PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #44 – 5th June 2013

June 5, 2013

Issue #44 – 5th June 2013

News and Latest Developments

Oracle sets out future Java security plans 

Oracle has aligned the release cycle for its Java updates with the regular Critical Patch updates. For future releases Java security updates will be part of its Critical Patch updates, not on their own schedule – as was previously the case.

Functional

Could the paycheck re-invent HCM? Yes it can!

Holger Mueller from the Enterprise Software Musings blog has a load of great ideas for engaging your employees via an unexpected medium – the payslip. A great read! Succeed have just implemented something very similar to this for one of our more forward thinking clients, so it’s practical advice too.

How to Implement Automated Benefits in PeopleSoft

Dennis Bortolus from Cedar Crestone discusses Automated Benefits, why it’s often neglected and the value it can bring. He also walks through the steps to implementation.

A Day in the Life in PeopleSoft HCM 9.2

A walkthrough with screenshots of all of the areas of the system that an employee might encounter on a (pretty eventful) day at work. It highlights many of the new areas in 9.2.

Technical

PeopleSoft Weblogic Monitoring tools

Randy from the Remote PS Admin blog has developed some tools to monitor WebLogic and made them available on his website.

Jim Marion lets the secret out of the bag … PeopleTools 8.53 includes jQuery, jQuery UI and Mobile jQuery. The libraries are a little old and don’t seem to be used extensively, but the fact they’re there is a step forward.

Chris Malek from the Cedar Hills Group lays out the questions to ask yourself if you’re deciding between using Component Interfaces and direct SQL inserts for loading data.

Being Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends Report is a must read for those with an eye to the future. The full slide deck is linked to above, the video of her presentation is available here. Holger Mueller also picks out the key items for Enterprise readers here. If you read one thing this week, make it this one.

We found this great blog post via the Intrasee twitter account. The author (Mark Boyd) gives examples of companies with multiple SaaS systems and the pain of integration that it brings.
There have been 3 new additions to the Learning Library – all on the new PeopleSoft Update Manager.

And Finally…

Eggs and Bacon in a Doughnut?!?  

Dunkin’ Donuts is adding a doughnut breakfast sandwich to its national menu this week. Fast food menu changes wouldn’t normally catch our attention, but this one comes with fried eggs and bacon in a glazed doughnut! I don’t think we’ll get this in the UK, but we’d love to hear what the eating experience is like!

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #43 – 29th May 2013

May 29, 2013

Issue #43 – 29th May 2013

News and Latest Developments

PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 Strengthens User Confidence

A very positive interview article with Scott & White Healthcare with some really encouraging quotes. It seems the version 9.2 applications really are giving users reasons to adopt an ‘evaluate PeopleSoft first’ approach when the time comes to upgrade.

It’s time to start thinking about RECONNECT 

PeopleSoft RECONNECT is the ONLY PeopleSoft-specific event in North America. It runs from July 23rd-25th, and Early Bird prices last until July 2nd.

Salesforce Nabs Database Guru for War on Oracle

It’s great to watch the battle between Larry and his ex-protege Marc Benioff (now CEO of Salesforce). Larry often gleefully points out that Salesforce runs on Oracle databases, but is Marc plotting a re-platforming?

Functional

Did you ask the HR chatbot?

Steve Boese blogs about the implementation of Ivy, an HR Chatbot by Intel. Ivy doesn’t just have a list of canned responses, she also improves by learning from feedback. What does this mean for HR departments – and indeed HCM software – in the future?

Technical

Parallel Pagelet Loading

Randy from the Remote PS Admin blog has found a handy configuration change for those still on PeopleTools 8.52 to get one of the useful improvements from Tools 8.53 a little early.

Since SAP bought Crystal Reports there has been a constant change in the licensing between Oracle and SAP. Wade Coombs posts on the ‘Smart Panda’ blog the steps required if you still use Crystal in your company.

Being a great programmer involves more than writing code that works. Justin James lists the hallmarks of programmers who rise to the top ranks of their profession.

There are some interesting anecdotes in this article – not just the Bloomburg scandal. What do SaaS companies do with client data, and will they either lose it or mine it for trends to upsell back to you?

A new video on the Continuous Delivery model, with a funky new soundtrack.

A brave reporter goes in the cockpit with Sean D. Tucker – World Aerobatic Champion and Team Oracle pilot – after a 3 hot-dog lunch and says “give me everything you’ve got”.

And Finally…

Steve Job’s Dream Device has Arrived 

It’s not made by Apple though, it’s made by Microsoft! This article reviews the upcoming Xbox One and suggests that it’s the closest device yet to the nirvana of bridging all your entertainment centre options.

How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge

An interesting read in general, but the section that really caught our eye was the list of different types of individuals that can inspire people. Which one are you? Would the best leader combine all of those traits?

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #42 – 22nd May 2013

May 22, 2013

Issue #42 – 22nd May 2013

News and Latest Developments

Oracle Releases Mobile Updates for PeopleSoft Campus Solutions

Oracle has released new mobile functionality for Campus Solutions customers built on the ADF (Application Development Framework). This is ‘version 1’, but features enrolling on classes, schedules, grades and other functionality.

A busy week for Yahoo! 

It’s an exciting time to be a Yahoo employee. This week they’ve rolled out a dramatically improved Flickr (which may help it reclaim its mantle as the internet’s favoured online photo storing/displaying website) and made it free for up to 1TB of photos – that’s a staggering amount of space. Yahoo also shelled out $1.1Bn for Tumblr, the micro-blogging service – the first acquisition that we’ve seen announced with an animated gif!

Functional

PeopleSoft Recruiting: Talent Acquisition Manager 9.2

Of all the modules that have improved in HCM9.2, we think recruiting is probably the one that has taken the biggest leap forwards. This 4 minute video shows the Talent Acquisition Dashboard, one of the nicest looking – but least shown – of the new dashboards in 9.2.

Technical

Some learnings from XSLT 

Succeeder Chris has been using XSLT to transform and style some pagelets. He has some tips for effectively using XSLT within the Pagelet Wizard to improve appearance and increase the usability of your users’ homepages.

Analytic Engine and Analytic Grid

Pawan Mundhra walks us through the setup required to deploy an Analytic Grid. In some ways these are similar to Pivot Grids, but instead of appearing in a dashboard they are contained within a PeopleSoft page.

Deploy the Oracle prebuilt virtual machine – easy as 1,2,3 

Elisabeta Olteanu from the Systems Insights blog has documented the process of deploying the Financials 9.2 OVM.

Marten Mickos (CEO, Eucalyptus Systems) lays out the many ways in which the cloud changes the landscape for designers and developers.

We love companies that turn the status quo on its head. Amazon have taken the traditional format for meetings and flipped it in a way that makes great sense. We’d love to try this.
Steve Boese makes the newsletter again this week with this staggering infographic/map.
One feature that everyone loves about PeopleTools 8.53 and the 9.2 applications are the Pivot Grids. This short video walks through their configuration and usage.

And Finally…

How to be both Cuddly and Terrifying at the same time 

This is really off-topic, but it’s fascinating footage of what happened when a young grizzly bear found a Go-Pro camera that had been left to capture some wildlife shots. (Warning, includes extreme close-ups of bear teeth!)


PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #41 – 14th May 2013

May 14, 2013

Issue #41 – 14th May 2013

News and Latest Developments

Documentary on Ellison’s America’s Cup victory

Understandably overshadowed by the tragic death of British sailor Andrew Simpson, a movie premiered last week called “The Wind Gods” documenting the victory by Ellison’s BMW/Oracle team in the prestigious America’s Cup in 2010.

Functional

Thomas Kurian: 10 Strategic Cloud Computing Insights

A high-level non-technical walkthrough of some of the benefits that can be gained by moving to the cloud by Thomas Kurian (Oracle’s Executive Vice President of Product Development).

Evaluating PS 9.2: Project Scope, Business Process Innovation, Organizational Change Management

Richard George from Cedar Crestone continues their blog series on PeopleSoft v9.2 with this post on Scoping, BPI and Change Management.

Technical

PeopleTools 8.53: Why upgrade?

Elisabeta Olteanu from the Systems Insights blog details the enhancements in PeopleTools 8.53. There have been a few similar lists, but this looks one of the more comprehensive.

PeopleTools Information Center

Within My Oracle Support it can sometimes be difficult to locate the exact information that you’re after. These Information Center pages offer an alternative method of navigation to the search functionality that allows you to quickly navigate to the area that you wish to investigate (support login required).

Integration Network WorkCenter 8.53: automated monitoring

Nicolas Gasparotto tries the setup for the new functionality in PeopleTools 8.53 which promised “Automated Network Status and Real-Time Notification of Errors”. The results are a mixed bag and may be tidied up in future versions.

PeopleSoft Test Framework

Randy from the Remote PS Admin blog walks us through the setup and configuration of the PTF tool. Some of this is documented in PeopleBooks, but Randy adds plenty of his own advice to make this a useful guide.

The first of two links in this newsletter for Steve Boese’s blog. Steve highlights a service that has appeared filling a gap in the market for reviews of Enterprise software. If it can become popular enough to gain a critical mass of reviews, then it could be a really useful tool in the vendor/software selection process. The actual site is available here.

The BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) app set the standard for mobile phone chatting, but until now it’s only been available on BlackBerry devices. Opening up to iOS and Android is a bold move, and we’re not sure how it’ll pan out. Will it encourage those that have only ever known iOS or Android to consider BlackBerry at renewal time, or is it removing one of the main reasons that BlackBerry acolytes stayed loyal?
We love a good infographic, and although this one is a little shorter than most there are some great stats in there … over half of the Fortune 100 run on PeopleSoft!

And Finally…

Trying to look better vs. trying to get better

Steve Boese’s blog is well worth adding to your feed reader. This post highlights the different approaches of those who spend time and effort to appear more knowledgeable, productive etc against those that concern themselves less with appearance and strive to improve.

We used to sleep twice each night 

A really interesting study into sleep patterns – as a result of both historical research and modern experimentation. It’s amazing that this hasn’t been more widely published.

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #40 – 8th May 2013

May 8, 2013

Issue #40 – 8th May 2013

News and Latest Developments

Oracle advances on ‘Worlds Strongest Companies’ list

Every year a division of Credit Suisse creates a list of the Worlds Strongest 500 companies. This year Oracle rose from 357th place in 2012 to 86th. This result will be particularly pleasing for Larry Ellison given the fall of Microsoft (down 6 places to 216th), IBM (down 39 places to 66th), Google (down 61 to 147th) and HP (plummeting to 394th place from 19th last year).

Ex-Employee Busted for Tampering with ERP System 

In a shining example of why it’s always a good idea to disable accounts of terminated employees, an ex-worker accessed his previous employer’s ERP system and ‘had a little fun’.

Functional

The Value of PeopleSoft 9.2? Return on Investment

Richard George from Cedar Crestone looks at the cost of upgrading to v9.2, the benefits gained from the new functionality, and then calculates the ROI for three different adoption scenarios.

Technical

Scripting the move from VirtualBox to VMWare

Following on from his post last week showing how to convert VirtualBox instances to VMWare, Nicolas Gasparotto shows how he’s automated the process to make the adoption of the once-every-8-weeks instances even slicker. He’s also documented here fixes for some of the issues that he’s encountered.

Secure Enterprise Search – What’s the Big Deal?

Anoop Savio from the My Tech Speak blog has posted his presentation on Secure Enterprise Search. Many of the slides are quite visual so it would have been interesting to read/hear the commentary that went alongside them, but as a guide to the architecture and config necessary this is a decent slide pack.

PeopleSoft and Web Browsers 

The topic of which Tools version supports which browser can be confusing at times. Succeed have produced a straightforward (and free) guide clarifying matters.

A long, but thought-provoking piece by Brian Sommer of ZDNet on the progress Oracle has made, the direction it is taking in the near future, and where it should be looking a little further out.

Does it sometimes take a while for your meetings to come to an agreement? If so, it might be worth giving the McDonalds Theory a try. Note: this is unlikely to be endorsed by McDonalds in any way.

Watching

History of the HR Industry with HCM Fellow, Row Henson

We’d heard so many mention Row Henson as a mentor/inspiration, but had never heard her speak until this video. She gives a great potted history of HR – the move from Personnel to HCM, and how technology has been a major driver in this change.

Invest in Innovation: Upgrade to Oracle’s PeopleSoft 9.2

A great promotional video on the improvements in PeopleSoft 9.2, concluding with some impressive statistics on PeopleSoft usage. It’s light on screenshots and details but you can get these elsewhere. The video does have a loud/pumping soundtrack so headphones are recommended in the office!

And Finally…

Things I Wish I’d Known When I Was 30 

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – now retired – is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. He has written a list of ‘life lessons’, including an interesting slant on watching TV vs reading books.


PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #39 – 1st May 2013

May 1, 2013

Issue #39 – 1st May 2013

Thanks to our 450th subscriber, Jonathan from Allen & Overy who signed up live in the UKOUG exhibition hall last week.

News and Latest Developments

Oracle lands massive new PeopleSoft deal

Oracle has won a $100 million ERP project that will replace legacy systems at 34 colleges in Washington state, in a deal that’s a massive boost for its PeopleSoft applications.

Oracle names Succeed ‘Industry Partner of the Year 2013’ 

Fresh from retaining the UKOUG ‘PeopleSoft Partner of the Year’ award, Succeed have now been given another accolade, this time from Oracle themselves. Succeed’s CEO Steve tells the story.

Functional

Business Value Proposition of PeopleSoft T&L 9.2

Jiju Vengal has another Prezi for us, this time on the subject of “Why should you consider an upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.2 for Time and Labor”.

Next in the “10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2” series is this post by Oracle’s Roxanne Johnson about the PeopleSoft Projects module and the new features in v9.2.

Richard George from Cedar Crestone discusses how the level of modifications you’ve made to your system affects your approach to upgrade.

Technical

UKOUG PeopleSoft Roadshow 2013 

Succeeder Duncan blogs about the recent PeopleSoft Roadshow held by the UK Oracle User Group. There are some screenshots and notes about features in the next version of Tools (8.54)! Oxfam’s Graham Smith also covered the event here.

Interaction Hub Dependencies

Oracle’s Matthew Haavisto seems to publish something most weeks, and this week is no exception. Matthew has made available a paper showing the dependencies between the Interaction Hub and PeopleTools.

About Java class, HTTP POST and viewContentURL

Jeffrey-Joy Stam from the Blogging About Oracle Applications site shares his solution for what to do if you are on a version of PeopleTools prior to 8.52, but still need to utilise REST.

VirtualBox Appliances for PeopleSoft on VMWare ESXi 

Nicolas Gasparotto documents his method of converting into VMWare VMs the VirtualBox appliances that Oracle are now providing enabling us to use Update Manager.

Reading

The New and Dangerous Threat to Cloud Computing

Oracle’s Bob Evans (SVP, Communications) talks about the biggest threat to cloud computing – customer fatigue. It’s a really illuminating look into Oracle’s strategy on the cloud. “A top tech executive from one of the world’s leading telecom providers said that he’s sick and tired of the squabbles among IT companies over whether private clouds are superior to public clouds, and … the only matter he truly cares about is whether the various solutions deliver to him the business value and flexibility that his company needs”.

The next big trend – the Internet of Things 

How the ‘Internet of Things’ – the term given to Machine-to-Machine communications – is going to transform our lives.

Training

PeopleTools Search Framework

Oracle’s Greg Parikh has made available – for free – 3 short training videos introducing the Search Framework, the architecture behind it and some of the implementation and configuration tasks.

And Finally…

56 Acronyms and Initialisms

A fun video explaining the meanings behind many commonly used acronyms, including many that we didn’t know were abbreviations. Plus, who knew Michael J Fox’s middle name?

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #38 – 24th April 2013

April 24, 2013

Issue #38 – 24th April 2013

News and Latest Developments

PeopleSoft 9.2 VirtualBox Images are available 

The VirtualBox instances to go with the new PeopleSoft Update Manager functionality have been released. They’re pre-built images containing PeopleSoft HCM, Financials or ELM version 9.2 running on PeopleTools 8.53.02. Even if you’re not using them for Update Manager, it’s a great way to get a PeopleSoft Sandbox up and running quickly (support login required).

3 PeopleTools patches released

The latest patch for the current version of PeopleTools has been released (patch 8.53.03, linked above). Oracle have also released the 8.52.15 patch and the the 8.51.23 patch.

Functional

Oracle Support and Severity versus Escalation

Steve Canter from Smart ERP explains the best way of working with Oracle Support, and why increasing the severity of an Oracle Service Request is very different from requesting escalation.
Richa Dubey has published the 3rd part in the ‘10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2’ series, focusing on the new Dashboards and WorkCenters (and handily explains the distinction).

From Kristen Emery here is number 7 in the series of ’10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2′. She details where the new activity guides and train stops have been added in each application, illustrated with some eye-candy screenshots.

Technical

New Red Paper on Setting Up the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub

Oracle’s Matthew Haavisto has published a new Red Paper on setting up the latest incarnation of the Enterprise Portal, including topics such as Single Sign-on, Unified Navigation and Synching Roles and Personalisations.

Including jQuery within PeopleSoft Safely 

Jim Marion has written a post showing how to add jQuery within Pagelets and demonstrates safeguarding against multiple pagelets adding duplicate versions of jQuery. As always, Jim helps in the comments too.

Installing a PeopleSoft v9.2 VirtualBox in less than an hour

Hakan Biroglu has a very thorough walkthrough of the process of downloading, installing and configuring a PeopleSoft 9.2 VirtualBox. He also has a post on why he’s switching from VM Ware to VirtualBox.

Reading

Report: PeopleSoft Leaps forward with Impressive Release 

IDC have released a report praising the 9.2 releases of PeopleSoft. “In our opinion, there’s a lot to like in PeopleSoft 9.2.”

Watching

Advisor Sessions on the PeopleSoft 9.2 upgrade

@PSFT_Support shared the above link to several webinars on the upgrade to PeopleSoft 9.2 and associated topics, like Absence Management in 9.2, Time & Labour in 9.2 and on the PeopleTools 8.53 upgrade. These have been recorded and are available from the archive at the above URL (support login required).

And Finally…

Seeing into your dreams 

Researchers have found a method of predicting what people are seeing while they dream. Some clever Japanese scientists have come up with a decoding program that analyzes brain activity while people sleep.

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #37 – 17th April 2013

April 17, 2013

Issue #37 – 17th April 2013

We have a bumper issue this week due to the holidays.

News and Latest Developments 

In-Memory Processing and Faster Performance

At Collaborate, Oracle announced new in-memory processing functionality for all of its applications – including PeopleSoft. SAP has made much of its HANA technology, and now Oracle is applying in-memory technology to its application suites too. Also unveiled were the results of combining certain processing activities with the extra power available with their engineered systems, with impressive time savings. See the official releasehere.

The UKOUG PeopleSoft Roadshow is next week 

The annual UKOUG PeopleSoft EMEA Roadshow is in London on 24th April. As ever, there’s a strong agenda with both Jeff Robbins and Marc Weintraub leading multiple sessions with the focus strongly on the new 9.2 releases and PeopleTools 8.53.

PeopleSoft Interaction Hub 9.1/Revision 2 Available

Matthew Haavisto has posted on the PeopleSoft Technology Blog that the latest release of the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub is available. It looks like many of the improvements are to bring it in line with PeopleTools 8.53, so if you have portal and are current on your Tools versions this is a must-have.

OHUG Early Bird Discount ends on Friday 

The Oracle HCM Users Group conference is running from June 10th-14th in Dallas, Texas. There is still a while to go until the event, but the early-bird discount of $200 runs out on 19th April.

Global Payroll Update 2013-B released

The latest Global Payroll update has been released, and should be at least evaluated by GP customers. The update linked above is for 9.1, for those still on 9.0 use this link (Support login required for both links).

Functional

John Webb kicks off the ‘10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2’ series with a post on the Global Search functionality and navigation via Related Actions.
Teo Hernandez has posted the second in the ‘10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2’ series, this time focusing on the analytics. It shows how many of the grids and charts can be drilled into to get to underlying data, and then you can navigate to fix the issue using related actions.

Jiju Vengal has posted a presentation on the benefits of version 9.2 for T&L customers, broken down by role. We’re pleased to see that he’s giving Prezi a try out too. He has also written posts on Timesheet LockdownEnhanced configurability to timesheet layoutNew Value List TypesEnhancement to Monthly Schedule page in ESS and the T&L WorkCenter.

Technical

PeopleSoft Timeout Problems in 8.50 – 8.52

Randy from the Remote PSAdmin blog details a few of the bugs/issues he’s found with the Timeout code over the last few releases of PeopleTools, and has a couple of solutions to try if you encounter them.

Notes from Collaborate 13 

Jake (from the Oracle AppsLab) shares his observations from Collaborate. Most interesting to us was the section on the Apps User Experience Usability Lab, and in particular the Eye Tracking software. There’s even a video of it in action. We quite fancy getting our hands on a Tobii too.

Reading

Why doesn’t everyone innovate?

An intelligent thought-piece on why innovation as we see it within the IT industry isn’t an option for everyone, and what they can do instead.

Training

PeopleSoft Update Manager Self Study Training Guide

Oracle have released a guide allowing us to upskill on the functionality of PeopleSoft Update Manager before the first update is released – which we suspect isn’t far off (Support login required).

And Finally…

Teacher Knows If You’ve Done Your Reading 

In a trend that is bound to spread into other areas, the NY Times reports that with the advent of E-Readers, teachers are now able to check not only that students have read all of the required homework material, but that they don’t leave it to the night before the test. We’re glad this wasn’t around when we were younger …

A Summary of Pretty Bad Advice 

Not exactly an infographic, but an amusing collection of ‘bad advice’ presented in an infographic style.

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #36 – 27th March 2013

March 27, 2013

Issue #36 – 27th March 2013

This will be the last issue for three weeks due to the Easter holidays. We wish all our readers a safe and happy break!

News and Latest Developments

PeopleSoft Launches 9.2 to Over 4,000 Attendees at Alliance Conference

Few in the PeopleSoft world will have missed the announcement that the 9.2 applications were released at the end of last week. From the show of hands at the Alliance keynote unveiling the release, it sounds like the appetite to upgrade amongst customers is strong.

Customers and Partners in the PeopleSoft 9.2 Early Success Program

Oracle has released a list of the customers and partners that have been (and still are) involved in the Beta and Early Success program. Succeed are proud to have been invited to play a part in this.

Oracle has agreed to acquire Tekelec

Another ‘lower key’ acquisition by Oracle, but it seems that there is a new company added to the fold every week at the moment. Tekelec is a leading provider of network signaling, policy control, and subscriber data management solutions for communications networks, so it is expected that this functionality will be added to solutions for the Telecoms vertical.

CRM 9.1 Bundle #13 released

The most recent bundle for CRM 9.1 was released last week (Support Login required).

Functional

Jiju Vengal has shared some great reviews of the new functionality in HR9.2 on the PeopleSoft HRMS blog. The above link is for HR Announcements, but there are other reviews too, for example Page to update ECD in T&LPrint TimesheetTimesheet page FaceliftTRC display control based on role and Timesheet Sign-off message.
There’s a new type of Court Order that the UK Government is introducing, Payroll guru John Eckersley gives us an introduction.
Jiju has also spotted that the Business Process Maps for 9.2 are now online.

Technical

Using file:// Protocol with PeopleCode ViewAttachment

Daniel Kibler shows that although it might not be particularly well documented in PeopleBooks, you can use the file protocol with the Attachment PeopleCode functions with the latest versions of PeopleTools.

PeopleSoft Related Content

Nanda from Kovaion Consulting reminds us of the uses for Related Content and shows that it’s pretty easy to set up.

Excel To CI: Can’t find project or library

Stephen from the PSST0101 blog shares a solution to a problem that he found with Excel to CI.

Reading

Evaluating PS Release 9.2: First Adopters or Wait?

Richard George from Cedar Crestone discusses the decision facing all PeopleSoft clients at the moment, do we dive in and upgrade to 9.2 straight away to take advantage of the benefits and cost savings sooner, or hold off due to lack of resources or to let others test the water first?

Listening

An Oracle PodCast on the new PeopleSoft 9.2

A 19 minute chat with Paco Aubrejuan who explains the importance of PeopleSoft within the Oracle stable and explains why “there’s a lot of 1+1=3 going on”. The three goals are to make PeopleSoft more intuitive and simpler to use; to expand functionality, reducing the need for customisation; and to reduce the costs for clients to stay current. Every improvement in 9.2 is targeted at one of those goals.

And Finally…

Treat Your Kids Like a Team of Agile Software Developers 

An intriguing TED Talk that suggests treating your children like a team of agile software developers in order to reduce your family stress.  This talk provides some ideas to reduce chaos, for those of us out there with kids of all ages.

PeopleSoft Weekly Issue #35 – 20th March 2013

March 20, 2013

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 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.