Business Intelligence | Knowledge Management Solution | eDevelopment
PeopleSoft Implementation | PeopleSoft DBA Tuning | ERP Application
Oracle Database Administration

Background
The role of the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Human Resources is to plan and efficiently manage personnel assignments, workforce planning, personnel information, employee services and personnel policy. They must manage these responsibilities and the personnel processing for 19,000 employees.

Problem
Before Buchanan & Edwards came to the Department of State, the Bureau of Human Resources was using an aged mainframe system to satisfy personnel tracking and reporting. The collective, aged systems imposed significant challenges and constraints to their business requirements. Users of the old system could not always expect to have reliable data returned to them because the systems were not integrated. And, in order for the system to become Y2K compliant, costly upgrades would have been needed. Also, the old system lacked the user friendly medium of current database software.

The Bureau decided to modernize and move away from their mainframe system and implement PeopleSoft's Human Resource Management System (HRMS) to support its core personnel processing requirements, replace its mainframe applications and ensure Year 2000 compliancy. To implement PeopleSoft effectively, the HR Bureau needed the assistance of professionals who had PeopleSoft development experience and had been involved in successful PeopleSoft implementations.

B&E's Right Solution
Buchanan & Edwards supported the PeopleSoft implementation as the lead technical architect for the effort, working with the Bureau's staff to enhance applications and integrate the systems. B&E developed, maintained and executed the data conversion process, converting data from the old system to the Bureau's new system, the Global Employment Management System (GEMS). GEMS is a customized version of PeopleSoft, specifically addressing the needs of the users accessing the Bureau of Human Resources data. B&E designed and implemented external and internal interfaces, ensuring consistency and continuity with the mainframe interfaces. In addition, B&E customized online panels to modernize to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) display. B&E was also involved in change management initiatives to conform further to current Information Technology practices: by converting the old data to PeopleSoft-usable data, a relational database (Oracle) now powers the entire GEMS system.

Result
The implementation was successful, and the system currently manages the records of 19,000 worldwide employees. B&E still works with the Bureau to implement additional requirements as they arise. In addition, because of the new system, actions can be processed more quickly, with fewer errors, providing a more flexible, user friendly and efficient system.