peoplesoft upgrades: best practices
DESCRIPTION
TRANSCRIPT
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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COLLABORATE 14- Quest Forum is THE source for PeopleSoft roadmaps & news.
It matters where you register! All PeopleSoft education and events run through Quest
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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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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?