1. PeopleSoft Fluid Implementation & WestRock’s Journey so Far….
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Sreenath Thambi
HCM Development Manager
WestRock

2. Table of Content About WestRock
WestRock Fluid Implementation Background
Why We Chose Fluid
Our Challenges and Solutions
WestRock Customizations
Our Wish List for PeopleSoft
Conclusion

3. About WestRock
WestRock (NYSE: WRK) partners with our customers to provide differentiated paper and packaging solutions that help them win in the marketplace
WestRock’s 45,000 team members support customers around the world from more than 240 operating and business locations spanning North America, South America, Europe and Asia. Learn more at 

4. WestRock Fluid Implementation Background
In 2015 RockTenn merged with MeadWestVaco (MWV) and formed WestRock
At RockTenn PeopleSoft was in use only for US and Canada
After the merger, WestRock had to roll out PeopleSoft to over 30 countries in Europe, South America, Asia and Australia in multiple languages in order to extend PeopleSoft to former MWV locations
Post merger, WestRock chose Fluid Self Service as the employee self service option, GSS to perform MSS actions and Smart HR Templates for Hire/ReHires for all Global countries

5. WestRock Fluid Implementation Background (Ctnd..)
Before Merger
PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 Image 3 and current with all Tax Updates
PeopleTools 8.54
Modules in use:
Core HR, NA Payroll, Base Benefits & Benefits Administration
Classic Employee Self Service
Wizard, a custom Manager and HR Self Service

6. WestRock Fluid Implementation Background (Ctnd..)
After Merger
PeopleSoft HCM 9.2 – Image 3 and current with all Tax Updates
PeopleTools 8.54
Started using true Selective Adoption to apply new features and bugs
Modules in use:
No Change for USA and Canada
Additional functionality implemented for the rest of the World
Fluid Interface
Guided Self Service
Smart HR Templates
Fluid was planned to be used on the Desktop but not on the mobile since we didn’t get permission to expose PeopleSoft to internet
Our initial implementation of Fluid Self Service, GSS and Smart HR Templates was done in less than 2 months of development and testing time and went live in July Subsequent rollout to other countries with slight customizations as required was done in 1 to 3 weeks of development and testing effort

7. Why we chose Fluid Modern and Intuitive User Interface
Functionality Enhancements when compared to Classic
Mobile ready when we are ready
Highly Configurable Guided Self Service
Ability to Compound Transactions in GSS
Mobile ready without having to invest in another mobile application and go through separate mobile development effort

8. Challenges & Our Solutions
Landing Page usability
GSS for HR Administrators
Custom Fields and Country Specific Fields on GSS
No Resubmit Functionality
Display all Pay Components
Security to Personal Details page was all or nothing
Miscellaneous Customizations

9. Challenge #1 – Landing Page Usability
Fluid was rolled out in phases and so Fluid home page can’t be the default home page for all users
Once a user is on the fluid home page, navigating to non-Fluid pages using the NavBar/Navigator was time consuming due to more clicks and also Fluid Navigator is relatively slower from performance standpoint
Secondly Fluid was planned to be rolled out only in phases, presenting the fluid home page for a section of population who are not part of rollout would cause confusion to the users

10. Our Solution – Navigation Collections Pagelets
Navigation Collections and Pagelets that houses both Fluid and non-fluid pages
We created two separate navigation collections pagelets. One for ESS and another for Global HR transactions with a combination of fluid and non-fluid pages.
This method makes it easier and faster for the users to navigate to other sections of the application, yet have all the frequently used Fluid/non-Fluid pages a click away from the home page and also keep the Classic Navigation Style

11. Challenge #2 – GSS for HR Administrators
Our requirement was to rollout GSS to only HR Administrators (as of now) who does the data entry on behalf of Managers
Typical employee selection options for Managers in GSS would be by department security tree, supervisor id etc. None of these options are best suited if we need to extend GSS to HR administrators.

12. Our Solution – Group Build Access Type
Setting up Direct Reports Transaction Configuration by “Group ID”, came to our rescue
HR Administrators would get access to only certain Groups as per their security
Note: However using this option, there were some delivered bugs which had to be ironed out to make GSS selection page to work with Group Build

13. Challenge #3 – Country Specific Fields on GSS
Requirement was to display additional fields in various GSS transactions that were not part of the fields delivered
Action reasons and many other fields should be country specific

14. Our Solution – Customize Subpages & Configure
We customized the delivered HR_MSS_CT_JOB_SBF to add our custom fields and cloned transaction templates by country to make the fields specific by country

15. Challenge #4 – No Resubmit Functionality
When a GSS transaction goes to an error, there is no option for an administrator to fix the error and re-submit

16. Our Solution – Custom Batch Process
Administrators doesn’t have to manually process the erred transactions, since the custom batch process will pick the transaction every few minutes and process it again
Demotion, Leave of Absence, Return from Leave GSS transactions were delivered after we implemented these transactions as custom. Our custom batch process helped in processing these transactions as well without having to tweak the delivered CI calls
During peak usage, CI calls to Job might face performance issues resulting in poor user experience. A custom batch process would eliminate this issue
We didn’t want any of the GSS transactions to go to the administrator for manual processing. So, for the transactions that goes to administrator action, we created an app engine which picks up all these transactions and calls the Position Data CI to update the positions as well as call the Job Data CI to update the Job Data component. This App Engine is schedule to run at 10 minute interval, so the updates are close to real time.
Custom Batch Process also ensured that the response time is very fast on the submission page

17. Challenge #5 – Displaying All Pay Components
For some of the global countries, the requirement was to display and key data for all rate codes including none-base pay components.

18. Our Solution
We customized the code behind the display of pay components to be able to key the data for all the pay components
As delivered only base pay components are displayed in the compensation data. We added customization to be able to key data for all pay components.

19. Challenge #6 – Security was all or nothing
Different countries had different requirements w.r.t which personal details they could update
However we were not able to meet this requirement since once we gave access to Personal Details fluid page, the user would get access to all the links i.e. addresses, contact details, marital status, name, emergency contact etc.

20. Our Solution – Customize PeopleCode
We customized PeopleCode so that we can still use roles, permission lists to limit access to different links with in Personal Details page

21. Miscellaneous Customizations
Dependent Details was not a delivered ESS page both in classic and Fluid ESS. We have built this page in Fluid ESS.
Ability to add attachments for Addresses, Marital Status and Names pages. We customized ESS pages to be able to accept attachments, view and delete.
Added customization during GSS employee selection to not proceed further if a future transaction already exist
Added customization to not sort the employees by last name in the selection page to improve performance. For countries with population, it was taking about 18 secs to load the pages. We were able to bring it down to 7 secs after we removed name sorting
Added Demotion, Leave of Absence, Return from Leave of Absence, Other Job Changes using configuration and minimal code changes

22. WestRock Future Road Map
Explore and deploy the following new features
Implement WorkCenters
Adopt to PeopleSoft Test Framework
Implement AWE for certain GSS transactions

23. Our Wish List for PeopleSoft
When a GSS transaction goes into an error, it can’t be resubmitted and an administrator intervention is required. We would like for an administrator the ability to edit and re-submit a transaction
We would like for the ability to Save as Draft a GSS transaction, so that the user could go back to the saved transaction and complete it on a later date
Only Job and Position Data updates can be done using GSS. We have customized to include other fields which updates data in non Job and Position data components as well. It’s good to have CI configuration setup page which calls other CIs for any custom fields customer adds in GSS
GSS employee page loads, picking up an employee and the over all navigation of Fluid pages is very slow. Requested for improved Performance in these areas
Selective Adoption to be more granular. When we tried to apply patch to implement Preferred Name change (i.e. Name field format and display to be handled by configuration) there were other changes as part of the pre-requisite bugs which we were forced to apply resulting in more time to re-apply customizations and testing

24. Conclusion
There are a combination of factors that enabled us for a successful Fluid rollout
Selective Adoption:
Without an ability to pick and choose only the functionality that we would like to implement, it would have called for an upgrade or application of all images which would have potentially shelved our plan to implement Fluid for a while
Continuous Delivery Model:
Oracle first delivered Fluid with HCM Image 9 but kept adding additional pages and functionality to the initial list in the subsequent images. We got benefitted from a lot of such updates, the most recent one being Name display via configuration
Focus Groups:
Unlike before, Oracle keeps the customers up to date on the new features delivery roadmap, seeks feedback from customers on the new functionality and sends regular legislative updates. We are part of many of these focus groups that are of great benefit to us

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