HR reporting for world's largest power generation and distribution company

DataTerrain recently concluded a successful project, providing in-depth report conversion and development for the world's largest electric power generation and distribution company based in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago-based company needed a robust solution for HCM (Human Capital Management) and critical reporting. Oracle provided cloud-based HRproduct HCM. Dataterrain developed extensive analytical reports and dashboards.

DataTerrain recently concluded a successful project, providing in-depth report conversion and development for the world's largest electric power generation and distribution company based in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago-based company needed a robust solution for HCM (Human Capital Management) and critical reporting. Oracle provided cloud-based HR product HCM. Dataterrain developed extensive analytical reports and dashboards.

DataTerrain reviewed many reports of the customer that existed in Peoplesoft HR application and provided a detailed report on the timeline and feasibility to transport the reports into Oracle's latest HR product in cloud HCM. After the client review and feedback, the project commenced with step by the step project plan. Teams were identified with the clients who will be reviewing the endproduct as well as participate in the development process. DataTerrain with unique automation framework was able to transport many reports to Oracle HCM, while also developing a framework for other Oracle functions to create a specific and sophisticated method of reporting. These reports were converted to pixel perfect iterations that support Excel, text, and CSV exporting formats, and were integrated with Oracle Data Loader inputs for report creation. To further streamline, we created sequentially running HCM extracts, allowing a single extract to trigger a series of others. HCM extracts were very useful for long-running reports with huge data volume.

The entire process was an opportunity to explore creative solutions to extremely specific user needs, as well as a chance to uncover unique new ways of report building across the Oracle HCM ecosystem. We have great things knowledge and real-world experience to offer to our future customers.

Beyond the conversion and creation of reports, a company of such a large size had unique needs across departments and particular methodologies (and customer preferences) for how the reports needed to function in the new HCM application. We interacted with Business Users regularly week to provide status updates and get feedback. We have provided extensive UAT support and used client requests to implement ongoing updates to their preferred reports. In building customized reports to meet different user specifications, we encountered several challenges with many features but we were able to resolve with the help of our technical team and Oracle HCM product development. In the process of working with Oracle, we have learned detailed insight into the new Oracle Cloud capabilities and features. We have done exclusive documentation of all interactions with Oracle via the Service request system for future use.

Our methodology and experience in developing several thousand reports in the Oracle BI products came very handy in the project and of immense use to our customers. The fact of choosing between OTBI or HCM extract or BI Publisher based reports or dashboard for a specific requirement is a matter of experience. That choice has a direct impact on two critical real-world usages namely functionality and performance. Our experience and knowledge base was constantly shared with our customer thereby they fully understand the technical decision makings in the project. The blend between OTBI / HCM extracts / BI Publisher in the reporting system provides full coverage of all the data access needed for HR reporting and auditing.

All the challenges were resolved systematically and newly created reports featuring the latest best practices were implemented. There are many modules in HCM from payroll to workers compensation to Auditing that necessitates a full understanding of HR requirements and business practices. Our team diligently worked with multi-user teams to bring knowledge to the practical world and daily usage. We worked as one team to make sure our client's vision and needs are executed on time. The data sensitivity is of utmost criticality in this project. We had taken all the precautions and detailed client security requirements into account during the project. We had deployed layers of authentication and data access points to control who accesses the data and when they access the data.

The historical payroll, workers compensation, and other data are critical for access due to legal requirements thereby all the data are there in the main systems and not in any backup systems. The volume of data and retrieval speed play a key part in reporting here due to legal time sensitivity. We were able to fine-tune report performance across the board for reports and deliver huge time savings.

Because this project involved so much specific data collected for customization, including the necessary BI and reporting requirements across a range of PeopleSoft users, there was also an opportunity to provide valuable documentation and user training. With 100's of unique reports across the organization, working directly with users provided important methodological information, and illustrated the many needs spread throughout the company. To further refine each role, and ensure consistently accurate reporting with the newly deployed system, we developed Business User Requirements to accompany the customized reports. This documentation continued into Oracle SR support and guidance for migrating reports to other Fusionenvironments.

This 10-month project included a US-based project management team, offshore-based development team, multiple client teams along with our Oracle development team racing against time for a preset cut off date. We worked diligently with all the teams to produce every report or dashboard to the exact business and legal requirements. We followed the world standard to take a highly customized legacy system from Peoplesoft and convert it into an agile system that functions across multiple Oracle platforms.

The entire process was an opportunity to explore creative solutions to extremely specific user needs, as well as a chance to uncover unique new ways of report building across the Oracle HCM ecosystem. We have great things knowledge and real-world experience to offer toour future customers. If you have any questions about how DataTerrain can help you with Business Intelligence and reporting needs, contact us today!

Bala Murali, DataTerrain, https://dataterrain.com, +1 650-701-1100, connect@dataterrain.com