We’ll never forget the first time we saw a PeopleSoft application. The year was 1995 and our client was using PeopleSoft 3.0. Now, you have to remember that back then Windows had been out for quite some time, yet this looked nothing like any Windows-based application we had ever seen. It was almost as if Windows had not been invented when PeopleSoft was first designed (which, of course, wasn’t true). In fact, it wasn’t until PeopleSoft 5 came out that we felt, “yes, this looks like a fairly modern application” (even though the UX had clearly not been fully considered). And it was fairly modern, for about one year. Then the web happened, and PeopleSoft went back to being old fashioned and clunky again.
Then in the year 2000, the PeopleSoft Portal was announced, and we were all so excited. Finally, a chance to rectify mistakes of the past and deliver a UX that was thoroughly modern and laser focused on employees, managers, students and faculty members. And that was the dream, that PeopleSoft could finally fulfill its potential. The architecture was great, all it needed was a modern UX.
In 2005 IntraSee was founded, and it became our one intent: to enhance the UX for PeopleSoft customers such that ease of use, ROI, user satisfaction and efficiency could finally be realized.
We feel, for our clients, that we have made that UX change happen. But, as always, the world continues to turn, and technology has now taken a next generational leap – at the exact same time that the Enterprise world has begun a move to the Cloud. And it’s a change far more significant and impactful than the switch from client-server to the web.
Now we are seeing a UX shift from web to Chatbot/AI, at the same time we are also seeing a shift from on-premise to the Cloud.
This UX change has been a long time coming, and we at IntraSee have been preparing for this for quite some time. For almost five years we have been building a UX suite that could support any pluggable Artificial Intelligence UI. And now we are rolling it out across the PeopleSoft & Oracle Enterprise. A chatbot for your entire Enterprise (see our Chatbot Pilot blog to learn more).
We believe that the combination of the Cloud as the new architectural standard, and Chatbot as the new UI standard, will have a massive impact on what all PeopleSoft customers should be planning to do next.
So here’s what we think every PeopleSoft customer should consider doing next:
Now is the time to start spending on your future. For anyone waiting another three years to start to dabble in AI, it’s important to understand that this would be too late. You will be so far behind the curve you will never catch up. Make 2017 and 2018 the years you piloted Chatbot solutions within your organization. Talk to your business community, show them how a Chatbot solution can meet their requirements far more efficiently than a classic web solution. Implementing HR Help Desk? Wouldn’t a chatbot be a perfect fit for this? And far more efficient and user friendly than searching and clicking through pages and pages of FAQ’s.
Our recommendation would be to pick one piece of functionality and pilot it. That way you can gain a deep understanding of the true capabilities of AI today, as opposed to simply believing all the hype. At the end of a well-executed pilot you would understand its applicability to your organization, cost-savings it would provide, and what was involved in implementing and maintaining a Chatbot solution. You’d also have the added benefit of being able to sit down with the executives in your organization and say, “this is what we can do, and these are the benefits we’ll get from it”.
And pilots are relatively inexpensive. No need to commit to a full implementation until you know exactly what you will be getting.
Figure 1: Piloting a Chatbot solution will remove the barriers for a full implementation
Consider moving your current “portal” solution into the Cloud, today. Even if this is just a lift & shift to Oracle IaaS, that would be a great start. Once you are in the Cloud you can start implementing a more modern UX that relies on Cloud capability. This could be just a simple case of moving the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub onto Oracle IaaS, or it could be as forward-thinking as migrating your Interaction Hub to the Oracle PaaS platform via the Content & Experience Cloud.
Figure 2: Move your PeopleSoft UX into the Cloud & do this!
Every PeopleSoft client that we know has spent large amounts of money building their own custom applications using PeopleTools. Now is the time to consider rebuilding those critical applications (that aren’t delivered on any SaaS platform) on a new Cloud technology platform, while also redoing the UX at the same time. Such that you are also adding value to your organization while you make the move. If the technology platform is also the same as the one being used by your preferred SaaS vendor, then all the better. Going with Oracle PaaS if you plan to one day move to Oracle SaaS (via HCM Cloud) makes all the sense in the world.
For those PeopleSoft clients who are currently evaluating SaaS vendors in preparation for their move off of PeopleSoft, it’s critical that you add another checkbox to the evaluation process. Does the vendor have a fully thought out AI/Chatbot infrastructure? If it doesn’t then you may want to just keep walking. Nobody wants to be the person who bought a great looking client-server application in 1997 at the same time that web-based applications were about to be the new thing. And nobody should be buying an application in 2017 just because the web demo looks shiny and new. There’s a new requirement now, and it’s critical that you can meet that new requirement, because in a couple of years it will be the new standard. Does it come with a Chatbot platform?
The next two years will be of massive significance for anyone using PeopleSoft today. Decisions made now will impact your organization for many years to come.
Don’t make the mistake of believing that because you are on PeopleSoft now, that you can’t use Chatbots and you can’t be in the Cloud. You can do both.
Please contact us to learn more about how you can evolve your current systems and keep pace with the next wave of UI.
IntraSee will be back and exhibiting at OpenWorld this year in San Francisco. We are returning to Moscone South in booth 4210 just right of center. We have two exciting announcements to share. The first is that we will be showing off our Chatbot solutions, so come by the booth or schedule your personal demo now. The second is that our CEO, Paul Isherwood, will be presenting with Oracle on the Content and Experience Cloud, a next-generation UX layer in the cloud. Details about the session are below. We hope to see you in October!
At IntraSee, for over a decade, we have been providing award-winning user experiences for both our higher education and commercial clients. This has included “one-stop shop” web sites, guided self-service, and mobile/responsive everything. By greatly improving the UX of our client’s Enterprise/Campus systems they have seen: lower calls to the help desk, better data quality, improved productivity, and a more satisfied user base.
Meanwhile, information and data has kept growing at a frantic pace. According to studies by IDC, this growth is exponential, and by 2020 the amount of data we have in our enterprise systems will double what we have today!
Even if all this data and information is on one well-organized web site, it is becoming overwhelming for the user, and every day it gets harder for them to find what they need.
In 1989, Moviefone debuted and changed the way we expected to find real-time information about movies playing in a theater near us. You could call a phone number and use your keypad to interact with an automated computer voice to find movies near you. Up until this point, people had to find a current newspaper, locate the entertainment section by flicking through page after page, then scan the entire page looking for the theater and movie listings. Can you even imagine that today? I will tell you, today’s undergrads certainly can’t.
Figure 1: The UX may have been bad but the movies were great!
That newspaper pre-1989 is where we are today with campus systems (which, according to studies, are on average 13 years old).
There is a lot of great information in your campus systems, but if students can’t find it then it may as well not exist.
Moviefone’s success was merely a sign of things to come. A sign that having a conversation was more appealing than scanning a newspaper. And students today prefer one medium for having a conversation above all else: texting!
Your Chatbot experience will be nothing like KramerBot!
Students today are Digital Natives. They have been immersed in a hi-tech world their whole lives and expect to be able to use these technologies on campus. Just as they can’t conceive of those newspaper days, they won’t understand why they can’t just interact with your student system via conversational messaging, just like they do on the internet and with their friends. And on the internet, right now, they are using Chatbots to interact with many sites.
Conversational UI is replacing Web UI as the new standard
Chatbots are the technology allowing students to have a conversation with your student systems. The chat interaction is certainly natural and appealing, but that is only half the story. A well-implemented Chatbot can be your super application. It is a master aggregator without the feeling of information overload. As Kramer would say, “why don’t you just tell me what movie you want to see?” Imagine some of the things students would ask your Chatbot.
A Chatbot also allows device independence. You can start a conversation on your phone, but then finish it on your laptop or even in a computer lab. That is something a student expects today.
While Chatbots can be good news for the students and faculty, they also present an opportunity for the institution. What are the ROI possibilities? As we discussed in our post, There’s gold in them thar hills, the savings a good user experience brings can be significant.
The common consensus on AI is that if you were spending money on it three years ago you were wasting your money. But if you are now waiting three years before you plan to spend money on it then you will be woefully behind everyone else and will never be able to catch up. Now is the time to spend on AI. And, let’s face it, your current student body will almost all be gone in three years and they want this now.
The great news is that being on PeopleSoft doesn’t prevent you from implementing a Chatbot solution now. So don’t fall into the trap of using that as an excuse for doing nothing.
The interface of tomorrow won’t be a web page. So be prepared, and get a jump start on your own Chatbot implementation with our Chatbot Pilot program, by contacting us below to learn more.
Let’s just say this up front. We at IntraSee could not be more excited about the new era we are all about to enter in the UX world. It seems like yesterday (actually, circa 1997) that it became apparent that web-based systems would be the UI of the future. Now, just 20 years later, AI is the new UI. We are officially entering the Conversational era!
85% of executives surveyed report they will be investing extensively in AI-related technologies over the next 3 years
And to explain why this is such a big deal, let us describe it this way: your current Enterprise system is a mass of sub systems that have grown and morphed over many years into a kind of neural network that is almost incomprehensible to the average user. Expecting them to navigate and understand this complex labyrinth is not a reasonable expectation. To them (and even your IT staff) your system looks like this:
Figure 1: How navigating your Enterprise system looks to your users
Whereas, this is how they would like it to be:
Figure 2: A better UX
But, as anyone who has seen any sci-fi movie knows, all robots/chatbots are not created equal. It’ll be just as easy to purchase a lemon in the new era as it was in the old era. And, of course, because this is software we are talking about, how you implement your Chatbot solution will be the key to its success.
To that end we have decided to rollout a new program starting August 2017: the IntraSee Chatbot Pilot. The premise is simple: demonstrations by skilled sales people can make almost anything look good. So, for your own peace of mind wouldn’t it be much better to see the solution working with your data and applications? When you buy a car don’t you like to take it for a spin, kick the tires, and put it through some real-life scenarios? You don’t rely on the sales person to tell you how much you’ll love it without trying it out for yourself. Well, unless your name is Clark Griswold in National Lampoon’s Vacation.
Figure 3: “You think you hate it now, but wait till you drive it”
At IntraSee we believe that UX is the key component of the employee/student experience with your Enterprise & Campus systems. A bad UX will cost your organization in many ways (see: There’s gold in them thar hills): lost productivity, bad data entry, too many calls to the help desk and a frustrated organization. By implementing a Chatbot POC/Pilot you will be able to get immediate feedback on the benefits of an AI-based solution, and also get to understand the logistics behind a successful implementation. Put simply, you don’t have to roll the dice on this. We can take away the risk and associated stress by providing a solution you can show to your colleagues, and, just as importantly, the executives in your organization.
If your senior leadership team haven’t already asked you what you will be doing with Chatbots, then they will soon. This is your opportunity to shine.
The program will work this way:
Note: Our initial POC/Pilots will focus on Employee/Manager Self-Service and Student/Campus Self-Service.
To find our more please contact us below.
As we have talked about in our blog, All Aboard the Cloud Train, the enterprise software industry is moving swiftly to a cloud-based future. Every institution needs to consider this reality when setting their own long-term strategy. For Oracle’s Student Cloud, the train hasn’t pulled into the station yet, but we can smell the smoke.
If you are on Campus 9.0 you have been faced with a difficult decision. Do you spend a lot of money upgrading to Campus 9.2 or do you take that budget and invest it in your long-term future, the Cloud?
For Oracle, this question was especially problematic because ending support for Campus 9.0 was causing customers to weigh a 9.2 upgrade vs. other options. The issue is Oracle’s other option, the Student Cloud, is not ready yet. If customers wanted to remain supported, they would need to invest in a 9.2 upgrade and then implement the Student Cloud. That’s two implementations and is not a good fit for everyone, so Oracle is adjusting to customer feedback.
In June 2017, Oracle published their Oracle Student Products Position Statement as a response to this anxiety. One particular line addresses the Campus 9.0 customers directly.
“Oracle is investigating the possibility of providing one or more additional years of support for CS 9.0. This extension would enable customers to move to the new Cloud components rather than upgrading to CS 9.2.”
Oracle is now saying it is ok to stay on 9.0 while you wait for the Student Cloud. That’s a great option for many, but can you afford to stand still and do nothing with PeopleSoft in the meantime? We talk about standing still waiting on Student Cloud in our blog, Just finished your Campus 9.2 upgrade? Now what??
Believe it or not, but your students aren’t sat on campus eagerly awaiting your next PeopleSoft upgrade. Or wondering when you’ll be moving to a cloud-based solution. The reality is they really don’t care about platforms and vendors. What they care about is how they can interact with your systems. How easy do you make it, or how difficult and behind the times is it? They are also comparing you, often unfavorably, with consumer solutions that they use on an everyday basis. And they wonder, out loud, why your technology solutions are nothing like what they are used to seeing on their phone or tablet.
In the consumer world Chatbots are the new way people are accessing systems. So your students are looking to you to provide that level of service to them today, not in four years’ time. By then they’ll have graduated and moved on. So it’s critical that your campus is fully accessible on their phone in ways that consumer systems are today. That means fully responsive web access, conversational messaging, and even voice.
This is where IntraSee’s Usability First methodology comes in. We address the user experience issues today, and that work provides a smooth path to eventually moving to Student Cloud at your pace. It is the best of both worlds. Consider usability improvements in your current PeopleSoft Campus 9.0 such as Mobile, Student Self-Service, Academic Planner or even some Artificial Intelligence with Chatbots.
You can improve the user experience today and your efforts are a down payment on your next-generation student system, if you do it right. An added bonus is that your team can learn the technology of the future through this process and be fully ready for the Student Cloud.
Contact us below and we can chat about how you can improve your Campus 9.0 UX and be ready for the Student Cloud.
