PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials Cuts Overnight Processing at Wellington City Council
Critical Processing Reduced From Ten Hours To Three
Wellington City Council’s upgrade to PeopleSoft® Enterprise Financials has reduced the time it takes to run overnight
batch processing from ten hours to just three. The upgrade has also improved performance in many critical business
processes such as running overnight nVision report books, pay cycles and billing processes.
The upgrade completes Phase II of an ongoing project at Wellington City Council – a PeopleSoft customer since 1995. More
than 400 Wellington City Council employees across multiple sites will use the upgraded modules which include billing,
accounts receivable, project costing, purchasing, fixed assets, general ledger and accounts payable.
John Wong, Project Manager for Wellington City Council, says that the upgrade ran to schedule and has produced a marked
improvement in the council’s performance in key business processes.
“By implementing a vanilla system we have been able to address performance issues in several areas, especially reporting
and overnight batch processing.
“Previously we only ran overnight nVision reports at month end because it took more than ten hours. Now we are running
the report books every night and it takes less than three hours. We can run more than 800 nVision reports on a nightly
basis.”
“PeopleSoft’s Pure Internet Architecture® provides a more efficient medium for upgrade roll out, access and application
maintenance, because all you need to access the application is a web browser – there’s no code on the client. And
employees find that the web-based technology is simpler to navigate and requires less processing time,” says Wong.
“Feedback from users has been extremely positive.”
As part of Phase II Wellington City Council also upgraded modules of their PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance Management
solution and moved from a Sybase database to a Microsoft SQL database with assistance from the PeopleSoft Solution
Centre.
Wellington City Council has traditionally worked on PeopleSoft implementations and upgrade projects using internal
resources and contractors on an as-required basis. For this phase of the project the council has utilised PeopleSoft
Project Manager and PeopleSoft consultants to assist with the upgrade.
David Webster, Managing Director PeopleSoft Australia and New Zealand, says that Wellington City Council is one of
PeopleSoft’s pioneering sites in New Zealand.
“Every organisation whether it’s a public or private enterprise demands flexible and adaptable solutions to fit their
business. PeopleSoft’s best practice financial management solutions give valuable insight into the organisation
providing real time reporting and streamlining business processes.”
Looking forward, John Wong says that the council will continue to upgrade its existing PeopleSoft solutions making the
most of the PeopleSoft Total Ownership Experience which transforms the way Wellington City Council implements, maintains
and uses its PeopleSoft applications.
“With PeopleSoft we’re seeing faster implementation, greater end user productivity and increased IT effectiveness.”
Council Financial Controller, Neil Cherry, reinforces the significance of the efficiencies realised and the overall
success of the upgrade. “Although processing times have significantly reduced the council believes the real benefit is
that the upgrade to PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials and its future support will significantly improve the overall
ownership cost to council. When you combine these benefits with the fact that the upgrade was delivered on time, to
specification and under budget then the partnership between PeopleSoft and the council will have tangible benefits on
the council’s bottom line.”