Report back: Oracle Fusion Applications HCM Live demo at Logica the Netherlands
Finally it was so far. The Oracle Practice at Logica were presented a live demo of Oracle Fusion Applications by Ronald Jaarsma, Master Principal Consultant HCM and Remon van de Watering, Sales Development Manager HCM.
Prior to the demo, Applications Unlimited was emphasized, stating the investment and continuous development in the current applications like E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft and JD Edwards. Also two “myths were busted”
- Fusion means the end of PeopleSoft, E-Business Suite, and JD Edwards …
- Customers have to move to Fusion. And they have to do it all at once …
After a brief Fusion HCM Applications overview, a very discussed subject was handled, Coexistence.
How would you be able to run your current business and add a Fusion Applications component to it?
Oracle has created an HR-to-HR (employee HUB) to integrate your current application with Fusion Applications. Based on standaard integration points, the two applications get connected.
Basic HR data gets synchronized from PeopleSoft , E-Business Suite to Fusion Applications and Fusion Applications uses this data to run. Data which resides in Fusion Applications gets push back to PeopleSoft , E-Business Suite. This integrations works seamless, since PeopleSoft , E-Business Suit and Fusion Applications are all Oracle products and the data model of all applications is known to the HT-to-HR module. This can be achieved out of the box for Peoplesoft 8.9 and above, due to the Person Model change in HCM 8.9.
Question from the floor: How about customizations?
Answer: Not relevent.
Fusion Applications integrates and works on the person data it needs. If you have added additional fields, these will not be synchronized, as they are not relevent to the correct working of Fusion Applications.
And then it was time for the live demo. The, almost 2 hours long demo, consisted of the following topics:
- Navigation & Workforce Directory Management
- Workforce Predictions
- Compensation & Benefits
- Performance & Goal Management
- Talent Review
- Promotions
- Reporting
Was it all we had excepted from all the screenshots and UPK’s of the past years?
I can say, you have to have seen it, to believe it. It exceeded all expectations.
It is incredible how the application looks and feels. No navigation menu needed, all navigation is done via action links on the current page linked to the current transaction view. All pages have incredible amount of analytics and BI imbedded. And the charts on the pages are not static charts, but interactive charts. Any change in the application (parameters) would make the charts change online. And to go even further, you do not even have to submit a transaction to be able to see the effect on the charts. These so called WhatIff analyses change the embedded analytics straight away, so that the user can see by forehand the effect of a possible change. All charts have drilldown possibilities for further details and analyses. A manager could be running analytics all day long to come to a clear and sustainable decisions on running his/her business and all within the application on real time data, not on a separate BI tool.
And that is just the look and feel of the application. For a version one, it contains a tremendous number of functionality. If you would addapt Fusion Applications, you will not get an halve product, but an applications with functionality possibilities you can’t even imagine.
The application has changed from administration to analytics, forecasts, BI etc.
As last Reporting was handled. For online reporting OBIEE is imbedded in the application.
For example in PeopleSoft you have PSQuery to run query from the PeopleSoft UI. This requires quite some knowledge of the data model of PeopleSoft. With OBIEE the technical data model is transformed into a logical data model with meaningful functional data. The user will use logical objects to create reports, again with great charting abilities.
After the live demo, the deployment possibilities where discussed.
Oracle identifies four possible choices:
On-Premise
You host Fusion Applications on your own servers and maintain the application yourself. In previous post, I had already mentioned the number of resources you would need to run this giant (hardware, networking, infra, knowledge of middleware, people). To keep it short, it is possibility, but not the road you would want to take.
Private Cloud
Fusion Applications is hosted on Oracle datacenters, but a special instance/installation for your company alone. Oracle will patch, upgrade, maintain etc the entire application infrastructure, without you having to worry about it. Since this is a private cloud, you still have the ability to extend Fusion Applications. See the Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide on how to do this.
Public Cloud
Oracle’s Public Cloud is a portfolio of cloud services that provide access to Oracle Fusion Applications , Oracle Fusion Middleware, and Oracle Database in a self-service, subscription-based, elastically scalable, reliable, highly available and secure manner. Oracle provides hosting, management, software updates, and world-class support. Read more on: Oracle Public Cloud
Hybrid Cloud
This is the same as Public cloud, only you subscribe to a portion of Fusion Applications.
During the presentation, Oracle stated that it is the only supplier where you can switch from Private cloud to On-Premise and back.
Many thanks to Ronald Jaarsma and Remon van de Watering for providing this great demo.
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Posted by: 4 Responses (last comment shown first)
Not sure HR2HR is a module. It’s an integration process. It’s a two way process where AU data needs to be refreshed in Fusion. Data like People, Organizations, Jobs and compensation needs to be fed to Fusion on a regular basis, Profile data to be migrated and compensation changes to go back to AU as back feed. The whole process requires setup data from Fusion to be extracted and processed in AU, then using webAdi that needs to be mapped with AU setup and then data extraction process from AU will run and get transformed for Fusion. That data will then be ported in Fusion environment for further processing. This is my understanding.
I have a question regarding the ‘HR to HR’ module.
Is this available out of the box in fusion?
Can we consider the ‘HR to HR’ module as an AIA integration?
If so, customers would have an opportunity to customize. Does it hold true?
Thanks
Ashok
Hakan Biroglu Reply:
March 14th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Ashok,
Good question.
I have not asked this during the demo.
The HR to HR module is there for customers who will be running Fusion Applications besides the current application (PeopleSoft, E-Business Suite).
Although I do not know the actual answer, I guess this module is not part of OOTB Fusion Applications, but will be introduces in coexisting mode.
Just as Oracle as standard upgrade scripts to upgrade PeopleSoft and E-Business Suite straight to Fusion Applications, this is also a part of Oracle software and not of the customer.
Oracle did mention that for example if a customer is on PeopleSoft version lower then 8.9, they will make adjustments to the HR to HR module for that customer. So there is space for adjusting this module, but I do not think there is space for the customer to customize this, since this will be core seed of Fusion Applications. Oracle would not want Fusion Applications to malfunction due to incorrect data seed.
Hakan
It sounds like you never had a look at Workday HCM. Workday is the only true SaaS HCM vendor and winning almost every competitative deal against Oracle. Check Oracle’s references and then check Workday’s…..Fusion is like an old spaghetti when Workday is a pure and clean solution!
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