As part of Quest Forum Digital Event: Cloud Week, Sharon Perkins from Yum! Brands and Chris Costakes from Elire, Inc. presented on Yum! Brands’ Oracle HCM Cloud integration methodologies. The pair provided overviews of several different services, highlighted reasons that Yum! Brands made the choices they did, and provided example use cases.

About Yum! Brands

Yum! Brands, based in Louisville, Kentucky, has over 48,000 restaurants in more than 145 countries and territories primarily operating the company’s restaurant brands – KFC, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, and Habit Burger Grill. These restaurant brands are global leaders of the chicken, pizza, and Mexican-style food categories.

Yum! Brands’ Journey to the Cloud

Yum! Brands’ journey to the cloud involved several key phases. In the past, Yum! Brands used PeopleSoft 8.4 and it was highly customized. In late 2014, they made the strategic decision to retire its legacy mainframe system. Throughout the entirety of 2015, Yum! Brands evaluated options and, in early 2016, made the decision to proceed with Oracle Cloud. Project kick-off began in April 2016, and Wave 1 go-live followed in July 2017. Wave 1 go-live was followed by Wave 2 go-live in January 2019.

Wave 1 involved U.S. Yum Corporate. Corporate consisted of 1,000 active salaried and hourly employees who are paid bi-weekly and 1,500 active, global, non-U.S. paid employees. Wave 2 involved U.S. Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell) and their 35,000 salaried and hourly employees who are paid weekly and bi-weekly.

The modules implemented in Wave 1 and Wave 2 were Core HR, Payroll, Compensation, Benefits, Recruit, Time and Labor, Absence, Expenses, Accounts Payable, General Ledger, Cash Management, Talent Management, and HR Help Desk.

Oracle HCM Cloud Integration Methodologies

Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS)

Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS) is a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that allows Yum! to rapidly create and deploy engaging web and mobile applications. It is easy because there is nothing to install, and you can create applications that can be published within minutes. It is visual, and you drag and drop components and set properties on the live design surface. Additionally, it is integrated and has a pre-populated Oracle SaaS catalog of REST services and the ability to easily plug into any REST API with a few clicks. VBCS is based on industry standards such as JavaScript, HTML5, and REST.

Yum! chose VBCS for several reasons. It has the ability to extend SaaS and also has single sign-on. It also has rapid development and deployment, which means it is easy for anyone to build and page quickly and it has more complex coding abilities for more advanced use cases.

Applications built using VBCS include:

• HR Suspense
• Time Suspense
• Rapid Time
• Stores not polled
• Time Submission
• Cross Reference Applications
• Monitoring

Java Cloud Service (JCS)

Java Cloud Service (JCS) is easy, rapid, and agile deployment of any Java application to the Oracle Cloud. It is enterprise-grade with enterprise-level security, high availability, and performance for business-critical applications. It is standards-based and built on open standards so that Java EE applications are easily deployed and managed. JCS is also DevOps ready with built-in CI/CD environments to simplify development and deployment of Java EE applications.

Yum! chose JCS for three primary reasons. They needed a place to store Java programs and APIs in the cloud. It provided a UNIX server for functions like SFTP. It also allowed easy communication with other PaaS and SaaS systems in Yum!’s identity domains.

Some JCS examples include custom programs like overtime process and hosting custom APIs like HDL and PBL loaders. With overtime process, JCS is needed to read Database as a Service (DBaaS) to perform rules and calculations on time data and then update based correct results prior to submission. In regard to loaders, orchestration of various web services is needed to load HCM Data Loader (HDL) and Payroll Batch Loader (PBL).

Database as a Service (DBaaS)

Database as a Service (DBaaS) is a fully functional, enterprise-proven Oracle Database, and is hosted in the Oracle Cloud. It has flexible configurations to meet a wide array of large and small needs. Additionally, it has a dedicated infrastructure for higher performance and security. It also has Cloud Elastic Resources and Utility Style Billing. Finally, you can run any Oracle or non-Oracle Software Application Stack.

There were five primary reasons why Yum! chose to use DBaaS. It needed to have an operational data store to house in-flight transactions for BOH integrations (Time and HR). It also needed a place to store custom tables in the cloud. DBaaS is used for storing cross-reference values that different applications read. It also has a back-end for VBCS applications like Suspense Processing. Finally, it has the ability to control the design and build within the Application Development group during implementation.

REST APIs

REST APIs are Representational State Transfer Application Programming Interface. REST APIs use HTTP, to GET, PUT, POST, and DELETE data. They are delivered in SaaS and Yum! Brands’ choice for custom APIs.

There are several key features and aspects to take note of with REST APIs. They are native to SaaS. They are getting additional data to enrich incoming data to allow Yum! to create the HDL. There are limitations around performance in regard to volume/transactions. Tivoli team subscribes to the New Hire ATOM Feed and then uses the emps REST API to update HCM cloud. Where there once was limited availability, now it’s all built out and continues to improve.

SOA Cloud Service (SOACS)

SOA Cloud Service (SOACS) is a comprehensive, standards-based software suite that is used to build, deploy, and manage integrations following the concepts of service-oriented architecture. It is a unified application development tool with end-to-end lifecycle management support which reduces development time, maintenance cost, and complexity. It has consistent tooling, single deployment and management models, end-to-end security, and unified metadata management.

There are numerous reasons that Yum! chose SOACS. Primarily, they needed a way to perform file-based integrations with Inbound Vendor Files and Sweeper Integrations for cleanup jobs.

SOA CS Examples at Yum! Brands:

• File-Based Integration
  • Payroll Element updates-Voya and Benevity
  • Assignment record inserts – Sedgwick
• Sweeper Integrations
  • PIE Sweeper
  • LOA Sweeper
  • Previously Employed Sweeper
  • Department and Supervisor Update

BI Publisher (BIP)

BI Publisher is a robust Enterprise Reporting solution for authoring, managing, and delivering reports from multiple data sources in multiple formats through multiple channels. Some of the BI Publisher features are control over data to be extracted into a report, control over the look and feel of the report output where you can choose amongst many report output formats, and it offers advanced reporting features.

Yum! chose to use BI Publisher for several reasons. It is a native reporting tool in Oracle Cloud, and it delivered APIs for retrieving data. It has the ability to schedule and place results on file servers PGP encrypted and signed. Additionally, it can handle complicated data models and can control the output look and feel. In regard to HCM Extract, BI Publisher is currently the only supported option.

BI Publisher Examples at Yum! Brands:

• Outbound File Integrations
  • Combination (HCM Extracts +BI Publisher): Payroll integrations
  • Pure BI Publisher: Vendor demographic integrations
  • OOTB: ACH, ADP tax, Payslips for ADP Garnishment, State New Hire
• API to BI Publisher: Data needs from SaaS Cloud
  • SOA CS: Inbound integrations and sweeper programs
  • BOH Integrations: Employee data used to enrich operational data tables
  • JCS: Error reports for HDL/PBL

ATOM Feed

ATOM Feeds are a powerful out-of-the-box feature for managing Employee Lifecycle in SaaS. HCM ATOM Feeds provide notification of HCM events. They also have supported feed types such as Hire, Update, Termination, Create, Update, and End Date.

Yum! is primarily using ATOM Feeds because they are delivered and maintained by Oracle and Event Driver allows for subscribing and taking action.

ATOM Feed Examples at Yum! Brands:

• Global IAM System subscribes to ATOM feeds so they can manage the Employee life Cycle
  • Hires/RE-Hires
  • Terminations
  • Assignment changes-reverse terminations
  • Employee updates-job code, title, supervisor, etc.

To learn more, check out the Quest Forum Digital Forum presentation and additional resources below.

Additional Resources

Join us next month for Quest Experience Week (QXW) as Quest celebrates its 25th anniversary with a FREE week of digital learning! QXW offers four jam-packed days of practical Oracle product learning for users of JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, Oracle Cloud apps, and Oracle Database solutions. There’s something for everyone: strategic insights, practical product how-to sessions, customer case studies, and best practices.

• PeopleSoft Day: Monday, December 7
• JD Edwards Day: Tuesday, December 8
• Cloud Day: Wednesday, December 9
• Database & Technology Day: Thursday, December 10

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