PeopleSoft Reviews

It's accounting software. The end result is generating the balance sheet and income statement, and it helps track all the transaction flows.

I’ve been involved with both FSCM and HCM implementation. So, I've used PeopleSoft across various functionalities.

In general, as well as specifically with PeopleSoft, ERP systems have replaced or reduced the overreliance on spreadsheets in financial applications ad hoc database functionality in HR.

The constraints of uploading spreadsheets for journal entries can be a headache and ultimately, ERP systems force users to rethink their approach, both in terms of spreadsheet format and reliance. PeopleSoft helps automate much of the heavy lifting, reducing the reliance on spreadsheets.

Moreover, PeopleSoft has been beneficial for the HR and financial departments in two ways. The ability to segregate positions and the underlying structure is beneficial for HR. 

Additionally, the payroll features, including the ability to separate payroll processing for different regions and then consolidate everything for final reporting (balance sheet, income statement), are valuable for both departments.

I liked the breadcrumb approach to navigation. More recently, the Work Center functionality was a good innovation. And finally, PeopleSoft’s acquisition of nVision has been a good move.

I do like the Work Center concept. It consolidates tasks based on user roles. However, I believe PeopleSoft could enhance the Work Centers concept further still. 

Additionally, PeopleSoft's user interface could be more intuitive and user-friendly, similar to Workday's graphical user interface.

I have been implementing PeopleSoft 9.x, since the early 2000’s.

I wrote/published a paper years ago about the high failure rate of ERP implementations. And I knew the number would be high. But then once I dug a little deeper into it, interviewed project leaders, and read previous papers, I was quite surprised by conservatively saying that implementations fail almost 50% of the time.

Now, "fail" is a very broad definition. Let's take it as, "How badly did it fail?" The severity can vary greatly, from minor interface glitches like weird lines across the screen or the customization being so extreme that when they bring on a new upgrade or a new feature, it negatively impacts things. So again, failure is a very broad term, but I was surprised how often that happens, and this is not just true for PeopleSoft, it's true with SAP and Oracle and so forth. It's a complicated
implementation. It's not just like downloading TikTok or something. It takes some expertise.

I have implemented Workday, SAP, and Oracle as well. Each has its merits and drawbacks.

Each has its strengths and weaknesses, so the best choice depends on your organization's specific needs. Here are some factors to consider:

 Complexity: How complex is your organization? Is it multinational?

 Features: What specific features are you looking for?

 IT Staff: How many IT personnel do you have on staff? Do you regularly maintain the system?

PeopleSoft, for example, allows you to schedule upgrades and inform users beforehand. This gives your IT team time to manage the implementation and minimize disruption.

On the other hand, take Workday as an example. It's simpler in terms of IT staffing because updates automatically roll out. One day you're working with one interface, and the next day it might change due to an overnight update by Workday. The advantage here is not needing IT staff to manage the transition. 

However, the downside is that updates occur at Workday's discretion, possibly without adequate time to inform all stakeholders about changes they'll encounter. Ultimately, the decision depends on your organization's needs and its capacity to manage change going forward.

I was typically more involved in the change management aspect, keeping leadership informed and working as a liaison between the developers and users. I'm also involved in the training aspect of implementations. 

None of them are inexpensive.

It boils down to two things: before you buy and after you buy.

Before you buy:
 Do your due diligence: Understand your organization's needs and capabilities.
 Evaluate your existing infrastructure: Assess your company's "capacity" to ensure
compatibility.
After you buy (post-selection):
 Choose your SI (Systems Integrator) carefully.
 Implement change management from the outset.
 Involve your training staff throughout the process.
The more you keep people informed, the fewer issues you're going have. Finally, assuming the System Integrator is top-notch and does a great job, make sure you have a training staff that is compatible with not only the developers, but also the Change Management folks.

It's really a three-legged stool of Project, Change, and Training Management. Or to use a different analogy, there are three different swimming lanes, and they all need to work in concert, communicate and work together.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. When Oracle bought them, those who implemented PeopleSoft were worried. People said, "PeopleSoft's dead. Oracle's going to kill them. Going to suffocate them." But thankfully, the user base was so loyal. That's what kept them alive. That's why we're still talking about PeopleSoft.

The most valuable feature is the continuous roll-out of bug fixes, new features, and functionalities. Oracle really listens to the customers and provides valuable content for when those PUMS come out.

It empowers users to perform ad hoc analyses themselves rather than having to go to IT or somewhere else. That makes it much more efficient for our users to do their jobs because they have access to data analysis in front of them instead of having to find that information elsewhere.

We struggle with release notes. There's a lot of information, and I would love to see release notes broken down into compartments. For example, here's security, this is what you need to do; or, here's the business side or the functional side, and it gives us the technical stuff. I would like to see the release notes deconstructed and then parsed out into, for example, I'm a technical developer or I'm a super user and I need to understand how this is going to change my business processes. I think that's where we've had some detailed workshops where we've had to dig that information out. Not that it's not there, but it's time consuming to do so. So it would be nice to have a bit more user-friendly release notes for the user community.

For HR, we've been using it for four years, and for finance, we've been on it for two-and-a-half years.

We've had no issues with deploying it.

I'd say it's stable because one of the things that we do is we separate all of our testing cycles. We do all of the initial testing in one environment, then we do integration, and then we do a brand new copy and production for our user acceptance. We have a few small defects that we have to resolve once we go live.

When we get to that part through Hypercare, which is usually where we keep project people on-site to help with defects, and we transition over to our support vendor, we don't see a dip or an increase in tickets. That helps. Because of our business people that have committed to doing that, it helps us keep the stabilization where it should be.

We are so excited about how this can scale. We know that everything is kind of hinging on version 8.5.5, so we're excited about it. I've had so many of my colleagues come up and say, "Anne, when can we do this and when can we go on 8.5.5?" I don't know that we can go this year, but we want fluidity and elasticity. We want all of this stuff. We love how they've taken the fluid pages and you can choose. If you're a super user and you need to get your hands on a keyboard, you can go classic. It's nice for our people that are out across the country. All they really want is to be able to use their mobile devices. We're all excited about it. They see the scalability and we feel like we're just getting our feet wet with it.

I love Oracle support. When we were going through our first set of PUMS last year, we did zero to 13, so it was a huge amount that we took on to do that many images all at once. We had probably half a dozen hot fixes that Oracle provided. I love that they were willing to help us. They knew that we were under some critical time frames and some of it was for the very user-facing applications, like travel and expense.

When you've got 3,000 people who are out there trying to approve expense reports and they're getting errors, technical support understood that and they responded very quickly. I am very happy with Oracle support.

We were on JD Edwards previously. We had been on it for 12 years. We had never upgraded so we're still going through a cultural shift in being on a product that is progressive, that is continually changing. We're trying to keep up with the usability side of it, which is a struggle for our users, but they're seeing the value in it and they're letting go of the old, comfortable JDE system. It's been a little difficult at first, but it's gotten much, much better in the last year-and-a-half.

You need to understand your core business processes. What are you really looking to get out of a software application? The application can do whatever you want it to do. Look at what your core processes are, look at what the application offers, and change your processes to fit that software.

Also, the more vanilla you can go, the easier it is, the better it is and the more value you're going to see when you go do PUMS, when you go to DBK, and you add all those bells and whistles.

PeopleSoft is our HR system. We used it for everything at my old company, including performance appraisal, leave application, employee, master database. This company only uses the performance management module, so we do goal-setting and appraisals through PeopleSoft. 

Mangement also plans to adopt the compensation module. They are currently only using a small part, but they want to use the full module.

Applications for employee leave used to be a problem. Now employees can check their own leave balances and apply for leave accordingly. The leave application automatically flows to the manager, and the manager can approve it also online. Employee performance appraisals are documented online, and past appraisals can be retrieved if needed. 

I'd like PeopleSoft to be like on the cloud and more mobile-friendly. If I try to access it from a cell phone, it's a bit difficult, so it would be great if PeopleSoft could improve these features.

I've been using PeopleSoft since 2011.

PeopleSoft is highly stable. They are still using the system.

Many businesses have been added, so PeopleSoft is highly scalable. We have 8,000 employees, but my previous company was a huge global organization with thousands upon thousands. 

Since I joined this organization, I haven't contacted Oracle support, but we implemented Oracle HRMS in my last company. This was back in 2005 or 2007. At the time, IBM was an implementation partner, and we interacted with Oracle's tech team. We went to Bangalore to meet them, and they were quite helpful.

I've worked for different companies, and each had its own ERP solution. My previous company was using Aramco, but they switched to Oracle. Then I another company with no HR system, so everything was manual, but they implemented SAP. 

I joined my current company in 2011, and they were using PeopleSoft, but they merged with another firm that was using SAP. Now we have a hybrid system. Some of our modules are SAP, and others are SuccessFactors or PeopleSoft. We're also using Cornerstone OnDemand for training, learning, and development. 

I rate PeopleSoft 10 out of 10. I think PeopleSoft is a good tool for HR administrators. It's easy to navigate compared to the other ERPs. The management of the tool is straightforward from the employee's perspective, so the employee experience is good. PeopleSoft is intuitive, so no one needs to be taught how to use the system. It's self-evident, like Facebook or Twitter. SAP is a little more technical, and you need to understand coding.

PeopleSoft is used for human capital management in my organization. It can manage a lot of business areas, such as payroll, time and labor, and absences.

The solution is very good and we have been using it for a very long time keeping us organized.

PeopleSoft is a good core system. It has a lot of functionality. They frequently update the solution and recently they have added some good enhancement features for higher education. We just switched to the new fluid interface and that is working very well for us. It is very good.

Employees can use PeopleSoft to input their time and their own absences. Additionally, they can look at their paychecks and configure their direct deposits.

PeopleSoft should be more flexible with the configuration. There should be less coding and more configuration.

I have been using PeopleSoft for approximately 30 years.

The solution is very stable, it is a senior or mature solution.

PeopleSoft is scalable. We are decreasing employees versus increasing right now, but it has worked well for us. We are using the solution extensively in our organization. We plan to increase usage.

We have approximately 9,000 employees using the solution in my organization.

The product strategist from PeopleSoft is very good. I have not contacted the support myself but I have heard they are good.

We have used other systems in the past. The organization is a University and we have been here for a long time.

The initial implementation is complex. Everything is complex when you first start using a new system. If someone tells you it is not complex, they can not be telling the truth. However, the most recent upgrade from 9.1 to 9.2 was pretty good.

When we first implemented the solution we used consultants but recently we did the upgrade of the solution in-house. We saved a lot of money.

We have an IT team of four who do the maintenance, checkups, updates and patching. Additionally, they answer user help requests. We have an additional three or four developers and administrators that help out during projects.

We are a University and the cost and license are negotiated privately.

We did a complete evaluation of other solutions, such as cost and customer responses, and we determined PeopleSoft was best suited for us as a University.

PeopleSoft is a stable solution and it has a lot of functionality. Additionally, it has good product strategist and user input support.

I rate PeopleSoft a nine out of ten.

On-premises

We use PeopleSoft to:

• Manage HR globally
• Take care of payroll for all US employees (both salary and hourly at all plants in different states and localities).
• Administer benefits and compensation and integrating with all outside benefit vendors and state/federal tax agencies.

Most probably, an organization cannot meet obligations without PeopleSoft (or similar applications). What I can say is, with limited resources, it makes it operational, without outsourcing to expensive third-party service providers. And since it has strong application tools, it helps to integrate with both internal and external applications, as well as secure self-service and manager self-service applications.

• It has great depth of application functionality and flexibility of developing and integrating with others.
• In recent years, they added more functionality in the mobile, analytical reporting, and installing/patching/hosting area.

• I would like to see applications functionality as the base rather than differently priced modules.
• The quality of service has gone down after Oracle took over and this can be restored, and scope for online search could be improved.
• Tools could be simplified and added for more auto typing and improving the current Java support.

More than five years.

Even when we moved to Windows and SQL server platform to save money, the performance was acceptable. We are totally on virtual servers including databases. But if the company needs higher performance, they can go with bigger servers and other platforms.

Highly scalable, and initially (18 years back), we were processing payroll for more than 10,000 employees.

It was excellent before when it was PeopleSoft, and it is still OK now.

Long back (20 years ago), we used ADP solution for payroll and some hosted solution (Saba) for some functionalities like performance management.

Initially, it was complex, expensive, and it was done with the help of an external consulting company since the expertise was not there and it was a decentralized organization. They also had to implement payroll in 20 plants or so at the same time with a custom T&A application and hundreds of requirement gathering sessions and hundreds of training sessions. If we had to do the same thing, it would be a lot different; we know what is required and how it needs to be done.

The vendor was good, but if you do not know exactly what you need and what the product can do, it would be expensive. So you need to do the internal analysis and gathering first and then go with the vendor.

We implemented early, and we are reaping benefits now and rolling out new functionality and self-service apps without any additional budgets (that is with two internal resources, same resources for maintaining the application and changes required with benefit vendors). 

If the organization has complex needs that require constant changes based on business changes and has a solid IT department, there might not be a better solution than PeopleSoft. 

If the organization wants to quickly get up to speed and more money, they can look into the other hosted solution and assume not too many changes after you implement.

Setup costs may be the biggest cost component, and you need to assemble with experienced people with the product or right consulting company to reduce the costs and time duration. Might be a good idea to go in phases — first with HR and keep working in parallel with other modules rather than big-bang with all modules when the organization does not understand the product that well.

At that time, none of these solutions were there in the market (SAP, SAP SuccessFactors, Workday, etc.).

Spend more time in deciding the architecture and hosting environment based on the experience (virtualization, database, clustering, load balancing, server platform) on the technology side. To provide quicker benefits to the whole population, build a 2FA solution from the beginning and provide all self-service functionality right from the beginning (that can include all benefits and related documentation online) — that way management would see clear benefits.

We're a consulting company, therefore, we get involved in all kinds of use cases.

PeopleSoft is used for usually larger organizations and some middle tier. However, usually, organizations that are maybe 2000 employees or two and a half billion dollars or more tend to be users. They use it primarily for back-office systems, finance supply chain, human resources, payroll benefits, that kind of stuff. That includes recruiting and everything associated with HCM. It's one of the primary ERP systems.

The most valuable feature is that it's wide and broad and it does about everything anybody needs in a major organization from a back-office systems point of view. 

It's a mature product. I've been using it since 1994. It came out maybe a few years before that. It's matured over the years to where, from a back-office system point of view in those primary areas, if you want an all-inclusive system, you can do almost anything you need to do with PeopleSoft without having to buy other third party systems to bolt on to it.

They continue to improve and support the product. The latest announcement was that they're going to continue to support it through 2032. However, every year they add a year or two to that. They confirm their outgoing support for 10 years almost every year.

It's a real contrast between things like Workday and Oracle cloud. The biggest challenge we see as consultants from an Oracle cloud and Workday point of view is that you cannot customize those systems to better fit your business processes. Companies that are smaller and that are less complex tend to go with Oracle and Workday. The big advantage there is they don't have to do any upgrades. However, they're almost forced into the changes if there are new versions for these cloud systems. The good news is you don't have to upgrade them. The bad news is it may not support all your business processes as you want. Therefore, you have to change your business processes to fit the software.

The biggest disadvantage with things like PeopleSoft is that they do continuous support and fixes and upgrades. You get to choose when you want to implement that upgrade. However, in order to keep up, you have to upgrade. The biggest challenge with PeopleSoft is it's a trade-off between feature functionality and the pain of going through those upgrades. And when you upgrade, you've got to do some work. You have to look at what's available in the new version, figure out whether we're going to use that or not, and turn it on or not. On top of that, it's got to go through an implementation process.

Most people do about one upgrade per year. Some people do two, and some people get way behind. However, in order to take advantage of what they buy and pay for, they need to really do probably at least one upgrade a year. And it's a minor upgrade. It's not the kind of upgrade we used to think of that people did once every five years that was almost a reimplementation. In upgrade terms, it's a minor upgrade, however, it is an upgrade.

The difference in PeopleSoft and cloud version is the trade-off between not being able to do any customization and being forced into upgrades almost monthly. You don't have a chance to take your time. You don't have a choice when you do it. It just happens.

Within the company, we've been dealing with PeopleSoft for 15 years. I personally have been dealing with PeopleSoft going back to 1994. I have many, many years of experience working with it.

I would say their tech support is good. I don't have a problem there. They've been doing this a long time, so they know how to do it.

I've also used SAP - and have about five years of experience with it.

The software comes with a fee, with a license fee. The upgrade software comes with a license fee. However, it takes their staff time and resources to go through that. Sometimes customers will hire a consultant firm like us to help them get through it. That would be an extra cost, technically speaking.

The cost varies by license and license type. Many times, it's so much per user, and depending on which software modules you're using. It depends on the modules you're using and how many users you have using that module.

Some people buy what may be called an enterprise-wide license, where it's not really based on the number of users. You get more of a flat cost for that and the users may not be impacted. I haven't gotten involved in that in a while, therefore, I'm not sure how it works.

We're a PeopleSoft partner. We're primarily an Oracle and are a PeopleSoft consultancy where we implement and help people use the PeopleSoft systems. Now we're combining that with UiPath, and so most of the things we do are going to be PeopleSoft system related.

Having been in this business for 25 years or so, my biggest advice for PeopleSoft clients would be the same for any software client - that whenever they implement it, that they do it right and not try to do it cheaply.

Once they do it right, they will realize the benefit from doing it right forever, from then on. If they do it on the cheap to take shortcuts, they will pay the price for taking those shortcuts until they get around to making the investment to fix it. Customers are often a victim of themselves by trying to do it too cheap.

For example, I had one large enterprise client that asked their consulting firm how long it was going to take to put in PeopleSoft. They were putting in about everything PeopleSoft offers. It was a major implementation for the financial supply chain, human resources, payroll benefits, all that stuff. They had something like 130,000 people. It was a big, big corporation.

The consultant company came back and said, "Probably two years, maybe as soon as 18 months, but probably two years to get it implemented and into production from the time we actually start." The company came back and gave them six months, and the implementation was a disaster. The company tried to blame it on the consulting firm. However, they said, "Hey, man, you gave us six months and we should have taken two years for an organization of your size and complexity."

That's a little more than typical. Lots of times people will, instead of 18 months, take 12 months or 15 months. The more they try to shortcut the implementation, the more problems they create for themselves.

The biggest advantage - whether they're doing PeopleSoft, SAP - et cetera - for software companies and the clients, if they're going to put in a major software system, don't try to do it the cheapest you can. Do it the best you can. If you do that, it will pay off in spades. If you don't, it will screw you. That's the biggest advice I would have.

I'd rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

This solution is similar to SAP SuccessFactors, and Workday. 

PeopleSoft HRMS is an ERP software which was one of the leading successful software in North America, in the Canadian Region.

We have implemented multiple modules that are the core HR function management, performance management, training, administrative training, access management, global payroll for India, and recruitment.

The most valuable feature is the core HR, the strength, how the data is captured, and position management that gives flexibility in different organizations.

Also, the work center where you can see the different steps in your activity guide. There are different tasks that need to be performed for a recruiter to set up an activity guide. He can see all of the tasks to complete the upgrading for a new hire.

The ease of use. PeopleSoft is easy to understand, where any end user that is logged in can easily navigate through the menus. You don't need any help as long as you have the instructions. 

The reporting needs to be improved. 

It would be helpful for the end-user if the reports were customized. They would be able to select the fields while generating their reports.

In the next release, they can look at reducing the price.

I have been using this solution for sixteen years.

This solution is stable.

This solution is scalable.

We have eight thousand users with different companies.

The technical support is very good.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is not complex.

Deployment depends on the size of the organization. If you are just installing it, it can take a week, but if you are installing, and doing a quality implementation it can take five to six months, which would include doing analysis, customization, and testing.

I don't know if they are still providing licenses or if they have suspended licenses.

There have been a lot of upgrades in the 9.2 version with the UI and implementation of data analytics, HR analytics, the analytics dashboards have been introduced, the mobility, and the ability to use PeopleSoft applications on a mobile device.

The features are good but you will have to do cost-data analysis with other modules and if it fits you can go for it. It is a good product to go with.

You get all of the features, and anything that you don't get, you can customize.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Private Cloud

Other

• Agile system configurations to accommodate business dynamics

The synchronization of business processes, and the software, streamlined the shared service departments to run 40% leaner.

The last conference I went to presented product enhancements that alleviated some of the end-to-end processing gaps we worked around with all the applications noted below, especially in the area of reporting.

We've used it for 20-plus years.

Yes, there have been issues. You must have an Agile DBA team to tune for dynamic data volume.

No.

We rarely reached out to PeopleSoft.

Yes, we were part of the Y2K challenge.

We pledged to keep the setup “vanilla”. In what ways? Defining the Master data for each application is critical to successfully configuring the systems to operate seamlessly daily, and to manage business dynamics like M&A, international operations. Reporting was our biggest challenge that was not "delivered" by PeopleSoft.

Negotiate, and don’t buy into the cloud option.

SAP, Oracle, and JD Edwards.

We use General Ledger, Billing, Accounts Receivable, Projects, Asset Management, Payroll, Accounts Payable. All would be rated an eight out of 10 as we developed solutions to fill "product gaps" that were part of later application releases.

We had an army of consultants from different organizations who collaborated and delivered the most vital aspect of scalability — a solid foundation to build upon. We also dedicated subject matter experts for each application and a team that ensured the "big picture" (e.g. consolidated reporting, operational and audit checks and balances, etc.) to work with the consultants.