It’s no surprise the value customers are seeing with 9.2, specifically in the areas of Fluid and Selective Adoption. I’ve had the opportunity to talk with many customers about what they are doing in these areas, like Krista Weatherford, HR Business System Manager for Clackamas County. Krista manages their PeopleSoft HCM system. We were able to discuss how Clackamas County is using Fluid within their Human Capital Management systems.
Clackamas County is a county in Oregon that has approximately 2,200 employees, plus another 300 retirees. They are currently on 9.2 for both Financials and HCM and used PeopleTools 8.55 for HCM and 8.54 for Financials.
Key takeaways
- Fluid is very intuitive
- Fluid increases overall efficiency of your business process
- Users are finding Fluid easy to use
About Clackamas County
Clackamas County is a county in the U.S. state of Oregon. The county was named after the Native Americans living in the area, the Clackamas Indians, who were part of the Chinookan people.
Clackamas County is a county in Oregon that has approximately 2,200 employees, plus another 300 retirees. They are currently on 9.2 for both Financials and HCM and used PeopleTools 8.55 for HCM and 8.54 for Financials
What were the drivers for you to begin using Fluid User Interface?
Krista:
Our technical lead brought the technology to my attention after our 9.2 upgrade in late 2015 when it was released with an image update. We turned on the technology in testing and I was seriously impressed. The user interface was intuitive and it looked awesome. It was an easy decision to implement Fluid –such a no-brainer. Our executive management trusts our team to deliver new functionality and plan our projects — it was no big deal to convince them. We basically said, “We are doing this because it makes sense”—they agreed.
Where and how are you using Fluid?
Krista:
We decided to roll out Fluid for our Employee Self Service (ESS) users first in January 2015. The percentage of users accessing ESS via their smartphones and tablets continues to rise every month. Using ESS in classic mode on a smartphone was just painful! We did create a custom Classic Home tile to access the functionality that wasn’t delivered yet, but the most popular functions like paychecks, benefits, and personal data were delivered and we thought it was enough to release to our users.
In August 2016, we upgraded to PeopleTools 8.55 and the Fluid was on by default, it was part of the interface – you have the option to turn it off if you wish too as well. The navigation change was huge for our core users, so we knew we had to do more to prepare our users for this update. This update positions us to better respond to new Fluid functionality as it is delivered and continues a consistent interface for our users – from the application process to ESS to my core users.
What was your experience in deploying Fluid?
Krista:
Deploying Fluid for ESS was a breeze. In fact, it was pretty much a non-event. My technical lead and I tested it, got it ready, and we sent one email to all our employees to inform them of the change. We implemented it and I heard nothing…..crickets….but in today’s HR world, no response-no complaints is a good thing. Employees were using ESS and they could figure it out on their own with no additional assistance. It was a huge success!
But implementing Fluid for our core HR users was a bigger deal. Rolling out Fluid for the whole HCM product was more like a mini upgrade. We tested delivered tiles for all the major roles: HR, Benefits, Payroll, Training, Recruiting, and our inquiry department users. We created Navigation Collections for these roles to bring the most used pages to one place. We marketed this change as the “personalized update” — you can design your own home page, navigation bar, favorites, a combination, whatever suits your style. We provided hands-on training as well as a step-by-step guide to personalize homepages, navigation bar, etc. We made the training required for our core HR users and optional for our inquiry department users. We also create a communication plan and started prepping employees for the change 4 months before go-live.
What were the obstacles, if any, that you encountered in deploying Fluid?
Krista:
There is a larger security component when rolling out fluid for core HR – you have a lot more roles and specific Navigation Collections for those roles. These needed to be created and tested. The other piece is the variety of browsers for all the different devices and myriad of ways to clean browser history. With a huge technology change like Fluid, the browser history has to been cleaned or the stored images and cache crashes with the new pages…AND people don’t really read emails or know how to clean their browsing history; we told users before and after the upgrade that they would have to do this. This is what we spent most of our time helping users with the first two weeks when they said, “The system is broken.” It was a bit crazy making. While many of the icons in Fluid are standard and users see them across many apps, the Navigator icon is new and they don’t know what it does. We have done more communication on its function and benefit to all our users.
Are you deploying Fluid as delivered content? If not, how customized/modified are you and why?
Krista:
We deployed Fluid as delivered and created new Navigation Collections for specific roles. I don’t think this is a customization; it is just part of the roll out. The only thing we customized was the Classic Home for ESS, but on the 8.55 tool set we really don’t need it and will retire it soon.
Since deploying Fluid, what benefits have you seen for your company?
Krista:
- We are delivering the most current technology that works on any device, seamlessly.
- We are delivering a consistent interface that makes it easier for our employees to use the software across different products.
- It is preparing us for future Fluid functionality.