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PeopleSoft Upgrades Best Practices

Tom Reznicek and Patrick Savage

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APRIL 7-11, 2014Sands Expo and Convention CenterLas Vegas, Nevada

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Agenda• Introduction of Speakers and Emtec• Project Success• Project Shortcomings and Solutions• Open Discussion

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Emtec… ‘Big enough to do the work, small enough to care’

EMTEC THE COMPANY• Serving clients for over 46 years• 14 locations, including 8 development centers• Over 1,000 full-time professionals• Voted One of the Top 100 Places to Work by Cranes

Chicago in 2012• Our consultants have an average of 14 years of

experience. Nearly 45% have advanced certifications

EMTEC SERVICES AT A GLANCE• Emtec has completed more than 1,100 Package Application

engagements, including:‑ 200+ Oracle clients with more than 415 engagements‑ 206 EPM / Hyperion & OBIEE clients and 323 engagements‑ 186 Microsoft Dynamics and more than 255 projects

• Emtec is a premier provider of SaaS and Emerging technologies consulting, including 51 Salesforce Clients with more than 75 engagements, Including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Custom Cloud

• Emtec has performed more than 6.3M hours of application development and maintenance work ranging from Business Analysis to Product Development

• Emtec has served more than 565 Infrastructure services clients where we have:

4

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Upgrade Projects• Distribution Company• Professional Services• Professional Association• Financial Exchange• Financial Services Company

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Project Successes

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On Time Within Budget• Kept a detailed project plan so people knew

what was expected of them and when• Had regularly scheduled meetings to review

plan, risks, and resolve issues• Kept upper management involved in project

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Final Move to Production on Time• Developed detailed task list for go-live weekend• Leveraged PeopleSoft Change Assistant• Had specific call-in times for progress reporting• Used production like hardware on the final test

move to production to get accurate timing for the real move to production

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Latest User Data Security Migration• Developed method to migrate permission lists

and roles separate from user data• Created diagrams and client deliverable to

explain security migration plan

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Trained Two Client Resources• Resources had PeopleSoft Upgrade experience

but did not execute test scripts• Allowed upgrade weekend tasks to be split

between 3 people• Documented manual steps• Documented common issues and resolutions

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Reduced Data Conversion Time (72 hours to 42 minutes)

• Identified slow processes by running Application Engine tracing and data conversion steps report

• Tech leads tuned slow processes• Multiple test moves to production

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Move to Production Completed On-Time• Used job properties in Change Assistant to record

time, file name, and issues• Let Change Assistant accept errors (i.e. duplicate

keys) and clean after scripts run• Created go-live spreadsheet with pre and post steps• Bypassed some backups saving hours

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Knowledgeable Team• Technically strong and larger than previous

upgrade teams• Two Emtec resources to go to with concerns• Knowledgeable Emtec PeopleSoft Upgrade

Specialist• Cyber Source configured without additional Cyber

Source specific consultants

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Prepared Microsoft SQL Server• Turned off database logging before scripts started• Monitored database file size• Added memory to database server• Set maximum memory usage on database to

allow for other processes on server

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Updated/Validated User Guides• Guides consolidated multiple documents into one

document per business area• Created process flow diagrams for requisition and

PO entry• New testing documents for requisition and voucher

approval, GL reports, and other processes• Created technical check printer setup document

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Minor Post Go-Live Issues• Extensive testing:

– Leveraged existing test scripts by updating menu navigation and business process changes for version 9.1

– Last round of testing done on production hardware– End users involved in system and user acceptance

testing– Testing “Cheat Sheets” were created for users

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Went Live On-Time & Within Budget• Managed issues with Excel worksheet, included

owner and resolution • Assigned close action, which identified resolutions

required for production and how to apply to production

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Functional Ch. 2 & 6 Steps Completed Quickly

• Functional users completed Ch. 2 tasks to reduce the number of transactions processed

• Wrote SQL statements to perform validation checks before conversion

• Identified Ch. 2 & 6 steps that had to be performed for A in test moves to production

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Project Shortcomings and Solutions

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Test Scripts Not as Usable as Thought

• Review test plans and scripts upfront in project• Existing data and business processes that were

not fully documented• Review any work already done

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Canadian Payroll Customization Removed and Later Re-Added

• Verify removal of customizations with the business

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Applied Large Maintenance Pack Taking Longer in Production

• Keep more careful track of how much time it takes to apply large Maintenance Pack post-upgrade so more accurate estimate could be made

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Go-Live Move to Production Fell Behind in Day 2

• Escalate issues faster when processes run behind schedule

• Document how performance issues will be investigated and have required tools ready

• Do not apply new patches after last move to production• All hand-offs should be done by phone call and e-mail

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Longer Testing Than Estimated• Test check printing earlier for MICR and signature fonts• Test nVision reports earlier in process• Have Hyperion environment refreshed and ready for

PeopleSoft testing• Test credit card transactions through to Cyborg • After initial install, test system while consultants on-site• Test on same operating system (64 bit) as production

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Open Billing and Payable Transactions in Database from 2001

• Identify open transactions early in upgrade process and clean up transactions before go-live

• Run Ch. 2 tasks to identify open transactions to clean up

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Application Engine Jobs Run Manually Instead of Running Change Assistant

• Install PeopleSoft Change Assistant on Windows Admin Server

• Workstation version does not allow for automatic processing of application engine jobs

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Thank you for listening.

Questions?