National City s Journey To People Soft 8 Migration

National City’s Journey To People. Soft 8 Migration to a Self-Service Future Todd Saporito & Ed Walters Session 4609

Agenda § § § § § National City Overview/Background Planning & Scope Staffing Analysis, Design & Development Architecture Testing Training Implementation & Current State Q&A Page 2

National City Corporation § § Founded in 1845. NYSE: NCC. Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio. Financial holding company with assets approaching $106 billion. § Operates more than 1, 100 branch banking offices and over 1, 600 automated teller machines (ATMs) in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois and Michigan. § Company Website: www. nationalcity. com. Page 3

National City Corporation (cont. ) § Approximately 34, 000 active employees. § People. Soft history: § Implemented V 3. 22 in 1995. § Upgraded to V 5 in 1997. § Upgraded to V 7 in 1998. Page 4

Background – Configuration before 8 § HR and Payroll V 7. § Ben Admin outsourced to Hewitt & Assoc. § Shared Services Center outsourced to IBM. § Oracle database. § Sun Solaris database server. § Managers completed employee merit process using a custom access database and excel spreadsheets. § Moderately customized. Page 5

Planning § Planning began in 2000 when we evaluated whether we do nothing, upgrade, outsource, or migrate to a new vendor. § Decided upgrade to V 8 was correct path to lay foundation for self service direction. § Began V 8 planning beginning of 2001. § Focused on defining scope. § Began identifying resource requirements and developing staffing strategies. Page 6

Scope § Included the removal of all non-essential customizations. § Made the decision to move forward with self service but needed to decide which application to move to first. § Decision was made to utilize the e. Compensation and parts of e. Profile for the Manager’s desktop as our first attempt. § Additional Scope items included: § Eliminating custom hierarchy and utilize dept security. § Misc list of new functionality to implement. Page 7

Staffing § Staffing the Project: § Worked with business leaders to obtain qualified resources for each process area. § Brought in People. Soft resources for short duration to target a particular process. § Staffed external resources on project in positions where they were working closely with internal counterpart when possible. § Tried to utilize production support resources to minimize transition impacts. § Team consisted of approximately 23 dedicated functional resources and 15 technical resources. Page 8

Analysis & Design § Created process teams to focus on the following: § Identify customizations to be removed. § Understand how new functionality will impact their process and begin process reengineering. § Start identifying material for training. § Created an object repository to assist with customization evaluation. Huge effort but huge payback. § For critical areas we created SWAT teams to review options and recommend solutions. Page 9

Development § Utilized People. Soft Upgrade Lab to perform database upgrade. § Assigned 2 resources to handle upgrade process: § Supported upgrade lab. § Performed migration steps for database builds. § Migrated code to each database. § Used PS Change Control Feature and Harvest for SQRs, scripts. § Plan to have multiple databases during development to support development, testing, demo and training. Page 10

Development Challenges § Overwhelmed by the number of patches/fixes to review (over 250). § The technology change from V 7 to V 8 including the additional components challenged the staff. A lot to learn. § The initial cutover scripts ran for days instead of minutes. § Struggled to find Variable Comp experienced resources within People. Soft. § e. Compensation and e. Profile modules required more customization than anticipated. Page 11

Architecture § Physical N-tier running People. Tools 8. 14. 12. § Designed to support 250 concurrent users. § Web Server - Two W 2 k servers running weblogic. § Application Server - Solaris Server w/ 10 Gb Mem. § Oracle Database Server - Solaris Server w/ 8 Gb Mem. § Process Schedulers - One W 2 k server and one running on database server. § Database is 60 Gig. § Windows client still distributed to small user group. Page 12

Architecture (cont. ) § Items to consider: § Stress test!!! – architecture was new in our organization. § Identify your concurrent user population (needed for sizing). § If purchasing new hardware, move into a ‘quiet production’ prior to implementation. § Make sure your information protection group is onboard especially if you have never used SSL before. § Read People. Soft’s current desktop requirements and understand your end user population. § Develop a cache maintenance strategy for app servers and process schedulers. Page 13

Architecture (cont. ) § Items to consider (cont. ): § Understand usage limits and develop a process to maintain them. (e. g. Shutdown process schedulers during batch, or bounce web server every night @ 9 pm. ) § Understand how Query/Reporting tools need to be used in your organization. (Tools 8. 14. 12 required us to still distribute windows client for query users due to limitations in web interface. ) § Include process scheduler training for end users especially if you have a NT process scheduler and Unix process scheduler. § Stay on top of all patches/releases besides just People. Tools. (e. g. Weblogic, Tuxedo, etc. ) Page 14

Testing § Completed Unit, System/Integration, Stress and User Acceptance Testing. § Assigned a test team manager who created testing plan. § 2 months for System/Integration Testing – 2 months for User Acceptance Testing. § Version control processes were critical during the testing phases to ensure proper object migration. § Utilized a problem log database to log and track all testing issues. Page 15

Testing – Stress Testing § Very critical in V 8 due to the architecture advancements from V 7. § Utilized Mercury Interactive tool. § Stress testing conducted on hardware slated for Production. § Identified concurrent users and broke out into specific transaction types to replicate a true stress test. (e. g. . Data entry, reporting, online lookup, updates, queries. ) § Uncovered some performance issues which we were able to correct. Page 16

Testing § Items to consider: § Plan to have both technical and functional resources assigned to testing support and execution. § Ensure issue tracking tools and resolution processes are in place and communicated. § Develop a solid interface testing strategy. § Stress Test – so many new components in V 8. § Ensure batch testing is completed within testing cycle and full schedule runs occur. Page 17

Training § Consisted of 3 Phases: § Train the Team § Train the Trainer § Train the End User Page 18

Training – Train the Team § Majority of project team resources had little to no V 8 exposure. Utilized different methods: § Approximately 46 people received training. § Brought People. Soft onsite for large group delta classes. § Sent resources externally for specific People. Soft classes. (Security, App Engine, etc. ) § Utilized PSAdvisor and customer connection. § Conducted multiple brown bag/knowledge transfer sessions amongst the team. Page 19

Training – Train the Trainer § Needed to develop an internal program that could be repeatable: § Created 18 trainers. § Identified process experts in the field. § Hired a training consultant to work with internal staff to develop training program. § Process experts contributed to developing the training material for their area. § Trainers brought onsite to learn material and training techniques. Page 20

Training – Train the End User § The Self Service foundation and new GUI created a demand for additional training of our end users: § Approximately 320 HR professionals and 1200 Managers. § NCC trainers conducted sessions in the field. § Purchased and customized People. Soft’s Web. Based Learning Assistant for self help. § Created a command center specifically designed as a People. Soft hotline outside of normal IS help desk. Page 21

Implementation § Planning was essential – reviewed plan with entire team. § Performed multiple practice cutovers and one formal dress rehearsal. § Created a hotline and voicemail recording for team to obtain updates. § Created a command center to focus team. § New Year’s Eve 2001 Party – Started Friday, Dec 28, 2001 and brought system backup Jan 02, 2002. § Overall – very smooth transition. Page 22

Post Implementation Support § To address problems quickly we developed a People. Soft command center to log problems and work directly with team. (Duration: 120 days of operation after implementation. ) § Technical & Functional teams held daily flash meetings in the morning to review problem status and progress. § Utilized the intranet home page to post hints as problem trends were identified to assist users. § The support process was identified and communicated to team prior to implementation. Page 23

Post Implementation Support (cont. ) § Problem areas after implementation: § General usage questions or confusion: § The People. Soft Command Center quickly answered user questions which minimized confusion in the field. Center was staffed with the process experts from the project team. § Some existing interfaces began to have problems: § Determined some 3 rd parties tested interface load but didn’t fully validate data values (eg. Some xlat values changed). § PSQuery users were impacting performance: § Lowered query timeouts and amount of data they could return. Also capped the amount of concurrent queries that could be run. Page 24

Post Implementation Support (cont. ) § Resource Transition – preventing knowledge from walking out the door when resources roll off (internal and external): § Maintained critical resources on team through first month of support. § Created a resource skill set matrix for technical resources to identify gaps in the internal knowledge and develop a transition plan. § Assigned each departing resource a knowledge area where they were responsible for insuring it was properly documented. Also required them to conduct a knowledge transfer session on that topic. Page 25

Current State § Operating on V 8 since January 2002. § System has been stable and meeting end user performance requirements. § Command Center has been shut down: § General process knowledge questions now handled by generalists and SMEs in the field. § Technical problems now addressed through corporate IS help desk. § Positioned for a self service foundation. Page 26

Critical Success Factors § Strong Sponsor support. § Staffing, Staffing!!! – Obtained the § § best qualified resource whenever possible. Solid Training strategy from team to end users. Stress Testing provided valuable input on finalizing the architecture configuration. Practice mini cutovers and full dress rehearsals helped ensure a smooth cutover. Creation of Command Center after implementation prevented small problems from becoming disasters. Page 27

Q/A § Todd Saporito – National City Corporation SVP, Corporate Human Resources Director, HR Project Management & Technology Services todd. saporito@nationalcity. com § Ed Walters – Right Team, Inc. Senior Manager ewalters@rightteam. com Page 28