It’s very tempting to look at any new object that sparkles and shines, and assume that it must have other inherently redeeming qualities. But, as Shakespeare once stated, “all that glitters is not gold”. And Jeff Bezos of Amazon followed that up with, “A company shouldn’t get addicted to being shiny, because shiny doesn’t last”.
While form without function may dazzle in the sales cycle, it’s function that wins out in the long run. But if you can add form to that function, then all the better. That’s what makes for a winning combination.
Workday is an interesting example of the shiny object that doesn’t quite match up to what a good user experience should be. Yet, it tantalizes many, and is often under consideration as a replacement for organizations currently running PeopleSoft. While jumping to what some refer to as PeopleSoft 2.0 may sound like an attractive proposition, the world has changed enough over the past few years that it’s worth considering what may be cheaper and better alternatives.
1. Return on Investment (ROI)
You’ve already invested a huge amount of money in your PeopleSoft (and other) systems. But have you yet seen a full ROI on that outlay? If not, then now would not be the time to scrap everything you’ve spent so much on, and go all in on what would be a completely brand new implementation. And remember, it is not just an implementation, but also what could be building hundreds of new integrations. Workday is not a cheap solution, and can cost in the nine USD figures (not a typo) just to get it up and running. For a lot less money you may be a better off looking at ways you can increase your ROI in your current systems. Let’s face it, if the paint is peeling on your front door, your first inclination isn’t to emigrate to another country, find a new job, and build a new house. Home improvement is popular for a reason. It allows you to make the most of your money while living the lifestyle you want. Software is just the same. If you know what you are doing, and you have the proper tools, then you can create a brand new User Experience that leads to a fully utilized enterprise system that allows you to finally maximize your ROI.
2. It’s risky
OK, so imagine you did decide that emigrating to another country (one you’ve never been to), searching for a new job, and building a new house is the way you want to go. Well, first thing you need to do is explain that to your spouse. And their likely response will be, “Isn’t that risky? Can’t we just pop down to Home Depot and buy some paint instead?”. And the answer of course is yes. Starting fresh, and abandoning everything you ever knew, is very risky indeed. And the more complex an organization you are, the riskier it is. Balancing risk/reward/ROI may lead you to a different decision. And if you can solve your problems at a fraction of the cost, and with almost no risk, isn’t that a better way to go?
3. It’s not fully mature
How long has PeopleSoft been around? Forever, right? Well, technically since 1987. But in the software world, that’s pretty much forever. And guess what? There are still new features and functionality being added to it each year. Oracle has done a great job keeping on top of things and expanding functionality to meet demand. So that’s almost 30 years of development. Building a mature ERP system takes decades. It’s a colossal undertaking. For Workday to catch up to all that development will take many years, if ever, before they can match PeopleSoft feature for feature. Building a nice UI is the easy part. And, in the PeopleSoft world, the easiest thing to fix.
4. There’s more to an ERP system than a pretty face
There’s no doubt that Workday has attractive features. And at first glance it does catch the eye. But Workday is like a phone I bought only a couple of months ago. On paper it looked great. The specs were awesome, the pictures looked gorgeous. The only problem was, when the user picks it up it becomes a disaster. Way too big for the hand to hold, massively slippery, overly sensitive touch screen, is a fingerprint magnet, and cracks into pieces when dropped just 24 inches from the ground. It’s a UX nightmare. But it is extremely pretty (if you can ignore the cracked glass). This is the core problem with a company that understands the UI really well, but falls short on UX.
5. It’s not focused on the complete user experience
As Owen Wilson wistfully said in Wedding Crashers, “I think we only use 10% of our hearts”. ERP systems (and Workday falls into this trap) are kind of the same. Out of the box they don’t satisfy the complete user experience. Just a small fraction. How it’s implemented, and the tools provided, are the key to unlocking the real potential of an ERP system. In fact, the whole concept of an “ERP system” is typically something less tangible than people would like to admit. For most organizations the ERP system is really an eco-system of multiple ERP systems that the user is somehow expected to navigate and comprehend as one system (like the universe). Unfortunately, the human brain is not wired that way (unless you’re Stephen Hawking), which leads to massive under-utilization of the true potential that ERP systems could provide. Owen Wilson was right. 10% is a pretty accurate number.
6. It’s a blind alley
One of the great things about PeopleSoft is that if you don’t like certain areas of functionality, you can just plug something else in instead. Not happy with the recruiting module: plug in Taleo. Prefer a more modern Talent Planning module: plug in Oracle’s Fusion solution. Etc. It’s awesome. Like going to Burger King and ordering a burger with no lettuce, but with McDonalds fries. Hey, if that’s how you like it. That’s not how Workday works. Once you enter the Workday world you can plug in other vendor solutions, but only where Workday thinks they have a gap, and only with the vendors that Workday partners with. And the impression they give is that as they build out their functionality in future years, that support of these vendors will gradually disappear, until all that’s left is Workday. And that’s the end of the alley, and where all your data is locked up.
7. It lacks a portal
So why does Workday miss the mark so badly? Simple. It has no Portal. Without a portal, you are stuck in the silo of Workday. Providing an elegant user experience can only be achieved via a portal. No portal = bad user experience. Workday does provide a nice UI (note: read more about the difference between UX and UI) – but that’s not enough!
8. It’s rigid
In 1974 Burger King rocked the fast food world with the revolutionary, “Have it your way” tagline. Since then people have come to expect that whatever it is they want, they can have it their way. Custom skins on their phone, substitutions when ordering dinner (“hold the broccoli”), custom paint colors for the house, custom news feeds, custom cabinets for the kitchen. With Workday you can’t have it your way. You’ll have it the Workday-way. Try explaining that to your user base. Remember how many years and countless hours you spent getting PeopleSoft, and everything else, just to your users liking? Well, now you’re going to have to sit down with them and explain that from now on they’ll be ordering from the menu. With no substitutions! And if they don’t like mustard on the burger, well, they’ll just have to start liking it. Because that’s how it comes.
9. It won’t integrate with your corporate systems
All organizations have their own eco-system of internal systems that gradually morphed and developed over the years. We can’t just pretend they don’t exist. And if people are using these systems (which they must be) then that makes them part of the usability experience, and they need to be brought into the fold like everything else. Let’s call this Exhibit B in the case for why everyone needs a good portal. And until Workday has one, then they are missing the boat.
10. There’s a better way to solve your problems
Without wishing to be boastful, we at IntraSee have solved the UX conundrum. And we’ve solved it for complex global organizations using multitudes of different ERP systems. And this isn’t just sales talk. This isn’t a hypothetical resolution. This is practical and demonstrable. If you’d like to see a demo of how we can change your world at a tiny fraction of the cost of what it would take to go to Workday, then let us know. We’d be happy to show you.
Editorial note: May 1st, 2019:
It’s almost two years now since Workday announced more details on what their “intent” to open up their platform would actually mean. So, what’s the status now?
After the passage of two years, we were hoping to see much more progress in this area. Unfortunately, as of today, Workday appears to have made almost no progress. On their developer.workday.com web site, they advertise limited availability to be one of the first to be able to use their PaaS platform.
Limited Availability: This exclusive program gives you the opportunity to be one of the first organizations using the Workday Cloud Platform. Create business-impacting applications leveraging Workday’s technology. Help influence our roadmap.
– developer.workday.com
Also, and maybe a lot more concerning, Workday’s participation in the AI revolution and the new era of disruption appears to be stalled in the chatbot realm too. If you go to www.workday.com and search for chatbot, you get zero results. Whereas if you go to www.oracle.com and perform the same search, you get over 1,100 results. That’s a massive differentiation. One company appears to still be focused on back office activity in the Cloud, whereas the other is fully on board, and already equipped, for the AI revolution in Enterprise software.
Editorial note: November 20, 2017, Workday announced more details on what their “intent” to open up their platform would actually mean.
“Right now what we’re seeing is what I’d call small pieces of additional functionality rather than applications that have a larger purpose. So the potential impact is limited. You can bring whatever code you want but, we curate and certify everything that goes into that platform and will continue to do so. We have to because we have a responsibility to ensure that customers remain compliant”.
“We are approaching verticalization and extensions differently to others. We are curating everything and will discuss our plans with partners so that there is a clear line between the areas we will enter and those where our partners will have a free run”
– Aneel Bhusri
The bolded comments are the ones we feel are most pertinent. In the new age of digital disruption: agility and innovation are the key requirements of any organization. Without these things, you cannot adapt. Having an Enterprise system that requires curation and certification will be an impediment to clients and partners ability to provide the UX that their organizations want. And in this new world of digital disruption and transformation, this will be a major inhibitor to progress. Certainly, with the rise of chatbots as the new UI, organizations need the ability to adapt to these changes, and should not risk being forced to go through a curation and certification process. Or, even worse, be told, “no, you can’t do that”.
Editorial note: July 11, 2017 Workday announced:
“Today, we are ready to take a big step forward on our extensibility journey by announcing our intent to open our platform” and is “entering the Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) market”.
The key word here is “intent”. And from a practical perspective the obvious questions are:
Time will tell. But clearly it’s far too early to say that Workday has a PaaS platform until we truly see it being used, and, more importantly, being used successfully.
But, as has been said many times. The first step in the path to recovery is to recognize you have a problem. At least Workday is finally owning up to the fact that to be considered a real Enterprise SaaS vendor, you also need to be a real Enterprise PaaS vendor. But the other pillar to be being a true Enterprise player is that you really also need to be a real Enterprise IaaS vendor too. And that’s a very expensive proposition indeed.
It’s been said that the UI is the saddle, stirrups, and the reigns. While the UX is the feeling you get being able to ride a horse and rope your cattle.
As a UX (User Experience) company, we are often misunderstood as only focusing on a better UI (User Interface). The two terms do overlap, but while UI is a critical cog in the machine, the UX is the machine. Put simply, UI is how something is designed or how it looks. When an organization wants to fix their UI, you hear comments like, “our software looks outdated” or “it looks like it is out of the 90s”. The visual appeal is usually what they have in mind.
The UI is important. It has to be visually appealing for people to want to use the software, but it only tells a small portion of the story. UI focuses on a specific piece of software where the UX focuses on the entire user experience. That may sound simple, but it changes the dynamic quite a bit. UX concerns usually are evident with comments like:
The bottom line for UX is making it easy for the people using the system. Being an expert in ERP software is usually not their primary job, so you won’t get a lot of patience from them.
User Experience vs. User Interface Design
PeopleSoft provides a lot of flexibility to control the UI. There is a branding engine and system stylesheets where you can improve styling of PeopleSoft pages. Using the PeopleSoft Interaction Hub is the place to start for a better UI.
Even recently PeopleSoft has introduced Fluid UI which brings a fluid layout to the UI. What this means is that elements on a page can move with the changing size of your device. Fluid UI itself isn’t making the UI more appealing, rather it is the new stylesheets Oracle delivers with Fluid that provide that updated look.
You do not need Fluid to have a more modern style and Fluid doesn’t automatically make everything more modern. However, rarely is updating the UI alone going to solve your UX problems.
In our experiences, the problem clients are facing are bigger than UI. These problems exist with or without Fluid. This is why IntraSee focuses on UX. What exactly would make the user’s life easier? What would reduce the amount of time they waste on internal systems?
A good user experience is having a one-stop shop for Employees, Managers, Students or Faculty which includes PeopleSoft classic, Fluid and your cloud apps. It is having a single, simple navigational structure and a comprehensive universal search. It is using the right terminology and labeling, providing help right when it is needed and managing the user’s task list in one place. And, of course, the experience has to be consistent no matter what kind of device is being used: Laptop, tablet, or phone.
Today, when you are on Twitter, you may notice in your timeline links to Instagram posts. You probably also have experienced the annoyance of these links. While the UI for Twitter and Instagram have gotten better, the UX has gotten worse for this use case due to some competition between Twitter and Facebook. It didn’t always used to be this way.
Previously the Instagram photos were embedded directly inside the tweet. This meant no clicking, no waiting for the Instagram site to load, and a user could just scroll through and see these photos at a glance. That is where UX comes to play.
Which side do you find more useful?
Just how the UX above misses the mark, good ERP software UX is more than just styling. Deep, meaningful integration is important, and it is why we pour so much of our attention into integration. To do UX right, you have to go beyond a single application. You have to understand what your people are trying to accomplish, every tool they use, and how they use them to get their work done. If improving the user experience is a goal of your organization, then please contact us and we’ll show you how it’s done!
A couple of important default settings have changed in PeopleTools 8.55. The first is that all users now will land on a Fluid Tiles homepage after signing on. If you are using Interaction Hub homepages, you will need to revert this behavior via PeopleTools Personalization.
Tile Homepage
The second big change is the Enterprise Menu is now gone in 8.55. Well, maybe not entirely gone, but hidden by way of code. As a side effect, the breadcrumbs in the menu bar are also now gone. This change has caused quite a bit of questions to come our way. The problem is quite simple. The enterprise menu was complicated and not well-suited for self-service users, however, power users relied heavily on that power and the ability to jump sideways in a navigational scheme.
New menu on classic homepage
Many PeopleSoft shops used a popular navigation method for their power users called “The Single Link”. This is where the Interaction Hub would have a single link to HCM/Finance/Campus/Etc. Clicking the link would launch the HCM homepage, for example, and allow users to navigate HCM-only pages which was very handy for power users. PeopleSoft even delivered Single Link cRefs in the Interaction Hub.
Now with 8.55, the single link method is no longer operational. Oracle requires customers to enable and use Unified Navigation. Of course this not only means changing your navigational scheme, but it also means there is no way to navigate solely within HCM now. Once you deploy Unified Nav, your navigation includes all PeopleSoft apps in the cluster. For some users this is a good thing, but for others it is coming as a hard change.
At IntraSee, we always look through the user’s eyes. In this case, there are different user segments with differing needs. We would never simply recommend going one direction at the cost of the other audience. Power users are fundamentally different to self-service users. So what is the solution?
The same solution isn’t necessarily right for every customer. Differing industries and differing countries all come into play. What is certain, is that we have to do an effective job of blending Classic and Fluid in this post-8.54 world and navigation is a big topic that goes with that theme. We need to ensure the landing page is representative of the one-stop shop users need and includes navigation for these different segments of the population.
The good news is that using the power of PeopleSoft, navigation is entirely controllable. We know who every user is and we can create tailored navigation for each segment. If we add in concepts such as frequency, trending and personalization to a site’s navigation, we can achieve a truly powerful solution. Reach out to us and we would be happy to talk more about the possibilities.
You’ve decided that you want to improve the Usability of your ERP system, but you don’t want the responsibility for maintaining that in-house. That’s a smart choice, and something that many organizations are looking to do. Why focus on building an IT infrastructure when you can instead focus on building your business? The solution is IntraSee’s Usability Cloud.
So what is the IntraSee Usability Cloud?
Our Cloud consists of three key elements:
The Interaction Hub is a mature and sophisticated portal that is the engine used for creating a one-stop usability shop. It is used by thousands of organizations throughout the world and has a proven record of scalability and reliability.
For over a decade we at IntraSee have developed usability solutions that are best in class, cover the entire needs of even the most complex (often global) organizations, and are pluggable into other Cloud applications.
Our solutions are also highly configurable and beautiful by design. Selecting from an a la carte menu of options, you simply check the options you want your users to see. It’s that simple. Even selecting integration with other major Cloud applications is as simple as checking a box. Our solutions and methodology handle the rest. No headaches, no difficult decisions. We’ve spent years figuring out all the complex stuff, and have packaged it into solutions that fit neatly into a one-stop shop that can sit in the cloud.
If you’d like to see what this looks like, just ask us for a demo. We’ll be proud to show you how easily you can solve all your ERP usability problems.
They say you’re only as strong as your weakest point of failure. That’s why we chose the most advanced, reliable, and fastest cloud in the world. Amazon AWS. Amazon offers a true cloud environment that is unmatched. IntraSee usability with the Amazon cloud – the best of all worlds.
The IntraSee Usability Cloud
If you already own the Interaction Hub, or any IntraSee products, we can offer you great cost savings on your monthly service fee for running in our cloud. This makes a very affordable solution even more affordable. You’ve already paid for it once, why pay for it twice?
If you don’t own the full license to the Interaction Hub, don’t worry! You can start off with the included RUL license and expand into the full license when needed.
Amazon Cloud (AWS) is the market leader in cloud computing and is at the forefront in terms of innovation, functionality, agility, and responsiveness. Not to mention AWS has a proven track record after years of success. IntraSee carefully analyzed each of the major cloud service providers before selecting Amazon Web Services as their provider for the IntraSee Usability Cloud based on a multitude of different factors.
The following are just some of the advantages which the Amazon Cloud offers our clients:
Elasticity and scalability
Low Cost
Global Accessibility
Reliability
Extensive Security Capabilities
AWS Compliance
The AWS cloud infrastructure has been designed and managed in alignment with regulations, standards, and best-practices including HIPAA, FERPA, FIPS, CJIS, DIACAP, DoD, FDA, FedRAMP, Glacier for SEC Rule 17a-4(f), GxP, ITAR, NIST, CSA, Data Privacy, ISO 9001, ISO 27001, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, MPAA, PCI, SOC, EU Data Protection, IT-Grundschutz, G-Cloud, Europe Cloud Compliance, Malaysian Privacy Considerations, MLPS, MTCS, Singapore Privacy Considerations, IRAP and New Zealand Privacy Considerations.
And the best part…
While Amazon is sophisticated and mature, rest assured you will never have to deal directly with any of their technology stack. That is where IntraSee comes in. The entire infrastructure is maintained on your behalf. Also, our vast implementation experience tells us that to deliver best-in-class usability, you need a best-in-class infrastructure. With the IntraSee Usability Cloud, we are uniquely positioned to offer the high-quality service in the Cloud that we are known for from our “in-house” implementations. Gone are the days of needing to explain to your hosting provider how PeopleSoft works.
At IntraSee, our approach to PeopleSoft and usability stands out for many reasons, but one often flies under the radar. We are big believers in the PeopleTools technology stack, and all of our products are built on PeopleTools combined with web technologies that fit inside that stack. But you would never know that by looking at our solutions. What you see is best in class usability. And what you get is reliability, scalability, and ease of maintenance.
In the early days, we considered the obvious question: why use a new technology when you have one your clients already know? Think about all the features you are already comfortable with that have been tried and tested over multiple decades:
Why would you build these things from scratch? More importantly, why would you risk redundant code by running two technologies that do the same thing? Even the simple stuff like user ID provisioning can become a problem. When you have two technology stacks trying to stay in sync and provision/de-provision accounts, messy stuff just happens!
Maybe most importantly, when you introduce new technology stacks such as Microsoft .Net, PHP, and Java, you are increasing the moles in a game of security whack-a-mole.
It is one more system that could have a security vulnerability. One more place for a performance bottleneck. One more way for things to go wrong and they always find a way of blowing up on you. The more moving pieces you have in your architecture, the harder it is to keep up. We are only human, after all.
At IntraSee, we believe you should spend your time and energy on delighting your users. Don’t get bogged down in security patches, synchronizations and the maintenance of multiple technology stacks. Contact us and learn more about our approach.
