Selective Adoption
Now that you’re on PeopleSoft 9.2, you’re probably wondering what Selective Adoption means and what is the best approach to stay current? Selective Adoption is the new methodology that came along with PeopleSoft 9.2 that allows you to selectively apply PeopleSoft fixes and new features as you want them instead of having to wait for ‘the next release.’ Selective Adoption must be taken seriously. If you do not embrace Selective Adoption, you could easily fall behind in updates. This would mean that if you wait too long, you will essentially have to perform work that is equivalent to an upgrade.
How should Selective Adoption be approached? Keeping current will require your company to come up with a new approach for reviewing and applying the fixes and new functionality. This approach will encompass three distinct phases: planning and analysis, engineering and roll-out.
The planning and analysis phase would encompass the following:
- Possibly creating a new role within the organization that will be responsible for keeping up with the new enhancements that are being delivered. This individual would then work closely with IT and the business owners to develop an adoption plan, identify enhancement priorities and plan implementations as needed.
- Since there is no longer a requirement to stay current or apply maintenance updates in order, each fix would need to be analyzed for severity, effect, and importance for your organization.
- A new approach to ‘get current’ would need to be adopted. Although PeopleSoft will continue to recommend getting current every two to three years, there are a couple of ways that this can be accomplished. It can be done all at once or it can be staggered. (One thing to note is that the longer an application goes without being update, the more difficult it would be for maintenance and applying new enhancements/functionality.)
The engineering phase would encompass the following:
- Creating a calendar of events that will outline the implementation of new enhancements on a periodic basis. This will enable everyone in the organization to be aware and plan for new business functionality.
- Leverage lifecycle tools such as PeopleSoft Lifecycle Management tools. A couple examples would be the Usage Monitor and the PeopleSoft Test Framework. The Usage Monitor would help analysts determine the parts of the system the organization uses and that information can then be used to determine the effect. The PeopleSoft Test Framework is an automation testing tool that can significantly reduce the time required to system-test applied maintenance and new features.
- Apply critical changes on a regular basis and stay current on critical changes.
The roll-out phase would encompass that following:
- You need to be prepared to roll-out small incremental changes to the user community rather than a large single release. This will be beneficial with user buy-in and help with their learning curve.
- Leverage training materials to help users better understand the new features and functions.
So, if the typical upgrade is no longer needed, what are the best practices for applying the fixes and new features to your 9.2 PeopleSoft environment? The best practices include the following:
- Immediately apply critical (P1) tax, regulatory, and security updates using the latest Update Image.
- Regularly apply scheduled, low-cost, high impact features and fixes. These are small, targeted efforts that require little development time and have very little effect on users.
- Every 12-16 months, update your products to current maintenance levels and take advantage of all the latest features. When your products are up-to-date, applications run better and future features and maintenance are easier to apply. Choose scheduling that works best for your organization–stagger updates to occur at different times or do them all at once.
- Consider applying enhancements in your change packages that coincide with critical and regulatory changes. If your line of business has to test, why not only test one time for such things as critical changes and enhancements?
- Roll-out small incremental changes to the line of business and user community rather than a large single release. You can take on as many new enhancements into your environment that you want; however, you do not have to roll them all out to the end users at once.
- It is vitally important to add PeopleTools upgrades to your Select Adoption Strategy. You should be upgrading PeopleTools every 12-16 months in order to be able to take advantage of all of the features released in new 9.2 images.
- Be proactive with change management by putting out quick reference guides or by leveraging dynamic training modules such as PeopleSoft’s User Productivity Kit (UPK).
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out to us. We are more than happy to answer all of your PeopleSoft questions.
