Monday 2 November 2015

Views From OpenWorld 2015






I've spent the last week in San Francisco participating in the annual Oracle OpenWorld conference.  This is a summary of my 'takeaways'.

At Certus Solutions, we specialize in 'Cloud'.  We've been working on Oracle HCM Cloud implementations all the way from Fusion HCM version 1 up to R10.  So, I was encouraged that the 3 main messages coming out of Oracle at OOW15 were 'Cloud, Cloud and Cloud'.

Over the past 2 years, the messages have included Platform as a Service (PaaS), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and all sorts of other X as a Service propositions.  This year, there was a unified message 'everything in the cloud'.

Previously, we have heard lots of talk about 'Applications Unlimited', keeping the old legacy EBS/PeopleSoft systems going as long as you want.  This year, that talk was conspicuous by its absence.   In its place, the mantra was 'why wouldn't you move to the Cloud?'.  After all, it's where all the development effort is going.

So, have we reached the time where the critical mass of Cloud customers has been achieved and a tipping point occurred where EBS/PeopleSoft customers begin to think 'if I renew on-premises, will I be left with a Dinosaur system in just a few years time?'.  I think it has.

Take a look back to other major shifts in IT developments.  It's not long ago that client/server systems were in vogue.  Who talks about them now?    My money is on a mass movement to the Cloud in the next couple of years.  That's the subtle, and not so subtle, message coming out of OOW15.






Tuesday 22 September 2015

Review of Fusion HCM Release 10 - Performance Management


  

Performance Management in R10


In my last post, I reviewed the new and changed features in Fusion HCM Release 10, specifically around Goal Management.

In this post, I will look at Performance Management which is also an area of the application which has changed significantly in R10. 

As with Goal Management, he main change is to move all functions into the Simplified User Interface (SUI).    This includes all the administrative functions performed by HR Professionals. 

I have highlighted the following key areas of change (My views on each are in red):

The SUI (now referred to as "The Springboard")

The springboard contains folder icons which can be expanded to show individual icons for specific 'workareas'.

 

The screen above shows the 'My Team' folder expanded.  My Team contains access to the workareas in the context of the user being a Line Manager'.  Consequently, when the user selects 'Performance' he is taken to the Line Manager view of the performance process.


The Performance Process





The Line Manager's view shows a graphic header showing the overall status of performance reviews he is responsible for.  This is the same as in R9, except it's in the SUI.

As in R9, each grey box represents a specific performance review process for the selected employee.  The expand icon (small arrow at left side of the box) can be used to expand the process to show all the tasks for the user.





So, I hear you saying, what's new?   Well, in this respect not much.  But the setup and administrative tasks can now all be accessed in the SUI too.  

At the right hand side of the screen is a 'tray' icon.   This expands to show all the tasks the user can perform according to all the roles they have.



Note that even setup tasks can be accessed here.  All these tasks take you to screens within the SUI, even the setup tasks and the monitoring tasks.

Review Periods

Apart from the 'look and feel', the main change in Performance Management is the inclusion of the Review Period.  This is linked to Goal Management too, where the Goal Plans are associated to Review Periods.

Review Periods are mandatory in the Document Periods setup on the Performance Template.






Conclusion

As an implementer, I think these changes make the user experience much better.  It's a much clearer set of screens, and more importantly it's consistent - all the screens the users see are in the same UI.