On 22 May 2011 Oracle Fusion Applications (Beta version) was available for download on eDelivery.

What is Oracle Fusion Applications:

‘Designed from the ground up using the latest technology advances and incorporating the best practices gathered from Oracle’s thousands of customers, Oracle Fusion Applications are 100% open-standards-based business applications that set a new standard for the way we innovate, work, and adopt technology’ (www.oracle.com)

To give you an impression of the end product see this demo.

To give an idea of the infrastructure of Oracle Fusion Applications, see the next picture.

This post and all posting still to come, will describe the installation steps to install Oracle Fusion Applications.

Who can say they never had the situation where you just can’t remember where a certain page or component is placed inside a PeopleSoft environment? I think nobody can. Oracle put an option in HCM where this question can be answered by yourself and it is called Portal Navigation Path.

When you navigate to this option through Set Up HRMS –> System Administration –> Utilities –> Portal Navigation Path, then you will see the following window:

Looking at the options you must be able to use atleast one to find what you are looking for.

Be aware that this functionality can only be used from version 9.1 with tools 8.50 and higher. The application version is most important in this, it is not a tools feature.

Take a look around you.  You will find people fiddling around with their iPhones. According to Wikipedia Apple sold 6.1 million original iPhone units over five quarters in 2008-2009. Recorded sales have been growing steadily and by the end of fiscal year 2010, a total of 73.5 million iPhones were sold.  Numbers for Blackberry’s, Android based telephones as strong. Nokia the largest mobile manufacturer  has recently announced that all their smart phones will have Windows mobile. Thus we can safely assume that Windows Mobile OS  will get a huge boost in their sales too.  Currently 65% of mobile cellular traffic is from smart phones. Over the next five years the growth in traffic is estimated to multiply  700%.  Nielsen projects that smart phone sales will meet normal phone sales in 3^rd quarter 2011.

Why? It’s not just about owning and showing off a cool gadget anymore. It has become a way of life.  Since owning my first smart phone in just over a year I must confess I am addicted to it. I check and reply my work and private e-mails as soon as I receive these regardless if I am work, home or vacationing. I am always up to date with the tweets I am interested in. I check and update my social networking accounts regularly. I check my bank accounts and make transfers when and where I need it. I maintain my social and work agenda and the best of all I can audio or video chat with my family back in Pakistan 24 hours a day and for free. The bottom line is when I am not working I don’t need to switch on my Laptop any more.

Smart phones are already popular with the professionals on the go. Almost half of the work emails I receive have a tag line “Sent via iPhone ” or “Sent via Blackberry”  below the message.  More and more businesses are providing smart phones to their employees. It is not just the cool thing. It is practical. Their most popularity in the business world is primarily because of their e-mail function and having your calendar at hand all the time.  But is that all?

So what’s the value of a smart phone for modern businesses. Commercial businesses are successfully trying hard to get more out of the smart phones. Airlines offer applications using which a passenger can not only book his flight online, he can also check schedules, destination information, delays, flight information, online check in and digital boarding card. Web shops have their own applications for doing shopping over the net.  There are applications to locate parking spots, petrol stations, fast food restaurants and WiFi Hotspots. Supermarket chains have applications for grocery shopping. Popular pizza delivery chains offer apps for ordering pizzas. There are also applications to pay for parking and toll; getting real time traffic information and speed trap locations.

Good so we have we have plenty of commercial applications making use of the smart phone. But what about core backend business applications? Are there any General Ledger that interface to you smart phone, or a logistics system.  A quick search on Google revealed that SAP has been busy since 2007 in developing a mobile application that will communicate with their core SAP systems. They now have applications for alerts and approvals,  real time reporting, customer data and inventory monitoring.  Never wanting to stay too far behind SAP; in 2008 Oracle announced Business Applications for iPhone. They now have an Oracle Business approvals for managers which integrates with EBS.  They also have Business intelligence application and an Asset management application all integrated with EBS. On the PeopleSoft front I found iReceipt which is an Oracle product that interfaces with PeopleSoft Financials and Absence App which is a third party application developed by Succeed Consultancy.

So what about the HR Business. Ages ago PeopleSoft started on the mobile front when it was possible to create mobile pages of PeopleSoft screens using PeopleTools.  Somewhere between the hostile takeover of PeopleSoft and trying to prevent the PeopleSoft clients to jump the ship, Oracle let the functionality slip through the cracks. The Fusion HCM applications offer a module called Network At Work which more professional networking within the enterprise and does not extend to mobile devices. Morale of the story, there isn’t anything significant on the HR front.

To me there is no doubt that a good thought out HR application for mobile device will be priceless if properly launched and marketed. So why are the big companies does not seem to be interested in doing anything with HR for mobile devices? And if there is to be an mobile application for the HR business what would that be, what should it offer?

During the last year I was involved in a project that had to migrate HR data from one system (SAP) to another (PeopleSoft) because of a merger. In many data migration projects where PeopleSoft is involved, they end up putting data into the system using Component Interfaces. And to be honest, it’s the only way to go. Unless of course you want to rebuild all the business logic into something else.

But that usually also means that literally all the validations and defaults are put into Application Engines to process the raw data. During this project we made the decision not to do that, yet split the load into two groups; first putting the raw data into PeopleSoft-ready data. Second, putting the transformed data through Component Interfaces.

The rest of this post I would like to put the following to your attention:

• Use of Informatica Powercenter as ETL tool
• Use of Application Engines and Component Interfaces to load data
• Extended use of Application Engines to start off sequential processes and split loads into groups that run simultaneously

With the attachment functions in PeopleSoft it is possible to load pay slips, annual statements or other documents into the database. It is a good idea to have the attachments into the database, because then you can handle the security with PeopleSoft (and with Oracle on the database level), instead of on the file system. In this case the attachments are in PDF format. Once the pay slips are uploaded into the database, it is possible to view them by clicking on a link in ESS (Employee Self Service). When you click on the link, acrobat reader will start and present the pay slip in a new window. The user can print the pay slip or annual statement from acrobat reader.

Example ESS page

When all pay slips and annual statements would be printed by everyone, surely there is no business case for saving paper. But nevertheless there is a business case for saving stamps. In practice not all of the pay slips will actually be printed, however.