PeopleSoft HCM from a techie's point of view
October 19, 2017

PeopleSoft HCM from a techie's point of view

Debra Bongard | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Oracle PeopleSoft HCM

PeopleSoft HCM is used across our organization. Our power users are mostly located in the Payroll, HR, Benefits and Talent Acquisition departments. However, we use Manager Self Service for managers to review data about their employees and to initiate and process transactions (pay changes, terminations, transfers, etc.). We also use employee self service for benefits enrollment, reviewing and updating your own personal information and to view your paycheck. It is the system of record for the core HR, benefits and payroll information in our company and feeds many other systems.
  • We recently upgraded to Fluid - this makes the experience for casual users SO much better! Navigation is easy and intuitive and things are easy to find. Our employees are now much more likely to use self-service than when they had to hunt for the functionality.
  • Fluid also introduced some really great features for our middle-level users as well - having a homepage tailored to them and nav collections that group their common pages together in one easy place makes their work faster and easier. No more navigation, just scroll down and click on the page you want and then click on the next page that you want, etc. Very, very quick and easy and so much faster to learn - you don't have to remember WHERE that process/page is located, it is again, right there in front of you.
  • I also highly recommend workcenters for functions like running the periodic on-cycle payroll. Our payroll group was jumping all over the place to run the "next" process. This tool is similar to nav collections, but allows for queries, also navigates a bit differently and can have the concept of what to run "next". But the same result - much less training and much faster to run the "next" process that is needed.
  • I am a techie - so my quibble with PeopleSoft is technical. They don't make it easy to identify objects related to workcenters, navigation collections, etc. Therefore, it is difficult to migrate changes from one environment to another if you stray from their core objects like pages, components, etc.
  • Another place that leaves room for improvement is the talent acquisition module (TAM). It tries to be so fancy and flexible that it makes it difficult to setup and use. The pages are much more difficult to debug and trace also as they layer and are so dynamic that the "usability" is lost somewhere along the way.
  • My next "room for improvement" is also from a very technical perspective - we have run into PeopleCode bugs for the first time in years. There are multiple bugs in the new functionality, i.e. the "carry ID" doesn't work in a navigation collection and a couple other bugs we coded around in the guided workflow process. They are addressing the issues quickly, but I was surprised there were still bugs out there that seemed so obvious - and that means you need to keep taking tools patches.
  • Finally - the PUM approach vs. doing upgrades to a new version does make it MUCH easier to find and apply patches and enhancements. BUT don't listen to all the sales people that say you never need to do another upgrade. Each "update image" is really like a mini-upgrade and if you want to get new functionality, you will need to plan to "get current" with the update images periodically - which is an upgrade.
  • I am not in a position to really answer this question - to quantify the ROI as a whole. But I do know that the self-service and easy of navigation using Fluid is a major time-saver across the company.
I have only encountered the old Oracle HCM and a Financials systems that added on HCM functionality as an after-thought. PeopleSoft HCM is NOT an after-thought. It is designed well and has very deep and powerful functionality across the HR modules.
It is not appropriate for small companies on a limited budget (unless perhaps you can get it as a "hosted" package - vanilla and you use it "as is" and is maintained by others). Otherwise, it is a powerful, integrated solution for HR, Payroll and Benefits. There is a need for experienced users and technical support, but if you have that, you can really leverage the software to perform functions across the organization - self service functions, complex payroll, automated benefits, etc.

Oracle PeopleSoft HCM Feature Ratings

Employee demographic data
9
Employment history
10
Job profiles and administration
9
Workflow for transfers, promotions, pay raises, etc.
8
Organizational charting
9
Organization and location management
7
Compliance data (COBRA, OSHA, etc.)
9
Pay calculation
10
Support for external payroll vendors
6
Benefit plan administration
7
Direct deposit files
7
Approval workflow
Not Rated
Balance details
8
Annual carry-forward and encashment
Not Rated
View and generate pay and benefit information
10
Update personal information
10
View job history
10
View company policy documentation
6
Employee recognition
Not Rated
Report builder
7
Pre-built reports
6
Ability to combine HR data with external data
5
Performance plans
Not Rated
Performance improvement plans
Not Rated
Review status tracking
Not Rated
Review reminders
Not Rated
Multiple review frequency
Not Rated
Create succession plans/pools
Not Rated
Candidate ranking
Not Rated
Candidate search
Not Rated
Candidate development
Not Rated
Performance tracking
Not Rated
Job Requisition Management
5
Company Website Posting
5
Publish to Social Media
5
Job Search Site Posting
5
Duplicate Candidate Prevention
5
Applicant Tracking
5
Notifications and Alerts
5