What do you consider to be your main area of expertise?
Being more of a technical specialist in many of my roles on projects I have mainly been involved in the technical development and support on projects, having worked on all aspects from data conversion through to go-live support and training.

I have recently been working on a Global Payroll project implementing a senior manager’s payroll, where I carried out all global payroll configuration and technical development. This is definitely an area of the product I am now familiar with and the complexities and configuration of Global Payroll make this a role I have thoroughly enjoyed. I will certainly be looking to continue working in this area.

What project have you most enjoyed working on and why?
My current role in the development team at Unilever has been a great project, working on Global Payroll enhancements and payroll implementations has been a great experience, both challenging (when it doesn’t work as you would expect!) and rewarding (when it does work!). I am currently integrating a senior manager’s payroll and a Share Incentive Plan. The Share Incentive Plan has been a very rewarding implementation as it required the design of numerous interfaces and payroll configuration changes, all of which had to be designed with emphasis on the operational efficiency, clarity and usability.

Prior to this I thoroughly enjoyed working at the MoD, this was my first experience of version 8 and being responsible for data conversion to PeopleSoft using the new technologies was a great experience.  Using Application Engine and Component Interface to migrate data into the application was a dream come true compared with the previous methods available such as SQR/Import Manager. It is also good to hear that they are still using the conversion routines I developed to load more business units data into the system.

Some of the new technical functionality in V8 is great to work with, such as application engine which is a huge improvement on the prior version.

What is the most interesting customisation that you have delivered or seen in PeopleSoft?

This would have to be the expatriate system that was built for one client. This was a completely bespoke module that had been built. Within this module were a number of incredibly complex pages which could be used to calculate expatriate benefits based on a number of rules and parameters. Parameters even down to the ages of dependants could be entered and the whole remuneration calculation process worked off one Push button!!

What is the most frustrating thing about the PeopleSoft product?
Testing, testing, testing!! There often seems to be a large number of bugs and issues when the installation is carried out, this does not give a good impression to clients when they first install and the product doesn’t appear to ‘work’ without first applying numerous patches or fixes. Following on from that, the major difficulties can be the patches and fixes supplied by PeopleSoft. Sometimes these can cause more issues than the bugs they are trying to fix, especially when you add Global Payroll’s complexity into the equation!! Sometimes you are left wondering whether they have been tested thoroughly enough before they are released.

What advice would you give to a new client starting with PeopleSoft?
Implementing PeopleSoft should be about business-process re-engineering rather than changing PeopleSoft to fit your company and, especially with Global Payroll, you cannot over-estimate the amount of time you need to prepare the business for the analysis and process work before any development work should even begin. Using Global Payroll’s functionality and flexibility you could provide virtually any solution but it needs key business input in order to make sure that the solution is efficient, maintainable and usable by the client on a daily basis.

Why did you join Congruent?
I wanted to be a technical consultant doing a technical job and in my previous employment being technical was not seen as a career path, whereas at Congruent this isn’t an issue.  I enjoy the challenges that consulting brings, each client brings its own unique issues and being able to find solutions for them is a great buzz!

Where do you want to be in 5 years time?
Anywhere, as long as I still enjoy what I am doing as much as I do now, then I will be happy!!

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