On Oracle delivered PeopleSoft HCM - Taleo Recruitment Integration

[Update July 2015] The delivered integration between PeopleSoft and Taleo Enterprise Edition is being deprecated and will not be supported by Oracle going forward. For customers who are currently implementing this solution, you will still be able to utilise the PeopleSoft objects related to this integration, but Oracle will not be providing product support for the same. Alternatively, you can utilise Taleo Bulk APIs or Taleo Connect Client to build out this integration.

Oracle has recently released pre-built integrations between PeopleSoft HCM and Taleo Enterprise Edition (TEE). These integrations will be available for new Taleo Recruitment customers who are on PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 and Peopletool 8.53+.
The following integration touchpoints are covered by this new feature:

1. Import of Organsations and Locations into Taleo from PeopleSoft.
2. Import of Requisition Templates into Taleo from PeopleSoft.
3. Import of Employee information into Taleo from PeopleSoft.
4. Export of 'Ready to Hire' candidates from Taleo to PeopleSoft.

Additionally, a new pagelet is also delivered in PeopleSoft, that will display open requisitions and candidate information from Taleo in PeopleSoft Manager Dashboard.

These integrations have been built on Taleo's SOAP based Web Service APIs and PeopleSoft's Integration Broker. Two new services at PeopleSoft, called -  TI_NEWHIR_CAND_DATA and TI_SETUP_EMPLOYEE_OB will handle the above integrations. 

Key Takeaways:

• This integration is available for new Taleo customers, though Oracle will be considering controlled availability for existing Taleo customers.
• The organisation and location structures in Taleo need to follow a specific hierarchy for this integration to work. Organisation structure has to be of 3 levels, namely Company, Business Unit and Department. Location structure has to be Country, State, City and Work Location. This rigidity in terms of the OLF structure in Taleo, may not suit a lot of customers and would be a key point in the evaluation of this functionality.
• Customers can choose to turn on any of the available integrations in PeopleSoft. A new folder for Taleo Integration setup will be available under Setup HRMS > Common Definitions in PeopleSoft.
• Requistion Templates in Taleo will be primarily driven out of Job Codes in PeopleSoft. Every valid combination of Company, BU, Department, Location and Job Code in PeopleSoft, that is included in the Taleo integration, will create a Requisition Template in Taleo.
• 'Ready to Hire' candidates who are pulled from Taleo, will be populated in the 'Manage Hires' component in PeopleSoft. Creation of Personal/Job Data/Employment Instance can be carried out from the Manage Hires component.
• PeopleSoft Candidate Gateway has the functionality to create requisitions from open positions in PeopleSoft. I did not see a mention of a corresponding functionality, where an open position in PeopleSoft triggers the creation of a requisition in Taleo. Hopefully, this should be in the roadmap!
• This feature highlights the rich web service and file based integration capabilities of Taleo. Almost every object is exposed as a service in Taleo using SOAP based or CSV based integrations, thus greatly extending the functional capabilities of the product.
• Considering that Taleo will be the recruitment module of Fusion Apps, a similar integration of Taleo Recruitment with EBS and Fusion HCM is also in the product roadmap.

Oracle Cloud Marketplace: The App Store for Oracle Cloud and On Premise Applications

I have toyed around with the idea of an enterprise app store for PeopleSoft in the past. Succeed Consultancy in the UK has even built out a dedicated PeopleSoft app store.
Now, Oracle has come out with a dedicated App Store for Oracle applications, specifically targeted towards Oracle cloud applications.

In my opinion, an app eco-system is critical for cloud software vendors and it is heartening to see Oracle take an early plunge in this direction. As we stand at the cusp of a transition from traditional on-premise consulting models to rapid SaaS based implementations, the app marketplace provides an avenue for consulting SIs to tap into an alternate revenue stream.
All in all, the customer will come out as the clear winner, with an elaborate menu of features to choose from.
Let the appification of Oracle cloud begin!

Workday 19 released - Greater focus on Financials and Mobile

Workday unvelied release 19 few days back. It is mentioned that the new release comes with 170 odd new features. Here are the main improvements that were noted from the press release given out by Workday:

1. Workday 19 comes with the capability to add custom fields and change labels of fields. This has been projected as a major enhancement in release 19. While I totally understand the need for this from customers, it is surprising that it took 19 releases for Workday to bring this out. From my understanding of Oracle Fusion applications, these capabilities are native to Fusion apps. You can read more here on the various 'composers' of Fusion, which can be used to 'configure' the application to change page field labels, page layout etc. globally or for a targeted population.

2. Workday has traditionally had a 'mobile-first' strategy and the user friendliness of their iPad and iPhone apps are legendary. Continuing with that focus, Workday 19 embraces Android with a workday app available for Android.

3. Workday has stated that it's Financials Suite will be a major area of focus in 2013. True to that, Workday 19 has close to 40 new features delivered for Financials. Another focus I have seen is a push to present HR and Financial data together.

Here is a picture gallery of Workday 19 released by Workday. It is interesting to note that Workday is working on a greenfield recruitment module which is expected to release in early 2014.

Forrester report on Fusion: What about the Technology adoption curve?

Research and advisory firm Forrester published a report last week claiming that Oracle's Fusion strategy was not working. You can catch excerpts of the report here. The report which surveyed around
114 Applications Unlimited customers (PeopleSoft, E-business suite, JD Edwards, Siebel etc) claimed
that majority of them have no plans of moving to Fusion. The report claimed that customers are satisfied with Applications Unlimited products and are not enticed enough to migrate to Fusion, thereby representing a strategic dilemna for Oracle. The conclusions made by the report as well as by certain analysts who used the report to criticise the customer adoption rate of Oracle Fusion Applications, came across as flawed to me.
An important conclusion of the report is that Fusion is not seeing a high level of adoption in the market, especially amongst Applications Unlimited customers. This analysis is made on the premise that two-thirds of the survey respondents reported that they do not have plans to migrate to Fusion (the question posed was 'Does your organisation have plans to implement Oracle Fusion apps). An implicit assumption behind this conclusion is - 'a majority of existing PeopleSoft/E-business suite/JD Edwards customers would have moved to Fusion as soon as the product released'. The survey numbers did show that a majority of Applications Unlimited customers in the list of respondents had not moved to Fusion (nor had plans to move to Fusion) and concluded that as a strategic issue for Oracle! (I strongly recommend reading this post on the Constellation Research blog on why Applications Unlimited strategy was important for Oracle when it was launched in 2006). A lot of analysis made on this topic revolves around the above stated assumption that customers should have snapped up Fusion Applications soon after it's launch - unfortunately this assumption is in contradiction to the pattern in which technology is adopted by society. To understand the adoption rate reported for Fusion applications, I think it is pertinent for us to look at the standard models of technology adoption.

The process of adoption over time is typically illustrated as a classical normal distribution or "bell curve." The model indicates that the first group of people to use a new product is called "innovators," followed by "early adopters." Next come the early and late majority, and the last group to eventually adopt a product are called "laggards". Thus, technology adoption follows a bell curve with a critical initial period when the product gains acceptance in the market and crosses the 'chasm' (courtesy Geoffrey Moore and his best selling book, Crossing the Chasm) from early adopter customers to a critical mass of early majority customers. Why should the adoption pattern of Fusion be any different, especially when the customers are risk averse large scale enterprises? Thus, the assumption that majority of Applications Unlimited customers should have moved to Fusion Applications as soon as the product was launched is a flawed one - the market just doesn't behave that way (and we need to consider that each market segment has its own pace of adoption). Fusion is at present in the 'early adopters' phase and I am sure that it will take another 2 to 3 years, before it can pull in the early majority crowd. Fusion Applications have only been available from 2011 and already counts 100+ live customers. How does this fare with the adoption rate of Workday? As reported here, Workday which was launched in 2005, reached the 50 customer mark only in 2008. I acknowledge the bias in this comparison as Oracle already has a large install base in comparison to Workday, but I believe it goes on to represent that technology adoption goes through a critical initial phase, before the product gains a self sustaining critical mass of customers. If the commentators were to take into account the above facts, probably the conclusions made out of the survey would have been vastly different.

Principal goes live on Oracle Fusion HCM

As news goes, the financial services giant, Principal Group has gone live on Fusion HCM. Follow the media release below:
http://www.oracle.com/us/corporate/press/358769

A truly mobile ERP suite - will we see that in 2011?

We had discussed previously about the imminent penetration of mobile devices in enterprise applications (refer here and here). The increased popularity of mobile devices, the level of engagement of the user with the mobile device, changing demographics of the workforce and the sheer usability and quality of mobile applications are strong drivers for enterprise applications moving to social and mobile devices. But it made me sit back and take note of the true potential of this trend as I read through the various tech predictions for 2011 and the next decade. I have to state here that invariably every single article on tech trends that I've read over the last week has talked about IT consumerization (Gartner identified this trend as early as 2005) and it's impact on enterprise applications. Sample some of the links below for details:

1. Predictions from Gartner
2. Predictions from techrepublic
3. 2011 trends in Enterprise Irregulars
4. Thoughts by Vinnie Mirchandani
5. Predictions in CIO.com


Exciting times indeed! So what does this mean for PeopleSoft customers? Interestingly PeopleSoft had launched a Mobile Agent way back in 2001 which allowed users to use the PeopleSoft application on mobile devices. PeopleSoft also offered Time and Labor on mobile agent with simple mobile specific screens to report and approve time. Unfortunately the support for mobile agent has been discontinued lately. We have not seen any announcement from Oracle on providing a mobile app for PeopleSoft HCM, but it is interesting that an iPhone app was released by Oracle for iReceipts! Most of the focus I have seen over the last few releases as well as the future direction has been on talent management and usability improvements like what we have seen with 8.50 tools - but we have not seen any guidance on a focus on mobile/social application from the PeopleSoft development team. (The Fusion HCM applications offer a module called Network At Work which I reckon is about collaboration within the enterprise and does not extend to mobile devices and the popular social networking sites). This is not enticing news for PeopleSoft customers and consultants. Is there any alternative that we can look up to as PeopleSoft customers? I reckon the answer lies in Developer Generated Content. I had briefly touched upon this topic in this post where I had talked about the viability of an app store for PeopleSoft. The core idea is for developers and more importantly for IT consulting and service providers/companies to come up with innovative mobile and smart phone applications for PeopleSoft and make it available for customers as downloadable apps. For example, here is a post from Succeed Consultancy who have created an absence management app for iPhone and other smart phone platforms - I am envisaging a new business model where developers and service providers would generate PeopleSoft related content which will be delivered over the web. Customers would further be able to 'shop' for these products online and purchase the products they are interested in. This signals a sea change in traditional enterprise software delivery models and opens up a completely new revenue stream for consulting/IT service companies. I foresee the following benefits for this business model:

1. Better and innovative products/extensions available for customers which will incrementally increase the value of their PeopleSoft investments.
2. Harnessing the creativity and innovation of developers which will lead to a large number of products coming to the market which will in turn be beneficial for all stake holders.
3. New delivery model for enterprise applications which is best suited for a market where enterprise IT is consumerized.
4. New revenue stream for consulting/IT service companies.
5. Subscription/Usage based pricing model that will be attractive for customers.
6. Democratization of enterprise products that will bring out innovation and better products for customers. With such a concept, any developer with good skills and ideas will be able to generate content and upload their product(s) to the app store.
7. Ready made products available for customers which will cut down development time and costs to minimum.
8. Leveraging web2.0 features like rating applications, 'liking' applications, tracking the most downloaded apps etc., the best applications will easily come out on top and the inefficient ones will be weeded out by the community. Moreover, customers could post a wish-list of applications (similar to the concept in Oracle Mix), which can further lead to tailoring apps required by customers.

The first questions that will be raised will be about control over the quality of the applications, impact on upgrades, compatibility with tools and application versions etc. But, these are all concerns which can be effectively addressed. If Wikipedia could do a Britannica Encyclopedia by harnessing the power of the community, why not PeopleSoft? Why can we not deliver better value for our customers and tap into the creativity of the developer community by leveraging on developer generated content? I hope that this post will act as a catalyst for this change.