About Hennepin County and Their Journey With PeopleSoft

Hennepin County first implemented PeopleSoft HCM/ELM and PeopleSoft Portal in 2009. In October of 2014 they began their journey in implementing PeopleSoft 9.2 in FSCM, taking on image 5 (currently on image 17.) In October 2016, they upgraded their HCM/ELM to 9.2. They are currently on PeopleTools 8.54.18 and within applications they are on FSCM 9.2.17, HCM 9.2.16, and ELM 9.2.15.

Hennepin County has used several modules in FSCM including Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Customer Contracts, Grants, Employee Expenses, Project Costing, General Ledger, Billing, eSupplier Portal, Strategic Sourcing, Supplier Contract Management, ePro, Purchasing, Treasury, and Cash Management. They also use HCM with Human Resources, Position Mgmt, Benefits (base/eBenefits), Time and Labor, Payroll, and ePerformance as well as ELM for eLearning (internal/external).

Key Takeaways

What Does Hennepin County’s Selective Adoption Strategy Look Like?

• Select bug fixes as needed by reviewing a download in Excel by both Functional and Development Staff.
• Get completely current by selecting all fixes and enhancements “annually”.
• Functional Staff review the enhancement document with each image as it is published, determining if there are enhancements we may want to take down early.
• We are exploring options for updating more often – a hybrid of bug fixes and enhancements.

How did you define your selective adoption strategy? Did you involve a partner, or did you define your strategy in-house?

We defined our strategy for implementing PeopleSoft based upon experience, and from listening to other customers through User group panels, Webinars, and Conferences.

What is your experience to date with PeopleSoft Update Manager and Selective Adoption?

There was an initial learning curve to setting up the PUM and understanding how to use it. We are now running smoothly with each image and the dependency tree works well. On a technical business process we have seen a change in how we take system maintenance, how often we take it, and the tools used have changed. We are pulling each image down within a week of release into our PUM environment for our functional team to review any fixes or enhancements. We are now trying to leverage and extend some of the automation with Deployment Packages. On the functional side, they review the features with each image release. We also need to test more often, and have been exploring how to best implement PTF.

How, if at all, are your technical and functional teams working together with selective adoption?

Each Functional lead works with their assigned developer/technical lead to review the bug fix document with each Image release. If it is determined that a bug fix should be brought down, then the functional lead will follow our regular process of implementing a change request in the system.

What would you tell a customer that is about to begin the process of selective adoption?

• Don’t wait too long between image updates. We jumped from 5 to 17, and in reality, that was a lot to test in the tight time frame we had. We weren’t able to review the enhancements as well as we would have liked.
• Plan well – don’t have competing projects using the same resources. Use a project manager and follow their plan.
• Review the Image Update PDF document each time an image is released. This will give you a good overall understanding of the new enhancements.
• Speak with other users: network and hear about others experiences and what has worked or not for them.

How are you rolling out new features and functionalities to your end users?

During our upgrades we held Fit Gap sessions with our end users to hear from them what worked, what didn’t, and if there were any new features that would help them with their business process. With new image updates, each functional lead is responsible for reviewing their new features/functionality by module. The functional lead evaluates the usefulness, works with their developer in configuration, and then involves the end users in testing. In both cases of upgrade and image updates we held auditorium sessions and labs while also creating help documents to make sure there are resources to guide our end users through the change.

Where do you want to take your organization’s solutions in the next 2-3 years?

We would like to assist with a better look and feel – we are implementing tools version 8.55, which will help with the DPK, and fluid look and feel. We are planning to improve our user experience by implementing Interaction Hub and Fluid. In addition, we have been investigating what cloud has to offer and whether it will fit with Hennepin County’s strategy.

How involved was your organization in utilizing the Quest community, or other user groups, during the upgrade process?

Hennepin County used a partner to upgrade from 9.0 to 9.2. In addition, we used Information from conferences, webinars, and the resulting networking after conferences (Alliance and RECONNECT) as well as regular attendees for our local user group: UMRUG.

Do you or your company participate in focus groups for the PeopleSoft products? If so, what benefits has this had?

We have participated in the PUM Analytics Focus Group.

The benefits:

• Being a part of the group that can shape the way the software will be developed.
• Hearing from other users what their opinions and suggestions are first hand.
• Having direct conversations with the technical staff on intent of design and why it was developed and delivered a particular way.