How MARTA Implemented Oracle iRecruitment for Public Sector Vijay Gogineni About MARTA • Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transport Authority (MARTA) is the 9th largest Transit system in the US • • • Bus – over 600 buses • Rail – serving 38 Train stations in metro Atlanta • 100+ Para- transit vans Over 5,500 employees Locally funded. (No Federal/State funding) About Polaris Associates • • • Specialty firm with laser-like focus on Oracle EBusiness Suite Applications Gold Certified Partner - frequently invited to national conferences to present papers Three lines of business • Professional Services for new implementations and R12 Upgrades • Managed Services for Applications Support and Remote DBA Services • State of the art Reporting Workbench solution for real-time reporting across all modules of Oracle EBS MARTA’s Oracle Story • Went live with Oracle Financials in 2006 • GL, AP, AR, Fixed Assets, PO, Inventory, Order Management, Cash Management, Treasury, Project/Grant Accounting • Went live with Oracle HRMS in 2008 • • • • • • • HR, Payroll, Labor Distribution Went live with Oracle iRecruitment in 2011 Went live with Oracle Time & Labor in 2012 Upgraded to R12 in 2012 Went live with Oracle iSupplier in April 2013 Went live with Manager Self-Service in July 2013 Using Polaris Reporting Workbench since 2007 for all Operational Reporting needs MARTA’s iRecruitment Timeline • Phase 1 – December 2011 • Vacancy Management - Automation of requisition creation and approval • Phase 2 – July 2012 • Creation of a DMZ environment • Job postings – Automate internal and external postings • Applicant Pool – Enable external and ex-employee registration, search job postings and submitting applications • Application Processing – Evaluation of applicants, extending offer letters and hiring • Hiring Automation – Applicant to employee conversion has been automated. Network, Outlook and Oracle accounts are created and information distributed to employees at orientation Key Features • Custom assignment status transition workflow • Integration with CCure (badging system), Active Directory, and Microsoft Outlook • Custom Reporting Workbench reports (for managers) to display requisition status as applicants progress through the approval workflow • Custom RWB Dashboards (for executive management) that display the recruitment summary • Concurrent process to email job postings to diversity organizations • Performance tuning of the load balancer (F5) • Setting up the Symantec Antivirus scan engine in a load balanced environment Custom assignment status transition • Designed a custom assignment status transition workflow to force recruiters to review applicant information in a timely manner and to ensure that each applicant is progressed through the appropriate assignment status workflow Integration with External Systems 1. Read offer accepted applicant information and update CCure 7. Run a concurrent process to create Oracle usernames for all new hires that don’t have accounts CCure DB Oracle DB 3. Update applicant information with EMPLOYEE_ID and HIRE_DATE 4. Complete hiring action within Oracle 6. For non-represented employees, create Outlook account 5. Create AD account for all employees MS Outlook 2. Update applicant record with EMPLOYEE_ID, HIRE_DATE when they get a badge as part of employee orientation Active Directory Reporting Workbench for Managers • Created custom reports for the following:  MASTER REQUISITIONS REPORT - includes information about ALL requisitions in the system (Open, Closed, Approved, Rejected, On Hold, etc.). Displays the number of days each requisition is Open for and the number of days taken to fill the requisition  ACTIVE REQUISITIONS REPORT  SPECIAL REQUISITION REPORT 1 - Requisitions that are submitted and NOT approved for more than 6 months  SPECIAL REQ REPORT 2 - approved and Open for more than 5 months. Recruiting needs to focus on these requisitions as a high priority RWB Dashboards for Executives • Created personalized dashboards that display information on the entire recruiting lifecycle Job postings to Diversity Organizations • MARTA has a mandate to email all new job postings to several diversity organizations within the metro Atlanta area. So, we created a concurrent process that queries for all new job postings and sends an email blast to the diversity organizations. Performance tuning the F5 • Issue: We performed a load test simulating a concurrent virtual user (VU) load of 55. This was causing the httpd processes on the middle tier apache server to jump to 1000. Persisting with this VU load for a few minutes resulted in crashing the apache server. • Solution: Change the load balancing method to PREDICTIVE. This enabled the number of httpd processes to drop to under 20 resulting in a very stable middle tier environment. Setting up Symantec Antivirus scan • Set the IRC: Anti Virus Server profile option to specify the server name on which the Symantec AntiVirus Scan engine is running. • Set the profile option at the SITE level. • Set server to scan all files regardless of extension. Key Challenges /Recommendations • Allocate adequate time for end user training. Because of the diverse nature of MARTA’s workforce, we opted for a two-fold approach to end user training – Non-represented employees and managers - designed online training courses and conducted Q & A sessions – Represented employees - conducted road shows at the various locations • Ensure that user guides are comprehensive and that the entire recruiting team spends enough hands-on time on the application prior to go-live • Ensure that the IT Help Desk team is trained on the application prior to go-live. We created comprehensive service desk guides and trained the team prior to go-live Q&A