PeopleSoft

[Boblobla]

I heard about this story on the CBC news this morning. Wondering if anyone uses the program and if it really sucks as bad as they say it does. I know my girlfriend uses it once a year and absolutely hates it.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/sto...e-payroll.html

Faulty payroll software affecting thousands at Calgary Board of Education


Thousands of employees with the Calgary Board of Education are said to be experiencing problems associated with faulty payroll software. Board spokesman Ted Flitton says the software causing the problems is called PeopleSoft and has affected about 4,000 people since it was installed in February.

He says in some cases it has delayed paycheques or benefit payments.

[Ozy_Flame]

I can see that happening. We use PeopleSoft where I work, but we have an entire AD / AS department to support it, so we are actually OK with it. However, smaller companies may not be so lucky all the time; it is a monstrous program that needs a good supporting staff to run it.

[Resolute 14]

We do too, but we are an IT company, so we damn well better have the support for it. That pretty much is the problem with these large applications. I know my client site is having a hell of a time with SAP, which they just implemented, becuase they don't have the support structure in place for it. The CBE sounds like it is in a similar predicament.

[arsenal]

It's better than SAP.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

I heard about this story on the CBC news this morning. Wondering if anyone uses the program and if it really sucks as bad as they say it does. I know my girlfriend uses it once a year and absolutely hates it.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/sto...e-payroll.html

Faulty payroll software affecting thousands at Calgary Board of Education


Thousands of employees with the Calgary Board of Education are said to be experiencing problems associated with faulty payroll software. Board spokesman Ted Flitton says the software causing the problems is called PeopleSoft and has affected about 4,000 people since it was installed in February.

He says in some cases it has delayed paycheques or benefit payments.

Interesting story for me when you consider that I work for a company that designs, writes, implements and supports Payroll and HRMS solutions. There are some pretty interesting comments at the bottom of the article.

I feel badly for the people that are getting crushed by this, I expect that heads are going to roll at PeopleSoft due to this hitting the press, and even more are going to roll at the CBE for picking it.

[Boblobla]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Interesting story for me when you consider that I work for a company that designs, writes, implements and supports Payroll and HRMS solutions. There are some pretty interesting comments at the bottom of the article.

I feel badly for the people that are getting crushed by this, I expect that heads are going to roll at PeopleSoft due to this hitting the press, and even more are going to roll at the CBE for picking it.

I am not sure about the CBE since the University of Calgary and the CHR have been using the program for 3 years so the market was here already.

I am sure PeopleSoft will do some fireing though. I believe that it is distributed in Calgary by a division of Telus so it doesn't surprise me that the support isn't there...

[Kybosh]

Yeah, the CBE should've talked to the UofC first. Just like how the UofC should've talked to the group of American universities that filed a lawsuit against Peoplesoft a few years ago.

[FanIn80]

Yeah, I used to work for a company that designed, built, implemented, etc, corporate payment solutions. I can't tell you how many clients would offhandedly bitch about PeopleSoft when they were talking to us about our (not even releated) products.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Boblobla

I am not sure about the CBE since the University of Calgary and the CHR have been using the program for 3 years so the market was here already.

I am sure PeopleSoft will do some fireing though. I believe that it is distributed in Calgary by a division of Telus so it doesn't surprise me that the support isn't there...

Even if it is Telus, they're not mentioned in the article so whomever manages that relationship between PeopleSoft and Telus probably has had a pretty miserable day.

I've always found that things like SAP and PeopleSoft are really hit or miss, but the problem is more in the initial implementation then the long term support.

I've heard of implementations where they just stop after millions of dollars and hundreds of hours have already been lost because it can be incredibly frustrating.

[mykalberta]

Haha, peoplesoft.

Where we work we use a combinations SAP and JDE.

We have 2 departments for computers, IT (hardware infrastructure etc) where I work and IS. Of the IS group about 90% of them support SAP, the rest do web and other stuff I dont really care about.

SAP is ridiculously expensive to get and support and I dont have one damn thing to do about it

[Bobblehead]

It seems that all ERP/CRM systems by large firms are so complex that, unless you have well trained staff dedicated to that system, it is too unwieldy to be effective but too expensive to just discard.

We're a SMB, and we're having nasty issues with our CRM.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

It seems that all ERP/CRM systems by large firms are so complex that, unless you have well trained staff dedicated to that system, it is too unwieldy to be effective but too expensive to just discard.

We're a SMB, and we're having nasty issues with our CRM.

CRM's are really tough especially since every business has different requirements and needs. We ended up custom writing one from the ground up.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

CRM's are really tough especially since every business has different requirements and needs. We ended up custom writing one from the ground up.

Yeah, we're on our 2nd provider and it is a big a PITA as ever. The original requirements spec is under constant assault:

Provider: "To do this, you must change to SQL Server"
Us: "But the preliminary requirement was that it run on Oracle"
Provider: "It will run on Oracle"
Us: "But we are having issues with X, Y and Z"
Provider: "You should change to SQL Server, we know it better"
Us: "But we chose you because you had expertise running this on Oracle"
Provider: "Yeah, but they are no longer with the company."
Us: "AAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH"

Rinse and repeat with all ongoing issues.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

Yeah, we're on our 2nd provider and it is a big a PITA as ever. The original requirements spec is under constant assault:

Provider: "To do this, you must change to SQL Server"
Us: "But the preliminary requirement was that it run on Oracle"
Provider: "It will run on Oracle"
Us: "But we are having issues with X, Y and Z"
Provider: "You should change to SQL Server, we know it better"
Us: "But we chose you because you had expertise running this on Oracle"
Provider: "Yeah, but they are no longer with the company."
Us: "AAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH"

Rinse and repeat with all ongoing issues.

Depending on the size of your company, thats not a cheap changeover either. At the last company I was with we used a web based enterprise CRM and it worked like a charm and was fully customized to our specific information needs. It was a great solution.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by mykalberta

Where we work we use a combinations SAP and JDE.

Oh you poor soul.

We have 2 departments for computers, IT (hardware infrastructure etc) where I work and IS. Of the IS group about 90% of them support SAP, the rest do web and other stuff I dont really care about.

SAP is ridiculously expensive to get and support and I dont have one damn thing to do about it

I'm pretty much in the same boat. I install SAP, that that's as far as I take it. Thank, freaking, god.

[Boblobla]

So is PeopleSoft a similar program to SAP? I have worked with SAP.

[Bobblehead]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

Depending on the size of your company, thats not a cheap changeover either. At the last company I was with we used a web based enterprise CRM and it worked like a charm and was fully customized to our specific information needs. It was a great solution.

I'm the DBA

Them: "You have a problem with your database"
Me: "I have 10 different apps and 250+ users all running successfully against the aforementioned database."
The: "Yeah but our application doesn't work, you need to change"
Me: *Picard head slap*

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bobblehead

I'm the DBA

Them: "You have a problem with your database"
Me: "I have 10 different apps and 250+ users all running successfully against the aforementioned database."
The: "Yeah but our application doesn't work, you need to change"
Me: *Picard head slap*

Thats awesome, and I hear stuff like that all the time. Companies might make great products but I rarely hear great support stories anymore.

[llama64]

Originally Posted by arsenal

It's better than SAP.

That's not saying much.

All of these massive integrated ERP software packages are brutal. The architecture of them gets so damn complex that the actual benefits are almost never seen.

Better to break the functional units apart and have each department use it's own suite of software. Then just figure out some of the common data (addresses, employee info, etc) and store those in a central database. There is no real need to join the software layers together... /rant

Then again, if you can get into the ERP support business, there is a lot of money to be made off of dumb companies.

[Shazam]

Think of what scares you most in life. ERPs are scarier than that.

I used to do SAP config/ABAP. Sucked, but getting paid $1K a day rocked.