While there are many reasons as to why organizations are reducing customizations, the most important is the cost of developing, upgrading and supporting these customizations.  Packaged applications have also come a long way in recent years in delivering more robust functionality. Software vendors have invested heavily in providing industry specific, legal, regulatory and best practice enhancements to their applications.

We are seeing a trend in new implementations where organizations are more willing to adopt the business processes built into the software instead of customizing it to operate like their legacy system. Companies recognize the cost to develop these customizations is high, but it also increases the complexity and risk during their implementation project. I also suspect the growing trend of Software as a Service (SaaS) applications (Salesforce and others) is helping organizations become more comfortable with adopting application delivered business processes. Unless a customization provides a competitive advantage or helps to meet specific business or regulatory requirements, companies are not investing in those customizations.

Approaching customization retirement, like retiring from the workforce, will require early planning, realistic goals, progress monitoring, and plan execution. As you begin your upgrade project, carefully analyzing the customizations to be retired will take some time and effort. You need to make sure you have a solid understanding of what customizations exist today, the functions they provide and the users / departments that require them.  Most organizations don’t have their customizations documented, so an inventory of your customizations should be taken prior to any upgrade project.

“No customizations!”

In some extreme cases, we have seen clients require Steering Committee review and approval before removing or adding customizations. In others, their users have to justify the business requirement or organizational value. I don’t think it is realistic to assume that you will be able to retire every customization within your application. Ideally, you would be able to replace all customized functionality with what the application delivers, but there is generally plenty of room to retire many customizations based on changes in need.

The number or percentage of customizations to retire will vary from organization to organization, but most who take the time to analyze their current customizations are able to retire at least 25% of those objects.

So, when starting your next upgrade or implementation project, remember these three things:

1. Start Planning Early
2. Set Realistic “Retirement” Goals
3. Monitor Your Progress

Oh and make some time for golf.

Is Oracle Fusion just a new version of your traditional ERP application or is it truly a “Real” Next Generation product?

The answer is YES, it is a REAL next generation product!  It would have to be for clients to even consider the investment given how much they have already invested in their current application footprint.

What makes Fusion so special? 

Actually, there are many reasons.  First, Fusion was developed using open industry-standard based technologies.  Additionally, Fusion is a best-in-breed application created from integrating top tier-1 applications including PeopleSoft, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite and Siebel.

While these are all great features, they may not be enough to crown Fusion as the “Real” next generation application suite.

So what is the secret sauce that pushes Fusion over the top?

For me, it’s the integration of world-class operational applications combined with Business Intelligence, Specialized Analytics and Mobility.

The Fusion applications are integrated with Oracle’s leading Business Intelligence products (OBIEE, OTBI and OBIA) providing real-time and data warehouse based reporting.  Oracle Transactional BI (OTBI) is a real time self-service reporting application delivering content directly off the Fusion Applications database.  OTBI comes with hundreds of pre-built metrics, reports and facts.  Oracle BI Applications (OBIA) is a data warehouse that enables historical analysis and cross-domain insight through a set of prepackaged interactive dashboards, KPI’s and reports that deliver valuable information to your Fusion users and executives.  Both OTBI and OBIA run off of Oracles’ OBIEE foundation which is integrated with every Fusion install.

Oracle has also integrated its industry leading multi-dimensional database into Fusion as well.  While your organization is transacting its day-to-day accounting entries, your data cubes are simultaneously updated in real-time using the embedded GL hyperledger architecture!  Whitespace analysis and data mining are at your fingertips along with financial statements, planning needs and more.  This makes pivot tables and drill downs to any level a snap!

The ability for all users (from operational all the way up to executive management) to have access to information they never had before is what truly makes all of this very exciting.  Their access will allow them to not only enter and look at transactional data, but to perform and observe analysis on that data.  Imagine a world where your entire organization can determine:

• What is happening?
• What has happened?
• Why did this happen?
• What will happen?
• What should happen?

All of this is integrated with the individuals’ day-to-day workflow.  If that doesn’t get you excited, what about the ability to get this level of analysis through a dashboard with BI content on the go? Not through a clumsy web browser, but through native applications built specifically for your mobile device!  Oracle has done a wonderful job integrating true mobility throughout the applications.

There is so much to talk about.  I look forward to sharing additional features in my upcoming posts.  If you would like to discuss what Fusion could do for you, please reach out to me.  Emtec is a Fusion client as well as a preferred implementation partner.  Until next time…

Waterfall implementation methodologies are a traditional proven approach to deploying business solutions. However, with the rapid pace of business and limited staffing, many look for an alternative approach to enable their teams to work concurrently and implement the solution quickly.

An “Agile Approach” enables tasks to be broken down into increments allowing for greater control and the ability to make adjustments along the way.  The key to understanding this approach is noticing how tasks are broken down into smaller activities and numbers of iterations.

The Method

A commonly used method divides the project into key workloads (AKA: work streams) followed by supporting business processes under each workload.  A workload can be either a key value chain activity or similar to a functional area such as; Financials, Sales, Store Operations, Manufacturing, etc.

Additionally, project team roles are aligned with each workload. Each workload will have a lead and subject matter experts (SMEs) for each activity.   Teams then work through each of the business processes in multiple iterations enabling the ability for multiple teams to be working concurrently, thus collapsing the overall project time-frame.    Multiple iterations allow teams work with the application quickly, validate data and process in a timely manner.

A Note of Caution: This approach is not for the faint of heart.  It requires clear guidance, strong management, as well as, leads with good facilitation skills.  It also requires a high level of communication.  Organizations will often implement “sprints” as a way to communicate decisions and status to sponsors and project teams.

Does this “Agile Approach” work?

From my experience, with the right people leading the effort and the workloads being broken down to the right level the approach works successfully.  Things may get a bit tricky when dealing with cross functional areas.  To shrink project time it takes a master in scheduling to align all workload teams – but it can be rewarding if accomplished successfully.  If you’re looking to reinvent a business process, this may not be the best approach as it may increase project time.

Please leave a comment or send me a message if you have feedback from a personal experience or have any specific questions about the agile approach. Until next time..

Cash Flow Management

Treasury is not designed to replace Oracle Cash Management.  That application still exists and serves the function of cash forecasting, cash positioning, and bank account reconciliation.  Treasury is intended to manage your investment portfolio including investments and borrowings.   Likewise, it allows you to manage your banking relationships, transactions between companies and banks, and short term / long term cash forecasting.  In addition, you can use Treasury to manage in-house cash between companies within the same legal entity.

Deal Management

You can use Treasury to manage your financial transactions and deals both short term and long term including investments and borrowings.  This management capability allows your organization to better manage results to achieve improved overall operation of your treasury management process.  For Deal Management, Treasury allows you to:

• Create portfolios to manage short term and long term deals that are controlled through deal rate tolerances.
• Create the products you need to relate to the deals you trade in.  Define stocks and bonds.
• Setup your deals and manage them both in terms of risk and record appropriate journal entries to the General Ledger.
• Create confirmation templates that you can send out deal confirmations to the trading parties that you control.
• Manage the settlement process with trading parties using EDI and related technologies.
• Define audit requirements to help manage your internal audit requirements in the corporate treasury environment.

Risk Management

Risk Management is an ever increasing part of corporate treasury and cash management responsibilities; and as such you can use Treasury to drive policy, risk limits, and risk exposure to interest rates, foreign currency, and commodities. Treasury allows you to:

• Define interest rate policy along with limit types and limits monitoring.
• Define global limits to create a decentralized ability to share the responsibility globally for managing your corporate treasury functions.
• Create exposure types and hedging policies to use as another tool in managing your cash and treasury risk.
• Set limits based on counterparty, counterparty groups, settlements, sovereign limits, currency limits, and dealer and utilize that all with workflow.
• Set up brokerage schedules and details to manage your brokerage accounts and relationships.
• Define market data curves and data sets so that you can use that for doing deal revaluations and mark to market evaluations to help manage your treasury risk.

Treasury 11i vs R12

From the perspective of using Treasury in an 11i versus R12 level, there is very little difference.  R12 does utilize the functionality in Cash Management, where the bank account maintenance takes place in Cash Management.  As part of R12, your internal banks should be setup as parties and that allow you to further manage your banking relationships.

In R12 – the bank account control for Treasury is at a legal entity level.  This is different than the bank account control for Accounts Payables and Accounts Receivables where the control is at the operating unit level.

Treasury does not utilize the sub-ledger accounting application functionality that is prevalent in R12 for the other sub-ledgers like Payables, Receivables, and Inventory.  It does continue to utilize a direct interface to Oracle GL (without any drilldown functionality).

The remaining functionality in Treasury is the same from 11i to R12 as it relates to the primary functionality of the application.  So, from an upgrade standpoint, there isn’t any pre or post upgrade considerations required for Oracle Treasury.

A Cool Tool

I hope this quick overview gives you a window into some of the features and benefits of Oracle Treasury. It is a great tool that truly is under-utilized.  Feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, or comment below if you are using Treasury and let me know how it is working for you.

Prior to PeopleTools 8.52, the PIA setup was executed by launching the setup.bat (Windows) or setup.sh (Unix) and walking through the on-screen installation. (see image below)

The main issue with this process is that multiple installation files, scripts, and configuration files may need to be edited throughout the build process.  These files are scattered in several different directories making it difficult to maintain, specifically when many sites are involved.

Wouldn’t it be nice if these files were all easily accessible from a centralized location?  Well, you’re in luck! I’m happy to share that Oracle has done just that with PeopleTools 8.52!  PeopleTools 8.52 has built-in functionality that will allow the System Administrator to perform all major PeopleSoft web server tasks from a single location that we are already familiar with, the PSADMIN utility!

The following slideshow includes screenshots of the various functions that are now available within the PSADMIN utility.

*Note:  The setup.bat and setup.sh files are still available in PT8.52 for those that want to continue building sites using that approach.

We hope this “new features guide” helps all of our fellow PS Admins save some time and aggravation! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me.

However, with any upgrade, there are always challenges as well as quirks and interesting factoids you find as you go through the implementation.  This makes the whole process so much fun!

Well, from countless hours spent at client site upgrades- we have compiled a list of lessons learned and potential gotchas that you can now plan for and hopefully avoid! We have grouped these either as Technical or Functional but some can be either depending on who you ask.

Technical

• Make sure all custom triggers exist and are attached to the correct tables.  We have had custom triggers that were moved to new archive tables, rather than staying on the tables we wanted.
•  Review all AP customizations, as well as all drillbacks from PA to AP or GL to AP.   The AP data structures change quite a bit in R12 and this has caused problems.
• Update all custom concurrent requests to be “single-mode” for operating units, or else access to multi-org views in the requests may not work properly
• Set the “initialization SQL” profile option for all custom responsibilities, or else access to multi-org data in DFF’s may not work properly
• You don’t have to cancel or complete workflows prior to the upgrade in order for those to be upgraded.
• Confirm you migrate the account generators to the new upgraded instance to insure your account generation is accurate (Payables, Purchasing, Expense Reports, Fixed Assets, Inventory).

Functional

• Make sure ALL sub ledger transactions are transferred to PA and GL before the upgrade.  We have had problems with ones that were not.
• Make sure all ledger and OU profile options are set at the responsibility level, not just the site level, or else some access to data may not work properly
• Confirm DQM synchronization method to insure you see new customers in the new customers form after upgrade.
• You should use the Accrual Reconciliation Load Run program for balancing the Receipt Accrual account for Inventory with GL balance – the Accrual Reconciliation Rebuild Manager is obsolete in R12.
• There is a new AP Trial Balance created and the old AP Trial Balance is obsolete after you upgrade to R12.
• Confirm the Legal Entity definitions and Accounting Setup Manager definitions are completed after the upgrade.

As with everything, planning is key. We hope these quick punch lists help you get ready for your R12 upgrade. Contact me, if you have any questions or have a particularly troublesome quirk you are dealing with. Feel free as well to comment if you have any other gotchas that we may have not included. Happy Upgrading!

Thanks to my colleague David Dozier for his contributions to this post.

With PeopleTools 8.52, Oracle delivers a PeopleTools Client installer that takes the pain out of figuring out which files are needed for a client install.  Lose the excess clutter and install only the minimum set of files required to run PeopleTools locally on your PC.

To try it out yourself, follow the instructions below (See instruction images below):

1. First, point your browser to https://edelivery.oracle.com and download PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.52 Client Only.  It’s under PeopleTools 8.52 Media Pack.
2. Next, run setup.bat to launch the Installer.  Click Next.
3. Accept the agreement and click next.
4. Enter PeopleTools license code. Click Next.
5. Select either Non-Unicode or Unicode.  Click Next.
6. Select install directory. Click Next.
7. Click Next.
8. Click Next.
9. Click Next.
10. Select all.  Click Next.
11. Click Install.
12. That’s it.  You’re done.  Your installation folder should look similar to image 12
13. You should also have a PeopleTools Client 8.5 menu group under your Start menu.
14. If Oracle releases a PeopleTools update, simply download the update and run the installer.  When prompted, select patch type of Client Only and install the update onto the same directory as your initial PeopleTools Client install.

For a more visual How To guide, please view our slideshare presentation below…

Best of luck with your install and I hope these “how-to” instructions for the new streamlined PeopleTools install help. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions or run into any issues with the install.

Remember when PeopleSoft was the new kid on the block?  We were replacing those old mainframe legacy systems with new technology and creating new ways to organize our business processes.   We were putting new tools in the hands of the business users and empowering them with better information about their organization.  The technology we were implementing within our IT departments was enabling us to deliver to our business more effective solutions.

Maximize your investment and keep your PeopleSoft HCM system up to date by retiring old customizations and improve business processes.  And that’s just the application piece.  It reminds me of the initial wave of PeopleSoft implementations.  It’s either “why do we need to change, why do we need all this new technology, our system works fine”, OR “it doesn’t meet our needs, it’s not sexy like (insert Best of Breed vendor here), and support is terrible”.  Or sometimes both.

PeopleSoft HCM is going to be around for quite a while, so here are some recommendations to extend and maximize your investment in your PeopleSoft HCM application. 

1. Understand the PeopleSoft Continuous Delivery Roadmap.

What Is It?  It is Oracle’s ability to deliver more capabilities to PeopleSoft customers outside of releases in a less disruptive manner. Enabled through the following:

• Feature Packs-A collection of features delivered on the current release in a given year. Will be delivered at different times and over the course of a year between major releases. Will be delivered via different delivery vehicles including: maintenance packs, bundles, and/or individual postings.
• PeopleTools Release -New technology and tools capabilities that enable innovation within the applications. Planned for annual delivery.
• PeopleSoft Releases – New application release inclusive of prior release, Feature Packs, maintenance and new capabilities. Planned for delivery every 3 years.  PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 is the next major release

(Source: Oracle Support)

2.       Create your own Roadmap for the future.

It is a good idea to create a 2-3 year roadmap for your application. Include functionality to be implemented, as well as PS technology and other infrastructure support.  Be sure to perform regular review and analysis on the upcoming application and tools releases and update your roadmap on a regular basis.

Here is some of the new functionality planned for the next PS HCM releases

• Feature Pack 2 (In Release) – Company Directory & Actionable Org Charting, Workforce Scheduling for Healthcare, Talent Management 9.1 Integration  back to HCM 9.0 & 8.9
• Feature Pack 3 – Matrix Org Charting, Total Comp Statement, Employee & Manager Self Service
• PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 – Time & Labor Manager Dashboard, Paycheck Modeling, ELM Dashboard, ELM One Step Enroll & Launch

And don’t forget about Fusion!

3.       Review what you already own, but don’t use.

Many HCM customers use only a limited portion of the application.  Be sure to understand everything that you have licensed, as well as what is available to license.  You may have some free or limited expense software that could provide value to your business.  Understand what is available within each module and add any existing functionality implementation initiatives to your roadmap.

4.       Leverage upgrade projects for process improvement.

Take the opportunity at upgrade time to assess and improve your applications. Don’t settle for a “technical upgrade” where customizations are pushed forward as-is and business process improvement is left out of scope. Take the time to organize your customizations by business process, evaluate the need to keep each process, and carefully reexamine the technical approach to each customization.  There is an additional time investment with this approach, but you will see dividends in testing, deployment, ongoing production support, and user satisfaction.

5.       Outside of upgrades, take on continuous process improvement projects.

Try to have process improvement projects in the works when possible.  It’s understood that major project work will supersede this, e.g. an upgrade or other major release.  However, there will be those periods where it is just business as usual.  Make process improvement the norm.  Process improvement projects can be small or major initiatives.  Keep your list and schedule the projects in.  Many process improvements that I’ve helped clients with over the years during upgrades actually involved existing functionality.

Process improvement projects will have the obvious benefits of improving your process, probably saving time and/or expense.  Benefits that can be realized also include: keeping your processes in line with current best practices, keeping your staff fresh through critical thinking.

6.       Keep your team refreshed through training, cross-training and projects.

Challenge your team to stay current on new tools, technologies and approaches.  Provide budget for your team to attend training through the appropriate training delivery mechanism, e.g. class, online, self-training, peer training.  Be sure to also cross train your staff.  Don’t let one person be the payroll developer. Cross train the payroll developer with benefits developer.  Keep your team active with project based work.

Through the use of some of these recommendations, you can keep your PeopleSoft HCM application and organization current and maximize your investment!

The PeopleSoft Testing Framework (PTF) enables companies to make testing a more efficient, consistent and repeatable process as they continue to invest in the PeopleSoft platform.

Delivered with PeopleTools 8.51, the PeopleSoft Testing Framework automates the functional testing task within the PeopleSoft application. PTF works by replicating the actions of a single user executing functional tests within PeopleSoft, records the procedures and then saves them within the framework to replay as needed in the future.

These recorded tests are stored in the database as Application Designer objects. The objects can be migrated from one environment to another, so the test assets can be leveraged across multiple testing environments. This is a great feature to help manage multiple testing cycles for your implementation or upgrade project.

Key Features

• Enables data manipulation within the PeopleSoft rowset-oriented data.
• Runs processes more efficiently through the PeopleSoft Process Scheduler.
• Delivers functionality to interface with Data Mover and PS Query.
• Best of all, the PTF is delivered with your existing PeopleSoft license so there are no additional license fees.

Change Impact Analysis

The PTF can also assist with Change Impact Analysis. PTF can correlate PeopleTools metadata (menus, components, pages, records and fields) with existing tests. It can also produce Test Maintenance and Test Coverage Reports.

• A Test Maintenance report correlates PeopleTools compare report data with PTF test metadata to identify certain changes to components, menus, pages, records, and fields that may impact the PTF tests.

• The Test Coverage Report correlates PeopleTools project data with PTF test metadata to identify components, menus, pages, records, and fields that are referenced in PTF tests. When used in conjunction with Usage Monitor, test coverage correlations can be extended to include information on all managed objects. A test coverage report identifies which objects included in the change project are referenced by which PTF test. Any object included in the change project that is not referenced in the PTF test metadata appears in the report identified as a coverage gap.

A Great Tool

PeopleSoft Test Framework offers numerous benefits to any organization leveraging PeopleSoft applications.

• Using PTF to automate your testing helps to increase the efficiency and accuracy of your application testing.
• The PTF helps to enable consistent testing across your multiple environments. You can be sure the same tests are being executed in each environment, using the test logs as proof for testing results.
• The PTF also ensures critical functionality has been tested in each environment.
• As you can imagine, the PTF drastically speeds regression testing, reduces testing time and number of resources required to support testing effort. You also have the ability to migrate test-assets easily between environments.

The PTF is a great tool to be utilized across a number of application projects and support scenarios.

• Leverage the PTF if you are implementing PeopleSoft or adding new modules to your current application.
• In the case where you have limited or no existing testing documentation, investing in the development of PTF test cases would make sense during your next  project.
• If your organization has limited functional resources to participate in testing cycles, leveraging the PTF could replace the end-users from a unit / system testing standpoint.
• If your organization is highly customized or has significant ongoing development / enhancement projects, the PTF could help to automate the regression testing effort required to ensure system functionality. Same is true if you are routinely applying patches and fixes to the PeopleSoft application.

If your organization is committed to the PeopleSoft platform in the future- you should invest in developing all test assets on the PTF .  Let the PTF help your end-users focus more on value add activities during your next PeopleSoft project by reducing the time required executing multiple rounds of testing.

How will the PeopleSoft Test Framework help your organization in your next PeopleSoft upgrade, maintenance or extension project?

This year when downloading the year-end update (available via the link below, based on your current Dynamics GP version) there is also a code change. This is just like installing any service pack or hotfix- meaning you will have some ‘downtime’, as every single instance of GP will need to be updated. If your organization is looking for upgrade assistance, please send me an e-mail. In the meantime, to find and download the year-end update without assistance, please visit the appropriate sites.

To find and download the year-end update, please visit the appropriate site:

• Version 10.0
• Version 2010

Based on modifications to payroll rules and regulations, the upgrade supports the following changes:

1. Nonresident Alien taxes are now supported- Under Cards | Payroll | Tax (Federal) – there is now a drop down for Nonresident Alien…cool!!! The tables are under FED code, filing status NRA.

2. For good news, Connecticut is no longer participating in convoluted tax calculation where you look at hire date or YTD withheld. However, you are required to install code and table for CT to work. So cross your fingers and legs too!

3. If you pay tax in New York and you make a decent income, prepare to pay a lot. I have even noticed an income level where someone pays 88 percent (married) and 49 percent (single). And no, this is not a typo.

4. You now have the ability to track a specific type of organization on the Federal Tax setup window. Provided options; N/A, 501c Government, 501 Non-Government, are now available.

Additionally, Round 2 of the tax table updates have been available as of January 20th, 2012.

To download these updates, please navigate to Microsoft Dynamics GP| Maintenance | Check for Tax Updates. To complete this function, you will need to be logged into Dynamics GP as the ‘sa’ user in, as well as, know your Authorization Number. My team and I can help you obtain this information if needed, just send me an email if you need help.

Once tax tables have been successfully installed, navigate to Tools | Setup | System | Payroll tax to verify the date is 1/20/2012. While the round 3 update is not yet available, expect news of this release and more information in mid-February. No worries- just subscribe to our Emtec ERP blog and you will get notice of my blog entry on the release when posted.

As of today, the following states have been updated:

• California
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• District of Columbia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Kentucky
• Main
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Minnesota
• New Mexico
• New York
• North Dakota
• Oregon
• Rhode Island
• Vermont

If you have any questions on the above, please feel free to contact me, and as they say at the casino… “Good Luck!”