George Beinhorn WriteRemedy 240 Monroe Drive #514 Mountain View, CA 94040 (650) 248-9878

Managing PeopleSoft Applications

David Post Kintana, Inc.

Table of Contents

Introduction Document Purpose and Scope The Challenge of Managing PeopleSoft Applications The Request-to-Implementation Process Kintana Accelerator for PeopleSoft The Benefits of Using Kintana to Manage Peoplesoft Applications Conclusion

Introduction
The rush flurry of new business initiatives in that marks today's eCommerce environment requires that companies keep their that a company's PeopleSoft applications responsive and up to date. be continually customized. The IT departments must not only respond to management's handle these customization requests for rapid changes, but must efficiently, while performing its normal work securely to minimize e costly system downtime. IT's IT's task is further further complicated by the the endless stream of software patches and updates arriving from delivered by PeopleSoft.

Document Purpose and Scope

In tThis document, we will examine the challengess of managing PeopleSoft applications, and we will explain and how Kintana's products transform PeopleSoft applications management into an efficient, responsive, and reliable process. are uniquely designed to address those challenges. In gathering data for this paper, Kintana conducted numerous numerous focus groups meetings and telephone interviews with PeopleSoft users. customers.

The The Challenges of Managing PeopleSoft Applications

Implementing, upgrading, and maintaining a PeopleSoft application requires constant, complex interaction among among a variety of groups, including end users, business analysts, and application development staff, and production staffs.operations. Lacking Lacking a clearly enforced clearly enforced process for automating repetitive manual tasks, and streamlining communications, most companies' IT departments must resort to cobbled- together solutions workarounds that continually cause delays and place the entire system security at risk.

The risks The dangers of poorly managed PeopleSoft applications include: Delayed Time to Market

Missed deadlines Broken Service Level Agreements Delays Delays in aligning aligning PeopleSoft applications with new business initiatives Delays in implementing and upgrading projects

Compromised System Stability

Manual patch-handling leads to result in incomplete system changes that can cause can cause system downtime. In a fairly typical example, case, an operator applies only only the online portion of a patch from PeopleSoft patch that includes contains fixes to online panels and batch programs. As a result, tThe batch processes aren't updated, and the indexes aren't rebuilt. [Result?] A lThe ack absence of a formal process of formal notifications, approvals, and escalations tempts over-stressed over-stressed technical personnel to slam fixes into the production system. These careless fixes may alleviate immediate problems, but frequently break dependent functionality. Without Lacking formal approvals and escalations, mistakes in turnover documents can easily result in result in incomplete changes and broken system functionality. For example, if a When the developer of a custom online panel fails fails to provide include all of the required installation steps and components in a the turnover document, for example, production operations may deploy the incomplete change.

Increased Expanding Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)

Few Most IT departments possess the tools to fail to automate all of the repetitive, repetitive manual PeopleSoft PeopleSoft chores that waste time, cause errors, and tie up high-level staff. that invite errors and tie up high-level staff. These routine manual tasks, which must be performed daily, , which must be performed daily, include applying patches, moving batch programs, and rebuilding indexes and views. Errors introduced during Manual tasks are manual operations require expensive fraught with timewasting errors and backtracking, resulting in that result in reduced ed productivity, and revenue and increased risk of system downtime, and loss of revenue. Project delays and missed deadlines affect the bottom line Inefficient processes and backtracking lead to result in employee frustration, frustration, overtime, absenteeism, and and turnover, forcing companies to waste time and money on necessitating costly talent searches activities and new-employee training.

jj The Request -to -Implementation process

"Request to Implementation" refers to the end-to-end process of accepting, routing, and implementing enduser requests for changes in PeopleSoft applications. Whether it is during PeopleSoft implementation or post implementation maintenance, Request to Implementation is a key process that is repeated over and over again. Example 1. : An end- user identifies a problem with a data- entry panel. The is request for a fix is needs to be communicated to a business analyst, who has to identifiesy whether it is a PeopleSoft problem or an internal issue. Based on the assessment, either a patch may should be requested from PeopleSoft, or an internal fix may be requiredneeds to be developed. The patch or the internal fix is then will then be sent deployed to QA for approval before being it can be deployed to

Production. Example 2.: During the the construction phase of a new PeopleSoft n implementation, an end-user identifies a new requirement. is identified. Theis new request for a change must has to be communicated to the project team, and h and high- level and detailed design documents must need to be updated. T. The customization is has to be developed, and each step and every component of the change is documented. has to be documented. All the components of the change must then then have to be consistently deployed to all the environments. Inefficiencies in Traditional Request to Implementation Schemes The Request to Implementation process is composed of manual processes with ineffective communication and coordination. CMost of the communications are is conducted by via e-mail, phone calls, hand-written notes, and hallway conversations. or voice mail. Progress of the request is not easily visible to all of the involved partiesKeeping everyone informed of . There is no easy way to comprehensively look at all the progress of each patches and customizationns in progress requires a series of t. The result isime-wasting non-value added status meetings. which are conducted periodically to keep everyone informed. No one has a real-time view of the passage of a change request through every phase of the system. The lack of a There is no uniform, automated process for to deploying changes , which frequently results in deployment of s in incomplete changes. deployment Processes such as rebuilding indexes or views must be performed manually, even though of changes. PeopleSoft provides utilities for to copying online objects to other environments. , but still manual processes such as rebuilding indexes or views need to be performed. Batch programs such as Cobol files, SQR, and Crystal Reports must need to be manually moved and installed manually. If a version-control system is in place, mManual checkout and promotions must need to be performed for batch programs if a version control system is used. CNo clear audit trails are not maintained, exists for changes to PeopleSoft applicationsmaking it extremely time-consuming to trace . Tracing a changes all the way back to the initial request by following a complex trail of , all the approvals and deployments history for online and batch objects.s is highly tedious task. Figure 2 shows the twenty-one separate twenty one different steps that must that need to be performed in sequence to process a user request under traditional application management. through completion. There is no No built-in mechanism exists to help coordinate and drive that drives theis process, and staff are forced to communicate through ad-hoc step by step, other than the e-mail, ls, phone calls, and written messages, and status meetings. Most of the steps are manual, with limited or nonexistent no audit trails to document and justify for reviewss, approvals,s and software deployment. PeopleSoft delivers frequentdelivers frequent patches and payroll tax updates through its the Customer Connection web site. Each of tThese changes must need to be applied promptly to keep the PeopleSoft environment current. The process of applying the patches and updates is fraught with the same inefficiencies and risks similar to shown in the process shown in Figure 2.

Automating PeopleSoft Management with The Kintana Product Suite

Complex applications such as PeopleSoft can be a handful to manage. Add the difficulties of ensuring that all of the pieces work together harmoniously and securely, and it's easy to see why many companies are beginning to look for an integrated, end-to-end solution that turns application management into an efficient, automated technology chain.

Kintana is that solution. Kintana standardizes the Request to Implementation process for all of a company's eCommerce components, from high-level workflows to the finest details. Kintana defines, automates, and optimizes each step of each process, giving companies the ability to manage complex eCommerce applications easily, speedily, and with complete, real-time control. Kintana automates all of the error-prone manual processes that prevent a company's IT department from aligning its Kintana is the leading provider of eBusiness infrastructure, which transforms organizations into Adaptive Enterprises. The result is business systems on a pace that are always in alignment with its the business initiatives. Executive mandates, project initiatives and end user requests are effectively managed, and system changes are automatically deployed to all the business applications. The Kintana Accelerator for PeopleSoft transforms the is designed to manage, start to finish, the Request to Implementation process into a fast, efficient closed loop. process. Its unique active workflow engine allows companies to enables modeling their business processes and and automate ing all the manual steps. Built using 100% pure Java technology, it is accessible from any web browser Kintana maintains a . A complete audit trail of user requests, notifications, approvals, and software deployments (batch and online) is preserved in a central Oracle RDBMS repository. Built using 100% pure Java technology, the PeopleSoft Accelerator can be accessed using any standard web browser Request Management with Kintana Create Kintana Create is the Request Management component of the Kintana Product Suite that manages requests. Kintana product suite. A web browser is used to End-users quickly and easily log requests with access Kintana Create, entering to quickly log requests. Based on the type of request, Kintana Create gathers all of the detailed request specific information that will be required to make sure the information is complete in order to facilitate rapid quick resolution of the request. The wWorkflow then drives the request through the appropriate business processes of for notifications, analysis, approval, resolution, and disposition. Finally, Kintana Create passes qQualified requests are passed to Kintana Deliver for development and deployment of changes. Managing Deployment with Kintana DeliverManagement Kintana Deliver is the is the Deployment Management component of the Kintana Product Suite that manages the deployment of application changes. Kintana product suite. Developers use A web browser is used to access Kintana Deliver a standard web browser for Developers to capture all the components of the software cChange rRequest. The . The Kintana Deliver wWorkflow then drives the cChange rRequest through the application development life cycle. ( (A sample cycle might be:example , Development =-> Test -=> Staging -=> Production).) During development and deployment, this process, Kintana Deliver automatically sends e-mail notifications are sent to the appropriate parties s over e-mail and gathers online approvals are obtained before the changes are deployed. to an environment. Kintana Deliver invokes the appropriate Kintana Accelerator to deploy the changes. Currently Kintana Accelerators for PeopleSoft, SAP R/3, Oracle Applications, eCommerce and custom applications are available. This document covers only the PeopleSoft Accelerator. To learn about other Kintana Accelerators please refer documents available at Kintanas web site (www.kintana.com). Deploying Changes Automating Change-Deployment with Kintana Accelerator for PeopleSoftto PeopleSoft Kintana Deliver invokes t The Kintana Accelerator for PeopleSoft is invoked by Kintana Deliver to perform the actual application actual changes. . Kintana Deliver It interacts with PeopleSoft using documented, PeopleSoft- documented, approved APIs. The PeopleSoft Accelerator can automatically deploy customizations, PeopleSoft patches, and tax updates to both online and batch programs. In addition, the PeopleSoft Accelerator it performs all the necessary post- deployment steps, such as such as compiling Cobol programs and or rebuilding indexes and views.

In the example shown in Figure 4 shows how , Kintana Create drives a User Request (#25200) for a software patch has been driven through the request- management process, by Kintana Create and how Kintana Deliver creates a Software Change Request (#56700) is created in Kintana Deliver to apply the software patch. from PeopleSoft. The software patch consists of both online changes and batch program changes, as shown in the figure.diagram. The PeopleSoft Accelerator automatically performs all the necessary steps required to deploy the software patch.

The Benefits of Kintana using Kintana to manage PeopleSoftfor managing PeopleSoft

Faster Reduce Time to Market Kintana streamlines the Request to Implementation process by automating and automates resourceintensive manual tasks. The Kintana workflow engine drives the process from start to finish, . It notifying ies appropriate parties and escalating es requests if if there is a bottlenecks occur. in the process. Kintana frees high-level staff Critical resources are freed from doing mundane repetitive manual chores and keeps tasks. Workflow driven communication keeps all parties everyone informed of the status of each all requests and changes. The result is drastically reduced s, the time to market market for business initiatives. is drastically reduced. Figure 5 shows how Kintana manages the Request to Implementation process, from Step by step process from initial user request from a user to final deployment. ing the customization to production environmentNotice that Kintana requires just using Kintana is shown in Figure 5. In this example, it takes only six manual steps to to process a a user request that would otherwise have required all the way to production. In contrast, it takes twenty- one manual steps. to perform the same process without using Kintana.

Benefits
System Stability Kintana dramatically improves s System stability, by is dramatically improved as a result of automating of all the error- prone manual tasks and . preserving dDetailed audit trails. Because preserved by Kintana brings instant accountability. Since Kintana performs all the installation procedures, access to production servers and database schemas can be restricted to a select group, for increased of people, there by reducing security. risk. Total Cost of Ownership Kintana reduces the t Total cost of ownership for of PeopleSoft applications is dependent on various factors. Kintana helps to reduce TCO in several significant ways:by: Automation of manual tasks. Kintana automates the Resource intensive, repetitive manual tasks required to to apply software patches, updates, and customizations, freeing high-level staff to do the jobs they are being paid for. Kintana improves communication, e are automated. Eliminating the need for time-wasting es non-value-added meetings to inform staff of the status of updates and changes. to discuss the status of requests and changes. Kintana preserves dDetailed audit data, information preserved by Kintana saving es countless man-hours that would be required to , otherwise spent in tracine g the origins of specific changes manually.

Retention of skilled staffresources. IEn today's extremely tight technical labor market, mployee turnover of skilled employees can cause huge delays and major outlays. for highly skilled resources is a common problem. Highly skilled staff are frustrated by the daily requirement to perform resources dont enjoy performing mundane repetitive manual chores. task everyday. By automating the highly manual tasks, Kintana automates these manual tasks, freeing these high-paid allows highly skilled employees resources to focus their skills on in performing more strategic value-added services. Jactivities. This improves job satisfaction soars, eliminating the need for costly, time-consuming and prevents the exorbitant costtalent searches and training. of hiring and ramping up resources. Reduced ing system downtime. In today's eCommerce marketplace, customers expect system availability and reliability. DSystem downtime is simply unacceptable. means lost productivity of employees and lost revenue opportunity. Kintana's brings uniform, automated, repeatable processes in managing PeopleSoft. This eliminates all the human error,, for greatly improved system stability and reduces security. risks, and improves system stability.

Summary
The Kintana Product Suite enables companies to realize their business initiatives rapidly and securely. Kintana transforms complex, error-prone traditional PeopleSoft management into a fast, efficient, automated technology chain, for significantly reduced costs and accelerated time to market. Over 200 major companies now use Kintana to manage their eBusiness applications, including Applied Materials, Cisco Systems, Hitachi Data Systems, Insweb, Michelin, and Stanford University. These companies have discovered that the future of eCommerce application management can be found at Kintana today. Kintana brings a uniform way of managing all the business applications, in addition to PeopleSoft. When a business initiative result in business system changes to PeopleSoft, custom web applications, and interfaces to other ERP systems, the changes can be packaged into one logical change request and deployed uniformly to all business systems.