MCI WorldCom Limited select Congruent for HCM Upgrade
MCI WorldCom Limited recently announced that Congruent are the implementation partner for their HCM upgrade from version 8.3 to version 8.8.  The project is expected to commence immediately, with completion due around the end of May.  In addition to the application and PeopleTools upgrade, the project will involve the implementation of Employee Self Service \ Manager Self Service for Time & Labour and Absence management, along with the automation of the payroll interfaces. This project covers the business region of EMEA for MCI WorldCom and will be rolled out for fourteen countries .

Nabarro Nathanson joins Congruent Support Centre
Nabarro Nathanson, one of the UK’s leading commercial law firms, is another eminent European company which has recently engaged Congruent's Solution Support Centre (SSC) to handle their third-tier PeopleSoft HCM support.  As with all of our SSC contracts, the client was able to exactly specify the terms, conditions and level of support required for their internal team.

For more information on tailoring our Support Solutions to your requirements click here, or feel free to Contact us.

October 2003 Practice Meeting

Our quarterly practice meeting was held on Friday 3rd October at our offices in Hampshire. Nearly all of the team were in attendance, several with new additions to their families!!  The day was spent catching up and discussing a range of topics including recent achievements, the forthcoming sales pipeline, marketing strategy and financial performance.

After the official proceedings the strategy meetings continued at Brooklands Grand Prix Academy, where the afternoon and early evening were spent in a Go Karting tournament.  Teams were comprised of our consultants, their partners and invitations were also extended to Congruent's software Partners and clients, many of whom made it down for a great afternoon of racing. 

For more information on the day including photo's click here

Highways Agency Upgrade goes Live!

Congruent are pleased to announce that the PeopleSoft Human Capital Management Upgrade (HCM) for the Highways Agency, an Executive Agency of the Department of Transport,  went live on the 15th of September, 2003.  The project took the Highways Agency from version 7.5 of HCM to version 8.8 along with required PeopleTools upgrade and was very well received by the agency.  Janet Foreman, the BIS Client Advisor, said "The whole project went very smoothly and we consider it to be a great success which is particularly nice after bad experiences with a previous upgrade."

The project was instigated with the major drivers being to streamline existing business processes and to take advantage of the added functionality in HCM version 8.8.  To cut down on costs, an Upgrade Lab was initially run from Congruent's Aldershot offices before the project relocated to the Highway Agency's main branch in Leeds.   Following on from this Congruent are implementing Position Management, Manager Self-Service and Employee Self-Service.

Global Payroll Text to Formula Interpreter

After being frustrated at the amount of time it took to insert or update Formulas in the PeopleSoft Global Payroll product, One of Congruent's key Global Payroll consultants Simon Steele has spent a couple of late nights at home developing an interpreter which allows text versions of the GP Formulas to be loaded into the PeopleSoft Global Payroll formula page.

Click Here for more information on the interpreter.

Congruent Completes Ernst and Young Upgrade to PeopleSoft 8 on Time and to Budget

Ernst and Young LLP went live with their UK V7.5 to V8 HCM upgrade on 30th June 2003, on time and within budget. The transition weekend went perfectly, capping off a fantastic project for the Congruent and E&Y team.
  

The project, which kicked off in November after a 2 month scoping exercise, was instigated with a return to vanilla functionality the key driver along with a restructuring of the HR department. The project resulted in a reduction in the number of online customisations by around half and a similar reduction in the number of interfaces. E&Y have estimated that the redesign of their HR organisation and the re-engineering of its processes through the upgrade will deliver improvements in efficiency with the potential to save the firm approximately £4 million annually.

To view the Ernst and Yound case study, click here

Congruent downs Unilever peoplelink in friendly cricket match

After a long and successful period of support for Unilever's Global Payroll implementation, it was time for the Congruent and Unilever teams to battle it out on the pitch. Under a threatening sky on a balmy summer evening the two teams took to the ground. Congruent were slightly under strength due to Great North Eastern Rail, but through a combination of good batting and a couple of keen reserves from the peoplelink team, performed well to post a very respectable score of 162.

After a quick beer pause between the innings the peoplelink team came out with all guns blazing in a glorious attempt to win. However, the Congruent bowlers held their nerve to take the match by restricting Unilever to 140 from their 20 overs. A barbeque was held at the ground after the match for the teams and their families and many an exaggerated tale of sporting prowess was told.  Many thanks to Martin Kercher from Unilever for organising the day and throwing the match with a well planned run-out.  

 Click here for more on the match.

Congruent and Quest strengthen partnership

Congruent provides Quest and its clients with installation, customisation and maintenance services for their Stat product and are the only Quest partner certified on Stat in Europe. Quest Software's Stat is an immensely powerful tool, providing change management and version control for PeopleSoft.

Congruent has now completed three full installations of Stat for Quest and both the diversity of the product and Congruent's expertise have been well proven. These installations have covered retail, telecommunications and financial vertical sectors across the PeopleSoft Financials, CRM and HCM applications.

Working closely with project management and team leads, Congruent's consultants successfully configured Stat to encapsulate each company's development processes and change controls. With an initial installation and configuration typically taking ten to fifteen days, there is little time for error, and Congruent has successfully completed all three implementations within these strict timescales, greatly minimising the impact on production databases.

With the current installation demand filling dates to November, Congruent and Quest are looking forward to a successful future together.  

May 2003 Practice Meeting

Our quarterly practice meeting was held on Friday 16th May at our offices in Hampshire. All but two of the team were in attendance, travelling from as far afield as Switzerland to spend the day catching up and discussing a range of topics including recent achievements, pipeline, marketing strategy and financial performance.

After the official proceedings, Anton and Simon invited the team plus partners for dinner and drinks which went on well into the evening and strangely included a 1.00am viewing of “The Royal Tenenbaums” …. Although we had originally planned a monster BBQ, we had to reschedule to a local restaurant as a result of the unpredictability of English summer weather.

Congruent successfully implements Stat for Ahold

Ahold is one of the world’s largest food retail and foodservice operators with sales of €72.7 billion in 2002. Ahold selected Quest Software’s Stat for PeopleSoft to provide a proactive change control and version management solution for their soon to be released PeopleSoft Financials V8.1 production environment.

Congruent is the only partner certified to install Stat in Europe, and our technical expert Cameron Smith has successfully implemented Stat for Ahold in the Netherlands. Similar processes are scheduled to be rolled out across Ahold's other environments in Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Stat provides Ahold with a balance between management control over process and flexibility for developers. The product will be used to manage the existing production environment in parallel to Phase Two development and future PeopleSoft application and tools upgrades.

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