Jen Matlock, ERP Analyst at BJC HealthCare, and Tanya Oliphant, ERP Consultant at BJC HealthCare, recently shared how BJC HealthCare improved user experience through simplified navigation, Pivot Grid tiles, and Fluid dashboards.

About BJC HealthCare

BJC HealthCare is one of the largest nonprofit healthcare organizations in the United States. It is focused on delivering services to residents primarily in the greater St. Louis, southern Illinois, and mid-Missouri regions. BJC HealthCare is made up of 15 hospitals, 32,000 employees, 4,500 physicians, and 3,300 staffed beds.

BJC HealthCare runs on PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 Image 19, PeopleTools 8.57.05, and Oracle Database 12.1.0.2.

The Business Need

BJC HealthCare’s Production Support Team navigated to dozens of PeopleSoft pages and processed dozens of hires, transfers, and additional jobs on a daily basis. The pages that they utilized were located under various menus and the delivered Manage Hires page provides limited information.

To address this need, BJC HealthCare decided to utilize delivered PeopleSoft functionality to provide an enhanced user experience and increase productivity. The goals were to optimize navigation, provide statistical information for daily operations, and produce it without technical resources.

The Approach

The first step was to identify what information was missing from the Manage Hires page that would assist with prioritizing and processing hires. They also identified data integrity issues in processing manage hires and identified the Production Support Team’s most frequently used pages.

The Solution

The solution was made up of four main parts:

• Query with drilling URL to be used as a source for Pivot Grid
• Pivot Grid for manage hires process
• Fluid Navigation Collection of frequently used and relevant pages
• Dashboard to marry Pivot Grid and tiles together

Query with Drilling URL

The query used as a source for the Pivot Grid contained a Drilling URL to provide a link to the Process Hire page for completing the hire. In Reporting Tools > Query > Query Manager, at a minimum, you will need to add the HR_REQUEST record to the query and select HIRE_REQUEST_ID as a field.

On the Expressions tab, click “Add Expression.” Select “Drilling URL” as the Expression Type. Click the Component URL link. Enter the component information, and then click “Search Keys.” Check the flag and perform a field lookup to select the key query field that corresponds to the search field. Click “Map Columns” to select the file from the query and add the URL link. Click “OK.”

The drilling URL will not be embedded in the Expression Text. Click “OK.” Be sure to add any additional fields needed for the Pivot Grid and save your query.

BJC Healthcare created a custom view from HR_REQUEST to include the submitted date from HRS_RCMNT and a custom record from POSITION_DATA AND COMPANY to include the company description.

Pivot Grid Wizard and Tile

Go to Reporting Tools > Pivot Grid > Pivot Grid Wizard. Define properties and select your data source (query with drilling URL). The goal for data source information is to plot the total hire request IDs by start date. BJC Healthcare found that if you do not check “Total” for the fields not in the chart you plan to use as filters, they would be prefiltered with the first value. Checking “Total” resolved the issue.

In the View options, set the X and Y axes. In the Chart options, define the title, type, and axes labels. In the Fluid Mode options, select a grid to display below the chart. Being a large organization, BJC Healthcare typically always updates the Facet Count to “All.” BJC Healthcare opted for the drilling URL on the Request ID field to open in a new window.

On the Display Page (the preview of grid in Classic mode), save and click the “Publish as Tile” link to begin the process of accessibility to others.

For the Pivot Grid Tile, fill in the required fields and add security authorization. BJC Healthcare left the remaining fields defaulted, except “Author Access,” which they unchecked. After saving, users included in the security could add this tile to an existing dashboard via homepage personalization. BJC Healthcare chooses to add it to a new dashboard.

Fluid Navigation Collection

Create a navigation collection folder. This will be used to place the frequently used pages. To do so, go to PeopleTools > Portal > Structure and Content > Portal Objects > Navigations > Collections. Scroll down to “Add Folder.” Enter a folder name and label. Fill out the Folder Security tab. BJC Healthcare used the same security as the Pivot Grid tile. It’s important to note that the “Cascade” box is checked, so you don’t need to set security for all individual links within the navigation collection. Save the navigation collection folder.

Create subfolders within the folder by going to PeopleTools > Portal > Structure and Content > Portal Objects > Navigation Collections. Click the newly created folder link and click “Add Folder.” Fill out these fields for the subfolder: name, label, sequence, folder attributes (optional). Save these fields. Repeat the steps on the prior page and this page for any additional subfolders.

Create content reference links by following PeopleTools > Portal > Structure and Content > Select the navigation collection. Add the content reference link. Follow the navigation to select the page desired. Repeat the steps on this page for any additional links you desire.

Create a Fluid page for the new Production Support tile by following PeopleTools > Portal > Tile Wizard > Create a new tile. Guided process will walk you through the steps. Choose “Navigation Collection” as the data type and search for your navigation collection. Set the type to “Navigation Collection – Optimized” and decide whether the user should be able to collapse the left panel.

You can either accept the default name or name it according to your naming conventions. The parent folder determines where the page will reside in Portal Registry. Set security. For BJC Healthcare, the security matches the Pivot Grid and navigation collection.

Set an image for the tile. BJC Healthcare used only delivered images, which you can browse by following PeopleTools > Portal > Portal Utilities > Navigation Collections. Click “Add Collection” and expand “Override Default Options” and click to search the collection image. Update the search to “Contains FL” and search to limit to mostly Fluid images. Tip: Sort by size. Large images are suitable for tiles, and medium or small images are suitable for navigation collection links. Not all Fluid images contain “FL,” so this is not fool-proof, but it gets you a lot to choose from. Record the image names that you want and then cancel creation of the navigation collection.

The Tile Repository determines where users will see the tile if they personalize these areas. Review the settings and click “Publish.”

Fluid Dashboard

Create a dashboard at PeopleTools > Portal > Dashboard > Manage Dashboard Pages > Fluid Dashboards > Create New Dashboard Page. BJC Healthcare continued with the related “Production Support’ label names and the same parent folder and security roles as the Pivot Grid and navigation collection tiles. Click “Save.”

Add tiles to the Fluid Dashboard by following PeopleTools > Portal > Structure and Content > Fluid Structure Content > Fluid Homepages. Then, click “Edit” next to the dashboard. Select the tiles you want to include in the dashboard. The box that your tile is in will match the parent folder that you selected in the Pivot Grid Wizard/Tile Wizard. Click “Save.” BJC Healthcare’s Production Support dashboard houses a Production Support tile that contains all of the navigation collection. The Manage Hires tile contains the Pivot Grid.

Conclusion

BJC HealthCare was able to centralize navigation and provide statistical information and quick links to daily operations using delivered functionality through configuration. To learn more, check out the RECONNECT presentation where the pair discussed in detail how they did it.