Over the past couple of months we worked on a business case for an upgrade to PeopleSoft HCM 9.1. In this blog, we like to share with you a few of our first experiences and impressions about PeopleSoft HCM 9.1. The obvious new features like ‘mouse over menu’, ‘type ahead’, ‘partial page refresh’ and ‘in context search window’ are very user friendly, but there is more! Below we will state in short the pro’s and con’s of the new HCM version. 

As stated in an earlier blog post  the new PeopleTools 8.50 really gives you a WOW.
And there are a lot of WOW’s. But do they come of the box or do you have to put a  lot effort  to get them available to the user when you are upgrading from an earlier version?
Here I’ll give an overview about what Oracle says about some of these, so you can get an idea.

What is the best way to create and maintain workers to PeopleSoft CRM? The correct way to synchronize workers to PeopleSoft CRM is using the Workforce services. This works fine when using PeopleSoft HCM, but what about when your HCM application is non-PeopleSoft? In our case where are integrating PeopleSoft CRM HR Helpdesk with SAP HCM and P&I HCM.

Active Recruiter  is an Applicant Tracking System. In this case I discuss using the application for internal job application. The manager posts a concept vacancy in PeopleSoft HCM MSS. The concept vacancy only consists of some elementary data ( the department, the details of the manager, the amount of people needed, the amount of weekly hours, a jobcode, a unique identifier of the vacancy and ther closing date). But does not contain the job description or de demands. After the concept-vacancy is approved further up the organization (using PeopleSoft workflow), the concept vacancy is sent to ActiveRecruiter by means of SOAP messaging. There is a link on PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal which leads the manager to the ActiveRecruiter application with Single Signon, where he can finish the concept into a complete vacancy. There is another link on the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal which leads an employee to the ActiveRecruiter application with single signon, where he can apply on the job. ActiveRecruiter is an external application, hosted by JobPartners.

Tasper is a Dutch application in which employee’s can choose their own package of secondary conditions of labour. For clients it can be interesting to bye a package like this from the shelf rather than making it all yourself as ESS. These clients would need to integrate Tasper with their own HCM module, by means of synchronization. We have chosen to synchronize Peoplesoft HCM with Tasper by means of synchronous XML messaging.

The Choice for Messaging.

An alternative to messaging would be using a databaselink. Using the databaselink it would be possible to use the databaselink in combination with Oracle triggers. If I would commit a change in Tasper it would immediately would be inserted in the relevant record in PeopleSoft. This choice would bring along with it the risk that errors in one system would affect the other system. Instead it would also be possible to synchronize only during a batch update. Then the synchronization would have a delay of up to 1 day. Besides in the near further there will probably be a tendency to connect all relevant applications to each other by means of a BUS and/or BPEL, which would work by means of messaging as well. These are all reasons to choose for messaging as a means of synchronization.