ERP Associates, Inc.

2000 was an interesting year to be a PeopleSoft consultant. That was the year that PeopleSoft released their 8.0 product line.  8.0 was a special release because PeopleSoft had moved their entire architecture from a client-server application to a no-code-on-the-client HTML-based web application.

PeopleSoft had managed to convince their customers that their implementation partners wouldn't be effective if their consultants didn't have web development experience - which at the time only PeopleSoft's consultants had.  So without 8.0 experience, there was a good chance you'd be on the bench until you were able to get some type of experience in a web-based version. 

In reality the platform change wasn't that big of a leap for developers because App Designer essentially worked the same way and the learning curve wasn't all that steep.  So after a few months both PeopleSoft customers and consultants had made the transition to 8.0 and the rest is history.

Comment (4) Read More...

I took a video of the HCM portion of the Oracle Fusion demo Steve Miranda and Chris Leone presented on September 24.  I apologize for the poor quality, but it does show some of the cool stuff that Fusion HCM has.  The Org Chart functionality is nice.

You can find the video here.

Comment (2)

With a session called "Caching and Timeouts" late in the day in the middle of the week, my expectations of paying attention were pretty low.  But Graham Smith from Oxfam gave the most practical and complete presentation of the topic that I’ve heard.

Oxfam is one of those rare companies that runs PeopleSoft all over the world.  Not just in nice urban centers with reliable fiber-optic networks, but in places like Afghanistan where the only power comes from a diesel generator and the network is a small satellite dish on the roof.  In such situations, it’s absolutely critical to get caching and timeouts optimized, or the user experience will be non-existent.

I had a client in Switzerland once with the challenge to operate in similar environments, and although it’s been over 10 years I’m still interested in how companies do computing in hostile environments.

It’s not that the subject matter was difficult, or that I didn’t know most of it already, but the completeness of the presentation and the additional insights to the process made the session worthwhile.  Here are the points I came away with:

Comment (0) Read More...

Steve Miranda, SVP of Fusion Application Development along with Chris Leone, Group Vice President, ERP Application Product Strategy walked through the Fusion Application features that will be in place for version 1, and gave a live demo of functionality within Financials, HCM and CRM.

As much as I liked the PeopleTools 8.5 and the PeopleSoft 9.1 preview I saw, they can’t quite match the elegance and efficiency of the Fusion UI.  Relevant business intelligence is pervasive at every level.  Dashboards are used not only to present an intuitive view of your data, they also serve a functional role to drive navigation throughout the application.  Collaboration functionality is so integrated and intuitive that you quickly take it for granted.  Graphics slide across the screen as intuitively as a power-point slide.  The work Oracle did in their usability studies has paid off substantially.

But the UI is just the surface.  Fusion is packed with new features to drive productivity.  The navigation model is still there, but it’s de-emphasized as the dashboards present users a role-based view of what needs attention, and navigation from the dashboards is easy and intuitive.  A single, role-based universal worklist is accessible from the app, and it is accessible from outside of the application via RSS.  Configurable “activity guides” walk you through the steps to complete semi-structured processes like on-boarding or period closes.

Comment (0) Read More...

Since the Oracle acquisition, the most noticeable change in PeopleTools – to business users anyway – has been the sign-in page.  But that’s changing with the coming release of PeopleTools 8.5 in 2009.  According to Paco Aubrejuan, power is shifting to end users who want to do their jobs their own way.  Business owners want application functionality to be complete, not just for the business process but for how their industry implements that business process.  And IT managers want help addressing internal stakeholders’ needs more quickly and at a lower cost.

To meet the End User’s Web 2.0 needs, PeopleTools 8.5 is delivering an Ajax-enabled experience that is backward compatible to Applications as old as 8.4.  The look and feel is much different, but still very intuitive.  The most striking difference is that the menu navigation on the left is gone, transformed to more of a “windows task bar” style of a menu across the top of the page.  It was removed to free up screen space that Tools 8.5 and the 9.1 apps are hungry for.  But navigating the menu has never been easier.  Ajax-enabled in this case means menus expand quickly, allowing you to navigate the various folders intuitively.  And actually navigating through multiple folders to a page doesn’t have to be done so much now that the Favorites folder includes a “Recently Used” feature.

Comment (4) Read More...

As expected, there’s just not a lot of new information about Fusion Applications coming out of the conference this year.   But here’s what I’ve found so far:

What is Fusion?

Fusion is a strategy for a new enterprise software line called Oracle Fusion Applications based on Oracle Fusion Architecture.

There are basically 8 points that define an Oracle Fusion application.

1)    It is written and runs on an open modern middleware.
2)    It provides a new modern user interface so that the user experience is more productive, interesting and easier to navigate.
3)    It exposes business intelligence to end users
4)    (okay, I didn’t actually attend this session, I’ll have to look the other points up and get back to you)

EPM 11g was delivered this summer and meets the qualifications for a Fusion application.  As do the CRM applications that were announced at the last OOW and delivered earlier in the year.

Moving forward, Oracle will go through their complete stack of products and bring them into the Fusion fold.  Oracle has ordered these based on customer feedback.

Comment (6) Read More...

Made it to the hotel last night.  The flights were on-time and my luggage even made it -- no complains there!

I'm staying at the Mosser hotel, it's just down the street from the Moscone.  I forgot how SMALL the room was!  Glad I pad extra for the room with the private shower.  There are several conference attendees staying here, so it's all good.

This conference is going to be BIG!  I certainly miss the intimate 12,000 person PeopleSoft conferences.  At least everyone you met in those were there for the same thing.

Comment (2) Read More...

I'm actually going to sneak away from the project next week and attend Oracle Open World 2008.  Somebody in public relations messed up and they're letting me as press with my "blogger" credentials, so it should be fun.  I'm looking forward to the one-on-one interviews with Safra and Larry, a special sneak-peak of all of the new Fusion applications, and back-stage passes to the concert.

Okay, even if it doesn't meet my rather modest expectations I'm still looking forward to seeing a lot of the folks I've worked with over the years, meeting some new people and learning a TON from this year's strong PeopleSoft track.  If you've ever been you know how exhausting it all can be so don't expect daily updates, but I'll do my best.

If you're going to be there and want to hook up, shoot me an e-mail at brent.martin@erpassociates.com, or give me a call at 918-409-4529.  I'll be available much of the day on Sunday.

Comment (1) Read More...

Have you ever had a report that wasn't generated in PeopleSoft but you wanted to put it in the report repository so that your PeopleSoft users could see it with their other reports?  Or have you ever wanted a single SQR to generate multiple reports, with different security for each?  Well, in PeopleTools 8.4x or later it's as easy as using the delivered POSTRPT_DMN.

POSTRPT_DMN is an app enging program that watches for XML files in a particular directory.  If it finds one, it will parse the XML parameters to determine the directory where the report file(s) are stored, the report's security, title, and other important info.  Then it'll use the PostReport PeopleCode class object to post the report to the report repository.

So there are two steps to setting making this work:  1) Configuring the POSTRPT_DMN and set it to run on a regular basis; and 2) Stage your report on the process scheduler server and create the XML file in the directory that POSTRPT_DMN is watching.

Here's how it's done:

Comment (0) Read More...

We had a team dinner tonight and somebody asked a PeopleSoft trivia question I couldn't answer.  Nobody at the table knew the answer, including the guy who asked the question.  Since I hate it when there's something I don't know about PeopleSoft, I thought I'd see if any of you guys have the answer.

Anyway, here's the question: 

Back in the 1990's, ADP sold their own custom version of PeopleSoft.  What was ADP's name of this application?

Comment (7) Read More...