Extensive Oracle HCM reports for the #1 tax preparation company in the USA.
A US-based leader in the consumer tax preparation services industry offering in-person and online customer support saw its operations and complexity expand significantly. Its network of over 11000 company-owned and retail franchise offices was growing. These offices covered all 50 US states and included 1600 offices in US military bases around the world, Canada, Australia, and India. Its strength of almost 80000 highly tax-trained professionals, including 18000 bilingual specialists, needed robust tracking to ensure they were trained and ready with the latest tax information to serve customers effectively. The leadership team of this organization decided to convert from Peoplesoft HRMS to Oracle HCM to support its fast-evolving business needs. One important benefit the customer expected was increased productivity expected from the following in Oracle HCM –
• Analytics and reports on visually intuitive dashboards
• Personalized user homepages, reports, and relevant visualizations
• Timely delivery of information to users across a range of devices to quickly progress transactions
• Predictive analytics to adopt next-gen HCM practices across all stages of the retirement process
• Innovations for adaptive intelligence, machine learning, digital assistants, and blockchain integration
• an organization with the experience and deep technical skills to handle such a complex transition.
• accelerated transition without reinventing the wheel during transition. DataTerrain’s pre-built Oracle HCM reports, similar to PeopleSoft reports, were noted.
• high-quality, zero-defect delivery of pixel-perfect reports at a rapid pace. DataTerrain’s automation tool and successful track record over numerous transitions were identified as key differentiators.
The proprietary framework of DataTerrain was followed for this transition project. The major phases and key outcomes are summarized below –
1.) Analysis and planning – DataTerrain’s automated utility examined the PeopleSoft landscape, listed all the elements, identified missing elements, and provided a detailed log that enabled pinpointed planning for potential report transition issues. DataTerrain SMEs(Subject matter experts) reviewed these, proposed alternate solutions, and helped key users and customer technical teams evaluate options and make suitable decisions. Based on this, a detailed plan was created and signed off by the appropriate stakeholders.
2.) Automated transition and validation – In this phase, Peoplesoft reports were converted to Oracle HCM using the automated utility from DataTerrain. Based on user preference and column availability in each reporting methodology, each report in the target HCM system was created in one of the following ways –
a. HCM extracts/excel outputs
b. BI Publisher reports – including templates and custom layouts
c. OTBI – analyses embedded in dashboards with the required prompts and fields for users to extract relevant information using its visually rich features. DataTerrain SMEs also configured some of these to enable self-service for users to create ad-hoc reports, alerts, and dashboards to aid decision-making.
DataTerrain’s Pre-built reports in Oracle HCM were also used as accelerators during this transition process. When product issues on the Oracle platform became bottlenecks, DataTerrain front-ended the interface with Oracle, raised relevant SRs, and followed up to obtain and install suitable fixes and solutions from Oracle. The DataTerrain tool automated the transition of reports between Peoplesoft and Oracle HCM reports to expedite transition and fixing. This saved significant time and effort while transitioning several contractual and statutory pixel-perfect reports. During this phase, the DataTerrain team also created detailed documentation on the converted reports and handed it off to the customer team.
3.) Acceptance and rollout – The validated reports were converted to pre-prod for final customer checks and Acceptance. The reports were converted to the Oracle HCM production environment after Acceptance.
During discussions after the successful completion of this project on time and within budget, the customer team highlighted the following as value-adds by DataTerrain –
• Oracle partnership – DataTerrain leveraged its partnership with Oracle to help the customer resolve defects and performance issues identified in the core Oracle installation, saving significant time and effort for the customer.
• Pre-built reports – DataTerrain’s repository of pre-built reports in Oracle HCM jumpstarted the transition effort and saved time by enabling quick customizations
• Global delivery model – This was key to accelerating delivery as DataTerrain team members continued to work on project activities around the clock.
DataTerrain has helped the customer set up a robust reporting system on Oracle HCM and proactively addressed previous issues. This has helped the customer quickly obtain payback on its investment made in the transition effort. The customer continues to expand its use of Oracle HCM to transform its HCM process globally.