What would you most like added to the PeopleSoft product?
Since I worked on the original development of the UK rules for PeopleSoft Global Payroll, one could argue anything missing from it is down to me! In reality, experience of "real-world" use of the product will always help to highlight areas for improvement. There are a few areas where the UK product could benefit from enhanced functionality and I hope PeopleSoft will address them. I also feel that there are parts of the product that could be made more user friendly - but that's the same with any software that handles complex operations.

What is the most frustrating thing about the PeopleSoft product?
I sometimes find PeopleSoft (the company) can be a little too US-centric and this is inevitably occasionally reflected in some of the products. It's sad when a (non-US) customer wants to use a piece of functionality or a module but finds it's only suitable for US organisations. This is getting less of a problem as PeopleSoft becomes more global in outlook.

What advice would you give to a new client starting with PeopleSoft?
Don't assume you are going to change your business processes and keep the product vanilla - in my experience the inertia against changes of this type can be huge - and don't assume customisation is always a bad thing. Customisations comes in many shapes and sizes - changing delivered functionality and pages at the heart of the product is generally a bad idea as it makes upgrades more difficult - however, in such cases it's sometimes easier to re-implement the product, and that may bring other benefits. If key functions at the heart of the product don't suit your organisation at all maybe someone should ask whether the selection process was all it might have been. Often the "no customisation" mantra comes from someone who hasn't understood everything that the business is actually doing and that, for example, current systems may be highly customised.
In fact the "no customisation" policy can be made to work, but only if the advocates of it are prepared to enforce the process changes required - I have never worked on a project where this happened. Many customisations we do just add functionality that isn't in the products - and in the case of interfaces to other systems in the business, these are often essential. These are good uses of customisation and the PeopleSoft product provides excellent tools to perform these.

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