The PeopleSoft Connection, a quest on air podcast, released a new episode on 29th August 2025.
This one-of-a-kind podcast is hosted by PeopleSoft users Stephen Valentine, senior director of quality assurance at the Milton Hershey school and Brooke Repine, a PeopleSoft business systems analyst with Samaritan’s Purse.
The PeopleSoft Connection explores and showcases how PeopleSoft customers are harnessing specific functionality and capabilities to drive business success. The goal of the Podcast is to:
- Introduce you to PeopleSoft capabilities you may not be using
- Allow you to explore opportunities to modernize your PeopleSoft environment
- Showcase customers who are doing amazing things with PeopleSoft
- Gain access to trusted information by tapping into the collective knowledge and experience within Quest PeopleSoft Community
In this episode of The PeopleSoft Connection, Brooke and Stephen are in conversation with Arul TT and Devin McCall from North Dakota University Systems, diving into the topic of PeopleSoft Insights and how North Dakota University Systems is leveraging the power of this in app embedded analytics tool.
Arul and Devin discuss several things including:
The Situation: Organizations using PeopleSoft often lack effective built-in analytics and visualizations, making data-driven decisions challenging.
Complications: Previous tools like pivot grids and PS queries could cause system performance issues. Prior search solution Elasticsearch changed the licensing model, leading Oracle to shift to OpenSearch and Insights. Implementing Insights requires you to bring together technical, security, and user adoption considerations.
The Resolution: PeopleSoft introduced Insights, a free, in-app analytics feature leveraging OpenSearch with interactive dashboards. The deployment is straightforward, typically requiring configuration – not custom code, with role-based security preserved. The system improves data access without impacting PeopleSoft performance, and user communities provide robust support.
The Impact: Insights empower functional and leadership teams to access real-time, visually intuitive analytics, increasing data literacy and enabling faster, more informed decisions, while minimizing technical hurdles and performance risks.
Listen to the full episode here
So, where do you start when you are ready to deploy Insights?
Immediate Actions
- Identify and prepare a search server and dashboard server; connect them to the PeopleSoft environment (IT/Application Admin, within 2-4 weeks).
- Start with a delivered insight e.g., Workforce Insights. follow Oracle’s deployment steps for search category, index scheduling, dashboard deployment, and security assignment (Functional Lead, 4 weeks).
- Reference PeopleBooks for the list of delivered insights and configuration instructions (Project Team, immediately).
Next Steps
- Start small: deploy one insight, validate, and iterate before expanding to additional dashboards (next 30-60 days).
- Ensure technical, security, and functional teams coordinate throughout deployment (immediately and ongoing).
- Join and engage in user communities and reference available learning resources for troubleshooting and best practices (within 1 week).
- Monitor adoption and data literacy, offering training to users as needed (ongoing).
- Review and refine dashboard configurations based on feedback and evolving business needs (monthly review).
Considerations
- Deploy Insights using delivered configurations initially, then modify or extend as needed; prioritize workforce-related dashboards for minimal security concerns.
- Running full indexes can be time-consuming and affect process monitor performance if attempted en-masse; visualizations that attempt to process large historical datasets may fail or cause errors; modifications to delivered dashboards should be cloned to preserve originals.
The PeopleSoft Connection is available on 🎧 Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music. Subscribe to The PeopleSoft Connection via your preferred channel to get notified when the next episode of the podcast is released. The podcast hosts will continue to bring to you real stories and strategies to help you get the most out of your PeopleSoft products.