My Oracle Support: The New Collector
The most interesting new feature in the new My Oracle Support may be the Configuration Manager. This enhanced monitoring capability requires the download of a data collection component. The data collector lives in your Oracle home and communicates daily with Oracle central. You can find this valuable tutorial at Why use The Configuration Manager at My Oracle Support.
My Oracle Support: Now Active
Earlier this Summer I wrote about the coming replacement of Metalink 3. That time has arrived. Check out the new My Oracle Support.
PeopleSoft 9.1: Practical Improvements #1 – Profile your Workforce
The PeopleSoft 9.1 release value propositions (RVP) , previously known as pre-release notes, are now readily available for your review. We all know that the RVP’s contain a wealth of information on new features and functions. What is not readily known, however, is how these new features and functions can be translated into practical improvements to your operations.
The Profile Manager (PM) first introduced in PeopleSoft 9.0 received significant development attention. The concept behind the PM is that people in your workforce have attributes: qualifications, responsibilities, competencies, mobilities, and more. And these attributes are important for workforce management. In my experience the most difficult task is collecting the data. Do you really want to develop and distribute a new form? Forms are costly and once in place often difficult to eliminate.
The profile manager self service component is much more usable in 9.1 than it was in 9.0. The page has been drastically re-designed making it more realistic for your workers to enter this data themselves. Also, a historical view has been added. Prior values are not necessarily lost as workers change their data.
The bottom line result is that it is now easier than ever to collect important workforce data. No paper forms. No centralized data entry. No error scrubbing. Just incent, possibly through ties to career management, your workers to do it themselves. If you have already deployed employee self service (ESS) all you have to do is add another component. If you have not deployed ESS perhaps this is a good reason to do so.
Please stay tuned for the next posting in my series – PeopleSoft 9.1: Practical Improvements.
PeopleSoft 9.1: Practical Improvements Series
Very soon Oracle PeopleSoft customers will be hearing and seeing a lot about the new PeopleSoft releases. The release value propositions (RVP) are readily available. There is a lot of information– the HCM 9.1 RVP is 142 pages length- that will need to be digested. Several conventions including Oracle Openworld 2009 and Circuit, Washington DC are just around the corner and you can bet the farm that the new releases will be featured prominently. Having attended many of these new release sessions in the past I have heard the same question often repeated. It goes something like this: I like it. But is it practical for my organization?
Practical for one is not practical for all. One organization’s practical may be another’s unreachable dream. Let’s start with a common definition of Practical: “Capable of or suitable to being used or put into effect; useful: practical knowledge of Japanese.” Studying the Japanese language is not the same as living in Japan. Another definition of practical relates to people: “Of, relating to, governed by, or acquired through practice or action, rather than theory, speculation, or ideals: gained practical experience of sailing as a deck hand.” Reading numerous books on sailing is not the same as sailing around the world.
Being a practical person with many years of, what can I say, practice in PeopleSoft applications I will be applying my practiced eye to the new features and functions in the upcoming release. Not as a cheerleader. Not as a heartless critic. No, I will be looking for useful, sensible, and practical improvements you can apply to make your organization better.
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Stay tuned to my series – PeopleSoft 9.1: Practical Improvements. I am planning to post the first in this series later this week.
New Research: Seasoned workers boost business performance
A new study conducted for the McDonald’s corporation demonstrates that older workers do make a real and measureable difference. An appropriate mix of youth and experience does lead to a statistically significant improvement in business performance. Lancaster University Management School, ranked in the top 20 MBA schools by Forbes magazine, compared similar restaurants staffed with and without older workers. What was the key finding? Customer satisfaction at sites staffed by mature workers was 20% higher.
David Fairhurst, senior vice president at McDonald’s UK & Northern Europe, said: ”Changing demographics in the workplace mean that later life workers are now the fastest growing age group in the labour market. Yet despite the growing numbers of mature workers, their contribution to business and the wider economy often goes unsung.”
He added: ”I urge employers across our sector to realise the benefits of an age diverse workforce. As our experience has shown, the right blend of youth and experience can make a real difference.”
Is your success defined by the satisfaction of your customers? If so, adding seasoned workers to your workforce mix will boost your chances.
New Study: Experienced workers can save serious money
A new study shows that Australia is losing $11 billion annually by not sufficiently utilizing the experience of older citizens. Experience Works:The Mature Age Employment Challenge published by The Australian Institute for Social Research at the University of Adelaide finds that the net cost of experienced workers is less than that of the population at large.
The conclusions drawn from this research were that older workers involved less costs than younger workers, and this was calculated to involve a total net benefit of $1,956 compared to the rest of the workforce (Australian Employers Convention, 2001: 15-16). Findings such as these need to be disseminated widely, as part of awareness raising and community education about the value of mature age workers.
There are a lot of workforce myths that need to be challenged. One particularly objectionable myth, that seasoned workers are more expensive to onboard, is in serious need of debunking. Many studies like this one show that, if fact, serious money can be lost giving inadequate consideration to your most experienced applicants.
PeopleSoft Upgrade Insights: Fit/Gap (Part 3) – Make a list. Check it twice.
It is time to talk about upgrades again. Earlier this year I decided to put my PeopleSoft Upgrade Insights series on the shelf for a while. The current releases seemed long in the tooth and news on new releases had not yet begun to surface. Today, general availability of PeopleTools 8.50, HCM 9.1, and some other applications seems to be right around the corner.
In my last posting, Fit/Gap (Part 2) – Be the Maestro , I talked about how to conduct your Fit/Gap sessions and gather information in an organized and efficient manner. You have created a nice, long list of issues. Now what do you do?
How do you turn all this raw data into useful information that will jumpstart your next phase and set your project on a solid path to success?
- Research and resolve – The main purpose of the Fit/Gap sessions were to identify issues, not resolve them. Your rules were that if it could not be resolved in 10 minutes or less then you would address it later. Well, “later” has now arrived. Maybe, it requires a follow-up meeting with selected individuals. Perhaps, a technical review is needed. One way or another a resolution for each item needs to be generated. One of my favorite resolutions is to do nothing.
- Mind the Gaps – Many issues were recorded in the Fit/Gap sessions. Are they all gaps in functionality? Likely not. I classify them in three ways.
- FIT - The delivered function meets 100% of the requirement. Nevertheless, some level of end user community and/or IT effort may be required to use effectively.
- GAP - The delivered functionality does not address a particular requirement. If the requirement is to be met alternative methods must be developed.
- PARTIAL FIT - The delivered functionally does not meet 100% of the requirement. If the requirement is to be fully met alternative methods must be developed. These methods may involve internal/external workarounds, changes in current processes, modifications to delivered components, and/or development of new components & programs.
Pay particular attention to partial fits. These may be the best opportunities for reengineering.
- Is it important? – The gap may be obvious but perhaps it is not important. Prioritize your list.
- 1-High Importance
- 2-Medium Importance
- 3-Low Importance
- 4-Research Item
- Is it worth it? – Several significant gaps have been identified. Should you fill them? How much time will it take and, more importantly, whose time are we talking about. Information Technology (IT) is not always the biggest player. Often, substantial effort is required on the functional side. I divide the estimates into two columns: IT effort and Process effort for the functional departments. Here is a sizing scheme the seems to get good support from IT and end-users alike.
- None
- Very Low – 1 day or less
- Low – 1 week or less
- Medium – 1 to 2 weeks
- Large – 2 to 4 weeks
- Very Large – 1 to 3 Months
- Sort, filter, slice, and dice – Your list of issues has been researched, classified, prioritized, and estimated. Now you can force the cream to the top. Which are your most important issues? Which items will take the greatest IT effort? Will a large amount of user effort be required? All these questions and more can be addressed by manipulating your list.
In the next part of this series, PeopleSoft Upgrade Insights, I will discuss how to use your updated list of items to jumpstart the re-development process. Stay tuned.