellent view into many of the challenges you might face as you embark on the process to globalize your ERP solution. His view is very profound, and dead-on with our experience. His points are quite valid, especially as you consider that most of you have already selected your ERP solution long before you realized you had a need for a global ERP solution. He provides insight into what you should expect to face as you take the next step.

Take a read — it’s worth your time.

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More links:

MIPRO Consulting main website.

MIPRO on Twitter and Facebook.

About this blog.