Draper

PeopleSoft 9.2 Upgrade Design and Support

Founded in 1932, Draper Labs is part of the national laboratory infrastructure across the United States. Draper’s goal is to meet the needs of the US government by finding innovative solutions to security, technology, and the environment. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts the laboratory employs over 1200 engineers and environmentalists who engage in the architecture, design and build of wide-ranging solutions to secure our national interests.

Scope of work

Draper’s main goal for this project was to fully utilize their PeopleSoft system while adopting a continuous delivery framework for enhancements to their PeopleSoft Financials application. Elire partnered with Draper to undertake an assessment of their current PeopleSoft environment to set scope for an upgrade from PeopleSoft FSCM 9.1, PeopleTools 8.55 to PeopleSoft FSCM 9.2 (Image 34), PeopleTools 8.57.

The Project Team installed, configured, and executed Elire’s proprietary customization identification tool to capture and categorize which customizations, bolt-ons, and new features should be incorporated in the upgrade. Additionally, Draper intended to include under-utilized PeopleSoft features and detail the reasons for incorporating those features.

Finally, Elire identified key disconnects and shared best practices around features that should be included to resolve those disconnects Draper’s first phase encompassed the Procure-to-Pay suite including Purchasing, eProcurement, Service Procurement , Accounts Payable, and Contracts.

THE CHALLENGE

The project team was challenged with a tight timeline and a remote working environment to conduct working sessions. In addition, Draper had not undertaken an application upgrade in years, and had many legacy customizations and unique business processes. While project leadership understood the need for change, some staff were resistant to changing their outdated business processes. Recommendations needed to include core configuration changes, new features to implement, customizations to remove, business processes to change, and other non-technical work to resolve other disconnects.

Success delivered

Elire successfully identified a path forward for the Draper Labs application upgrade, which met the goals of furthering adoption of PeopleSoft functionality, reducing customizations, and addressing other pain points. The team recommended how to overcome technical and non-technical disconnects and proposed a design that will be best fit for the Draper user community. The Elire team provided strategic direction and a comprehensive scope, timeline, and resource plan for this critical project.

Elire was also engaged to complete the subsequent PeopleSoft 9.2 upgrade, which is currently in progress as of Spring 2022.

Interested in learning more about how Elire can assist your PeopleSoft team? Visit our PeopleSoft Services Page or contact our team at [email protected].