Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Applying Peoplesoft Maintenance

Over the years there have been some talks on best practices for applying Peoplesoft Maintenance. (Bundles, Tax Updates, REGS..etc)

Here is my take:

First, one must choose a maintenance path. (Bundles or Maintenance Packs) and stay the course.

Maintenance Packs:
  • Maintenance Packs are nice for a new implementation or upgrade to get you current without applying individual Bundles
  • Maintenance Packs due tend to take some time to come out since it is a combination of Bundles for all modules.
Bundles:
  • Bundles will provide you the latest and greatest code line (Keeping current with Peoplesoft/Oracle)
  • Bundles are nice for North American customers given all the regulatory releases (REGS) and updates
The best way to search for Bundles within My Oracle Support:

Within "Updates and Fixes"
Apply to Release

Product Line = Campus Solutions
Product = Student Administration
Release = 9 (or 8.9 if you have not upgraded yet)
Bundles check box toggled

This will provide you a listing of all the current bundles.

Change Assistant is a great tool and application used to apply bundles and maintenance, if you are still applying bundles manually, now is the time to configure CA. It makes applying maintenance much easier.

Take care

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

We keep hearing that comment about staying with whatever course you decide..Bundles or MPs.

However, our users are requesting the last two MPs out and the next bundle that came out after the current MP.

But I do not know what to tell them the reasoning. My DBA tells me because Change Assistant is keyed off from whatever course you decide to take.

Any suggestions on clarifying this for our clients?

Jeromy McMahon said...

Getting current with MPs is fine, but if you are going to apply a bundle after the MP, you should then stay with applying bundles for both HRMS and CS. This is because the next MP will have the bundle that you have already applied and will cause problems for you. For North America, it is recommended to apply bundles to remain current with REGS and updates. This provides you the latest and greatest code line from Peoplesoft / Oracle.

I hope this clarifies.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Jeromy for your response. We tried to explain this and I have a meeting in an hour and will emphasive this to them again.

They think that we can just simply overwrite the bundle in the next MP but I am sure I can see the issues arising from that.