New Mile Stone in Workforce Modelling and Intelligence – Orgplus

It was the last quarter of 2007 when we had a discussion on the workforce modelling and intelligence(refer -”workforce modelling and intelligence” post) in our pitstop. Now, the news is – Orgplus enterprise is named as the top HR product of the year 2008.


Yes,.. In a latest news release by pressreleasepoint, the author states that ““OrgPlus allows managers to easily visualize and understand their talent data, and if an organization is growing, reorganizing or merging, OrgPlus rapidly models these changes using accurate financial, workforce, and budget data so HR, finance and executive teams can make better decisions to impact overall corporate objectives.”

The Integration between the PeopleSoft HCM 9.0 and Orgplus was much awaited to be validated by Oracle and now Orgplus had recieved the integration validation. In short, the integration revolution within the HR IT Products seems to win the race.The importance of such integrations were realised by companies who concentrated on their ROI few years back and I would suggest them even in our present financial crisis term. 

Enterprise Content Management – Livelink Vs SharePoint

Do you feel that the growth of an organization is directly proportional to the content mangement within the organization ? or vice versa? Let’s look into one of the driving force behind a companies growth – It’s the Enterprise Content Management. ’Collaboration’, ‘Goals’, ‘Processes’, Business Data Analysis are the words frequently uttered across; when a company revisits its own growth.

The ECM suites provides a better way to organize, reuse and share data across the organization. To name a few, Livelink ECM Suite and Microsoft SharePoint provides an interactive space for document management, version management, auditing, business workflows, business intelligence and many other interesting search features with a user friendly – ‘web site’ style application.And also Microsoft’s BDC and Web Part technologies plays a vital role in third party integrations.(the details of which can be seen in our future posts)

By now,one can define in simple terms that a place where documents are managed can be termed as Enterprise Content Management Suites.In reality, the ROI’s are too high for organizations that have implemented SharePoint or Livelink. Livelink goes one step further by handling the retention management process for documents and incorporating a seemless workflow approval chain along the organization tree. This enables an organization to setup the time period for which a document can be accessible and then purged. In comparision, Livelink seems to be DoD certified and SharePoint may be in the process of getting one…

AdventureWorks 2000 and SQL Server 2005

Wow !!! It was Lewis Hamilton in India – On hearing the news I almost thought he was in india for the inauguration of our formula one circuit at Delhi or Hyderabad. But later heard that it was for a commercial deal. Ok Friends, Here I am today trying to explain some of the activities that needs to be performed for attaching the AdventureWorks2000 database to SQL Server 2005.

What is AdventureWorks Database? – Microsoft provides a sample database for demonstration of various functional as well as technical aspects of a business need. An excerpt from microsoft website reads ‘The purpose of AdventureWorks Databases is to demonstrate best practices for designing an integrated enterprise-class schema, and provide a sample database for that schema’. This database is not automatically installed with SQL Server Express.

Now, having known little about what AdventureWorks is, let us get into the details of downloading the database and attaching it to the SQL Server 2005.

By accessing the microsoft download center, download Adventure Works Database 2000.msi and install.Once installed, the file AdventureWorks2000_Data.mdf gets loaded into the specific MSSQL folder within the program files whose path could always be found by a windows search. Having performed this activity, one could follow the procedure present in microsoft’s msdn page. The very first issue when executing the command SQLCMD -S (local)\sqlexpress -E in the Visual Studio 2008 command prompt is unable to remote in to the server error. Inorder to enable the remote connectivity, we need to perform the setup in SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration. After the surface area configurations for services and connections are setup with the help of microsoft’s support, we would be able to attach the Adventureworks 2000 database for our testing and learning process. And always the best way to test the above activity is to verify whether the database is attached or not.

For all the people who are new to MSSQL, Hope this gives you an heads up on what AdventureWorks 2000 is ? and how it could be installed in SQL Server 2005 ?.

Read More: SQL Server 2005

Part II – DBA Refresher for Peoplesoft Database Cloning

Please read the Instant Peoplesoft Cloning Refresher Kit before continuing in this post,

Take care to remove the reuse word in the create control file statement and replace it with SET

Once the Control file is created

alter database open resetlogs

If you encounter problems,

login to command prompt,

sqlplus /nolog
connect sys/manager as sysdba
shutdown immediate
startup
exit

select * from psdbowner;

update PSDBOWNER SET DBNAME = ‘destination db name’

create user sysadm identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Create user PS identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Create user PEOPLE identified by <password> default tablespace <tablespacename> temporary tablespace <tablespacename>

Grant connect, resource, dba to sysadm

Grant connect, resource to ps

Grant create session to people

And after revisiting all the above points, you would be able to access application designer after configurations in configuration manager.

Read About: DBA Refresher

Kronos Data Collection Manager – DCM

Be it a Software Industry or Hardware Industry, wherever there is a considerable amount of workforce involved, Time and Attendance plays an important role. Especially, the automation of the time and attendance process. Its the Kronos Workforce Timekeeper that tops the list on the day of chequered flag. Lets see how Kronos does it ,..

Having known that Kronos Workforce Timekeeper is used for processing the time and attendance Data of the workforce in an organization, Lets concentrate on the “Data Collection Manager” of kronos. DCM is a set of applications that enables the interaction between data collection devices or clocks and a host application like kronos workforce timekeeper.

DCM constitutes the

• Communication Monitor,
• Device Manager,
• Device Work Rules,
• Event Manager, and
• Sentinel Service applications.

Communication Monitor: When an employee swipes in the access card to enter his/her workplace, the exact time is captured/collected in a collection device such as clocks, biometric devices,.. The collected information needs to reach the host application for further processing, If there is a data flow error or when a collection device is down, then we use the communication monitor to test device communications and its transactions.

Device Manager: is used to check the status of the collection devices and to configure the device firmware. Start and Stop services of the data collection devices is one of the frequently used features of the device manager during the configuration and re-initialization of the device.

Lets see more about pay rule, work rule, their associations and few interesting facts about event manager and sentinel service in the next post.

**DCM – Data Collection Manager
**DCD – Data Collection Devices

To Know More Vistit: Kronos

Part I – Peoplesoft and Microsoft Active Directory Single sign on Setup

Hi Friends, Its been a long time that I had posted in our Pitstop

May be because I have been kept busy with the work load and also the 2008 Formula One Championship,.. Its was too good to watch the thundering drive to the chequered flag by the team ferrari and hardly was concentrating on the opponents pitstops,…

Here we go,.. I would like to bring in the ‘technical collaboration’ (term taken out of air) between the Microsoft Active Directory and Oracle-Peoplesoft. You may find a lot of information on this in the Internet and other related material of interest to you. So I thought of listing down some of the basic aspects that needs to be concentrated while we are into a single sign on process.

• Gathering the correct ‘Connect String’ Information from the Active Directory (LDAP)
• Selecting a Network Analyzer Tool to be used to trace the data packet movement – Just in case if we head into connectivity problem, and
• Configuring the Schema Cache on the Peoplesoft Environment.

Do post in queries if you do happen to run into any issues when you are performing single sign on or when you need more information on the procedure.

I’m happy that i had a very quick pitstop here back on track and will be back soon

Read more About: Peoplesoft

Workforce Modelling and Intelligence

Login to the url http://helix.hexaware.com/Innovation/ and navigate to the menu HRIT>SOD>Thursday forums to view the presentation as well as the video of Princeton Softec’s Optim and Human Concepts Workforce Modelling and Intelligence tool – Orgplus.

To know More About: Enterprise Solution

Application Service Provider Vs Software As A Service (ASP Vs SAAS)

The traditional Application Service Provider – ASP Model is overrun by the upcoming Software as a service SaaS Model. Whether it is a deployment, upgrade or maintenence project – the onshore offshore model present in leading indian software companies were growing with a lot of money inflow as a result of ASP model. But In the present scenario, the companies like salesforce, workday are providing the software on demand services with client specific customizations based on the SAAS model also. In SaaS the customer pays for the services offered by the company/vendor and the cost involved in maintaining the application in their inhouse is not necessary.
Eventhough there is a cost reduction for customers who go for software as a service model, the rise of open source components that are available in the market makes this tough. And moreover for customers who require a lot of customizations, the ASP model is still leading the chart.
Whatever the changes are,.. It seems that in the near future the world leaders in software industry will be the ones who are operating based on the demands,..based on the software as a service model.

Learn More Visit: Pitstop

Learning Management System drives a Company’s Growth

It was Lewis Hamilton – the young player in the formula one championship who managed a tough fought win against other players in the recently held Hungarian F1 Grand Prix. Looking back into his performance, there are a lot of features that had made him to win the race. Similarily, young players in the corporate world are growing at a pace of 200% when compared to their counterparts. There are a lot of influential aspects for a company’s growth, one being their talent of maintaining the talent pool and the other by nurturing their talent pool. Yes,…It is achieved by Training, Knowledge Sharing, Mentoring, and Self-Learning by their employees. One of the aspects that drives these activities is the Learning Management System that the company uses. It’s the LMS (acronym for Learning Management System) that drives the growth of an organisation.

Lets have a look at the Docent Enterprise Suite which was rated as the leader in the Learning Management System by Gartner a couple of years ago. The suite comprises of Learning Management System – LMS, Content Delivery System – CDS, Authoring Tool – Docent Outliner,..to take care of the learning activity as well as the performance evaluation of a particular or group of people within an organisation.

Friends, I have just given a gist about the Docent – Learning Managment System. Leave me your queries as a comment to continue further discussion about the system

Archive Checkered Flag: Why Optim wins the Data Archival Race ?

Last week, I had been to a get-together wherein my friends had arranged for a meeting. People from different technology backgrounds were amongst the young energetic crowd. I remember discussing about some of the technical aspects in the present corporate world. One of the discussion was about archiving data : There was a wide misconception that performing database backups were referred to as data archival,… Infact that’s only one of the true factors. Moving on to the reasons behind archival is not only the need for a backup but for improving the performance.

As a first step people tend to move towards database optimization (Rule based or Cost Based), even then if there is no improvement in the database performance – Data Archival is the only solution.Having decided to go for database archival, there are a lot of products / Tools available in the market.

One of such Tools is the Princeton Softec’s Optim – Data Archival Tool. The Tool attracts the users with one of its four best processes – the Restore Process. Not all data archival tool concentrates in restoring the original data after the data archive. Optim has a feature of restoring the original data that was archived even before couple of years.And also even when the datamodel changes, archived data can be restored. Even if the archived data is corrupted the original data is restorable.Having known about Optim’s unique feature.Let me provide its brief overview.

Optim constitutes of four basic processes,

1. Archive Process
2. Delete Process
3. Restore Process
4. Browse Utility

Archival of data can be performed on any of the modules of Peoplesoft. Some of the reasons which urge the Peoplesoft users to move to data archival are

• Frustration of business users trying to complete the on-line Peoplsoft functions.
• Employees unable to access pay cheque information.
• Peoplesoft Payroll users unable to enter required employee data information in order to meet timeliness                                                                                          

Read More about Data Archival

Race to Victory

In the world of Formula One Racing, ‘Pit Stop’ is a common term. During the race day and pit stops, One could see almost all the components of the car being maintained/changed by the crew . Ranging from the nuts and bolts to the engine, everything is under quick and fast maintenance. Similarily, in the corporate world – each and every company acts as a race car and to improve their performance and to grow quicker: they are in need of such Pit Stop Crew. In the real-time, it would contain a variety of software products that supports their Company Resources which consists their Human Resources, Material Resources, Financial Resources, etc.. To be specific products like Peoplesoft, SAP, Kronos, OrgPlus, SumTotal, Docent, Optim, and IDE’s like Application Designer, Docent Outliner, Business Intelligence Development Studio, JBuilder, NetBeans are widely used. Lets see what makes the companies to choose a product and how it plays a unique role in enhancing the overall companies performance. We will also come across the differences and unique features of the products that urges the companies to use it. Pit Stop will cover the product specific comparisons, Technology specific advantages, and finally the service oriented architecture. 
Read More about  Race to Victory

Peoplesoft Time and Labor Vs Kronos Workforce TimeKeeper

Couple of weeks back, the google news portal was crawling in almost many a news source pages about Kronos and its upperhand than that of the renowned Peoplesoft’s Time and Labour Module. I was surprised to see the once market leader in Human Resources is being overthrown by the Kronos Workforce Central Suite. Yes, the reason being ,.. Kronos had worked hardly in identifying the end user’s concerns and various other problems that they were facing with Peoplesoft. For example : The Time and Labour module contains a feature in which the employee work hours are being tracked and fed back into the Payroll module for the Pay Calculations and Pay Cheque creations. Its found that ” after the fact / historical changes “ was not possible to follow with Peoplesoft whereas Kronos Workforce Time Keeper module supports the same. Many a peoplesoft clients are retaining their payroll in peoplesoft and are moving towards the product kronos for one of this reason.
Read More about  Peoplesoft And kronos