Early Observations About PeopleSoft 9.2

Hi everyone. Through some early hands-on testing, I have noted some features in PeopleSoft 9.2 that will be well-received and replace customizations that I have seen on various client projects.  Oracle has an excellent blog series started as well, called 10 Innovations in PeopleSoft 9.2. I suggest you check that out.

My thoughts that follow are not blockbuster improvements (established software rarely sees upending changes), but from a practical standpoint and that of replacing customizations the following are some very important features. Here’s what I’ve noticed.

WorkCenters (Buyer, Accounts Payables, and Inventory) 

The WorkCenters are a big benefit for the buyer, Payables processer, and Inventory Planner.  I see the WorkCenter is available in Asset Management, Receivables, Billing, Custom Contracts, and General Ledger and more.

• Center is the key – the WorkCenter is designed to provide a single access page to review and manage your work or your managerial operations status
• Access analytics in a graphics or report formats
• Links to your detailed work components
• Views to monitor pending work
• Alerts that include the number of transactions in a pending status, past due, etc.
• Workflow Approval transactions pending review
• Links to your frequently used access within PeopleSoft and external links
• WorkCenters can replace the user queries that are generally defined to provide a list of pending transactions.  The user does not have to remember to run a query to view the status; one click to the WorkCenter can provide the view of what is pending and the link takes you to the component to complete the work. This is extremely nice.
• The WorkCenter provides the access to focus on the pending work, manage workload, and provides a complete view of the work which helps to set the priorities and adjust as the priorities change.

Generate the Purchase Order by ‘Ship to’ Address

I have worked on many projects where this is part of their core requirements and we have to manage it with a customization or business process.  The request is specific to procurement, however this change helps with the Payables processing too as well as the sorting in the mailroom.  Put simply, this request is to allow users to enter their requisitions for purchase and rely on the program to generate the purchase order number by supplier and ship to address.  The key is to generate a purchase order per ship to address instead of consolidating all request lines for a supplier to one purchase order.

• The requestor who enters requisitions on behalf of other can simplify their data entry and approvals by using one requisition,  however many POs are created to the suppliers based upon the ship to address.
• The ship to addresses that are specific to a user location helps the processing in the mailroom. The PO is specific to the ship to address which means the mailroom can deliver the shipment without opening the shipment to separate the contents.
• One ship to address on a Purchase Order usually allows the recipient to acknowledge one receipt for the purchase order.  The recipient does not have to exclude lines in the receipt or mistakenly receive more lines that are include in their shipment.
• One Purchase Order assigned one ship address can support the summary voucher entry feature in Accounts Payable (nice!).  The Summary Voucher entry is designed to enter the PO number and the PO is copied to the voucher automatically and processed to a matched status without user intervention.  This is a significant improvement in Payables data entry metrics.
• The one ship to per purchase order can be defined by supplier or all suppliers based upon the purchase order business unit definition.  The organization may find this feature is most helpful for the office supply supplier and not applicable for the other suppliers.

Supplier Definition Audit Tracking

Controls and tracking are a critical aspect of supplier management.  The supplier must be validated before approving their definition and changes to that approved definition are tracked and audited on a routine basis.  The audit tracking feature in 9.2 replaces the manual or custom tracking that is used in many organizations.  This feature allows the organization to define the template and specify the fields that are critical to their supplier change tracking.  In addition, those fields can be defined to require a reason code and comment to document the change.

• The template definition includes the hundreds of fields available in the supplier definition.  The critical fields such as tax identification number, addresses, payment, and banking information are available for tracking field changes.
• The tracking can be defined for the organization’s needs.
• Supplier name changes are an ongoing challenge with the supplier maintenance.  The audit tracking allows the maintenance team to update the supplier name without changing the existing purchasing, item catalog and payables transactions.  The tracking history shows the name for the supplier as of the effective date of the tracked change.
• Changes to the template are available as business needs change.
• A reason code and comment can be defined in the template for any field that is tracked.  A reason and comment are not required for a tracked field; the reason is a second aspect of a tracked field.
• An online inquiry page is available to review a supplier change history
• A delivered report is available to list the changes within a changed date range, by the user that entered the change and reason code.
• The supplier audit template can be defined based upon your supplier setID.  Supplier defined under an Asian setID may have different audit tracked field than the suppliers defined in the North America setID.

Supplier Hierarchy

Tracking and illustrating the supplier relationships among subsidiaries is an important aspect in supplier management and contract negotiations.  The supplier hierarchy relationship is available for the buyer and the payables processor to view in the transaction as well as the supplier management team as they define and maintain the supplier definition.

• The supplier hierarchy is displayed in an organization chart format for the corporate and subsidiary relationships.
• The number and levels of the relationships are not limited.
• The hierarchy is available to the user within the transaction document (i.e. purchase order and voucher).

Again, these are some early observations I’ve noticed during my time doing some hands-on testing with PeopleSoft 9.2. As we keep testing, we will continue to post our thoughts. If you have any questions, please let me know in the comments and I will do what I can to address them.