Issue #35 – 20th March 2013
News and Latest Developments
PeopleSoft 9.2 available from this Friday
Oracle announced at the Alliance ‘13 conference that the eagerly anticipated PeopleSoft v9.2 (HCM, Financials and Supply Chain) will be available from this Friday (22nd March). In a thoughtful touch, they also name-checked those involved in the beta program (Succeed are the only ones in the UK).
Oracle acquires Nimbula for hybrid cloud software
Oracle acquires Nimbula for hybrid cloud software 
Oracle has – fairly quietly – acquired Cloud Services company Nimbula. It was founded by one of the leads behind Amazon Web Services, and boasts many employees from within that team. It’s an interesting move as Oracle is a big proponent of the private cloud (and their own Public Cloud), however Nimbula is very much aligned to AWS.
PeopleSoft VM Templates for Tools 8.53.01 now available
If you’re lucky enough to be a client with an Exalogic setup to run PeopleSoft, then you have another reason to be grateful. PeopleSoft VM Templates for PT8.53.01 are now available for Exalogic.
PeopleTools 8.53.02 Patch released
The second patch for the most recent version of PeopleTools has been released (Support Login Required).
Functional
Oracle have made available an easy to remember URL (www.peoplesoft92.com) for getting access to all of the information that you need to start planning your 9.2 upgrade. As well as a central repository for links to lots of documentation, you also get a picture of Paco Aubrejuan (Senior Vice President & General Manager Oracle PeopleSoft) looking very happy.
Different groups of PeopleSoft users have differing areas of high-frequency usage within the system. With this app you can spare your users extra navigation effort by redirecting them to their chosen hotspots upon logon, be it tabs, dashboards or even a specific page within a component.
Technical
What makes PeopleTools 8.53 a Compelling Upgrade? 
Succeeder Duncan has written a 4 page, visual, high-level overview of the key features in PeopleTools 8.53. Rather than an exhaustive investigation of every feature – and there are many – this picks out the highest value gains in a document that can be shared with non-technical colleagues.
Using GMail as an SMTP Server for PeopleSoft
Whilst Production systems will use corporate mail infrastructure to send outgoing emails from PeopleSoft, sometimes you just want an account setup quickly for testing purposes. Also, an increasing number of companies are outsourcing their email infrastructure to cloud providers like Gmail. Hakan from the Blogging about Oracle Applications site shows how to setup Gmail as your SMTP server for PeopleSoft.
Jim Marion at Collaborate ‘13
Now that the Alliance Conference is wrapping up, it’s time for those fortunate enough to be heading to Collaborate to start getting excited. Jim Marion – one of the first names everyone should look for when planning their agendas – has shared the timeslots for his sessions.
How to read a PeopleSoft Trace File
This entry from Shyam’s PeopleSoft Blog shows how to interpret each of the columns in a PeopleSoft Trace file, something that we’re sure most of us have encountered from time to time.
Reading
Big Data in Human Resources 
Josh Bersin from Forbes shows that although much of the Big Data talk is about Social and Marketing, there’s a great opportunity to utilise it within HR. Oracle have already started down this path (with the usage of Predictive Analytics in Fusion) however there are lots of other opportunities to make better use of your data.
The Enterprise Tablet war is just getting started?
According to this article, it will be neither the iPad nor the Android tablets that win the war for the Enterprise.
Watching
Lots of PeopleSoft v9.2 videos
John Webb has posted an entry on the PeopleSoft Apps Strategy blog with a link to the PeopleSoft YouTube channel where there are lots of new videos relating to PeopleSoft 9.2. These include: ELM, Global Search, Paycheck Modeller, Benefits/Life Events, Candidate Gateway, ePerformance, Talent Acquisition Manager, Cash Positioning and Forecasting, Expenses and the new Update Manager.
And Finally…
LazyHusband – a Smart Phone App that Compliments Your Wife for You
A short story/video interview about an unnecessary yet amusing new Smartphone App – Lazy Husband – which automates the process of complimenting your spouse. The creator is also coming up with Lazy Kid and – an opportunity for wives to get revenge – Lazy Wife. In case you’re wondering, the creator isn’t married, and in fact is only 12 years old. He’s something of a prodigy however, as he markets as well as he codes.
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