Comments for An Introduction to PeopleSoft Maintenance at http://www.erpassociates.com , comment 1 to 4 out of 4 comments http://www.erpassociates.com Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:53:01 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.erpassociates.com/peoplesoft-corner-weblog/peopletools/an-introduction-to-peoplesoft-maintenance.html#comment-1520 Thanks for the article! I've googled maintenance pack best practices, to double-check my sanity, as the shop I've just joined did this... and I have no idea why, how, or if I'm missing something: They've applied HCM Maintenance pack to Demo (good) They've created a Copy of Production (COP) (good) They've, erm.... bulk-copied all the tools tables from MP-ed demo, to COP, and told developers to figure out the customizations... (bad??) During refreshes, etc, it's common to export settings tables from target environment; bulk-overwrite it from source (production, usually); then import the settings tables again. I have no idea if they've exported the settings tables in this case, but it just doesn't seem kosher. I doubt there's any convincing reason to follow up that strategy up the chain, especially into prod. Any tips? Have you seen it done this way in the past, or would you say it's pretty much always just the PROJECT that's copied from demo to COP? Thanks for any tips/thoughts :) - Nikola Fri, 05 Nov 2010 14:43:23 +0100 http://www.erpassociates.com/peoplesoft-corner-weblog/peopletools/an-introduction-to-peoplesoft-maintenance.html#comment-1518 Hi Brent, My company just went with a 3rd Party PS support. Being the Application Admin - I apply all patches bundles tax update - blah blah blah...The support company has provided the latest tax update for the states we need payroll, and supplied the CREF expiration patch. Both are fine and seem to function as well as Oracles patches. My concern with it is - no entries in PS_MAINTENANCE_LOG!! That concerns me because I have many environments and without outside documentation I may forget where and when I applied something. I've always relied on the log to keep me stright in where I was - patch levels. Not sure if I can manually update the log ...but it is a concern and something to consider. ALSO - if you ask the 3rd party support a question on setting up something -they will not answer unless you also have a consulting contract, Oracle would always answer - even though it might take a while. Ask the right questions if anyone decides to go 3rd party or it may cost you more than you think. - eadmon Mon, 01 Nov 2010 15:19:15 +0100 http://www.erpassociates.com/peoplesoft-corner-weblog/peopletools/an-introduction-to-peoplesoft-maintenance.html#comment-1503 PeopleTools support was always my concern, too. I talked to Punita Pandey, CEO of netCustomer a while back (you can find the article here: [url]http://www.erpassociates.com/peoplesoft-corner-weblog/3rd-party-support/third-party-support-market-in-transition.html[/url]). Like any good CEO she talked around the problem a good bit. But here's what I remember from our discussion: 1) These 3rd party support vendors look for stable installations. If you've just gone live on the latest and greatest versions, don't expect to get your support from Rimini Street or netCustomer. But if you've been running for a while and the only maintenance you care about is tax updates, these guys are going to love you. 2) There is actually quite a bit of PeopleTools code that is accessible. iScripts come to mind. As is almost all of the PeopleTools data model. And at one time you could download and apply weblogic fixes even if you weren't current on PS support (although now that Oracle owns BEA that might be a different story). At any rate, it's not out of the question that 3rd party support vendors could fix PeopleTools issues. 3) There are a lot of customers that only deploy PeopleSoft internally and don't necessarily keep up with PeopleTools security updates. The company has other ways to control and monitor employee activity. But if your company doesn't fit into these categories, 3rd party support might not be for you. Here's another consideration: I've known companies that wanted to go back to Oracle when it came time to Upgrade, and Oracle made them pay every bit of the missed maintenance. Maintenance is a revenue stream that Oracle guards jealously. - Brent Martin Sun, 17 Jan 2010 21:51:33 +0100 http://www.erpassociates.com/peoplesoft-corner-weblog/peopletools/an-introduction-to-peoplesoft-maintenance.html#comment-1500 Maybe I missed something but there has not been much mention of PeopleTools security vulnerabilities and/or issues regarding impact to IT infrastructure. Specifically, when going to a 3rd party support like Rimini. I can't find any information on their site either regarding PeopleTools. All the support options refer to the various applications and versions. Since they don't have the source code how can they fix these types of vulnerabilities? - Frank Thu, 14 Jan 2010 16:08:40 +0100