Friday 29 December 2017

Enhanced Blog Site

Dear Reader,

We moved the blogs to an enhanced platform. 

Please visit http://www.kovaion.com/blog/ for the latest blog and news about Kovaion.

Thanks

Nanda Kumar

Monday 18 December 2017

My Experience with #Sangam17

Please check http://www.kovaion.com/my-experience-with-sangam17/

#Sangam17 is the largest independent Oracle user’s group conference in India, featuring key speakers from Oracle and its users. I got an opportunity to attend the #Sangam17 conference this year that was held in HICC, Hyderabad on 8th & 9th Dec 2017. There were many sessions on oracle products and vibes surrounding cloud and chatbot all around. My specialization being in #Peoplesoft, I attended all the sessions related to that domain. The Key topics covered included New UI features, Cloud Manager and PTF.
The general session was on Oracle Cloud and the next wave of cloud computing. The PeopleSoft session that followed dealt with Peoplesoft Road map presented by Srilakshmi Ramachandra (@sri_ramachandra) from Oracle. This concentrated mainly on the latest UI enhancements in the recent HCM and FSCM releases. Srilakshmi covered the following topics.
  1. Innovations in HR Self-Service, Recruiting (Fluid Candidate Gateway) and Onboarding using Fluid UI and configurable activity guides(HCM).
  2. Innovations in Expense Reporting, Supplier Relations (FSCM).
  3. Classic Plus feature.
  4. Ongoing Investments and Strategy for Applications Technology, Peoplesoft HCM and Peoplesoft FSCM.
The next session explained Why Peoplesoft runs better on #Oracle_Cloud and the speaker Nagendra Krishnappa (@nagedra11180) pointed out some of the advantages of running PeopleSoft on oracle cloud when compared to other cloud providers. The main advantages of using Oracle cloud being
  • Automated lift and shift.
  • Automated people tools patch and upgrade
  • Automated setup of Selective adoption environment.
  • Deployment Time
This was more an informative session for customers who are considering moving PeopleSoft to cloud.
In the post-lunch sessions, Customer success stories and use cases got covered. It started with the session Digital Transformations by Extending PeopleSoft Fluid UI. This was an informative session on using Peoplesoft fluid UI as a part of Native App and Chatbots. The customer has a one-stop shop for all applications (including PeopleSoft) used in their organization using Native App and SSO. This eliminated the need for mobile PeopleSoft users from typing or bookmarking the URL to access their information. The session also covered how Chatbots are used to raise and approve a PS request. Personally, this was one of the interesting sessions of the conference and made me explore this area further.
The following session Case Study on usage of Peoplesoft PTF by HAYS helped in understanding their success on selective adoption and how they have efficiently used PTF for testing their agile delivery model. PTF has helped in reducing the amount of testing time required by their business users. A comparative data on the efficiency and effectiveness of using PTF vs manual testing was presented for the modules AP, AR, Billing and PayBill.
Key Takeaways on PTF
1. Developing a good, robust, reusable and consistent design for PTF.
2. Test scenarios - A complex few OR the simple many.
3. Good Design Vs. Bad Design.
4. Pilot Vs. Full rollout
The following session was on Fluid Sub Menu Creation in PS 9.2 .
Another Customer use case on PS HCM-CS Split utility. This session provides a detailed process flow on how to decommission PeopleSoft HCM from PeopleSoft CS using a custom developed automation tool.
The PeopleSoft sessions ended with one other informative session Shaping the Future of Business- Convergence of Oracle Cloud and Peoplesoft. The session covered three major areas
1. Oracle Cloud offerings.
2. PeopleSoft Cloud Manager.
3. Migration strategy.

I wrapped the conference by attending one more interesting session women in IT. The session explored ways of expanding women’s role in upper management and what women, men and organizations can do to achieve the same. There was a fun filled and healthy discussion at the end of the session.

Thanks & Regards,
Mathumitha Kulandaivelu
Kovaion Consulting
e: mathumitha.kulandaivelu@kovaion.com

Monday 11 December 2017

PeopleSoft at UKOUG Applications Conference & Exhibition 2017 #ukoug_apps17 #PeopleSoft

Dear All,


This year UKOUG Apps17 was interesting with 14 PeopleSoft related sessions including strategic overview, practical demonstration and Q&A with oracle.  

The UK Oracle User Group conference, Apps17, is the largest independent gathering of Applications professionals in the UK. The committee members well organized the sessions with a mix of customer use cases, PeopleSoft roadmap and expert discussion. Key focus was on User Interface, Selective Adoption and PeopleSoft on the cloud.
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PeopleSoft stream at UKOUG was kick started on 06th Dec by Graham Smith.


David Bain continued the session with ‘PeopleSoft Strategy – Application & Tools‘. He detailed the journey of PeopleSoft.
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‘The Future is Now’ of PeopleSoft includes,
  • Intuitive Mobile User Experience
  • Actionable Embedded Link
  • Global Search, Alerts, Notifications
  • Flexible and Personalizable (Fluid)
  • Selective Adoption of New Features
  • No Application upgrades needed
  • Deployment of Oracle cloud


Kovaion was delighted to see their customers on Oracle's selective adoption list. #ukoug_apps17 @kovaion  --Source twitter


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David’s session was followed multiple PeopleSoft focused sessions in parallel, I attend few sessions and shared my experience of those sessions.


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Why PeopleSoft Test Framework is Part of the Hays Selective Adoption Strategy” was customer success story for both PTF and Selective Adoption.


Hays demonstrated the importance of testing on the agile delivery model. They use the method called as Pillar, managed by Model Office.
The Model Office allows the Functional Analysts and Developers to configure new PeopleSoft features and functionality in a Hays like environment so that they can work with the business Subject Matter Experts to determine how that functionality could be utilised to address business priorities and issues


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This session was followed by “PeopleSoft Test Framework – A Practical Demonstration” by Ken de Landro. He detailed the PTF implementation at Hays.
Key for delivery success is to identify the right use case for test automation. Hays selected AP, AR, Billing and Paybill modules for test automation.


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Next Session from David provided the insight of the PeopleTools features such as
  • PeopleSoft Journey
  • Fluid UI including Classic Plus
  • Selective Adoption
  • PeopleSoft Cloud Manager


He gave the insight of being the Fluid UI designer to practical user to use Fluid UI to pay the daughter’s university fee.


PeopleSoft Innovation is a great forum for customers to share innovative idea and requirements.
Quest International User group is again a good forum to collaborate ad share customer success.


I recommend PeopleSoft community to contribute towards innovation.


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Graham demonstrated the practical usage of PeopleSoft Cloud Manager. He shared his experience of drilling a hole in garden, bakeries generating/using electricity to PeopleSoft cloud manager. He was able to spin a new PeopleSoft instance within 30 mins. The Fluid features were interesting.


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Then it was my turn to share our experience on “Enhance User Experience by Adopting the Latest UI Features”. I shared my knowledge on
  • Importance of User Experience and intelligent ways to measure its ROI.
  • Benefits Accomplished by our customers.
  • Why the Leading Automobile organization adopted Fluid UI and Mobile.
  • Practical demonstration of Fluid UI, Navigation Collection, Related Content/Action
D:\Kovaion\Google Drive\Kovaion\Marketing Events\2017-18\UKOUGApps17\Photos\IMG_7913.JPG


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Finally David Bain summarized the event with more information about Page Composer (Fluid Approvals), Elastic Search, PeopleSoft Cloud Manager v5 features. PeopleSoft customers should be delighted with Oracle’s continued investment.


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Last but not least, it was a great speech by @krissakabusi to DREAM BIG.


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I heard other sessions were equally good. I am waiting for the documents to the uploaded on UKOUG for member view. http://apps17.ukoug.org/default.asp?p=17862
We all are looking forward for ‘UKOUG PeopleSoft Roadshow 2018’ and #ukoug_apps18.


Thank you all.


Feel free to reach us for more info about PeopleSoft.


Author,
Nanda Kumar
Founder and Director - Kovaion Consulting

nanda.kumar@kovaion.com