Leveraging Oracle PeopleSoft Applications Unlimited
The whitepaper I've been working on with Gary Milligan (Nova Scotia Community College) and Criss Laidlaw (Williams College) finally got published by the Higher Education User Group. The paper can be accessed here: http://www.heug.org/download.php?sid=7122
Executive Summary
This paper is the latest in a series of HEUG TAG publications meant to provide advice and guidance to HEUG member institutions as they strategize around the ongoing changes in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) landscape, and in particular in the Oracle suite of administrative applications. Previous publications have dealt with preparedness for Fusion technology based applications and the related concepts of service-oriented architectures (SOA). This paper continues that theme but with a primary focus on maximizing the usefulness of the PeopleSoft architecture and applications in a prudent and knowledgeable manner. The ―Applications Unlimited‖ program clearly advances the timeline that the PeopleSoft Enterprise applications remain a viable alternative. Beyond that, it is the opinion of the TAG that Oracle will very likely deliver tool- and feature-rich releases beyond the current 9.0. Oracle‘s robust PeopleSoft organizational structure, its ongoing strong commitment to the HEUG and the Alliance conference, as well as the announcement of the Application Integration Architecture, are a few reasons why the TAG believes that the PeopleSoft applications could remain an excellent alternative for some schools for up to 10 to 15 years. The flexibility and choice that is inherent in long term PeopleSoft viability is a positive situation for many institutions. However, the TAG still feels that all HEUG member institutions will need to embrace SOA concepts and technologies, albeit at their own pace. The last TAG publication on this topic spoke to some specific Fusion readiness steps, some of which were outside the scope of the existing PeopleSoft architecture and functionality. This paper reiterates some of those points and makes a few new ones. However, the primary message is that you can continue to exploit the valuable functionality in the PeopleSoft applications while also learning about and utilizing the concepts and techniques that will be the foundation for Fusion based applications. We suggested in previous publications that HEUG member institutions continue developing their ERP strategy and their own ―roadmap‖ for their ERP applications. The roadmap would consider an institution‘s existing PeopleSoft application(s) as well as the forthcoming Fusion applications and the adoption of emerging technology according to their specific business drivers, challenges and opportunities. The creation of a roadmap coupled with a supporting business strategy is still our best advice. It is our intention that this publication provides further assistance with the development of these planning documents. It is our specific goal that those institutions that are keen to continue their use of PeopleSoft in a viable and effective manner should benefit from the information and advice in this publication. It would be ideal if there were one roadmap that could be applied to every school. Unfortunately, there are far too many factors for one plan to be so widely applied. Therefore our intention is to provide a basic framework of steps and guidelines that each institution can adapt to their particular situation. The high level steps are:
1. Understand Applications Unlimited.
This program, coupled with any future application release announcements, represents the most critical official information that schools can access about the life cycle and licensing options with respect to their PeopleSoft applications. Read the FAQ on this program and any subsequent updates that may be released. If anything is unclear, talk to your Oracle Account Executive.
2. Plan and Strategize.
An examination of your institution‘s business goals, as well as technical capabilities and direction, is critical to determining how best to proceed with your ERP roadmap. While this sounds simplistic, there are many specific questions to answer that may not be obvious, or may not always be examined in a timely fashion. Each school should be intentional about deciding which path they want to follow so their development and infrastructure teams can make appropriate decisions going forward. Institutions should consider inviting their Oracle Account Executive to plan and present a session to review their 'health check/roadmap' to Fusion with key organization executives.
3. Evaluate Possible Approaches.
Every institution has the opportunity to examine and/or implement a variety of strategies and technologies that can respect the balance between PeopleSoft longevity and Fusion readiness. One key is to have a very clear baseline understanding of the status and options around licensing, support and the applications‘ life cycle dates. This information is critical to understanding the individual timelines each institution must keep in mind for tactical planning. Also, as we have stressed before, it is important that schools learn about and leverage web service technologies. PeopleTools includes a number of capabilities to expose application functionality as web services; schools can begin leveraging these PeopleTools functionalities. Schools should also closely follow the emergence of service-oriented architectures and apply components within their institutions as appropriate. Eventually each organization should plan to develop experience with service-oriented development approaches and technologies. Institutions are likely to find that planning now for gradual adoption of service-orientation will be more cost-effective than trying to dive in at a later time.
4. Introduce incremental changes into your environment.
We are suggesting that there are a number of incremental changes that can be considered that have a potential dual benefit for many institutions. These changes certainly better prepare the institution for a possible Fusion transition at some point in the future, but beyond that they have immediate business value in many situations. PeopleTools 8.48 included substantial changes and enhancements in its support of web services and web services standards. Schools taking a long term approach to PeopleSoft now have even more opportunity to expand their SOA knowledge and usage within the PeopleSoft application itself. In addition, there are a variety of Oracle application and technology offerings that should be considered for the same potential value proposition of preparedness and immediate positive impact. Identity Management, XML Publisher, as well as the Fusion Integration Components and/or Development Tools should all be reviewed and considered for use. The appropriateness and potential timing of the use of these items will vary greatly by institution but every institution should be able to incorporate some elements of these strategies that move beyond the status quo. There is also a wealth of information and informal training opportunities available to assist in learning about, and implementing these options. Schools should take a deliberate approach to exploiting these resources. In summary, we stated in the previous publications that no institution can avoid an eventual transition in its ERP applications and that planning and strategy were key. This is certainly still the case. However, with respect to the life of the PeopleSoft application suite, we now believe that it will remain a viable option for much longer than was originally anticipated following the introduction of the Fusion applications strategy. We believe some aspects of the application suite will remain viable for more than a decade. This is a considerable length of time in the world of technology. This does not change the ongoing and increasing focus on SOA as a key element of all ERP technology and it must be planned for by all institutions in order to maximize the business value and efficiencies inherent in this technology. We believe that it is possible to make incremental progress that will support the long term transformative change while minimizing the disruption to the IT and user communities. A number of sample institutional strategies in this document are illustrated via potential roadmaps. The TAG and the HEUG expect to continue to build upon the body of knowledge for the Higher Education community, and we expect to work with Oracle to help shape the direction of applications and the technology stack. As changes in the landscape occur, the TAG will continue to talk to the HEUG community about these changes and provide advice and direction via publications and presentations.
Executive Summary
This paper is the latest in a series of HEUG TAG publications meant to provide advice and guidance to HEUG member institutions as they strategize around the ongoing changes in the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) landscape, and in particular in the Oracle suite of administrative applications. Previous publications have dealt with preparedness for Fusion technology based applications and the related concepts of service-oriented architectures (SOA). This paper continues that theme but with a primary focus on maximizing the usefulness of the PeopleSoft architecture and applications in a prudent and knowledgeable manner. The ―Applications Unlimited‖ program clearly advances the timeline that the PeopleSoft Enterprise applications remain a viable alternative. Beyond that, it is the opinion of the TAG that Oracle will very likely deliver tool- and feature-rich releases beyond the current 9.0. Oracle‘s robust PeopleSoft organizational structure, its ongoing strong commitment to the HEUG and the Alliance conference, as well as the announcement of the Application Integration Architecture, are a few reasons why the TAG believes that the PeopleSoft applications could remain an excellent alternative for some schools for up to 10 to 15 years. The flexibility and choice that is inherent in long term PeopleSoft viability is a positive situation for many institutions. However, the TAG still feels that all HEUG member institutions will need to embrace SOA concepts and technologies, albeit at their own pace. The last TAG publication on this topic spoke to some specific Fusion readiness steps, some of which were outside the scope of the existing PeopleSoft architecture and functionality. This paper reiterates some of those points and makes a few new ones. However, the primary message is that you can continue to exploit the valuable functionality in the PeopleSoft applications while also learning about and utilizing the concepts and techniques that will be the foundation for Fusion based applications. We suggested in previous publications that HEUG member institutions continue developing their ERP strategy and their own ―roadmap‖ for their ERP applications. The roadmap would consider an institution‘s existing PeopleSoft application(s) as well as the forthcoming Fusion applications and the adoption of emerging technology according to their specific business drivers, challenges and opportunities. The creation of a roadmap coupled with a supporting business strategy is still our best advice. It is our intention that this publication provides further assistance with the development of these planning documents. It is our specific goal that those institutions that are keen to continue their use of PeopleSoft in a viable and effective manner should benefit from the information and advice in this publication. It would be ideal if there were one roadmap that could be applied to every school. Unfortunately, there are far too many factors for one plan to be so widely applied. Therefore our intention is to provide a basic framework of steps and guidelines that each institution can adapt to their particular situation. The high level steps are:
1. Understand Applications Unlimited.
This program, coupled with any future application release announcements, represents the most critical official information that schools can access about the life cycle and licensing options with respect to their PeopleSoft applications. Read the FAQ on this program and any subsequent updates that may be released. If anything is unclear, talk to your Oracle Account Executive.
2. Plan and Strategize.
An examination of your institution‘s business goals, as well as technical capabilities and direction, is critical to determining how best to proceed with your ERP roadmap. While this sounds simplistic, there are many specific questions to answer that may not be obvious, or may not always be examined in a timely fashion. Each school should be intentional about deciding which path they want to follow so their development and infrastructure teams can make appropriate decisions going forward. Institutions should consider inviting their Oracle Account Executive to plan and present a session to review their 'health check/roadmap' to Fusion with key organization executives.
3. Evaluate Possible Approaches.
Every institution has the opportunity to examine and/or implement a variety of strategies and technologies that can respect the balance between PeopleSoft longevity and Fusion readiness. One key is to have a very clear baseline understanding of the status and options around licensing, support and the applications‘ life cycle dates. This information is critical to understanding the individual timelines each institution must keep in mind for tactical planning. Also, as we have stressed before, it is important that schools learn about and leverage web service technologies. PeopleTools includes a number of capabilities to expose application functionality as web services; schools can begin leveraging these PeopleTools functionalities. Schools should also closely follow the emergence of service-oriented architectures and apply components within their institutions as appropriate. Eventually each organization should plan to develop experience with service-oriented development approaches and technologies. Institutions are likely to find that planning now for gradual adoption of service-orientation will be more cost-effective than trying to dive in at a later time.
4. Introduce incremental changes into your environment.
We are suggesting that there are a number of incremental changes that can be considered that have a potential dual benefit for many institutions. These changes certainly better prepare the institution for a possible Fusion transition at some point in the future, but beyond that they have immediate business value in many situations. PeopleTools 8.48 included substantial changes and enhancements in its support of web services and web services standards. Schools taking a long term approach to PeopleSoft now have even more opportunity to expand their SOA knowledge and usage within the PeopleSoft application itself. In addition, there are a variety of Oracle application and technology offerings that should be considered for the same potential value proposition of preparedness and immediate positive impact. Identity Management, XML Publisher, as well as the Fusion Integration Components and/or Development Tools should all be reviewed and considered for use. The appropriateness and potential timing of the use of these items will vary greatly by institution but every institution should be able to incorporate some elements of these strategies that move beyond the status quo. There is also a wealth of information and informal training opportunities available to assist in learning about, and implementing these options. Schools should take a deliberate approach to exploiting these resources. In summary, we stated in the previous publications that no institution can avoid an eventual transition in its ERP applications and that planning and strategy were key. This is certainly still the case. However, with respect to the life of the PeopleSoft application suite, we now believe that it will remain a viable option for much longer than was originally anticipated following the introduction of the Fusion applications strategy. We believe some aspects of the application suite will remain viable for more than a decade. This is a considerable length of time in the world of technology. This does not change the ongoing and increasing focus on SOA as a key element of all ERP technology and it must be planned for by all institutions in order to maximize the business value and efficiencies inherent in this technology. We believe that it is possible to make incremental progress that will support the long term transformative change while minimizing the disruption to the IT and user communities. A number of sample institutional strategies in this document are illustrated via potential roadmaps. The TAG and the HEUG expect to continue to build upon the body of knowledge for the Higher Education community, and we expect to work with Oracle to help shape the direction of applications and the technology stack. As changes in the landscape occur, the TAG will continue to talk to the HEUG community about these changes and provide advice and direction via publications and presentations.
posted by PC at 10:12 PM
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