An Oracle White Paper

September 2014

Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Release 8
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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Contents
Overview ........................................................................................... 2
Introduction ....................................................................................... 2
Data Conversion Plan........................................................................ 3
End State ...................................................................................... 3
Scope ............................................................................................ 4
Full History Vs Partial History ..................................................................4
Number of Data Sources .........................................................................4
Types of Transactions .............................................................................4
Data Volume per Object ..........................................................................4
Preparation .................................................................................... 5
Tools Selection ........................................................................................5
Field Mapping ..........................................................................................5
Data Extract................................................................................... 5
Source Data Extract and Validations ......................................................6
Data Transform........................................................................................6
Data File Transfer ....................................................................................6
Data Load ...................................................................................... 6
Tool Limitations ................................................................................. 7
File-Based Loader ......................................................................... 7
Delete Diagnostics......................................................................... 7
HCM Spreadsheet Loader ............................................................. 7
Instance Management Strategy ......................................................... 8
Production-to-Test (P2T) ............................................................... 8
Coexistence or Coupled Applications ............................................ 8
Design Considerations ...................................................................... 9
Runtime Considerations .................................................................. 10
System Performance ................................................................... 10
Miscellaneous .............................................................................. 10
Post-Conversion Processing ........................................................... 11
Information Resources .................................................................... 12
Conclusion ...................................................................................... 12
 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Overview
This document provides Oracle’s recommended guidance for planning and managing your data
conversion into Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud. It is assumed that the reader of this document is well
aware of Oracle Fusion HCM data conversion tools, especially File-Based Loader (FBL).

Introduction
Performing a full implementation of Oracle Fusion HCM or a coexistence implementation offers
several benefits such as excellent analytics and accessibility, improved business processes, SaaS
availability, and so on. You can leverage these benefits with proper and careful planning for data
conversion. This document focuses on key aspects that can help you to formulate your data conversion
strategy.
Key notes described in this document are organized in different categories as follows:
 Data conversion plan
 Tool limitations
 Instance Management strategy
 Design and run time considerations
 Post-conversion processing
 Information Resources

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Data Conversion Plan

Data conversion planning depends on various factors, and may vary for different customers. The same
approach may not be suitable for all the customers due to differences in the scope of implementation,
data sets, business processes, and so on. However, various building blocks are defined for planning
your conversion.
These building blocks are organized into five categories:
 End State
 Scope
 Preparation
 Data Extract
 Data Load

End State
Before performing data conversion, it is important to understand the end state of the solution that you
are implementing - the modules that you are implementing, the number of employees and managers
that are going to access the information, the information they need, and so on. Our goal is to convert
only the required data, and understanding the end state first can help accomplish this goal.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Scope
You can determine the scope of the data conversion based on your end state solution, and using some
of the key parameters listed below. Remember, the goal is to load only the data that matters!

Full History Vs Partial History

 Full history: Most likely needed for full HCM implementations where Oracle Fusion HCM
will be system of records.
 Partial history: Most likely needed for coexistence implementations where you don’t need the
entire employment history as Oracle Fusion HCM is not the system of records.
o You can either load hire row + top of the stack row or hire row + all rows as of the
cutoff date.
Note: Work relationship and Salary are two different objects. You can load 3 years of history
for work relationship along with 10 years of history for salary if that’s what is needed to run
the compensation module.
 FBL does not support a partial work relationship object. So irrespective of the approach, if
you send N number of rows to Oracle Fusion HCM for an employee, you must send N+1
number of rows during an incremental update.

Number of Data Sources

Number of data sources is the number of external applications from which you convert the data into
Oracle Fusion HCM. For example, you may have employee data in Oracle PeopleSoft, Oracle E-
Business Suite, Oracle Taleo Recruiting Cloud Service, or other third party applications for conversion
into the Oracle Fusion HCM application. It is a good approach to include all these applications as part
of your conversion strategy, even if you have a phase-wise go-live plan.

Types of Transactions

Types of transactions refer to HR transactions such as hire, manager change, promotion, and so on.
During the planning phase, it is recommended to consider special transaction types such as global
transfer, multiple work relationships, multiple assignments, and so on, because they impact the design
of the data extract program.

Data Volume per Object

It is the actual or the estimated number of rows per object. For example, work relationship object for
1000 employees and 10 years of history with 2000 estimated number of data rows.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Preparation
Preparation consists of requirements gathering, analysis, and task mapping, which help you to design
and build the data extract routines. After you finalize the scope of data conversion and the data that
needs to be converted, you can select the appropriate tool (FBL, Spreadsheet Loader, Payroll Batch
Loader, and so on), perform field mapping and also account for any workarounds and scripts you may
need.

Tools Selection

There are several options to load data into Oracle Fusion HCM, such as File-Based Loader,
Spreadsheet Loaders, Web Services, Payroll Batch Loader, online data entry, and so on. If you are
uploading huge volumes of data, you are recommended to use File-Based Loader. Do not enter the
data online or use Spreadsheet Loader for supported objects.
For example, if you have only 2 business units to load, it is easier to simply enter the data online or use
Spreadsheet Loader. You can definitely use those IDs in the FBL conversion program. However, it
takes longer than simply converting those 2 business units using FBL.

Field Mapping

Field mapping exercise should include a field-by-field comparison in terms of both functional and
technical aspects. It is a best practice to drive field mapping based on setup record in the source system
instead of hard-coding the values in the program.

Data Extract
Data extract is predominantly a technical task that includes extracting data from the source
applications, validating data, transforming the data as per the Oracle Fusion HCM requirements, and
transferring the data. Let’s review the key tasks involved in data extract using the FBL process flow
diagram.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Source Data Extract and Validations

(Step5 from the process flow) Data extract routines vary depending on the HCM application that you
are dealing with. In general, they are designed in a way that allows you to extract the data per object or
collectively for all objects in a single run. You are recommended to implement at least the basic
validation rules as part of the extract routine to stop error-prone data from being sent to Oracle Fusion
HCM.

Data Transform

(Step6 from the process flow) Data transform routine programmatically transforms the extracted data
using field mapping to match the Oracle Fusion HCM file format.

Data File Transfer

(Step7 from the process flow) You can transfer data to Oracle Fusion HCM, as a set of files. You can
use utilities such as File-Based Loader Desktop Integrator (FBLdi) or HCM Connect. You can use the
UI or Command Line version of FBLdi. However, FBLdi does not support any file encryption
method. If your company policy is to encrypt every file, then you need to use HCM Connect for data
file transfer.

Data Load
Data loading is done primarily using FBL. However, there are a few specialty loaders for benefits and
payroll which are often used to load module-specific data. You often need to run additional batch
programs in Oracle Fusion HCM to complete the conversion process. For more details, see the Post-
Conversion Processing section.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Tool Limitations
Understanding the limitations of tools and knowing the available workarounds for these limitations can
assist you with designing and proactively planning for service requests required for workarounds.
avoiding last minute rush.

File-Based Loader
Using File-Based Loader, you can load data in bulk, including business object history, from any data
source to Oracle Fusion HCM. Here is the list of limitations for FBL:
 Partial row set during incremental updates is not supported for work
relationship/employment history. If you have sent N number of rows to Oracle Fusion HCM
for an employee, you must send (N+1) rows during an incremental update.
 “Fill in the gaps” type approach is not supported. For example, if you load an initial hire row
and latest row for the go-live, and later try to load data in between these two rows to complete
employment history, the load fails. This approach may work well for a few HR transactions
but not for all and hence this is not a recommended method.
 Salary is not a date-effective object so you cannot make date corrections once data is loaded.
 Multiple language translation is not supported by FBL. However, you can request scripts
through a Service Request (SR).

Delete Diagnostics
Diagnostic Testing Framework (DTF) is a self-service application that empowers you to identify and
resolve issues in your environments. Delete diagnostics is one of the widely used diagnostics during
data conversion. However, it has the following limitations:
 It supports only the objects converted by FBL. Therefore, you cannot delete transactional data
such as compensation cycle, performance documents, talent review data, user accounts, etc.
 It is available in stage/test instance only. For production instance, you need to raise an SR to
request data purge for objects converted using FBL.

HCM Spreadsheet Loader

HCM Spreadsheet Loader enables you to upload business objects from a spreadsheet to Oracle Fusion
HCM. You can view the complete list of supported business objects on the Initiate Spreadsheet Load
page, where objects appear in the recommended load order. You can include descriptive flexfields in
data uploads. HCM Spreadsheet loader has the following limitations:
 It only supports the create mode, with exception of person and assignment where updates or
corrections are supported.
 You cannot use it to delete business objects nor can you delete the data uploaded by
Spreadsheet loader.
 It is well-suited for smaller volumes of data with simpler structure than mass data load and
complicated integrations.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Instance Management Strategy

A standard Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Service subscription provides two environments: production
environment and test environment (also known as stage or non-production environment). When your
service is activated, these environments are identical, with the exception that the production
environment is configured for better performance than is the test environment. During your
implementation lifecycle, you migrate content between these two environments and often request
special migration from one instance to another through Production-to-Test (P2T).

Production-to-Test (P2T)
The Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Service supports a Production-to-Test content migration utility which
overlays the test environment with a copy of the data from the production environment. It is run when
you raise a Service Request (SR). The primary use of this utility tool is to refresh the test environment
with production data after you have gone into production with one or more Oracle Fusion
applications. You can also use this tool before going into production to support a refresh of the test
environment when it is being repurposed. For example, you might prepare the environment for pre-
production configuration after the environment was previously used for a Conference Room Pilot.

Coexistence or Coupled Applications

In case of coexistence, you typically pair your source HR application with Oracle Fusion HCM (for
example, Oracle PeopleSoft with Oracle Fusion Compensation). As a result of these environment
pairing and processing characteristics of data conversion tools such as FBL, you need to be very careful
while planning P2T or source HR environment refresh tasks. In general, if you request a P2T on the
Oracle Fusion side, then you must also perform P2T for your source HR application.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Design Considerations
Data processing through File-Based Loader depends heavily
on key mapping - the concept of Global User Identifiers
(GUIDs). GUIDs are used to map incoming objects from the
source application with the target objects in Oracle Fusion
HCM.
Important
 Design GUIDs before starting the conversion
process and avoid any logic changes until data
conversion is complete. Making changes to GUIDs during the conversion process will create
data issues.
 Use a programmatic approach instead of hard coding GUIDs into the data extract program.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Runtime Considerations
System Performance
 Ensure that your environment is sized properly to handle the data volume and the number of
concurrent users. Set these parameters appropriately before you start the data load.
 Use parallel processing to expedite the data
load process.
 Set up the appropriate value for Payroll
License. If your organization has opted to implement either Oracle Fusion Payroll or Oracle
Fusion Payroll Interface, you must update this product usage/license field. The product
usage/license setting disables payroll features that are not required by non-payroll customers.

Miscellaneous
 If you are loading actual e-mail addresses into the stage instance, then don’t forget to turn-off
the email notifications during the conversion process.

 Validate and reconcile converted data before making any transaction such as running payroll,
compensation cycle, performance reviews, user creation, and so on. Later, if you need to do a
complete purge of the data then it is easier to do the clean-up in core HR than trying to clean
up the data from multiple modules.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Post-Conversion Processing
After an initial or incremental load of person records, you run a set of processes to complete data setup
in the Oracle Fusion HCM environment. This is done to either create indexes or additional data based
on the conversion you just did. Please ensure you are running these programs after conversion and also
evaluate post go-live activities to see if you should schedule these programs to run on a daily basis.
You run these processes in the following order from the Scheduled Processes work area:

# PROCESS NAME DETAILS

1 Update Person Search Copies attributes of person, employment, and profile records that are used as search keywords
Keywords to the PER_KEYWORDS table, where they're indexed to improve search performance. The
process updates the entire PER_KEYWORDS table.

2 Synchronize Person Records Communicates changes to person and assignment records that have occurred since the last
data load to consuming applications, such as Oracle Fusion Trading Community Model and
Oracle Identity Management (OIM).

3 Calculate Relationship Updates stored relationship-strength information. In the Person Gallery, search results can
Strength appear in order of the strength of the relationship between the person performing the search
and each person in the search results. The stronger the relationship, the nearer to the top of
the results a person's assignment appears.

4 Refresh Manager Hierarchy Populates the denormalized manager hierarchy tables with latest information after each data
load. For performance reasons, the complete manager hierarchy for each person is extracted
from live data tables and stored in a separate manager-hierarchy table, known as the
denormalized manager hierarchy.

5 Send Pending LDAP Sends bulk requests to OIM immediately to create (and also suspend or re-enable) user
Requests accounts, as appropriate. When you load person records, the application automatically creates
user-account requests by default and provisions roles to users in accordance with role-
provisioning rules.
Important
Before you run this process, review your data conversion fully and confirm its accuracy. If you
need to purge your data and repeat the conversion, it will take much longer if you've created
user accounts and notified users of their sign-in details. You can control aspects of the
provisioning process for the enterprise by setting the User and Role Provisioning options on
the Manage Enterprise HCM Information page. For example, you can suppress the automatic
creation of user accounts.

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 Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion – Key Notes

Information Resources
 My Oracle Support
o File-Based Loader for Release 7 & 8 – Doc ID 1595283.1
o File-Based Loader Diagnostics Release 7 & 8 - Doc ID 1594500.1
o The Data Conversion Reference Library - Doc ID 1595261.1
 User Tools
o FBLdi – FBL Desktop Integrator Doc ID - 1616867.1
 My Oracle Support Community is an excellent platform to ask any questions, start discussions,
get updates on some of the user tools or even collaborate on some of the deliverables or use
cases.
 Customer Connect is a platform to attend exclusive events and access replays.

Conclusion
As an Oracle Fusion HCM customer, you must formulate the data conversion strategy that works for
you. The requirements of no two customers are identical due to differences in the scope of their
implementations, business processes, and so on. All, however, can implement their Oracle Fusion
HCM application using standard data conversion tools and leverage basic building blocks described in
this document to plan the data conversion.

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Oracle Fusion HCM Data Conversion- Key Notes Copyright © 2014, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.
September 2014
Author: Prasanna Borse This document is provided for information purposes only, and the contents hereof are subject to change without notice. This document is not
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