With the PeopleSoft FSCM update and roadmap presented at RECONNECT Dive Deep, there new features and enhancements for the Financials/Supply Chain Management pillar that are worth discussing. These include updates to Financials Management, Asset Lifecycle Management, Enterprise Services Automation, Supply Chain Management, and Supplier Relationship Management. Below, we’ll recap the highlights and features of the PeopleSoft FSCM Roadmap update.
Expanded General Ledger (GL) Business Unit Management to Allow for the Creation of Subledger Business Units
PeopleSoft users have expressed a desire for the ability to automate the creation of sub-ledger business units that are tied to the General Ledger business units. In the update, GL brought fluid Business Unit Management and with this comes the ability for customers to be able to do a similar process for creating sub-ledger business units.
At Oracle, the PeopleSoft Update Image team plans to deliver an integration capability within GL Business Unit Management to enable the creation of subledger business units. In the future, product uptake will be a phased approach starting with Accounts Payable (AP) and Accounts Receivable (AR).
NACHA – Encryption of Sensitive Information
The National Automated Clearing House Association (NACHA) is charged with managing the administration, development, and governance of the Automated Clearing House (ACH) network, also known as the electronic system that facilitates the movement of money in the United States. The NACHA rules apply to any personally identifiable information associated with an employee, customer or business such as full names or social security numbers.
In the PeopleSoft FSCM pillar, users’ Bank Account and any other associated information has to be encrypted, similarly to how Credit Card information is encrypted. PeopleSoft plans to deliver compliance to NACHA Rules. These rules are meant to safeguard sensitive financial and non-financial information to ensure that all ACH data and transactions are handled seamlessly and securely.
PeopleSoft Page and Field Configurator Enhancements
The FSCM update addresses Page and Field Configurator improvements and features that provide organizations the opportunity to move customizations into configurations allowing you to change labels and hide, disable, or require entry into fields. The Page and Field Configurator shifts your most common customizations from application designer into a configurable framework, thus reducing the effort required to apply any application updates.
In addition, PeopleSoft is reviewing the feasibility of using the Page and Field Configurator framework to track changes to business documents. In future with this capability, an organization may be able to identify specific fields on specific components for which they would like changes tracked.
Expand Run Control Update Date Framework for FSCM
PeopleSoft delivered the Run Control Data Update Framework in Image 30 for General Ledger, providing customers with an efficient way of managing month-end activities. The PeopleSoft Update Images team plans to deliver the capability to recognize different date types across the ERP suite. Customers using various products, such as Project Costing, Contracts, or Grants, will no longer need to navigate to individual request page in order to update the desired run date.
Real-Time Indexing
At times, it is important to have the most up-to-date information for analytics generated during the business day. High volume transactions contributing to key bottom-line analysis sometimes cannot wait until a scheduled update is performed.
With this in mind, PeopleTools 8.59 plans to provide the capability to optionally do real-time indexing to update Elasticsearch indexes as transactions are saved. PeopleSoft plans to provide the ability for organizations to configure the option for adoption of real-time indexing where necessary for the most up-to-the-minute reporting.
Enhance Notification Framework for FSCM Trigger Business Events and Approvals
Many Organizations want the flexibility to have both internal and external notifications for time-sensitive alerts. PeopleSoft plans to adopt enhancements to the Notification Framework that will provide administrators and end users alike the ability to configure notification preferences.
The new and upcoming framework will allow administrators to enable notifications by channel, will allow end users to personalize notifications by based on their preferences. The FSCM applications plan to provide this capability for Business Event Approvals, Alerts, Collaboration Tasks, and activity changes on Business Documents.
FSCM Uptake of Delegation Framework
Oftens, an employee will be gone for an extended period of time and in order to avoid being a bottleneck for approvals, may need to have their Approvals temporarily assigned to someone else in their organization. PeopleSoft plans to enhance the Approvals capability by providing the ability to select multiple FSCM Transactions to delegate approval authority and to select multiple Proxies to perform Transactions on behalf of the Delegator.
Drop Zones for Classic Plus Pages
Many organizations would like the ability to add their own fields to capture or display data on various PeopleSoft transaction pages. In the past, if an organization decided that they needed to do this, a customization would be required to the record and page, which can become quite costly when applying PeopleSoft Update Images.
Starting with PUM Image 31, PeopleSoft provided out-of-the-box Drop Zones on Fluid component pages. With the release of PeopleTools 8.58, PeopleSoft can provide a Drop Zone on Classic Plus pages. PeopleSoft plans to provide a reserved content container on selected Classic Plus pages where customers can add additional data fields.
Kibana Analytics
Though Kibana is currently in use across the FSCM Pillars, PeopleSoft plans to extend the current use of Kibana by leveraging existing search indexes to create analytics for another option in slicing and dicing transactional information. PeopleSoft also plans to add additional application data to be stored in Elasticsearch specifically for the purpose of displaying analytics in Kibana.
The data and analytics in Kibana will be secured by PeopleSoft security. They plan on providing the capability for Analytics created in Kibana to be easily accessible via Homepage Tiles. The roll-out of these FSCM Kibana Visualizations will be timed to occur on a continuing basis for the modules within the PeopleSoft FSCM pillar. Beyond the FSCM updates planned for future use, Oracle continues to invest in PeopleSoft and continue to make improvements to their on-prem software. To learn more about the latest releases and updates, subscribe to our monthly PeopleSoft newsletter here and gain access to the most recent PeopleSoft news delivered right to your inbox. In the meantime, check out our recap of PeopleSoft’s Image 41 update here.
