Friday 28 December 2012

How to generate XMLP reports in PeopleSoft with desired file name?


In People Tools version 8.49 and earlier, XMLP generates reports with some random names. There is no delivered option for the user/developer to specify desired output report name. However, this can be achieved easily by tweaking the code in the Application Package - PSXP_RPTDEFNMANAGER, Class -ReportDefn, Method  - ProcessReport

Below is the code for the 'method ProcessReport' with the changes highlighted in red:                  
Ø  In the method declaration, add one additional parameter for setting up the report name as shown below:
 method ProcessReport(&TemplateID As string, &LanguageCd As string, &AsOfDate As date,     &OutputFormat As string, &sCustomRptName As string);

Ø  In the method definition, include the below shown code changes:
  method ProcessReport
   ---
CreateDirectory(&sOutputDir | &sDirSep | "RptInst" | &sDirSep | String(&i),     %FilePath_Absolute);
 /*This code is to generate the report with a custom name */
  If %This.UseBurstValueAsOutputFileName Then
          &sOutFileName = &sBurstValue | &sCustomRptName;
   Else
          &sOutFileName = &ID;
   End-If;
                ----
   &oReportOut = create XX_RPTDEFN:ReportOutput(&sBurstValue, String(&i),    &sOutFileName | "." | Lower(&sFileExt), &sBurstDataFile);       
   &arOutput.Push(&oReportOut);
   End-For;        
    End-If;
      Else
  /*******Include report name here if you want to change******/
  If &sCustomRptName <> " " Then
        &ID = &sCustomRptName;
  End-If;
  &sLocalOutputFile = %This.GetLocalOutputFile(&ID | "." | Lower(&sFileExt), "", 1);
   ----
  end-method;

Below is the sample code to generate the XMLP report where 'method ProcessReport' is invoked with additional parameter:
&CustomRptName_prefix = "User Report";
 &ReportDef.ProcessReport(&sTemplateId, "ENG", %Date, &OutputFmt, &CustomRptName_prefix);
 &ReportDef.publish("", "", "", 0);

We implemented this at one of our customer site. It is tested and works fine. We recommend you to test it with various options.



In PeopleTools Version 8.50 and later, PeopleSoft has delivered the option to generate XMLP reports with customized names.
Navigation:  Main Menu > Report Tools>XML Publisher> Report Definition
File Name: Specify a file name template that gets translated at runtime to a physical file name. This field accepts a combination of output variables and plain text. Output variables are enclosed within percent signs (%). More details on PT8.50 report outpput option feature is available at http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E15645_01/pt850pbr0/eng/psbooks/txml/book.htm

Saturday 22 December 2012

Kovaion Consulting Stepping Into 3rd Year


We began our journey on December 22, 2010 and have spent the past 2 years continuing to build our brand and improving in every area of our business. 

Year 2012 has been a fabulous year for Kovaion. Here is the quick summary of 2012:
Despite of the challenging global economy, we managed to improve steadily with added HR service offering division, 100% increase in revenue, 5 time increase in resource headcount, 2 new clients addition, 5 new partners and developed many new innovative products. We moved to new office premise with more space and enhanced infrastructure. We launched Kovaion Inception Lab and experts forum that mainly focuses on developing innovative products and value added services. We managed to achieve a lot in 2012 with contribution from everyone. Besides, we learnt a lot from the challenges we faced in 2012 and determined to do better.

“IT Metrics: IT Spending and Staffing Report, Jan 2012 by Gartner - In 2012, organizations will spend 63% of their IT resources to run the business, 21% to grow the business, and 16% to transform the business.”
We are investing more on inception lab primarily focused on pioneering People, Process & Technology to help our customers and partners in growing & transforming the business with effective IT solutions(esp ERP services).

We aim year 2013 as a business building year. Looking ahead to assist our customers and partners, we are focused on accelerating to build on the strength of our brand - 'innovation' and cost effective solutions. We have a good pipeline of projects and activities lined up for 2013. We are working under a grand vision of becoming an 'ERP Servicing Market Leader' by 2020. We are really excited about this journey and truly believe we will turn up our challenges to opportunities and meet them with determination and novelty. We wish to travel on this journey with your support.

We value the community where we work and live and we pledge to be a good corporate citizen. At Kovaion, we are committed to conduct our businesses in an environmentally responsible manner.

Finally I would like to thank all our esteemed clients, partners, associates and well wishers for the business and support. I hope to see continued support from all of the stakeholders to make 2013 as another successful year.

Wish you and your family a merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.

Best Regards,
Nanda Kumar
Director - Kovaion Consulting

Wednesday 21 November 2012

Cumulative Feature Overviews (CFO) For PeopleSoft 9.2

The Cumulative Feature Overviews (CFO) tool for PeopleSoft 9.2 has been released.

It’s a simple and great tool to identify the new features available with the latest releases. It will be very useful during upgrade for the Fit-Gap analysis. Definitely I like this tool...

Note: Oracle support id is required to download the tool.

Sample Screenshot of the tool:

 

Thursday 15 November 2012

Automatic Enrolment

Automatic Enrolment

What is it?

‘Workplace pensions’ law has changed. The government has introduced a new law to make it easier for people to save for their retirement.  It requires all employers to enrol their workers into a qualifying workplace scheme if they are not already in one.  At present, many workers fail to take up valuable pension benefits because they do not make an application to join their employer's scheme.  Automatic enrolment is meant to overcome this.

More details available under

Below given a quick summary about Auto Enrolment for Employee, Employer and Oracle-PeopleSoft Customer.

For Employees
If employee joins a money purchase (defined contribution) scheme, employee will have their own pension pot which will be open upon retirement.  Contributions from employee, employer and government will be paid into employee’s pot.  Employee can retain the same pot even if they move jobs.

Scheme, pension pot, qualify, defined contribution - What is it?
A qualifying scheme can be:
·         A defined contribution scheme with a minimum contribution
Or
·         A defined benefit or hybrid scheme which meets certain conditions.

Sample calculation for employees with TIER 1 scheme:
Each month*,
Employer puts in pension pot
£30
+ Employee put in pension pot
£40
+ the government puts in pension pot
£10 (tax relief)
Total available in pension pot
£80
 * Scheme will be set by the employer. Please contact the employer for the qualifying scheme.

Does this affect me (employee)?
Yes, employees will be automatically enrolled to the scheme, if employee,
·         Is not already in a qualifying workplace pension scheme;
·         Is at least 22 years old;
·         Is below state pension age;
·         Earn more than £8,105 a year; and
·         Work or ordinarily work in the UK (under their contract)
Even if employee doesn’t qualify automatically, employee has the right to join the scheme. Options are available for employee to optout and/or rejoin the scheme.

Note for employee: DONOT misinterpret this post/document as an enforcement to challenge the organization. Please speak to your organization for more details.


For Employers

Is it applicable for my organization?
Yes. Although automatic enrolment comes in from 1 October 2012, individual employers' duties will be introduced gradually over the following five years, and will be based on the employer's size.

List of staging dates by PAYE scheme size or reference
PAYE scheme size or reference
Staging date
120,000 or more
1 October 2012
50,000-119,999
1 November 2012
30,000-49,999
1 January 2013
20,000-29,999
1 February 2013
10,000-19,999
1 March 2013
6,000-9,999
1 April 2013
4,100-5,999
1 May 2013
Complete and latest list will be available at,

Who (my employees) will be affected?
Qualified employees who meets the eligibility criteria,
Also, employees have the right to join the scheme even if they do not qualify automatically.

What should I do now?
So the employers should enrol to the pension regulator or pension provider to meet their new workplace pension duties.

If you (employer) are using PeopleSoft as the UK HR/Payroll solution, then you need to ensure that your system is capable of handling Automatic Enrolment.


What Oracle has offered for Auto Enrolment?
 For Oracle-PeopleSoft customers, Oracle is fully committed to the delivery of Auto Enrolment Packages for version 9.0 and 9.1.  Oracle-PeopleSoft Release for ‘UK Pension Changes- Auto Enrolment’ is available under,

For customers on other PeopleSoft version, Oracle would be the best source of information about the auto enrolment package.

What we (Kovaion Consulting) can offer for Auto Enrolment?
We (Kovaion Consulting) can certainly assist the PeopleSoft customers on the implementation and support of Auto Enrolment.

Design
ü  It includes, deployment of Auto Enrolment related bundle/POC delivered by Oracle. Based on the PeopleSoft release, the deliverables from Oracle will vary.
ü  Map the tailor made current system to fit Auto Enrolment process.
ü  Identify potential gap and do the fit gap analysis.

Develop
ü  Develop necessary technical components

Test
ü  End to End process testing.
ü  Performance testing – This is very critical for mission critical application like payroll.

Rollout
ü  Production Deployment

Support
ü  Warranty support includes 30 days of production support cover
ü  Additional long term support shall also be provided
  
Since the implementation effort depends on the pension provider, it would be difficult to provide the implementation efforts. But certainly feel free to get in touch with us to evaluate the options. 

Quick read through on Oracle-PeopleSoft Deliverable
Under the reforms, employers will take on a number of new pension duties:
        Provide a qualifying pension scheme
       Automatically enroll Eligible Jobholders, who are not already members of a qualifying pension scheme
        Inform eligible jobholders that they have been automatically enrolled and that they have the right to opt out
        Respond to opt-out requests appropriately
        Deduct member contributions and make employer contributions,
        Periodically re-enroll any eligible jobholders who have opted-out
        Keep records in relation to each qualifying pension scheme and each jobholder
        Report regularly to the Pension Regulator


Disclaimer: This document/post is for reference only. The points discussed are purely based on our understanding. Please check the links and regulatory websites for updated information.

Wednesday 14 November 2012

HMRC RTI - Oracle-PeopleSoft

HMRC Real Time Information (RTI)

What is RTI?
RTI is the HMRC Real Time Information initiative.  It requires employers to provide an electronic data feed directly to HMRC for each payroll run. Using RTI, employers and pension providers will tell HMRC about tax, National Insurance contributions (NICs) and other deductions when or before the payments are made, instead of waiting until after the end of the tax year.

RTI will:
  • Make the PAYE process simpler and less burdensome for employers and HMRC for example by removing the need for the end of year return (forms P35 and P14) and simplifying the employee starting and leaving processes
  • Make PAYE more accurate for individuals, over time reducing the number of bills and repayments sent after the end of the tax year
  • Enable HMRC to pursue late payments more effectively
  • Support the payment of Universal Credits
  • Reduce Tax Credits error and fraud
Employers and pension providers will send this information to HMRC online for payments made to all their employees including those paid below the National Insurance Lower Earnings Limit (LEL).

More information is available under http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/rti/

By April 2013 almost all employers and pension providers must be reporting their payroll information to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) on or before every payday.

RTI means that earnings and deductions are submitted weekly or even by payroll run instead of annually.

Current HMRC reporting is once yearly by P14 & P35 submissions providing both total relevant earnings and deductions to HMRC both both in detail and summary formats.

HMRC Interfaces:

Following inbound/outbound interfaces are unaffected
  • P60 - year end payment summary report
  • P45 - leaver process
  • P6

Below lists the interfaces ‘TO’ and ‘FROM’ to HMRC

Outbound Interface(s):
  • Employer Alignment Submission (EAS) – It is to allow HMRC to match their records with the employer records and if necessary update their records. This is the first stage of RTI but the intention is that once the EAS has been accepted employers will not need to submit this again.
  • Full Payment Submission (FPS) – It is employee payment information that is sent to HMRC. For each pay run, this data needs to be sent to the HMRC along with the BACS Payment. Note: BACS payment file also needs to be adjusted for RTI process.
  • Employer Payment Summary (EPS) – It is used in pay periods when no employees have been paid or when the employer needs to report a reduction in the amount they will pay over to HMRC. This is to report a reduction in the amount the employers pay to HMRC or if employers haven't paid any employees in a pay period.
  • National Insurance Number Verification Request (NVREQ / NINO) – Employer can verify the NI number given by the employee. HMRC’s matching of data sent to a particular employee will be dependent on the NI number, so it will be crucial for the employer to keep accurate data.

Inbound Interface(s):
  • National Insurance Number Verification Response (NVRES / NINO) – It is the employer can verify the NI number given by an employee.

Also, the year end report to the PAYE (P60) is unaltered. Currently via Oracle delivered P14/60 process, the year end data can be printed on the HMRC template.

Our RTI implementation Offer includes:
Design
  • It includes, deployment of RTI related bundle/POC delivered by Oracle.
  • Map the current system to the RTI process.
  • Identify potential gap and do the fit gap analysis.

Develop
  • Develop necessary technical components

Test
  • End to End process testing.
  • Performance testing – This is very critical for mission critical application like payroll.

Rollout
  • Production Deployment

Support
  • Warranty support includes 30 days of production support cover
  • Additional long term support shall also be provided

Our Value Addition:
RTI Preparation process Streaming (All GP jobs are streamed for better performance. RTI Streaming is currently not delivered by Oracle)
Electronic P14/60 – Implemented at one of the largest specialist recruitment organization in UK.

Electronic P14/60 Success Story:
By Implementing Electronic delivery of P60 report, there was huge saving on the postage cost. Also, the electronic documents can be easily accessed by employee/administrators for reprint/resent.

RTI Implementation duration:
The whole implementation can be carried out in 3 months.

Sunday 9 September 2012

PeopleSoft Test Framework


Application testing is one of the critical and challenging tasks in Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) projects. Application testing is more focused on functional/business specification, user interface, security and performance. Among all of them, functional testing is the most demanding job as it requires participation from various stakeholders like developers, testers and business users. Usually business users have only limited time to dedicate for the functional testing activities as their business-as-usual tasks are on priority.

PeopleSoft Test Framework (PTF) is a testing tool delivered with PeopleTools 8.51 and above. PTF automates various tasks within PeopleSoft application, primarily functional testing. Automated functional testing helps the business users in executing more test cases with greater accuracy in a short period.

PTF works by replicating the actions of a single user executing functional tests against the PeopleSoft browser-based application. Users can record manual test procedures and save them within the framework. Later, for instance after an application upgrade or patch, the tests can be executed against the application to verify whether the application still behaves as expected.

Below are 2 videos from Oracle on PTF Introduction and walk through with examples:

PeopleSoft Test Framework Part 1


PeopleSoft Test Framework Part 2
 



PTF can be used effectively in the following scenarios:
  • New Implementation Projects/Upgrades. Especially in the upgrade projects where test cycles are conducted over and over again.
  • Limited functional resources for testing.
  • Highly customized application.
  • Significant ongoing development projects
  • Routinely deploying patches and fixes
  • Can be used for different kind of tests like – System, Integration, Upgrade, UAT on different environments since it can be easily migrated