Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
Report to JOG
May 4, 2000

The new PeopleSoft General Ledger and Project Costing applications have now been in production for more than two years and continue to provide expanded benefits such as more-frequent and shorter closes and expanded reporting capabilities. PeopleSoft delayed the availability of the Public Sector Version 7.5 of their financial applications until September 30. This was more than one year after the 7.5 Commercial Version release. In hindsight, use of the Commercial Version would have been preferable from the start of the project.

We completed the upgrade of the PeopleSoft General Ledger and Projects modules from version 6.0 to version 7.5, with an on-schedule cut over date of March 20. This was the first major upgrade the Laboratory had ever performed to our PeopleSoft financials, and therefore we were required to develop and implement much of the methodology from scratch. We made use of the PeopleSoft Upgrade Lab for this process, which in retrospect we feel to have been absolutely the correct approach, due to the specific expertise and reduced risk they brought to the detailed and painstaking analytical work involved with identifying the disconnects between the two software versions and the code changes required to bridge them. Following this analysis, we conducted a series of structured unit and system tests, and "rehearsals" aimed at correctly converting all of the codes and databases in the shortest possible time in order to minimize disruption to the end user community.

In the end, the cut over took 2-1/2 days, beginning on a Friday, on which the user community was allowed read-only access, and completing ahead of schedule on Sunday afternoon. The project team consisted of three people, working on a part- to full-time basis as required at various times. To summarize the project schedule, preliminary work was done between August and December 1999, the Upgrade lab did their work in December, and this was followed by three intense months of testing and problem solving by our own staff. The total effort invested was just over 9 person-months.

Human Resource System (HRIS)

The main thrust of HRIS Development has been centered on WEB applications. At the start of the fiscal year, we defined the overall design of the HR WEB pages. Using this template, we recently deployed the Current Job Opportunities (cjo.lbl.gov), an online job posting, job search and resume submission application. The application presents real-time requisitions to the browser and saves the applicant's resume directly to the database.

Other WEB applications currently under construction are focused on Employee Self-service Personal Data, Emergency Contact, Training, Paycheck Review, Parking Application, Clearance Holder System, Savings Enrollment, and Training Completion. These applications will be deployed as soon as our user-authentication system is in place.

We are in the process of upgrading the LETS system to Oracle Forms 6.0. This upgrade will allow us to deploy our time reporting system on the WEB.

We are also in the process of implementing a new recruitment system call WEBHIRE. This will replace Resume Reader, marketed by the same company (Restrac), which will cease to be supported after the end of the calendar year.

Budget System

The newly developed budget system has passed its acceptance tests and is being placed into production for this year's budget cycle. The system was developed in-house after extensive evaluation of packaged systems resulted in the conclusion that none of these commercial systems did an adequate job in satisfying the Lab's complex cost allocation processes. The new system (Janus) has proven to be quite intuitive to use and is receiving high marks from users. A two-hour training course in being offered for systems users, but many people feel that even in not needed.

Billing and A/R

We are in the process of implementing the PeopleSoft Billing and Accounts Receivable modules to replace the legacy Work for Others system which is still processed on the IBM system at Litton Industries. Approximately 20% of the work performed by the Lab is for non-DOE organizations for which this new system will generate invoices and manage receipts. Production implementation of the new system is now scheduled for this month. The implementation was delayed by one month at the request of the CFO staff who are currently short of people.

Travel

Extensity has delivered version 4.2 of their travel system. So far, user testing has found that many of the bugs which were in previous version have been corrected, i.e., this version is much more reliable and stable than previous releases. Testing is not yet complete and a schedule for implementation has not yet been set. Owing to the extensive delays in Extensity's deliveries and poor support, we have upgraded our existing legacy travel systems to handle current needs, although we must replace these systems when we have confidence in Extensity.