QuestDirect.org

PeopleSoft Upgrades

Best Practices

Tom Reznicek and Patrick Savage

QuestDirect.org

APRIL 7-11, 2014 Sands Expo and Convention

Center

Las 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

QuestDirect.org

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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Differing Data Conversion Hours

• Ensure final test move has as much in common

with eventual go-live as possible

• Should have ensured three data conversion

processes were able to run error-free prior to go-

live to accurately gauge run time

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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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Initial Upgrade Pass Overlaid Delivered

V9.1 Objects with V8.9

• Confirm initial upgrade pass is correct

• Confirm filter that removed non-customizations is run

• Confirm compare report is configured properly

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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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Identified PM Areas for Improvement

• Keep checklist from RFP to make sure everything

taken care of

• Some deadlines missed by project phase

• Assign 1-2 people to check with everyone

regarding environment restarts and refreshes

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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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Environments Required and Migration Path

Not Communicated

• Define environments and naming at the start

• Define migration path and how environments will

be validated and kept up to date

• Do not build test environment too early in upgrade

• Define how performance issues will be debugged

and have proper tools installed on database

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Wrong Initial Move to Production

• Confirm the “Initial Alter Audit” is complete before

starting to use an environment

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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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Security Migrated Twice and Custom Objects

Built Twice

• Apply the security after migration of custom code

• Build database objects after migration of custom

code

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Knowledge Transfer Not Completed between

1st Team and Current Emtec Team

• Document what was completed by first team and

what will need to be completed by second team

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Managing Competing Projects • Fully understand scope prior to engagement

• Assign dedicated resources that are not part of upgrade

• Need detailed testing plan and approach that would provide fully configured environment prior to testing

• SWAT teams worked well when engaged

• New Linux Security took several weeks to implement

• Server storage issues but no determination of root cause

• Needed better escalation points for Tech Ops

• Architecture diagram needed more detail

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Thank you for listening.

Questions?