Workday

I have been having a close look at Workday.

UPDATE: This webcast is a bit waffly but is a good primer on Workday. There is a discussion around the absence of customization at the 35 minute mark. And doing no customization at 40 minute mark (experience and outcomes) and integration tools, role of IT dept. and governance at 51 min.

UPDATE: There are Workday services in the government CloudStore.

Some detailed information about the product set is available on the internet but these are the questions I have not found answers to. Anyone know the answers?

• What degree of ‘personalisation/configuration’ is possible - I'm guessing that page fields can be hidden, re-labelled, calculated etc. What else is possible?
  Answer - some columns can be added (reporting issues),
• How do you migrate changes between instances (meta data/config/master data/other setup)?
• What is the toolset like? Fat like PStools/jDeveloper? How do you debug or is it a ‘blackbox’?
   Answer - All Web apart from the integration tools.
• How is reporting facilitated. At the pre-defined object level?
• How are local legal changes catered for, i.e. VAT and Payroll?
• As there is no on-premise option how do you ‘order up’ a test/dev instance? Is it Vanilla? Can you automate a migration process from, say, another dev instance?
Answer - It appears you get one test/dev instance: http://www.kloud-consulting.com/your-organisations-workday-deployment-how-to-build-an-enduring-relationship/
• How do you integrate local or 3rd party solutions, such as say Bottomline payments solutions, just how far does the ‘Cloud integration platform’ go. Do you need another SOA system?
Answer - The Cape Clear base tools are good and getting better
• How do you keep integration's in sync with WDs twice yearly upgrade cycle. What breaks? How do you control the cut-over (other than version-ed web services)?
• How do you\can you set-up multi-currency, multi-language, multi-book, multi-BU etc?
• Can you get down and ‘see’ the data in the noSQL value pair DB? What is the lowest level of interrogation? Do you only look at what comes out of the web services or can you dig deeper.?


After watching a technical webcast it appears that

• There is no access to the underlying database from the applications.

• All data held in the memory. Data saved to persistence store and DR site. No access to the store.

• SaaS updates x2 year. Not x2 a decade.

• Native iPad application – zero cashing

• Looks like the config is done on the browser. No customisations only configurations.

• Enterprise integration builder – For simple single entity integrations ,simple manipulations.

• Workday Studio – Eclipse based framework (fat) developer level tool – to roll your own integrations rather than use the delivered ones or other pre built examples. Workday Studio provides full SOA tool orchestration etc.

• Modern search based UI – like Windows 8 or Ubuntu Unity

• DR sites are full replica's.

References

http://aboutworkday.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/moving-from-peoplesoft-to-workday.html http://www.hrlab.com/workday-technology-review.php https://community.workday.com/node/3539#hcm-ldap https://community.workday.com/book/export/html/117
https://forms.workday.com/uk/landing_page/webinar_the_register_simplifying_it_with_cloud_lp.php?camp=70180000000poPY&campid=ukhm_fma_no_de_14.1123

Blogging

Why blog?

For me? Well to clarify and expand my thoughts. To trigger discussion. To share the 20-30 sets of work related notes that might be worth sharing.

Technical Blogging

Oracle EBS Technology Review [Draft]

When I started supporting Oracle EBS I could find little summary information that answered technical questions. So I thought I’d try and capture the technical essence of the product and with hindsight answer some of the questions I originally had. I aim to do this over just a couple of pages.

Oracle E-Business Suite is a comprehensive collection of enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management and supply chain management software. This functionality is split into various modules integrated to a greater or lesser degree on a single platform. The product is very widely implemented across thousands of organisations in many counties. Viewed as somewhat legacy in nature Oracle is continuing to extend and maintain the product. The latest version, 12.2, contains technology from, and a path towards, Oracle's leading edge technology ‘Fusion’. Unlike some of the application suites that Oracle has acquired over the last 10 years it continues to successfully sell EBS.

The Oracle applications division was foundered in 1987 and the software that forms EBS originates from that time. The different parts of EBS have been created and extended by teams across the world ever since then. It would be interesting to know what the oldest technical elements are of the current release. But the main issue from a support perspective is that different parts of the application will have been implemented using different tools and technologies. They have evolved using different design approaches and standards. For example some of the core HRMS modules have been written using PL/SQL and Forms and have a common debugging framework that experienced technical supporters will be able to use to help diagnose problems. Other modules such as finance have evolved over a similar time period but code elements are not built using the same approaches and debugging framework as HRMS. The self service parts of HRMS were written many years later using evolving technologies particularly in the user interface elements.

It is very much a suite of applications and technologies rather than an integrated product and unlike some other enterprise software it can only be run on an Oracle database. There are a number of advantages of being tightly integrated into a database. The main one being that code can execute within the database. This can lead to massive performance improvements compared with transferring data within a client server architecture. A key drawback is vendor lock-in and a proprietary drift away from standards, an example being SQL syntax changes.

Oracle forms runtime discussion here. Master data, transaction data, meta data, configuration data

Large teams comprising people with many different individual specialties are required to implement and support the product. This is one reason for the often long turn around times for changes on such projects. Another is often the lack of knowledge by test teams and approvers of the detailed nature of such changes.

It has evolved and dragged a lot of technology with it since 1987. It’s successful because it is successful with wide adoption across many different types of medium and large scales enterprises. There is a large community of literate users and technical supporters. Oracle is a very healthy company with a presence in many countries. It is a huge product, one person can only know a small subset of functionality or technology. In comparison to PeoplesSoft where over the course of 3 or 4 years it might be possible to have an in-depth understanding of the technology and a sufficient grasp of various functional modules to be able to resolve most problems in a time efficient manor – at least with HRMS.
There is no bundled debugger Support difficulties. Greater emphasis on configuration, via flex fields, fast formula (PL/SQL type code triggered from pre configured points in the systems) rather than customisation. For example in payroll.

The Payroll module is a closed box. In fact only a very people in Oracle fully understand how it works. Oracle does not allow more than two of these people to share the same aeroplane.

One of the first things that will surprise a first time ‘power-user’ or technical developer are the two different ways of interacting with the application from their Office PC. For the most part application functionality is accessed via one of two types of clients. The professional client – which is a ‘fat’ client environment and a thinner html based client. This can result in a some what jarring application experience. For example most of the screens used to hire a new employee are written in Forms but at the point where you enter a new salary a HTML page is spawned that fills the screen. Data entered on this page must be saved separately from the data saved in the forms based page.

The HTML client is delivered by OAF. This is a Java based framework that delivers all the security, a standard look and feel, etc, The tool used to produce and extend this is Oracle's Swiss Army knife JDeveloper.

to be continued.

Visual Management - Skills Matrix

It's important in large technical teams that have diverse skill sets to publicise and celebrate individual skills. All teams have limited resources and need to identify where there are coverage gaps and where training time and effort are best directed. Here are some ideas in this area.

Employee visual management. Put visible targets on the wall. Share knowledge of the teams skills.

Get staff to self assess their skills and share teams knowledge graphically as in this example (hat tip JB).

Technical Skills Visual

Use a proven modelling approach that has a definition of skills levels. Such as the Dreysus model of skill acquisition. After initial self assessment get people together to moderate and refine the information.



Technical Skills Matrix Spreadsheet Example - xlsx

Technical Skills Matrix Example - jpg

To help sustain training efforts keep a team Victory log ( hat tip MH) – containing details of successes outside of the normal day to day activities. To record progress within a team and as a way of influencing positive behaviors across a team.

Here are some examples:

12-Jan-2012: ITIL v3 Foundation exam passed
19-Jan-2012. Volunteered at the Feedback session to represent department members at SMT meeting.
3-Feb-2012. Created SQL archive and guidance
06-Mar-12. Recognition from RE for actionable contribution at the SMT meeting.
26-Mar-12. Quote from VA 'X's understanding of architecture and integration is vital to the work that we are doing. He has provided us with exhaustive list of non functional requirements that should enable xxx project to deliver measurable improvements on ERP interfaces as well as overall customer satisfaction.'
26-Mar-12. Challenged poor quality transition team builds. Builds were re-worked
26-Mar-12. Passed x Exam and used these skills on this project