Issue #10 – 5th September 2012
Welcome to the 10th issue of our newsletter.
News and Latest Developments
PeopleSoft CRM 9.2 Release Value Proposition unveiled
There are many PeopleSoft CRM customers who will be keen to see what has made it into the next release. In addition to improvements common across all applications (such as Secure Enterprise Search) there is a complete overhaul of Self Service (for Helpdesk and for Support), quick creation of POIs, automatic helpdesk case creation and a lot of improvements for Marketing (especially within Higher Education).
PeopleTools 8.53 Beta Programme
The beta programme for PeopleTools 8.53 has started and Succeed are involved. Once we find out what we can and can’t show/discuss we hope to post screenshoots/details of the highlights on our blog.
Functional
The new PeopleSoft CRM Community has gone live
Spotted on twitter this week: Oracle have announced the newPeopleSoft CRM
Community covering Help Desk, Support and Online Marketing (login required).
Technical
PeopleTools 8.51.20 has been released
The latest patch for PeopleTools 8.51 has been released. This is the first one for the last-but-one version of PeopleTools that hasn’t been published (as far as we can see) to the FTP site. You have to locate it in Oracle Support (login required).
Options for sending emails
Chris from Cedar Hills Group outlines the available methods for sending emails from within PeopleSoft, some occasions where it could go wrong, and a proposed enhancement to mitigate the risk.
The Top 10 confusing things in Oracle
Succeeder Dave spotted this blog entry about some of the quirks in the Oracle Database. All established products have quirks like this, it’s interesting to see them identified and listed.
Reading
Is HR the new IT?
Page 34 of the linked PDF (an issue of Talent Management) discusses the changes in HCM, and in particular the need for mobile access for certain applications.
Workday files for IPO
There has been a lot of analysis this week about the Workday IPO filing. The most interesting aspects to read for us were the extensive measures that Workday have put in place to prevent any chance of a hostile takeover. Another piece of research shows that “subscription contracts are non-cancelable, and typically have a term of three to five years.”, which is quite a lock-in. It also points out that the CEO of one of their main reference customers Flextronics is on the Workday board. 
Additional points to note are that Workday’s document reveals implementations are 3-9 months (which isn’t especially fast). They also state that their main competitors (who they name as Oracle and SAP) are able to devote more resources to developing their products which may adversely affect their business, that it’s a risk that they rely on third-party data centres and that some customers might be put off due to the lack of customisation options available in their software.
Comparing Fusion to Workday
An opinion piece from someone who has first-hand experience of both Fusion and Workday, showing which aspects from each product are ahead, and which has the momentum.
And Finally…
The best interface is no interface
Although this initially sounds like a maxim that’s good in theory but impractical to implement, it’s a very enjoyable read. It brings in examples from many industries, ending at the very desirable Nest thermostat.
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