Implementation of PeopleSoft 8.

9
Implementation of any ERP product is a huge effort considering the generic nature of the product
and specific customer requirements. In addition the industry specific and region specific
requirements be it localizations or industry best practices of the region add to the complexity.

Implementation of PeopleSoft is similar to implementation of any other ERP products will all
phases from Project Initiation to Go Live. This document brings up a high level methodology used
for PeopleSoft Implementation with its phases. A list of possible activities involved under each
phase, some risks associated with each phase and suggested mitigation plans are also
presented.

Phases of Implementation
There is no specific methodology used for implementation of PeopleSoft such as AIM popularly
used for implementation of Oracle Applications. PeopleSoft Implementation from Initiation to
Transition follows seven distinct phases as outlined below

Project Initiation
Business Process Analysis
Solution Design
Development
Testing
Production
Transition

Project Initiation
During this phase all important structures for the implementation will be built. The strength of
these foundations will determine the success of the implementation. A few of the foundations
built during this phase are –

- Implementation Team Building within the System Integrator team and the Customer team
and overall team consisting of the implementation consultants and the users.
- Establishment of protocols for communication during the project, phase completion
criteria and documentation and signoff through the Project Charter.
- Recasting of the project plan showing actual efforts required for each phase considering
the business complexity and the team capabilities.
- Defining Hardware and Software requirements for the Project including Server Capacity
Planning
- Deciding on the PeopleSoft instances available during the implementation
During the initial period the Customers will be very watchful with the implementation team to
measure the capabilities and levels of responsibilities. The implementation team from the system
integrators should work towards establishing strong foundation to bring a sound success in
phases to follow. During this phase the implementation team and the users team should try to
build a strong team required for the success of the project.

Key Activities
• Making a Project Plan and Project Charter
• Defining and establishing the Infrastructure such as Hardware and Software
• Planning and Establishing PeopleSoft Environments

Key Deliverables
• Project Plan
• Project Charter
 • Infrastructure Requirements Document
• Initial Project Infrastructure
• Play/Demo PeopleSoft Environment Creation

Key Challenges
• Establishing Communication Protocol that is acceptable for both the users and the
implementation team. In the absence of simple and clear communication plan it becomes
a major challenge to build the complete project team of implementers and users.
• Planning for required PeopleSoft Instances for the Project is another key challenge.
Incomplete instance planning will lead to challenges during later phases of the project
leading to cost escalations and project delays.

PeopleSoft Environments
Normally the following six different PeopleSoft Environments are required in a simple PeopleSoft
Implementation with customizations and reports developments.

Business Process Analysis

Business Process Analysis phase covers understanding the current business process available at
the customer location. This phase normally overlaps with the Initiation phase where the
implementation team and the users team will collectively work together to understand the
document the current business processes.
Current business processes
It is important to bring up all possible scenarios for discussion during this phase and find required
answers for each of the business process. Revisiting a requirement at a later phase would be
very expensive both from the cost perspective and motivation perspective.
While documenting the current business process, it is important to record maximum possible
examples showing different scenarios. This will help the implementation team in finding a good
and optimal solution during the next phase to handle a specific business process.
In addition to building a strong foundation for the project by establishing all requirements in detail,
this phase also is very critical from the perspective of establishing the relationship between the
implementation and user teams. The amount of business knowledge and flexibility to understand
industry specific practices displayed by the implementation team is a key factor for success
during this phase.

Key Activities
• Studying Current Business Process at the Customer Location
Key Deliverables
• As Is Business Process Document

Key Challenges
• Incomplete Current Business Process document will lead to wrong definition of business
requirements. Such events can be identified only during UAT which can impact the
project schedule adversely.

Solution Design
Solution Design Phase will establish the actual process required for the Customer in the ERP
product being implemented. During this phase all possible scenarios, customizations, functional
designs, interface designs, security designs and initial configuration will be planned and
documented.

To Be Business Processes
During an ERP implementation, implementing organizations always attempt to utilize the best
practices to streamline the existing business process. This exercise will lead to a new business
process from existing process which will lead to the final solution design for the organization.
Though the attempt is not to lead towards a complete re-engineering of the business process,
certain amount of process corrections and streamlining the processes will be attempted.

Final Solution Design

During this phase a complete solution of the finalized business processes the implementing
organization attempts to create for running their business operations will be created.
The solution maps will drive the configuration of the initial set up data and conversion of data for
reaching a desired state of the system.
While making the solution maps from business processes mapped into the PeopleSoft
application, the implementation team should attempt to find a near complete solution fitment
within the application for all business processes.
All the scenarios for which a direct solution is not available within the PeopleSoft application
should be recorded as gaps before attempting the workarounds. If workaround solutions are
attempted at the time of initial solution mapping the completeness of solution will suffer.

Conference Room Pilot

During this activity, all the agreed business processes and their respective mapping into the
PeopleSoft applications will be discussed in detail by the implementation and the users teams.
The implementation team will present each of the business process map in the PeopleSoft
application and bring up the clear gaps of the business requirements discussed and agreed upon.
The implementation team can bring up the alternate/workaround solutions for discussion during
this phase.

Key Activities
• Defining To Be Scenarios for the Customers
• Creation of Design Books
• Writing Functional Specification
• CRP Configuration and execution of Conference Room Pilot
• Planning Interfaces, Customizations and Reports
• Creation of Security Matrix and Batch Schedule Matrix

Key Deliverables
• To Be Business Process Document
• Design Books
• Functional Specifications for Customizations, Interfaces and Reports
• Security Matrix
• Batch Schedule Matrix
Key Challenges
• While arriving at To Be Business Processes it is important to look at the feasibility of a
specific solution. If a wrong mapping take place at this level it can be found only during
UAT phase which can lead to delays.
• All agreed business processes to be fit into PeopleSoft system should be showed to the
users during CRP and signed off clearly.
• Any workarounds to be agreed during CRP for finding solution to any to be business
process should also be documented clearly and signed off to avoid conflicts at later
phases.

Development
During the Development phase, the PeopleSoft System configuration will be made;
Customizations, Interfaces and Reports will be developed into the application and tested. Data
files for conversion and Conversion scripts will be created.
During configuration the master configurations should be created to make the organization
structure and other set ups. All required data relating to countries, currencies, chart of accounts,
budgets, invoice types, voucher types and so on should be created in the configuration instance.
A copy of the finally configured instance should be archived before progressing for the next
phase.

Data Conversion
During this phase the existing customer’s transaction data will be converted into the PeopleSoft
system. The best practice for conversion is to convert the opening balances of the year and the
open items up to the date of conversion using the data conversion scripts. The data should be
provided by the user teams in a required format which can be used as input for the data
conversion scripts.

Key Activities
• Creation of Configurations
• Development of Customizations, Interfaces and Reports
• Creation of Conversion Data Files and Conversion Scripts

Key Deliverables
• Configurations
• Developed Components/Objects for Customizations, Interfaces and Reports
• Data Conversion Files
• Data Conversion Scripts

Key Challenges
• While creating Configurations it is important to explore optimum solutions else the
solutions will not be convincing for the users.
• It is important to execute functional unit test carefully to confirm the developed feature is
confirming to the functional design.
• If huge amount of data has to be converted, few important aspects should be considered
o The users should be aware of the impact of huge amount of data conversion on
their involvement for creation of data files and verification of data after conversion
o If the more than one year finance data has to be converted important risk is to
convert one full year data and have the finance books tallying in the financial
year to populate the correct opening balances.

Testing
During the testing phase complete system testing with new customizations, interfaces and reports
and User Acceptance Testing will have to be executed.
User Acceptance Testing
During this phase the finally configured system with converted data should be copied into a new
instance to create the Test Environment.
The test environment represents the possible live scenario and the testing by users on this
instance can bring up the actual issues that need resolution to reach the Go Live phase.
The users’ team should provide a list of scenarios they believe to be very critical and complex for
their business and the implementation team should bring up the test cases to facilitate the testing
of these scenarios. The test cases show a systematic flow showing which screen after which
screen to be used, what data to be inserted and what is the expected outcome. This helps the
users to navigate through the PeopleSoft system for testing the focused scenarios faster and the
results will be reliable as well because this can reduce the knowledge issues to a large extent.

Key Activities
• Functional Unit Testing
• Stress and Network Testing
• Creation of Test Scripts for User Acceptance Testing
• Execution of User Acceptance Testing

Key Deliverables
• Test Scripts for User Acceptance Testing

Key Challenges
• Building of extensive scenarios through Test Scripts for complete testing to establish
completeness of testing.
• Participation of users in the User Acceptance Testing is a key factor.

Production
This is the preparation for Going Live. Production Instance should be created and initial
configurations should be created in the system. The configured Production System should be
used for configuring the Security as per the agreed Security Matrix. Opening Balances should be
populated and the data conversion should be executed.

Key Activities
• Creation of Production Instance
• Execution of Security Matrix
• Final Data Conversion

Key Deliverables
• Final Production Instance with configurations, security and required data.

Key Challenges
• Security should be planned and executed considering all constraints and standards such
as corporate governance or SOX.

Transition
During this phase the users’ team will be prepared to take over the fully configured PeopleSoft
system to run for their business processes. The final configurations created in the production
system will be documented for the purpose of user reference. The users will be trained on the
production business processes and Standard Operating Procedures to guide the users on
different business processes will be created.
Key Activities
• Preparing the users to take over the PeopleSoft system to handle their regular business
processes and transactions.
• Creation of guides to support the users in running their business processes.
 • Final Configurations should be documented and training guides should be provided.

Key Deliverables
• Final Production Configuration Document
• Standard Operating Procedures
• User Training Guides

Key Challenges
• User training should cover the clear directions towards executing different business
processes.
• Standard Operating Procedures should be made available for all configured business
processes.