Kaiser Permanente

PeopleSoft Innovator

Kaiser Permanente rolled out the Fluid User Interface to their 250,000 OneLink end users

Summary

Kaiser Permanente has rolled out Fluid User Interface to their 250,000 OneLink (PeopleSoft Finance and Supply Chain) end-users (employees, contractors and some external vendors). They execute an annual ‘stay current' update project that allows them to selectively adopt the latest features from PeopleSoft Images and the current PeopleTools release. This is “year 5” of the process – they are currently on PI35, going to PI39 in September ’21. More recently, taking advantage of PeopleSoft configuration utilities, they used PeopleSoft Forms to help manage internal administrative costs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kaiser Permanente has subscribed to Oracle's Guided Learning cloud offering and are using it with PeopleSoft – they have created 400 FSCM guides that are live and have been used thousands of times in the last year! Additionally, end-users benefit by having the same UI experience as they do with the Guided Learning on the recent Oracle HCM Cloud deployment.

Since the job of “staying current” and improving the user experience is never finished, in 2021 the Kaiser Permanente OneLink team will be tackling Fluid ePro and also deploying initial Chatbot functionality (using PeopleSoft delivered chat functionality on the ODA (Oracle Digital Assistant) technology. They are excited to be starting this new journey, that will continue to expand over the upcoming years.

Customer comments

Fluid User Interface

We rolled out the PeopleSoft Fluid Interface to 250,000 users a couple of years ago. In order to mimic Fluid-like experiences across all PeopleSoft screens, we partnered with our development team and turned heavily used Classic pages into Classic Plus pages. At deployment, we enabled the Classic Plus pages.

The advantages that resulted from this included:

  • An easy-to-navigate user group
  • The application of appealing images on homepages
  • Resolution of scaling issues on mobile devices
  • Reduction of training costs
  • Overall improvement of functionality for new Classic Plus pages

The people that participated in the pilot spread the word...and before we knew it, the rest of the users asked to get Fluid too! Comments that the implementation team heard:

- "It’s so easy, even my son can use it."
- "What did you guys do to the application. It’s so easy, I love it now."
- "I have access to more stuff now." To which the team responded "Actually, you've always had access to that stuff, you just didn’t know it because of the old navigation!"

Why we need robust governance for OneLink--OneLink by the numbers slide
Selective Adoption

Kaiser Permanente adopted a "stay current" process - which each year involves a combination of PUM updates, some Fluid UI/features and, depending on the year, PeopleTools and/or Database upgrades. We are in “year 5” of our annual updates project! It takes approximately 6 months, and involves substantial systems integration testing (SIT) and functional/user validation to ensure a seamless experience for the 250,000 end-users and the 315 integrations to 118 upstream, and downstream, systems! We also evaluate new features with our business process owner community and have them prioritize the features based on perceived value. We have been phasing in Fluid features over the last couple of years to the “heavier used” functional areas such as expenses, eSettlements and payment check request. This year we are focusing on Fluid ePro.

Kaiser Permanente also heavily invested in using PTF (PeopleSoft Test Framework) for 70-80% of Systems Integration Testing. We also worked with our key Business Stakeholders to reduce the amount of testing that they need to perform - by having our SIT and functional support teams do the “lion's share” of the testing. The business stakeholders then validate the results.

It is a true testament to the amazing abilities and experience of the entire Kaiser Permanente OneLink, IT and Business team involved show smoothly the annual updates projects go – to the point where Sr. Executives do not even realize that the significant updates have occurred!

Homepage

Learn more about Kaiser Permanente’s upgrade: https://questoraclecommunity.org/learn/blogs/peoplesoft-industry-day-2019-kaiser-permanentes-quad-play-upgrade/