What's New in Vantive 7

What's New in Vantive 7

Document number: 18044

What's New in the Vantive 7.04 Release

There were many changes in the Vantive 7.04 release.

There is one overall Interface change. There is now a Quick Open feature that can be used as a short cut to any object in Vantive. All you need to know is the record Id you want to open (i.e. Customer Id 1000 or Site Id 1100, etc.). For example, to open a Customer record using Quick Open, Press the Ctrl and Q keys simultaneously, and click on the down arrow to select Profile from the list of objects (this will be changed to Customer Profile in a future release). Then type in the desired Customer Id to open the record.

Each of the following selections will give you a brief description of the changes made.

Customer Profile Changes	Site Profile Changes
Licensed Product Changes	Customer Contact Changes
Employee Record Changes	Reporting Changes
Customer Connection Changes	Reference Activity Object

Customer Profile Changes

Several new tabs have been added: All Projects lists all Projects for this customer and Reference Activity lists all Reference Activities for this customer. Ask PSG Projects was added at the request of the Ask PSG group so they can track their projects separately.
Contract Restrictions is a new read-only field (formerly a checkbox on Site) that loads from the Contracts table in RVDB. It is entered up front from the contract on the Finance side, so Account Management does not need to enter this information. The Description button provides details on what the different Contract Restrictions are.
Annual Revenue Currency is a new drop down field with selections based upon values in RVDB. We have added this field so Finance can, for maintenance calculation, more accurately track a customer's annual revenue for our international customers. Existing records were populated with US Dollars, except Canadian customers, whose records were populated with Canadian Dollars. This is a required field, and if left blank will cause an error when you try to save any changes made to the record.
No. of Students was added so Finance can track the number of student enrollments, used to calculate maintenance fees for Student Administration customers.
Call Center Established is a new checkbox that indicates whether a customer has a call center established.

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Site Profile Changes

You'll notice a significant decrease in the number of tabs on the Site Profile, as the old product statistic tabs have been replaced with new product line statistics tabs, separated by sections for each product. This will make maintaining and reporting of statistics information much cleaner. A new tab for Reference Activity has been added.
New icons on the menu bar have been added for a Link to the PeopleSoft Picture Talk home page, as well as a link to the new Vantive Actuate Reporting (which replaces the old File | Open | Submit Report function).
The Site Profile has a new layout, organized into more defined sections with titles.
A new status of "Active - Not Supported" has been added to the Status drop down list. This new status was created at the request of our International team in order to track customer "sites" where PeopleSoft is being used, but where there is no support contract ("additional site support" was not purchased). This will allow overseas offices to track customer locations in their geography accurately without compromising the integrity of the data for "Active" sites. For example, a U.S.-based global company with centralized support in Minnesota and deployment sites in the UK and Singapore would have an "Active" site in Minnesota and "Active - Not Supported" sites in the UK and Singapore.

Normal, supported sites should still have a status of "Active" (many reports, locators, formulas, etc. are already driven off of this value)
Non-supported sites created for informational purposes should be changed to "Active - Not Supported".
Create sites and select the "Active - Not Supported" status for customer locations where PeopleSoft is deployed, but where there is no support agreement. While there is no Account Management for such a site, select your name as the Account Manager, as this is a required field.
When "additional site support" is purchased for an "Active - Not Supported" site, the status should be changed to "Active" and the Account Manager and other fields should be updated appropriately.
Overseas offices can track customer locations in their geography by selecting their Country or Region and both "Active" sites and "Active - Not Supported" sites in their queries or in the Site Profile locator screen File | Open | Site Information | Site Profile).
Cases can not be created for sites with the "Active - Not Supported" status. Also, these sites do not show up in the Profile Administration in Customer Connection.
This new status should not be used where an active customer has a support agreement but is delinquent on their Receivables. In this situation, the site status would be "Inactive Pending A/R" until Finance confirms all their bills are paid, and then it would be "Inactive".

The following fields have been removed: Media, Telephone, Onsite, Contract Restrictions ( this now comes from RVDB and displayed on Site), DB Vendor, Serial #, Hot Site and Business Reason.
The following fields have been added: Site Description, CS Specialist, Major Accounts GSC Analyst ( only updateable by GSC), IBU Top 10%, Product Base Language, Contract Restrictions is now displayed from the customer, No. of DB Servers, Terminal Server, WAN Processing, Description, Running 3-Tier, Tuxedo Version, Jolt Web Browser, and Deny ASK PSG Services.
The optional Site Description field will allow you to put in an appropriate description beyond the location and high-level product line. This field can help clarify any unique situations.
CS Specialist displays from the AM's employee record, where it is entered by the AM or CSS (CSS is a role used in at least North America).
The IBU Top 10% field and the Product Base Language fields were added for the Problem Resolution initiative:

Base Language - In order to better address translations issues, we are adding a new field to the site profile called "Base Language". This will default to "English". AMs with International customers will need to make sure that the Primary Language field is correct and they will need to alter the base language field if the customer has swapped base language. AMs who are interested in improving our support for international customers will need to ensure that this information is accurate.
IBU Prob Res Top 10% - This is a new checkbox in Vantive. It will be used to help prioritize the incidents to be addressed. This flag is informational only, and does not "mandate" that a fix be provided outside of the currently specified time frames. Vantive automatically prevents this checkbox from being checked if checking it would push the percentage over 10% for that IBU. One of the sites with it checked would have to have it unchecked first.

Contract Restrictions is a new read-only field (formerly a checkbox on Site) that loads from the Contracts table in RVDB to the Customer object in Vantive. It is entered up front from the contract on the Finance side, so Account Management does not need to enter this information. The Description button provides details on what the different Contract Restrictions are.
No. of DB Servers, Terminal Server, WAN Processing Description, Running 3-Tier, Tuxedo Version, Jolt Version, Application Server/OS, No. of App Servers, Remote Dialup Server (moved from the Misc Statistics tabs), and Web Browser were added to more accurately track important technical information on our customers. The technical environment for our customers has changed quite a bit since the last major Vantive enhancement release.
The Ask PSG Deny Services checkbox was added to allow that new service to be denied if a customer is delinquent on receivables.
The Consulting Services Used tab has been combined with the Site Profile Information tab as a separate section for easier use. You must first save the Site Profile record and select the 'New' button, before adding any Consulting Services info. We've added a new field for the Consultants Rose on the project. This information should reflect not only what the customer has done and is doing with consultants, but what their plans are for using partners - as long as you are reasonably sure they will go forward with these services in the near future.

Stats Tabs:

Because the Stats tabs have been completely redesigned, the table structure has changed, and very little data had been populated in the old Stats tabs, the Vantive team will not be converting data from the old format to the new format. The Vantive team will be providing a report on the old data (only the fields that will exist in the new tables) in Excel format, with a Tab for each product. When this report is ready, it will be posted so it can be used to help populate the new Stats tabs.
The Stats information has been reorganized to pull general information to the front, leaving product specific information at the product level. This will help alleviate any redundant information gathering or searching for where information is printed.
Job Schedule Tool has been added to the list of third party applications we track.

HRMS Stats tab:

Transactions Volumes/Users have been completely designed. This information was stored on the Stats Tabs for each product. Each product, HR, Payroll, Benefits Admin., etc., will have different stats to capture. The common ones that will cross over products are Number of Casual Users, Number of Active Users, Number of Employees Processed and Number of Retirees Processed. New statistics include -

Payroll and Payroll Interface - Payroll frequencies and number of checks each
Pension - Number of Total Participants tracked, pension recipients tracked, online calcs per month, number of calculation runs per Year.
Time and Labor - Average number of EE's reporting time, average number of earnings per employee, average number of tasks per workday, number of periods retained in History.

Financials Stats tab:

Each product contains metrics appropriate for the product (number of journal lines for general ledger, number of asset books for asset management, etc.)
Chart field customizations will be tracked. This will help in implementation planning and advisement.
Reporting tools, including third party reporting tools have been added to the information being tracked.
Imaging and Workflow interfaces will be included in the information we request from our customers.

Manufacturing Stats tab is being expanded in the next Vantive release.

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Licensed Product Changes

The Product Components tab has been combined with the Licensed Product Information as a separate section for easier use. You must first save the Licensed Product record and select the 'New' button before adding any Product Components Used. Note the new button to Copy Product Components from a Previous Release of this Licensed Product (if any components existed and are still valid in the new release).
Product Components should not be updated at this time as they are being revamped by the GSC and Product Strategy by November. After that, when a case that involves a given Product Component is closed, the site will automatically be updated to reflect that they are using that Product Component, unless the Product Component is already there. AM's will still be able to update Product Components Used on the site. The Vantive team will not convert any data from the old Product Components to the new ones, as the majority of the old components will no longer exist after the revamp. The Vantive team will be providing a report on the old data that will list all of the components for any licensed product record Inactive. When this report is ready, it will be posted so it can be used to help populate the new Stats tabs.
A Product Translations Used section has been added. You must first save the Licensed Product record and select the 'New' button before adding any Translations Used.
An Initiate Date has been added to track the date the project was initiated for implementing customers as well as a Begin date for upgrading customers. This will allow us to get some statistical information as to how long these types of projects take. Note: Date years are now 4 digits (i.e. 1999 or 2000).

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New Reference Activity Object - This new object was created to replace the RAD database in Lotus Notes. See the Vantive - Reference Activity AYNTK guide for details.

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Customer Contact Changes

A new address drop down feature has been added. Note that the contact records must first be saved so that the addresses for that customer can be populated in the drop down.
There are now new Plugged In Newsletter check boxes at the bottom of the form. This will allow you to easily verify if the contact is receiving a Plugged In service. Note: The customer will also have access to update and view this field via the web (Customer Connection's Profile Administration).

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Employee Record Changes

From one of your customers' Site Profiles, you can now drill down to your Employee record by selecting the Account Manager label. Note: a single click now takes you to the underlying table.
You can now create a closing salutation (i.e. Regards, Jim Smith) you want to display on emails that will be sent to your customers when sending in Email from Case Notes (you can now send email directly to a customer from a Case note by selecting a button).
A new CS Specialist field has been added to record the CSS assigned to each account manager (CSS is an administrative role used mostly in North America at this point). The drop down list is based upon the Customer Services Support Specialist titles, but you can enter any name that has an employee record (required for anyone with a Vantive login). The CS Specialist you enter here appears on all of your Site Profiles.

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Reporting Changes

The standard reporting tool for Vantive reporting has been changed from Crystal to Actuate web-based reporting with ER7.

One set of reports that has been revamped for the Actuate rollout is the turnaround reports. These reports have been updated to display the drop down selections for each field, and they have also been updated to include new fields. However, the redesign of these reports occurred before the final decision on which fields would be added in ER7 was made, so it doesn't exactly match the ER7 fields. Within a month from the ER7 rollout, these reports will be redesigned for better performance and updated for ER7. In the meantime, a "mini" turnaround report for the critical fields for Problem Resolution, "Problem Resolution Fields", has been developed.

Additional information can be found in the "Managing Vantive Data" section of the Problem Resolution AYNTK guide.

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Customer Connection Changes

Upgrade to VanWeb version 3.04.
Account managers now have access to the Online Support and Profile Administration functions of Customer Connection using their own logins. The information you can see with your login is only for PeopleSoft as a customer, but you can now see the (non-Web Admin) functions that your customers see without having to log in as your customer. To see your customers' information as they see it, or to see the Web Admin functions, you will have to use the customer login.
Contact Management has been updated to allow contacts to flag which Plugged In services they want to receive.
Online Support has been updated to allow Customers to submit a Note, add an attachment, and close an open case. The forms design has also been improved.
Other changes to Online Support include providing customers with a direct link to a 'Closed' incident (Updates and Fixes) or specific details about an 'Open' incident (new database created for Problem Resolution) that is linked to a Case.

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