Kaiser Permanente implemented Oracle Guided Learning, Oracle’s in-application tool that walks users step-by-step through transactions, over a 14-month period. With Oracle Guided Learning, users are learning to do tasks while doing an actual transaction in Production. Oracle introduced Guided Learning with its Cloud offerings but is able to backport it to ERP. While working with Oracle and implementation partner SpearMC, Kaiser Permanente created over 340 guides across 14 PeopleSoft Finance and Supply Chain modules.

About Kaiser Permanente

Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest integrated healthcare system. There are over 23,000 physicians that deliver high-quality care and coverage to Kaiser’s 12.4 million members. At Kaiser’s 39 hospitals and 723 medical offices, there are over 217,000 employees and 63,000 nurses. Kaiser’s mission is to provide affordable, high-quality healthcare services to improve the health of members and communities served. The vision is to be the model for quality health care in the nation by being the best place to work and the best place to receive care.

Kaiser’s Oracle PeopleSoft platform is internally branded as OneLink. This platform is comprised of 16 delivered and 3 custom modules that support the Procure to Pay, Acquire to Retire, and Record to Report workstreams. OneLink is integrated with Financial Data Warehouse and a number of Edge applications.

Kaiser has the largest single instance of PeopleSoft FSCM in the healthcare industry. The current user base consists of 250,000 users. Approximately 12,000 employees use OneLink daily, processing over 75 million distinct financial, supply chain, and general support transactions annually. The platform is standardized across all eight of Kaiser’s regional markets.

Why Guided Learning?

Kaiser covers millions of transactions across Accounts Payable, Purchase Orders, Expense Reports, Journals, and ePro Invoices and gets roughly 37,000 support tickets opened each year. After Kaiser upgraded to 9.2, it took a year to update UPK job aids. Then, when Kaiser started its Fluid journey a year later, the UPKs became outdated. Kaiser needed a better way to update and maintain training materials and improve the way they train users, which is what drove Kaiser to look into Oracle Guided Learning.

Some of the other drivers behind the Guided Learning implementation included:

• In-application learning tools are a better way to train
• Kaiser needed to transition to a sustaining model and needed a tool that could help them keep up with the velocity of changes
• Kaiser didn’t have an army of staff to maintain UPKss
• Kaiser was implementing Oracle’s HCM Cloud, including Guided Learning, and it made sense to use the same platform to deliver a consistent user experience

Goals for Implementation

Kaiser Permanente’s goals for its Oracle Guided Learning implementation included:

• Increasing system adoption for new users
• Assisting experienced users to adapt to changes introduced through updates or enhancements
• To ease the frustration and time required for all users to complete a tasks
• Improve the quality and consistency of data and business process standardization

Implementation Approach

Kaiser prioritized the order of modules to include, starting with:

1. Large casual audience (e.g., Expenses)
2. External audience (e.g., eSettlements)
3. Modules where new users are added frequently (e.g., Inventory)

Kaiser then evaluated transactions to include based on frequency (e.g., mileage – the most frequently entered expense type) and complexity (e.g., itemizing lodging expenses). Then, the team requested business feedback on selected transactions.

Guided Needs Assessment (GNA) Approach

Guided Needs Assessment (GNA) is the “requirements document” used for the Oracle Development team. Kaiser’s approach to GNA development evolved over time. Initially, the plan was for the Oracle consultant to lead the effort, starting with a blank slate for development, and engaging the business at the beginning of the GNA process. Over time, the approach evolved to a point where the OneLink analysts were leading the effort and starting with steps from UPK job aids. Business involvement came after a first draft of the guides was developed.

Scope of Implementation

Kaiser Permanente ended up with 349 guides spanning over a variety of modules:

• AP – 11 guides
• Asset Management – 32 guides
• ePro – 16 guides
• eSettlements – 25 guides
• Expenses – 28 guides
• Funds Disbursement Authority (FDA) – 19 guides
• General Ledger – 12 guides
• Grants – 27 guides
• Inventory – 34 guides
• PAR Setup and Maintenance – 35 guides
• Lease Accounting – 8 guides
• Payroll Allocation Tool – 6 guides
• Pharmacy – 14 guides
• Purchasing (PO, Receiving, and RTV) – 25 guides
• Project Costing/Commitment Control – 27 guides
• ePro/SCM/Strat Sourcing – 20 guides

Adoption Approach

To assist with adoption, Kaiser took the following steps:

• Awareness campaign with an Introduction to Guided Learning video
• Website article, flyers, and emails to users each time a module launched
• Target new users and users assigned new roles with an email distributed to these audiences every other week
• Target audiences for new functionality with website articles, flyers, and emails
• Proctored training for new implementations and audiences
• A course in Kaiser’s learning management system
• Articles in ServiceNow (Kaiser’s ITSM system) Knowledge Base

Benefits of Guided Learning

Some of the biggest wins that Kaiser saw from their implementation included:

• High engagement among Expenses, ePro, and eSettlements along with guides introduced with new/changed functionality
• Flash Tips: Highly effective outside the guides to alert users to changes or application issues
• Tasks Lists: Useful when some of the steps are not completed in OneLink
• Efficient and relevant way to learn in the Production environment
• Effective way to inform users of changes or issues
• Reduction of job aids and associated maintenance overhead
• Ongoing guide maintenance for PUMs or Kaiser-driven enhancements
• Usage reporting/analytics
• Decrease in “how to” calls to Production Support
• Call avoidance for new/enhanced functionality

Lessons Learned

Some of the lessons learned from this implementation included:

• Starting with a blank GNA template was frustrating and inefficient. Using existing job aids improved and expedited the development of draft GNA templates.
• Engaging business after a draft guide was available was more effective than engaging business at the start of the GNA process.
• Once the tool and process were defined and understood, the velocity of development increased.

To learn more and see a demo of how Kaiser Permanente introduced Guided Learning, check out the full RECONNECT Envision session below.