PeopleSoft Upgrade & Updates
Trust Dimension Systems to Upgrade Your System
On-Time, On-Budget and On-Shore
With DSI’s proven PeopleSoft Upgrade approach, veteran PeopleSoft architects dig deep into your PeopleSoft environment and infrastructure to determine if you are at the proper level required for the upgrade. We’ll discuss whether:
- This is a technical upgrade to get to current release levels
- You are planning to implement new functionality or
- Other reasons you may have for upgrading your PeopleSoft application
Once this information is known, a project plan is created including planning and implementing new functionality, system and application testing, addressing issues that may arise, moving the system to production and providing you with functional and technical support after go-live. Working with PeopleSoft since version 3, we’ve discovered how to guide you through the upgrade process and implement new functionality.
Customers love our powerful design approach and incredibly detailed time line along with the focus on other often-overlooked details. DSI’s talented 9.2 PeopleSoft Upgrade team is ready to help make your upgrade process go as smooth as silk with 100% guaranteed on-time every-time delivery.
Steep update learning curves often prevent simply hiring or renting more bodies. Do you have the time required to invest in your IT team to get up to speed to update and maintain your PeopleSoft application and technical environment? With DSI, think results-guaranteed upgrades and get the punctuality and reliability that even Swiss clock makers would find impressive.
Functional PeopleSoft Consulting Expertise
Our PeopleSoft application consultants can assist you with implementation and support of your PeopleSoft application. Our consultants are experienced with General Ledger, Purchasing, Supply Chain and Human Resources.
This concentration provides for minimal ramp-up time while bringing options and consultative perspective to the project. We can assist you in a number of ways, including:
Fit Analysis
Gap Analysis
Business Process Analysis
Testing and Validation
Configuration and Setup
Design Production Support
Technical PeopleSoft Consulting Expertise
DSI’s technical consultants have worked with PeopleSoft since 1993 and have been involved in many implementations and upgrades.
We provide daily production and end-user support for a large number of customers.
Our application consultants work with clients on a daily basis, providing end-user support both for day-to-day production issues and in determining best-fit approaches to enhance the client’s use of the system.
Our DBAs and infrastructure consultants are second to none when it comes to making sure that the database, application server and web server run efficiently.
Our proactive technical monitoring services provide automated notification of issues before they escalate to a level that impacts the client. Our clients know that when they retain our technical consultants, our staff will have substantial experience with the particular technology and release level to make an immediate impact.
PeopleSoft Maintenance
DSI provides PeopleSoft maintenance support, where DSI manages the application of fixes, bundles, maintenance packs and service packs on either a fixed-fee or time & labor basis including the Product Update Manager (PUM) image updates within the latest version of PeopleSoft 9.2
In addition to major releases PeopleSoft delivers updates in a number of ways, including:
- Fixes – This is the smallest unit of maintenance. A fix generally resolves a single issue.
- Bundles are accumulations of Fixes for a particular module for a specific time period – usually one month.
- Maintenance Packs are accumulations of bundles across all modules for a specific time period – usually one quarter.
- Service Packs are complete application releases with all of the latest patched code.
- Sometimes new functionality is introduced in service packs, but the focus is generally on bug fixes.
- Service Packs are released about once per year depending on the amount of fixes that needs to be included.
Fixes, Bundles and Maintenance Packs can all be installed using Change Assistant if you’re running the more current application releases. If you’re running an older application release the install process is similar to the following:
- Determine the maintenance level you want to get to.
- Identify all of the prerequisites for that level.
- Determine the correct order to apply the maintenance.
- Carefully follow the instructions to apply each maintenance pack, bundle, and/or fix in Demo.
Identifying prerequisites and determining the correct order to apply them can be a time consuming process. It generally involves researching each maintenance pack, bundle or fix on Customer Connection and reviewing prerequisites. Then you should check the prerequisites to the prerequisites.
One way to do this is to track each patch in a spreadsheet with their prerequisites and post date to determine what order they should be applied. To make it easier, be sure to apply the patch that has the largest number of fixes at a time — apply a maintenance pack if you can, otherwise apply a bundle or finally apply an individual fix.
The following steps will be performed regardless of if you’re using Change Assistant or not:
- Apply the updates to Demo.
- Run compare reports.
- Apply the PeopleSoft delivered maintenance to the development environment.
- Reapply customization's.
- Apply the maintenance plus customization's to the test environment.
- Test the application.
- Migrate the updates to Production.
Since service packs are complete application releases, you’ll have to follow the upgrade methodology to apply them. The general approach is to create a new Demo environment from the CD’s, run compare reports and follow the instructions to create an upgrade project. Followed by migrate into a copy of production, reapply customization's, test the move to production, etc. The upgrade methodology allows for a PeopleTools upgrade to occur at the same time, so it’s often a good time to combine a Tools upgrade with an Application upgrade and save some testing time.
Service packs are more than the sum of the fixes that make them up. If you apply all of the bundles or even maintenance packs that were included in a service pack, you still don’t necessarily have the equivalent of the service pack installed. According to an conversation I once had with Oracle support, service packs have code that may not have been applied when you applied a maintenance pack (because you haven’t licensed a module for instance), or it may not have been released with a maintenance pack.
Testing should be structured so that all modules that you applied patches for are tested, along with their upstream and downstream processes. A Service Pack upgrade should include a test of the entire application.
Rely on DSI for Your Organization's Next PeopleSoft Upgrade!
If your PeopleSoft application is overdue for an upgrade, consider contacting DSI. Our professionals (most of whom have 10+ yrs. with DSI) have a wealth of knowledge with HCM, Financials, Campus Solutions, other PeopleSoft components and more. We’ll compare your customizations, help avoid reporting impacts, develop accurate data conversions, consult on your critical maintenance needs and much more.
Discover The 4 Common Mistakes Made When Upgrading Your PeopleSoft Applications
Upgrade mistakes and delays early in a project can cascade and strain any well-intended plan. To reach tight go-live targets, large projects require precision work and adherence to the project plan to complete the upgrade in a fast and specific way.
Because PeopleSoft upgrades are lengthy, complex and time consuming for your IT staff and end users, we’ve created a detailed guide to the “4 Common Mistakes Made When Upgrading PeopleSoft Applications." Download it for free below. Questions? Contact us.
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