Simplify and Streamline with PeopleSoft Asset Tracking

PeopleSoft Asset Tracking, within the PeopleSoft Asset Physical Inventory solution, provides an intuitive, mobile tool for the management of physical company assets. PeopleSoft Asset Tracking replaces third party integrations as well as allows you to scan your assets to receive information about the asset from the repository. With this PeopleSoft solution, users can access the asset information they need directly from a mobile device, tablet or desktop.

To search for physical inventory, users can access the Physical Inventory tile and enter the Physical Inventory ID and scan a location, if applicable. A list of physical assets appears in a left pane.

Using a handheld scanner, users can scan the asset and the Scan Value from the barcode will automatically appear in the Scan Value field within the application. The application will then retrieve the asset from the asset repository and display the details of that particular scanned asset. Users can review and edit the information for that asset. Administrators will have the ability to set what information for each scanned asset can be edited by users. For example, users can edit information such as which custodian is assigned to each piece of equipment. Users can then select the Notify button from the menu to email that custodian and notify them of the update.

For items where the barcode is illegible or missing, PeopleSoft Asset Tracking makes it easy. Simply click the Find Asset button from the menu to find the asset within the system. Users can search by Unit, Asset ID, Tag, Serial ID, Mfg Name or Model and then select a button to manually scan the item to add it to the inventory list. The solution also makes adding new assets simple, allowing users to select a New Assets button from the menu to input asset information.

PeopleSoft Asset Tracking will automatically update scan locations for inventory when users enter a scan location in the Physical Inventory tile and be flagged for review. There is also a Scan By Location tile, which serves as an auditing tool that allows users to scan inventory and record a location, but not within the physical inventory process. This feature only allows users to update location rather than receive full editing capabilities like within the Physical Inventory tile. The “Force Asset Location Update” allows users to automatically revise the location of assets in the repository for all items scanned. Users will be able to go back and reference a scan history to see all of an asset’s locations.

PeopleSoft Asset Tracking simplifies asset management by allowing users to easily update and monitor asset information and location while on the go.

3 Reasons to Move to PeopleSoft 9.2 Procurement Solutions

In the newest PeopleSoft Talk with Oracle’s Marc Weintraub, Alexa Masters, Product Strategy Director, discusses the new enhancements and developments in PeopleSoft 9.2’s Procurement Solutions. She addresses three main challenges facing Purchasing Departments and how PeopleSoft Procurement addresses these areas.

The first reason to move to PeopleSoft Procurement Solutions is to reduce Spend Creep. CFOs and organizational leadership are watching Purchasing departments and are seeing how spending can impact the bottom line. Leadership is looking for ways to not only control, but cut costs wherever possible. By increasing automation with things such as supplier administration, organizations are able to significantly cut costs and focus on executing operations. This initiative, called the Supplier Lifecycle Management initiative, allows users to reduce risk and improve data management, creating savings in multiple areas.

The second reason to move is to stay in compliance. There are two parts to compliance in Purchasing- contract compliance and supplier compliance. Purchasing departments need to make sure that contracts, service level agreements and documents are compliant as well as the suppliers that they decide to do business with. PeopleSoft has launched the total Contract Management Initiative, enforcing compliance and lowering risk. A new development recently released within this initiative is the PeopleSoft Supplier Contracts Workbench. The Workbench provides users with a visual display of all activities through the life of a contract. It provides users with a one-stop shop to see all contract activity and drill down into the activities related to each.

The third reason to move is to provide your Purchasing users with the modern, mobile and innovative experience they are looking for. PeopleSoft answers users’ requests through solutions and functionality delivered in the Fluid User Interface. Before Fluid UI, PeopleSoft users used Desktop Requisitioning. Now, customers are looking for a mobile, modernized eProcurement Requisitioning tool. With eProcurement in Fluid UI, procurement officers will be able to access the information they need while on the go from a smartphone or tablet. eProcurement Approvals are now also available on mobile devices with future development in Requisition Receiving on mobile.

Another way 9.2 delivers an innovative experience through PeopleSoft eProcurement is the Integrated Marketplace, where internal and external 3^rd party catalogs are combined in one place. Users experience streamlined search and navigation without having to look up different pages. All results are found within the PeopleSoft eProcurement page.

PeopleSoft is continuing to develop new features for eProcurement solutions. Oracle is currently working on developing a Supplier Contract Activity View, which allows organizations to take all the contracts from a supplier and name/structure them to match their organization’s preferences. Supplier Onboarding Registration Templates, Supplier Change Request, Supplier 360 and Supplier Portal Solution in Supplier Lifecycle Management in 9.2 are all available to those who have the Payables or Purchasing module in 9.2.

Want more information on PeopleSoft eProcurement? Email me or visit Oracle online. 

Increase Efficiency with PeopleSoft Time and Labor Auto Enrollment

The time and labor administrator within the organization is responsible for setting up time and labor and enrollment rules for each employee. The administrator is also responsible for updating any time reporter data any time an employee is promoted, terminated or has a job change within the organization.

PeopleSoft Time and Labor Auto Enrollment saves administrators valuable time by automating the enrollment process in Time and Labor for new hires, people leaving the company or people switching jobs within the organization.

Setting Up Auto Enrollment

To begin Auto Enrollment Set Up, log in as an administrator and select the “Enable Auto Enrollment” checkbox, which can be found on the installation page.

Administrators have the option as to whether they want to process enrollment in real time or enroll in batches (in a batch number set by the administrator). There is also an option to turn on Preview Mode, allowing administrators to see the enrollment in Pivot pages. By filling in the Retro Limit, administrators can specify how many months back they would like the Auto Enrollment to process. An Exclusion List on this page shows the query of individuals who are not automatically enrolled in the Time and Labor.

From this page, administrators can also designate when they would like a terminated employee’s enrollment to inactivate.

Set Up Steps

The first step is to navigate to the Enrollment Group page. The Enrollment Group page allows administrators to group employees who share similar time reporter data. The criteria are based off of queries built by the administrators to designate the different groups of employees.

Second, administrators outline the attributes for the time reporter data and values for that enrollment group. The last step is to set up time reporting user preferences, such as the default timesheet display (monthly, weekly, etc.) and the option to include a Save for Later button. The Schedule Assignment page assigns the enrollment groups to a predetermined schedule.

After setting up auto enrollment, administrators can process auto enrollments by an individual employee, all employees or by batches of employees.

From the Fluid Manager Self Service homepage, administrators can view a Time and Labor Auto Enrollment Tile that shows the number of enrollments to review as well as the total number of errors. The preview mode is accessible here, allowing administrators to view the enrollment data in an intuitive Pivot Grid format with the ability to drill down into the grid or filter through the enrollments.

PeopleSoft HCM Time and Labor Auto Enrollments ensures that your organization stays up to date and saves valuable time and resources.

Strategies around Reporting in PeopleSoft

Still using Crystal Reporting? Here are the two main reasons why you should switch your reporting tool.

The first reason to replace Crystal Reporting is that other enhanced tools through PeopleTools 8.55 are now available. The newly released PeopleTools 8.55 offers Oracle application users new and enhanced functionality, including the ability to access applications on a mobile device and create a user experience that is modern, simplified and intuitive. In addition, PeopleTools 8.55 will also bring increased analytic reporting capabilities through Simplified Analytics and interactive Pivot Grids, built using delivered or prebuilt PeopleSoft Queries. Users will be able to “slice and dice” data to view real-time reports, leading to enhanced decision-making and increased organizational efficiency. PeopleSoft users are also familiar with Oracle BI Publisher, introduced a few releases back to create reporting.

The second reason to replace Crystal Reporting is that support will be discontinued. PeopleTools 8.55 offers capabilities that, in many instances, will replace traditional reporting methods. SAP Crystal Reports, a traditional reporting method used by PeopleSoft customers in the past, will be discontinued. PeopleSoft Crystal Reports allowed users to create both standard and custom reports for print using data found within the PeopleSoft system.

PeopleTools 8.54 is the last release to support Crystal Reports, and PeopleTools 8.51 was the last release to bundle it. The support of these reports will end along with the Premier Support of 9.1 applications. Before July 2011, Oracle supported these reports to benefit PeopleSoft customers. Now, however, users will have improved reporting and analytic tools available to them to support their reporting needs. Users previously using Crystal Reports will be able to switch over to Oracle’s Business Intelligence Publisher tool. BI Publisher is the reporting platform for all PeopleSoft 9.2 applications.

Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BI Publisher, formerly XML Publisher) is an enterprise reporting solution that streamlines report and form generation. One of the main advantages to using Oracle's BI Publisher product is the separation of the data extraction process from the report layout. BI Publisher enables customers to design and create report layout templates with the more common desktop applications of Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat, and renders XML data based on those templates. With a single template, it can generate reports in many formats (PDF, RTF, Excel, HTML, and so on) in many languages. Oracle’s Business Intelligence Publisher approach to reporting can dramatically reduce report maintenance, enabling power business users to adjust report templates without involvement of IT resources.

Oracle BI Publisher allows users to create, manage and distribute interactive and polished reports geared toward customers. Oracle BI Publisher also allows users to create government forms and electronic funds transfer documentation. BI Publisher makes creating reports easy and efficient, allowing users to set up reports exactly as they would like with the flexibility to export it in a number of different formats. Users can also schedule when and where they would like the reports to be delivered, such as via email. BI Publisher can also help users manage government regulatory reports.

Interested in utilizing PeopleTools 8.55 Analytics or the BI Publisher? Visit the PeopleTools 8.55 page on Oracle's site.