PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Reviews and Ratings

Rating: 7.1 out of 10

Score

7.1 out of 10

Reviews

10 Reviews

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions a Robust and Fully Featured Solution

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

June 6, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Oracle's PeopleSoft Campus Solutions as our system of record across campus. It handles everything a significant amount of the daily processing we do for our students. Campus Solutions makes sure we support students in aid processing, records changes, scheduling, and many other key functions. This product is far superior for processing than what the government provides. You have a useful front end piece for the students and detailed back end for our users. The automated processing tools are numerous and easy to use once implementation is complete. Security is updated often and Oracle is still committed to supporting the product for at least a decade into the future so the software is guaranteed to have longevity at least in the short run.

Pros

There are only edge situations where this product doesn't have the tools you need already built in.
Oracle customer support continues to be dedicated to adding features and supporting the product.
Security is often updated and we haven't had any concerns.
The user community is active and solutions are available quickly.
Oracle has committed to supporting the product deep into the future.

Cons

Often the government is slow with their specifications which means that it can take time to get the newest features implemented.
Some bugs persist and will continue to unless enough other users request the issue be corrected.
There are some modules that PeopleSoft Campus Solutions does not handle well and Oracle seems content to let 3rd party vendors fill the void.
The product is certainly not cheap.
Implementation will likely take years and cost a significant amount of money.
New cloud solutions (SaaS) might be poised to take over some of the space.

Likelihood to Recommend

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is a fully robust solution for large campuses and University systems. The tools it provides are powerful and scalable. It can handle anything from 1,000 students to over 100,000. The issue because spreading that cost around. Smaller schools will probably need a dedicated functional staff and an information systems staff to handle the chore of managing the system. Although many of the tools allow for automated processing it take a considerable amount of effort to get to that point and the upfront and maintaining costs should be considered.

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Campus Solutions for Student interfacing systems!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

November 20, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is used across the whole organization as well as in my department for all daily work tasks; we pretty much lived in this software to help assist all students. This is student facing and students are able to track progress in their degrees, courses, grades etc. We used it for all aspects of our work. It made it a one stop shop.

Pros

Degree progress for students and tracking
Tracking of course enrollment and progress for individual students
Housing all things pertaining to each student as a whole
Tracking students success as they reach graduation

Cons

Setting up classroom scheduling
User interface design, looks of the site
Search capabilities using more indicators

Likelihood to Recommend

This software is well suited for any campus to track student progress, as well as the administrative side of the student's file. This is a one stop shop for all things student related for both the student as well as the administrator in tracking all aspects of where the student is at in regards to their file.

Erica Terry

Advising and Admissions Counselor at CSUSM (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

View profile

Nice Feature Set, But Be Ready For Customization

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

November 17, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use PeopleSoft Campus Solutions as our student records information system. It addresses a lot of business problems, such as admissions, class registration, academic advisement, graduation auditing, and enrollment reporting. At our university, Campus Solutions is used by several different departments, including Admissions, the Registrar's Office, academic departmental offices, professors, and IT.

Pros

The Query Manager tool is useful - especially for users who are not comfortable writing SQL queries. Query Manager also allows Security staff to dictate exactly what access to grant to query writers.
Campus Solutions offers several batch-style functions, such as batch transcript requests and batch degree conferral. There is a Population Selection option that allows you to use a query or Excel file to specify the students who are in the batch.
The Communication Generation process allows users to create batch emails or letters that include mail-merge style data for each individual receiving the communication. There is a Microsoft Word plugin that allows you to craft the message that will be sent, and they can be sent on a set schedule or when certain trigger conditions occur.

Cons

The process for reporting enrollment and degrees to the National Student Clearinghouse is not very flexible or comprehensive. In fact, there is no option for creating an extract file for sending degrees, and since the NSC requires this, each institution must create a custom process for this. Regarding enrollment reporting, the delivered Consolidated Statistics process does not provide accurate reporting for our university. Some students who are in multiple programs at once only get reported for one of the programs, so manual checks and corrections are needed.
There are many areas where Campus Solutions did not meet our needs, so we outsourced those particular areas to different vendors. Examples are: Course catalog maintenance, creating new classes each term, student advising, and room scheduling.
Campus Solution offers a fluid interface that allows students to register for classes using a mobile device, but we encountered so many bugs with the Fluid Class Search that we have had to abandon it for now.

Likelihood to Recommend

Campus Solutions is a solid product. It is used successfully by large and small institutions across the world. A fair amount of customization should be expected, as the delivered functions just aren't flexible enough for specific needs sometimes. If an institution has the developer bandwidth to support some customization, then this is a great product. It offers a seemingly never ending supply of efficient functions, such as Activity Guides, which allow the institution to assign desired tasks to end users, such as updating their emergency contact information. Students could be assigned a registration hold until they have completed their tasks.

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (5001-10,000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

Solid product with room for usability improvement

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

September 18, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Used to administer student records, transcripts, registration, and financial aid.

Pros

Records management
Financial aid packaging
Course enrollment

Cons

The user interface can be way better
Usability of the application should be improved.
Data analytics and reporting functions should be improved upon

Likelihood to Recommend

CS is well suited if you have a complex set of student records management and course registration rules. It is perhaps overkill if your business processes are simple or if you are a school (vs. a University) with less, or just one academic unit.

Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Campus Solutions - Stable yet Stagnant

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

April 15, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

KU uses Campus Solutions as our Student Information System. It populates our learning management system through an export of XML formatted in the SAIP standard by IMS Learning Consortium. It is used enterprise wide to drive all Student information, including Enrollments, Classes, Courses, Instructors, and Grades. While incredibly powerful, it's starting to feel a bit outdated.

Pros

Handles large amounts of data really well. Based on Oracle databases, the data processing for a large University is pretty impressive. We base many integrations on nightly exports that run without issue 99.99% of the time.
Allows for massive amounts of configurations. We've highly configured the system to provide more meaningfully arranged information to end users. We've also hired consultants to make the systems mobile friendly.
Permissions are handled pretty well. Different users need different access to student data. This is handled pretty neatly within the access tables.

Cons

The user interface is lacking. This may improve with new support for Fluid, which allows for configuration of pages using HTML and CSS - but the interface as it stands looks like it's from the 90's. Everything is nested and it's hard to search for anything.
Data integrations are difficult. Currently, we think of data integrations as moving a .csv or .xml file for consumption by another service. It may just be our organization's approach, but Peoplesoft seems to lack RESTful APIs and other data flow that would make modern integrations much easier. Many of our systems rely on views directly into the database, which is concerning.
Upgrade cycle is continuous. This may sound like a good thing, but instead it ties up resources to always be applying a Bundle or handle an Upgrade. It consumes most of our developer time, so there is hardly any time to reimagine processes or to restructure customizations. Most effort is spent just keeping the system updated and running, rather than focusing on improvements.
Customizations create headaches. Every upgrade typically removes customizations that have to be reapplied and retested. While the customization is nice, it creates longer term headaches down the road.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are already a big user of Oracle products, then PeopleSoft Campus Solutions will feel really familiar, and will pair well with other solutions like PeopleSoft HR/Financials. I'd avoid it for any new integrations, as it just seems to be more of a hassle to keep up to date, and less about progressing forward.

Matthew Deakyne

Academic Services Manager in Information Technology at The University of Kansas (10,001+ employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Very customizable solution for schools and helps in storing/retrieval of student info

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

March 8, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Campus Solutions across the campus especially to house student information and records and student management. Oracle Peoplesoft CS is our system of records for all students admitted to the university. All financial information, class information, bio-data information is stored in Peoplesoft CS and can be accessed by staff and faculty who have the right access. This brings student info to the forefront and helps us better serve our students.

Pros

It is web based so one can access it from anywhere, even outside of the university's network. Providing a way for staff/faculty to easily access student records from anywhere in the world provided they have a reliable internet connection.
It is relatively easy to use for basic tasks like looking up a student's bio-data information especially if you are not working in custom bolt-on's configured and developed to work on top of Peoplesoft CS. Once users know how the system works they find it relatively easy to use with little to no issues.
All the different functions can be found on one easy-to-read menu and that the menu never changes. That's important for a tool that is used several times a day!
The system can be customized to meet the demands of your university. Each university can customize the tool so it better serves its community. Custom views can be created and different screens can be provided depending on the need of the particular department.
Security is high and all data is secure. We have it configured with our SSO, so we can control the people who have access to the system. Permissions and privileges can also be given to different modules in Peoplesoft CS so different users have access to different areas of the system and different information. This provides security to sensitive information that may not be intended for all PS users.

Cons

We don't like that you cannot export student grades and information into an excel spreadsheet or document that allows you to edit when necessary. Other tools do this but for a system us robust as PeopleSoft we are surprised you are not able to do this.
Continuing with the schedule, in order to see how many students are registered in a section one has to click on that section which is another waste of time. Each section has a blue square meaning full and a green circle meaning not full. Why can't the number of students be shown instead, or in addition? And to top it off, the number of students is shown so low that one has to scroll each time to see it.
Occasionally, PeopleSoft will randomly stop work, and you will lose all the information you were working on, so I recommend saving your work frequently. PeopleSoft is also not the most user-friendly student information systems. The new update did improve its aesthetic appeal though.
Relying on Oracle system administrators to do all updates and handle any problems that may occur. Sometimes you feel a little helpless and too reliant on the vendor. It takes a while for our admins to update the software because we have so many custom configurations and custom bolt-ons so they all have to be tested thoroughly to make sure nothing breaks when migrated to production. Because of this, our university is always behind when it comes to system updates.

Likelihood to Recommend

Peoplesoft CS is well suited for universities that need an ERP solution for the institution and want something heavy, powerful and very customizable. The only thing to remember is that it requires dedicated resources to constantly be on hand to support and tweak the system. The system is very costly and maintenance costs are high, there is also a need to regularly hire consultants to assist in custom configurations and troubleshooting. For organizations that are smaller and do not need something that requires as much maintenance and cost, they would be better off purchasing a different system.

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Register to use PeopleSoft now for your university

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

February 9, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Campus Solutions is used for a wide variety of back-office functions for higher education and some front end, including course enrollment and registration, grades, identity management, photos and rosters, and other key functions.

Pros

I think it is a great repository of information
We are able to handle a wide array of types of classes and students. Highly flexible.
They have been focused on improvements year over year and worked with us.

Cons

It is big and it takes a lot of resources.
The UI, even using the newest fluid interface, still feels dated.

Likelihood to Recommend

I don't know if it is the right tool for a smaller school. It needs a fair amount of IT and human resource to keep it up and going. With that said, for a bigger university, it really has been a key business tool. It is what allows us to be account for all of our students, classes and grades.

Mark Fitzgerald

Adjunct Professor in Information Technology at Boise State University (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

13 years of experience

View profile

PeopleSoft Review

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

January 19, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's being used in my organization for everything. PeopleSoft is the main software that my organization uses. It is used for payroll, university announcements, payments, etc. PeopleSoft is used for multiple administrative works, accounting work, human resources, faculty work, and more. It addresses multiple problems because it's very versatile as a software.

Pros

It is very diverse and can be used throughout multiple departments
It's a uniform system so you only need to be trained in it once
It's very easy to use and not much training is needed.

Cons

It definitely shuts down on you after a certain amount of time
Since we can only use PeopleSoft, we can't add in other software
It can be very glitchy, and that makes it difficult to work on it

Likelihood to Recommend

It is definitely well suited when you need to use an easy-to-learn software that can be uniform throughout multiple departments. The only scenario that I can think of that would be less appropriate would be accounting. Everything else, such as administrative work, Human resources, IT, etc would be great with this software.

Verified User

Administrator in Human Resources (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

4 years of experience

PeopleSoft, overall good product, but has its shortcomings...

Rating: 5 out of 10

Incentivized

December 14, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is being used mostly in the Career Services Department and across the organization. It's intended to assist with record keeping, rostering, scheduling, and keeping track in general of information for recruiters to help employees, students, etc. Resumes, personally identifiable information, grades, schedules and other important information are stored there.

Pros

It organizes data and information in a more concise and easy to follow manner. I think this is a strength for PeopleSoft due to the user interface and layout.
You can easily run reports out of it and customize them to a certain extent as well. The customizable fields aren't endless, but it gives you enough options to report out what you need. This is a strength because every organization has different needs and wants to uncover different information, so making it customizable is great.
The training modules and sessions were helpful and easy to follow. They don't inundate you with information you don't need and only give you things you do need. It's also presented in a clear and concise manner, easy to follow and easy to remember.

Cons

There was sometimes a lot of lag time between clicks and commands. I'm not sure if this was an issue related to the platform itself or the server, but there were long delays sometimes.
Creating more customizable fields and options for reporting would be nice. Although it does give you some options and variability, offering more with newer releases or updates would be best. Again, every organization needs different information and more options would help other companies adapt and get what they need.
There weren't many upgrades or releases to the platform. And the ones that were released rarely offered anything of great value. There were small security updates and glitch fixes, but nothing earth shattering that set it apart from the others.

Likelihood to Recommend

PeopleSoft is well suited in the education industry, especially for smaller schools that need varying functionality related to scheduling, rosters, grades, curriculum, storing sensitive data, and student information, etc. It's not as well suited to true business models that may have less or more needs for reporting functions or that don't involved scheduling, rosters, students, etc.

Verified User

Contributor in Human Resources (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Eval

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

November 15, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

PCS is the backbone of our Student Enrollment base. All enrollment type information comes out of CS. I provide query, reports, and dashboards on a daily basis for consumption from almost all functional areas around our university. Major business decisions are made based off the information we provide. We also pull CS information to provide data for a number of surveys as well as Institutional reporting.

Pros

Organization of data. The menu type layout makes it easy to navigate to an area of interest. Once there, the pages are fairly intuitive.
Data Input. Data is entered into the system in a very logical way and most data is effective dated. This means you can pull your data for just about any 'snapshot' in time you are looking for.
Data Extraction. Querying data has been made easy using PeopleSoft Query. It's a SQL language developed for Oracle products. It's very similar to standard SQL and by using features like Expressions, it can be pretty powerful.

Cons

There are some nuances that could be improved upon. One would be the issue of not being able to cancel a query once you launch it. They provide a button to cancel the query, but it actually does nothing. Sometimes, if the query is large, it will time out and lock up your screen or simply boot you out of the system.
Scheduling queries could be much easier. There are several steps you need to get familiar with if you want to, say, schedule reoccurring queries and have the results emailed to select recipients. It can be done, but not without a bit of procedural training.

Likelihood to Recommend

PeopleSoft Campus Solutions is perfect if you are looking for a way to house and report on student enrollment data and everything that has to do with the enrolled life cycle of your student base. i.e. enrollment info, class info, graduation rates, persistence, retention, etc. If you are looking for data about your student base prior to enrollment (inquiry stage, application stage, etc.) then you would want to look at a separate system such as PeopleSoft CRM (customer relationship management) or Salesforce.

Verified User

Analyst in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)

Vetted Review

8 years of experience

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Very customizable solution for schools and helps in storing/retrieval of student info

Rating: 4 out of 10

Incentivized

March 8, 2019

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Pros

It is web based so one can access it from anywhere, even outside of the university's network. Providing a way for staff/faculty to easily access student records from anywhere in the world provided they have a reliable internet connection.
It is relatively easy to use for basic tasks like looking up a student's bio-data information especially if you are not working in custom bolt-on's configured and developed to work on top of Peoplesoft CS. Once users know how the system works they find it relatively easy to use with little to no issues.
All the different functions can be found on one easy-to-read menu and that the menu never changes. That's important for a tool that is used several times a day!
The system can be customized to meet the demands of your university. Each university can customize the tool so it better serves its community. Custom views can be created and different screens can be provided depending on the need of the particular department.
Security is high and all data is secure. We have it configured with our SSO, so we can control the people who have access to the system. Permissions and privileges can also be given to different modules in Peoplesoft CS so different users have access to different areas of the system and different information. This provides security to sensitive information that may not be intended for all PS users.

Cons

We don't like that you cannot export student grades and information into an excel spreadsheet or document that allows you to edit when necessary. Other tools do this but for a system us robust as PeopleSoft we are surprised you are not able to do this.
Continuing with the schedule, in order to see how many students are registered in a section one has to click on that section which is another waste of time. Each section has a blue square meaning full and a green circle meaning not full. Why can't the number of students be shown instead, or in addition? And to top it off, the number of students is shown so low that one has to scroll each time to see it.
Occasionally, PeopleSoft will randomly stop work, and you will lose all the information you were working on, so I recommend saving your work frequently. PeopleSoft is also not the most user-friendly student information systems. The new update did improve its aesthetic appeal though.
Relying on Oracle system administrators to do all updates and handle any problems that may occur. Sometimes you feel a little helpless and too reliant on the vendor. It takes a while for our admins to update the software because we have so many custom configurations and custom bolt-ons so they all have to be tested thoroughly to make sure nothing breaks when migrated to production. Because of this, our university is always behind when it comes to system updates.

Likelihood to Recommend

Verified User

Manager in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience