Robbin Velayedam, Senior Director of Product Management for PeopleSoft HCM Application, presented the PeopleSoft HCM Roadmap at COLLABORATE 19. The roadmap covered planned features and enhancements that customers can expect over the next 12-18 months.

Velayedam highlighted several key items on the current PeopleSoft HCM roadmap:

• Modernizing Job Data
• HR Business Partner & Analytics
• Employee Snapshot—Custom Content
• Benefits—Fluid Summary
• Payroll—Paysheet Update
• Recruiting—Applicant Communications
• Learning—Fluid Instructor Page
• Profile Management—Role Access Enhancements
• ePerformance—Anytime Peer Review, Auto Transfer
• HRHD—Knowledge-based Enhancements
• Time & Attendance—Fluid Schedules, Extended Absence, Workcenters
• Variable Compensation

He then shared four new, exciting PeopleSoft initiatives from the PeopleSoft HCM roadmap that were the focus of his presentation:

• Drop Zones
• Delegations
• Position Management
• Chatbot

Drop Zones

Drop Zones are delivered, pre-defined areas on PeopleSoft Fluid pages. PeopleSoft adds standard Drop Zones to the top and bottom of Fluid pages. Additional Drop Zones can also be strategically added to the middle of a page. Only select Fluid pages will have middle Drop Zones available. You can request additional Drop Zones for your application through the My Oracle Support community webpage by entering your request on the Ideas page. It’s important to note that Drop Zones are not yet available on Fluid grids.

You can use Drop Zones to embed custom content directly on a transaction page rather than placing the content in a separate window or in the related content frame. They are managed as a configuration, not as a traditional customization. This helps minimize ongoing maintenance costs as you move forward. However, Drop Zones must be added by Oracle to be managed as a configuration.

With PeopleTools 8.57, Drop Zones let you add new fields to delivered pages to capture additional data for future processing. This will not affect the lifecycle management process of your PeopleSoft application. Use of Drop Zones requires PeopleTools 8.57 or higher. Oracle recommends using them with PeopleTools 8.57.04 or higher.

Your company can use Drop Zones in a number of ways. You can use them to add text or instructions to a page. For example, you may want to add a statement to certify the correctness of time on the Fluid Timesheet page. You could also use them to add data entry fields to a page. You can even add fields to provide additional information on a page.

The content that you include in Drop Zones is in line with the delivered prompt fields and is context-sensitive. Any record or field included as part of the custom content becomes part of the Component Buffer. When you save the Fluid page data, the custom content in the Drop Zone is also saved. The content fits in seamlessly and is indistinguishable from delivered content on the Fluid page.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of Drop Zones.

Delegations

Lacking the ability to delegate transactions to other people has the potential to stop your business. If you don’t have a tool in place for delegations, it can be detrimental to your business. Luckily, the new Delegation Framework is being redesigned in Fluid to provide an enhanced self-service experience. This enhancement will give managers the ability to delegate authority to proxies for initiating, approving, denying, or pushing back a transaction on a manager’s behalf. Managers will be able to select multiple transactions at once and multiple proxies at once. This enhancement will provide delegators visibility into the actions performed by proxies during the established delegation period.

In addition, users will be able to set up Cascading Delegation Authority. In the previous Delegation Framework, there was no way to pass delegations on to another proxy if the initial proxy needs to delegate. For example, say that the proxy that you established is out of the office sick or on vacation for a period of time. In the new Fluid Delegation Framework, Cascading Delegation Authority allows the transactions of the initial proxy to be passed along to another proxy if necessary. This option is optional and configurable.

Users can also look up and reuse previous delegation requests if needed.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of Delegations.

Position Management

PeopleSoft Position Management enables users to define a Human Resources organization by position, rather than by job or by an employee. This provides better insight into organization planning, administration, recruiting, talent management, and budgeting. In Position Management, a position has its own identity and can be left vacant or refilled later. You can also assign titles, headcounts, job codes, organizational details, compensation, and other options to your positions. One job code could be tied to many positions (i.e. location, department, reporting position, headcount, etc.).

Your PeopleSoft HCM application could be driven by Full or Partial Position Management.

Full Position Management is the more common approach in higher education, government, and healthcare. Every seat is defined and counted for in advance, so leaders account for filled and unfilled positions. This gives a holistic view of the organization and the proposed organizations. With this approach, consistency is key, as attributes of the position do not change as individuals change in their positions.

Partial Position Management is the more common approach in retail positions and businesses with seasonal needs for contract workers. Some seats are defined and accounted for in advance, while others are not. This gives leaders a general view of the key positions in an organization but never a complete view. This approach is most useful in areas where great fluctuation in staff numbers is required.

Recent enhancements to Position Management include functionality enhancements, changes to effective sequencing, Fluid Approvals and attachments, and enhancements to provide a more modern user experience.

Roadmap enhancements for Position Management include:

• Configurable Position Data
• Ability to select the Primary Incumbent
• Improvement of Update Incumbent functionality
• Reporting and Analytics: Vacant Position
• Save as Draft Requests/Changes
• Increase of Position Title field length
• Enablement of Drop Zone
• Customer feedback requests

Check out the video below for a demonstration of enhancements to Position Management.

HCM Chatbot

Chatbots use machine learning to help employees look up information and take action through a chat interface. More often than not, a chatbot can simulate what a conversation would be like if you were talking to another human. The ultimate goal is to achieve your tasks or find your information through a simple, conversational interface instead of having to navigate through menus in your system.

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular in many industries, and they can help increase efficiency in the workplace. The conversations that take place are casual and are designed to help you quickly find the information or complete the task at hand.

The Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) is available as part of the Oracle stack. This Cloud technology identifies entities and intents and powers the chatbot interface. The goal is to integrate PeopleSoft with the ODA to power a chatbot within PeopleSoft. One particular chatbot on the PeopleSoft HCM roadmap is the PeopleSoft Absence Management chatbot.

With the Absence Management chatbot, users will be able to quickly complete tasks like:

• Request or cancel an absence request
• View current or forecast absence balance
• Check the status of absence requests
• Support for all absence types

The PeopleSoft team is also considering additional chatbot applications for Company Directory, paychecks, job openings, applying for jobs, navigation, and more.

Check out the video below for a demonstration of the PeopleSoft Absence Management chatbot.

For more information about the PeopleSoft HCM roadmap, check out Robbin’s full COLLABORATE 19 presentation attached below.

Additional Resources

To learn from the experiences of your peers within the Quest Oracle Community, check out the PeopleSoft Customer Stories page that houses 30+ PeopleSoft customer stories about Selective Adoption, user experience, PeopleSoft in the Cloud, PeopleSoft Human Capital Management, PeopleSoft Enterprise Resource Planning, and PeopleSoft tools and technology!

If you’re looking for more PeopleSoft content, join us at RECONNECT 19, the premier deep-dive PeopleSoft focused event of the year! The event will take place July 16-18 in Rosemont, Illinois. Register by July 11 to take advantage of Advanced rate prices!