In PeopleSoft Now! episode three, there are several important topics being discussed – the PeopleSoft Innovators program, PeopleSoft on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, PeopleSoft Cloud Manager, and the PeopleSoft FSCM investment strategy. Logesh Balasubramaniam, Director of PeopleSoft Cloud and Digital Services at Presence of IT, and David Bain, Senior Director of PeopleTools Product Management, join to discuss PeopleSoft on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and PeopleSoft Cloud Manager. Madhavi Makkapati, PeopleSoft Product Strategy Director from the PeopleSoft FSCM team, also joins to discuss the ongoing investment strategy for PeopleSoft Financials products.
PeopleSoft Innovators Program
The PeopleSoft team strives to help customers reap the benefits of the investments that PeopleSoft has put into its products. The PeopleSoft Innovators program is a way to recognize the amazing things that PeopleSoft customers are doing with PeopleSoft. It’s very simple to share your story. You, as the customer, or a partner on your behalf can share with the PeopleSoft team about what you have been doing with PeopleSoft lately. Submissions can be made through the online tool in the PeopleSoft information portal, which is linked below.
If you are using PeopleSoft in an innovative, unique, or compelling way that you think other customers should know about – share it with the PeopleSoft team! You could have the chance to be included in the group of 60+ PeopleSoft Innovators that have been recognized over the last two years. PeopleSoft Innovators are recognized at COLLABORATE and Oracle OpenWorld each year, but nominations can be submitted at any time. Don’t wait – submit your nomination today!
PeopleSoft on OCI and PeopleSoft Cloud Manager
Logesh Balasubramaniam, Director of PeopleSoft Cloud and Digital Services at Presence of IT, and David Bain, Senior Director of PeopleTools Product Management, joined PeopleSoft Now! episode three to discuss running PeopleSoft on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and how to leverage the PeopleSoft Cloud Manager tool.
Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI)
David explained that when talking about PeopleSoft on OCI, it means taking your existing PeopleSoft application and lifting it and running it on OCI – Oracle’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. It remains your version of PeopleSoft – it’s got all of your customizations, all of your data, etc. It’s important to remember that it is still maintained by you.
Logesh explained that PeopleSoft customers want to get more return on investment (ROI) on their existing investment in infrastructure, applications, business processes, and value-adding customizations. They want to keep running the applications that they allow but want to take advantage of the Cloud as well. In recent years, Logesh said that his team has seen huge interest in customers looking to move and run their PeopleSoft application on OCI with minimal cost, minimal change impact, and minimal risk to their organization.
Naturally, customers who are looking to move PeopleSoft to OCI are looking for proof points that show the business value of doing so. Dave expressed that many customers had concerns about security, performance, configuration, connection speed, integrations, and costs. However, he said that those customers are getting positive answers for all of their questions that ease their concerns.
Benefits of PeopleSoft Cloud Manager
Logesh said that his company has been using PeopleSoft Cloud Manager since its initial release and has seen it evolve into a comprehensive DevOps tool that seamlessly connects the PeopleSoft application to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. They see PeopleSoft Cloud Manager as a significant driver for PeopleSoft customers to choose OCI to run their application on.
Logesh also said that they have quantified the cost savings of the PeopleSoft Cloud Manager and its automation in comparison to the traditional, manual methods that are followed either on-premises or on other Cloud infrastructures. Customers can use those findings as a guide and a reliable, independent estimate for evaluating their cost savings of running PeopleSoft on OCI. One of the findings is that PeopleSoft Cloud Manager offers cost savings on three different fronts:
- Through the fully automated Lift and Shift utility, customers can save more than 25 percent of their cost and effort in migrating their PeopleSoft application to OCI.
- Once they have migrated, while performing the lifecycle services (i.e. PUM Image deployment, PeopleTools patching, PeopleTools upgrades, etc.), customers can save more than 60 percent of their cost and effort through PeopleSoft Cloud Manager automation. This is an important factor because these activities are recurring and repeat year-on-year, so it’s not just a one-time saving.
- Through the self-service based environment deployment and management capabilities, PeopleSoft Cloud Manager can save customers up to 30 percent of the net infrastructure spin once they run the application on OCI.
The whitepaper from Presence of IT summarizes all of these findings. The research uses the example of a PeopleSoft customer with an on-premises infrastructure spend of $100,000 that can save up to $175,000 over a five-year period. This is a cumulative cost savings of over 34 percent over the five years, out of which two-thirds of the cost savings is contributed by the PeopleSoft Cloud Manager based automation.
The Future of PeopleSoft Cloud Manager
Dave explained that there is a lot going on with PeopleSoft Cloud Manager moving forward. The PeopleSoft team and the PeopleSoft Cloud Manager are helping with the Lift and Shift process to help get your applications to the Cloud much easier. It also helps with deployments and ensuring that it is easier to deploy the types of applications in the infrastructure that customers want. They are helping customers run the application and expand at times when there are heavy loads. This tool also helps improve the lifecycle processes. The PeopleSoft team will continue to look at all of these aspects in the future and try to find ways to improve and continue to assist customers throughout the process of moving to OCI.
There are obviously other Cloud infrastructure providers besides Oracle in the market, and when Dave was asked how that factors into how the PeopleSoft Cloud Manager is developed, he said that the bottom line is that the tool takes advantage of what all Oracle offers. He said that there are advantages both in the platform area and by using the Oracle database.
Cloud Transformation: The Big Picture
OCI and PeopleSoft Cloud Manager have value on their own, but they ultimately play a role in the larger Cloud transformation journey that many customers are going through. Dave expressed that this is a great stepping stone for customers. A lot of customers are doing this to minimize their footprint or their costs in their data center, and this is a great way to take that first step toward getting PeopleSoft in the Cloud. Customers can also take advantage of integrating with the Oracle platform services, Oracle Digital Assistant, and other tools. It is also a great way to start preparing to integrate with some of the Oracle Cloud applications.
Logesh agreed and explained that many customers look at moving from PeopleSoft to Cloud as a “deep end.” Many feel that getting PeopleSoft onto OCI is a more organic way to get a hold on the Cloud before they start to expand on the Cloud.
PeopleSoft FSCM Investment Strategy
Madhavi Makkapati, PeopleSoft Product Strategy Director from the PeopleSoft FSCM team, joined PeopleSoft Now! episode three to discuss the ongoing investment strategy for PeopleSoft Financials products.
She explained the PeopleSoft Financials is focusing on three areas within the investment strategy moving forward:
- Improving stakeholder collaboration through a simplified user interface
- Providing insights for quick decision making
- Streamlining business processes to reduce operational costs
Recent Deliverables in PeopleSoft FSCM
There are several recent deliverables that are available and help users do their jobs more easily.
Within Financials for period close efficiency, PeopleSoft FSCM delivered Fluid Simplified Journal in FSCM Image 31. This allows customers to create configurable templates and roll them out to their users on an as-needed basis.
The ability to do global search across Credit to Cash using Elasticsearch was also delivered in FSCM Image 30 in conjunction with Procure to Pay search, which came out in earlier releases. This enables easy and quick navigation within FSCM.
Extended Fluid capabilities were also provided in FSCM for self-service, external customers and suppliers. Classic eBill Payment was converted into Fluid and now includes additional capabilities like Quick Pay, which allows customers to pay their entire balance in one click. eSettlements was also converted into Fluid and now includes additional capabilities like PO Flip and configurable spreadsheet upload in Image 29.
Madhavi expressed that there are a lot of FSCM customers who are adopting the Fluid user interface, which is why there is so much focus on the modern user interface within PeopleSoft FSCM. Her team has gotten a lot of inquiries about updating eBill Payment and eSettlements, which is why the modernization was made.
Providing Insights
As mentioned before, providing insights for quick decision making is one of the major investment points for PeopleSoft FSCM. Finance teams always want to gain visibility into what is happening in their operations.
For example, Payable Matrix will enable operational managers to identify if there are any bottlenecks and reduce liabilities and operational costs. As a result, the PeopleSoft FSCM team provided the Payable Matrix homepage in Image 24, which provides the content for managers and the ability for them to take action within the tiles on the homepage.
For Billing and Accounts Receivable, there is another delivered homepage that contains all of the content that is needed for billing and AR managers to manage their operations and take action.
These homepages give managers an overview of their team, enable them to see if processes are stuck, etc., and make them more productive and efficient.
Simplified Analytics and Personalized Analytic Notifications
PeopleSoft FSCM delivered simplified analytics in the context of WorkCenters. WorkCenters will provide managers with the workload, and simplified analytics will tell managers who is doing what within the organization.
In addition, PeopleSoft FSCM also delivered analytic notifications. End users have the capability to define thresholds and set up the personalized analytic notifications in PeopleTools 8.67. They will be alerted, through either an email or a system notification, when thresholds are met or exceeded.
For more updates, customers can check out the Cumulative Feature Overview tool or the FSCM Update Image highlight videos from PeopleSoft.
Customizations in FSCM
While there have been a lot of newly delivered features, customizations can often get in the way of customers being able to adopt new changes. To counteract this issue, Drop Zones are now enabled within PeopleSoft FSCM. Drop Zones help reduce the effort and time spent on customizations within PeopleSoft.
Drop Zones were delivered in PeopleTools 8.57 and are enabled on Fluid pages. Customers can add fields to pages where Drop Zones are enabled. They are a great way to isolate customizations within your PeopleSoft application.
The Future of PeopleSoft FSCM
Moving forward, innovation is key. Chatbots and the Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) will help managers in the future. In addition, the FSCM team is working on developing Financial Snapshot, which will help managers gain insight into their departmental expenses. Managers can easily access the necessary information.
For self-service customers and suppliers, PeopleSoft FSCM is also focusing on making it easier for customers to make payments and resolve disputes. There is also a focus on giving customers more insight and visibility into payments and invoices.
These enhancements will help customers quickly get answers and solve issues because they won’t have to wait on someone to respond to them. They can quickly interact with a chatbot or handle things through self-service and have issues resolved more efficiently. It will also reduce the number of calls that companies are receiving from customers and vendors.
To give financial teams more visibility and insight into what is happening in their organization, PeopleSoft FSCM is working on developing financial analytics that will provide information and expand visibility for managers. These analytics will provide simple, yet critical information to the financial team.
Another area of focus is maximizing collections in Accounts Receivable, which is critical for every AR department. PeopleSoft FSCM is working on providing a Collector Performance dashboard that will provide content that is needed for managers to manage their collectors and collection activities. They can also complete a comparison across the collectors that they are managing.
PeopleSoft FSCM has also developed an Invoice Mass Maintenance feature that will provide the capability for managers to reassign the workload from one specialist to another en masse.
In AR departments, collecting money is critical, so PeopleSoft FSCM worked to improve the cash flow. The team is focusing on how customers can collect money faster and are enabling installment payments, which will allow customers’ customers to pay outstanding AR balances in installments.
These are just a few examples of focus areas within the PeopleSoft FSCM investment strategy. For more, check out the Cumulative Feature Overview tool and the Planned Features and Enhancements tool on My Oracle Support.
For more information, check out PeopleSoft Now! episode three below and the additional Quest resources attached below.