Business Case
OSC first implemented PeopleSoft 7.5 and upgraded to 8.3, 8.9 and 9.1. Because of the requirements of processing the OSC employee population, changes were made to the PeopleSoft system. For example, OSC made custom changes to process multiple union contracts, retro pay, and eight retirement plans.
When OSC decided to upgrade to 9.2 it was determined that the PeopleSoft system needed to be upgraded as close as possible to “delivered” PeopleSoft. In the previous upgrades, the documentation was recorded, but the information was not organized in a useable format. There was a requirement to understand the previous upgrades to upgrade the system as efficiently as possible.
OSC was also implementing PeopleSoft ePay that required testing of the ePay system for all employee categories to allow employees to change their W-4 tax information, review their paychecks, and review their W-2s. This included being able to identify all test scenarios, write valid testing scripts and select employees that fit those test scenarios. OSC’s payroll covers approximately 300,000 and multiple pay-cycles are used. CMA’s PeopleSoft system knowledge was needed on the testing team.
The Solution
CMA was the right choice to support the solution because of CMA’s experience in implementing and upgrading PeopleSoft Payroll and HCM systems. CMA’s PeopleSoft expertise was needed to guide the project in identifying the requirements and differentiating between delivered and custom PeopleSoft payroll processes.
OSC was also implementing ePay and CMA’s experience in writing test scripts and testing the PeopleSoft system was vital to the implementation of ePay. This also included writing SQL scripts to accumulate the correct employees to test all phases of ePay correctly.
CMA’s solution was to first review previous upgrades to understand the current state of OSC payroll. During this process the analysis required to understand each upgrade process and then determine what custom functionality was carried forward or replaced with either delivered PeopleSoft or new custom processes. CMA had to understand why the custom changes were made before recommendations could be made to either keep the custom changes or use delivered PeopleSoft. Visio process flows were created for OSC business processes and delivered PeopleSoft business processes.
Business processes were assigned to functional team members and documents were created that stated the current OSC business process and the delivered PeopleSoft business processes. Once the documents were created, meetings were scheduled with the OSC Subject Matter Experts (SME) to review the documents. CMA documented Contract Pay, Savings Plans, and Retirement Plans. From reviewing the requirements of the OSC custom changes, CMA determined there was a business requirement for each change made in all previous upgrades. For example, OSC processes eight retirement plans that require added functionality that the application PeopleSoft did not provide.
CMA’s involvement in the ePay testing consisted of updating the test scripts, writing SQL queries to be used to update the employee testing documents, and testing the ePay system. Any problems were reported to the technical team for review and retested.
The Results
CMA’s involvement first helped the team of consultants understand PeopleSoft 9.2 business processes. The documents provided for the team of previous upgrades and weekly meetings provided the opportunity to share ideas and create the business process documents that were used in the upgrade. CMA’s expertise also provided the training needed for the consulting team.
CMA’s experience in implementing public sector and understanding the business processes of savings plans and retirement plans added greatly to the project. To understand why the changes were made and why PeopleSoft didn’t satisfy OSC requirements led to creating a project plan addressing all requirements for the project.
CMA’s testing and system experience greatly affected the successful testing of the ePay system. CMA provided the knowledge through SQL to accumulate the correct testing employees needed to meet all test scripts and update PeopleSoft for any scenarios that needed to be tested. CMA’s overall knowledge of payroll also added to the successful completion of the ePay system.