Here are some points for your interview: You must have 2 resumes at any point of time.

One resume should be a blown-up resume that has very detailed information on your work experience. The other resume should be a summary of the detailed resume. The summary resume should not be more that 2-3 pages depending on length of your service. You should use this summary resume for applying jobs. The blown-up resume should be used as a reference during interviews. Since you will be concentrating on Functional side of PeopleSoft, remember, A Functional Consultant in PeopleSoft would be a person that knows how the module works in relation to business practices, so you should know the flow of the system from end to end (setups that is done through control tables, and transaction level tables for employee maintenance, and the different batch processes etc) Interview Questions: SOX Audit Items: What kind of Audits (especially in Payroll) was implemented as part of SOX? Answer: Used PeopleSoft Security Process for SOX Initiative. Restricted PeopleSoft Access to various users depending on their work requirements. Correction Access in PeopleSoft is given only to Power Users. Setup Access is only given to Functional Folks. Payroll printing checks access is controlled. Online Printing checks are only provided to only certain users. Used PeopleSoft Field and Record Auditing features to control who is doing what.Tables like EE direct deposit, tax changes, earning, deduction tables are under audit. Controlled Change Management process. Only allow items to production based on approvals from various business owners. Proper documentation is maintained for explanation. Migrations are restricted to PS Admins. Internal Auditing features every six months (to see how pay checks are cut or processed, are PS users follow best business practices, look at loosely tied items etc etc) Process Improvements: Answer: Some of the process that was implemented to improve current business processes: 1) For Executive Services (who handle service calls or support calls for executives like VPs , Sr VPs or director and above) created before and after payroll snapshot report that would list what are current payroll earnings, taxes and deduction versus the previous payroll items. This would help them to see if there are large deviations or differences, they would go and see what the cause of it was and have an answer

ready before getting a call from the executives. Without this, there was lot of time spent of researching and answering the calls. This process helped the executive services significantly and improved their business process functionality. 2) Payroll Users were spending lot of time to key in certain benefits deductions related data during the payroll period. As we all know, every payroll process should be confirmed within a stipulated time or as per your SLAs (Service Level Agreements), you will have very short time to manually key-in the data. We helped the payroll users by automating the manual process. This process is a one-time deduction upload process that would be run during every payroll for benefit related deductions. This process eliminated the manual entry along with the mistakes that were done during the manual entry. 3) Bonus Payment Process: Utilized PeopleSoft delivered PSHUP Process (Paysheet Update Process) to upload the bonus amount into pay sheets and process the payroll. Created various reports for control totals, validations of bonus amounts, employees is also done after PSHUP Process. 4) Worked with Payroll Managers to create a Control Log of each and every payroll process during the pay period. The log contains the start and end of each payroll process. Payroll activity starts on Monday and the pay confirms are done on next day i.e. Tuesday. On Thursday, the control log is checked to see what bottlenecks were there and also used to improve the payroll process. Eliminated some of the manual processes by automating them. For example, we used to get an online error every payroll (i.e. related to buffer) and we used to manual method to get rid of that by running a SQL. This used to take lot of time. We then automated this process by creating an SQR. 5) Helped in creating various PS Queries to help business users that helped them for the day to day functions. 6) Also worked with our PeopleSoft DBAs to fine tune the payroll processes and cut down the overall processing time. 7) Helped Compliance, Balancing & Controls users who maintain the taxes, financial activities and payroll totals after payroll is confirmed. Helped in creating various reports for them to eliminate the manual work.

8) For Retro Pay Process, we used to get an error that used to take time to research about the issue. Created queries to identify the Employee for which the error was coming. SELECT A.RETROPAY_SEQ_NO, A.RETROPAY_PRCS_FLAG, A.EMPLID, TO_CHAR(B.PAY_END_DT,'YYYY-MM-DD'), B.COMPANY, B.PAYGROUP, B.OFF_CYCLE, B.NET_PAY, TO_CHAR(A.RETROPAY_EFFDT,'YYYY-MM-DD') FROM PS_RETROPAY_RQST A, PS_PAY_CHECK B WHERE A.EMPLID = B.EMPLID AND A.RETROPAY_SEQ_NO > 'xxxxxx' AND B.OFF_CYCLE = 'Y' AND A.RETROPAY_PRCS_FLAG = 'N' AND B.PAY_END_DT >= A.RETROPAY_EFFDT SELECT A.EMPLID, TO_CHAR(B.PAY_END_DT,'YYYY-MM-DD'), A.RETROPAY_SEQ_NO, A.RETROPAY_PRCS_FLAG, B.COMPRATE_USED, B.EARNS_AMT, B.EARNS_AMT_ENTERED, B.NEW_EARNS_AMT, B.EARNS_AMT_OVRD, B.AMOUNT_DIFF FROM PS_RETROPAY_RQST A, PS_RETROPAY_EARNS B WHERE A.RETROPAY_SEQ_NO = B.RETROPAY_SEQ_NO AND A.EMPLID = B.EMPLID AND A.RETROPAY_EFFDT = B.RETROPAY_EFFDT AND B.RETROPAY_PRCS_FLAG = 'X' AND B.COMPANY = :2 AND B.PAYGROUP = :3 ORDER BY 1

INTERVIEW QUESTION PREPARATION:

1) What are the important tables in PS-HRMS?

HR: Setup Tables PS_LOCATION_TBL , PS_DEPT_TBL , PS_COMPANY_TBL ,PS_JOBCODE_TBL. Transaction Tables PS_JOB , PS_PERSONAL_DATA, PS_EMPLOYMENT, PS_COMPENSATION, PS_PERSON etc PAYROLL: Setup Tables PS_PAYGROUP_TBL, PS_EARNINGS_TBL , PS_DEDUCTION_TBL, PS_STATE_TAX_TBL, PS_TAX_LOCATION_TBL, PS_PAY_CALENDAR Transaction Tables PS_PAY_EARNINGS, PS_PAY_OTH_EARNS, PS_PAY_CHECK, PS_PAY_DEDUCTION, PS_PAY_TAX, PS_TAX_BALANCE, PS_EARNINGS_BAL, PS_CHECK_YTD etc

TL: Setup Tables PS_TL_WRKGRP_TBL, PS_TL_TRC_TBL, PS_TL_RULE_DEFN Transaction Tables PS_TL_RPTD_TIME, PS_TL_PAYABLE_TIME Benefits: Setup Tables PS_BENEF_PLAN_TBL, PS_BENEF_PLAN_TBL, PS_BEN_DEFN_PGM Transaction Tables- PS_BENEFIT_PARTIC, PS_BEN_PROG_PARTIC, PS_HEALTH_BENEFIT, PS_BAS_PARTIC, PS_CBR_PARTIC, PS_BAS_ACTIVITY, PS_COBRA_ACTIVITY etc 2) What is the use of Special Accumulators in PeopleSoft? Special accumulators act like a bucket accumulating only the earning types you want included when determining the employees earnings. For Example- it is used to define an employees earnings based on specific types of earnings rather than total gross earnings like SHIFTS.or certain deductions like 401k to be based on certain earning types. 3) Please tell me about your current work experience or role or project: Ive been working in IT industry for the last nn years out of which, yy years I am specifically working in PeopleSoft area as a Functional Analyst (or Support person) primarily taking care of all new business process requests for HR, Payroll and also supporting the Payroll system for day-to-day activities. In my last project, I was working as a support analyst and my main responsibilities were to take all requests related to payroll issues and also any new setups related to earnings, deductions, Paygroups, tax tables etc. Client has Bi-Weekly payrolls and usually on the pay confirm day (Tuesdays of alternate weeks) and also on post confirm day, I used to make sure that the payroll is run without any major issues. The client had GL interface, tax interface and I used to help in if there were any issues related to this processes. You can explain or add more of your experiences (but keep it short)

4) Have you worked on Tax Updates? Tell me the process of applying a tax update? Yes, I am worked on numerous tax updates. As you know, there are 6 tax updates released from PeopleSoft, we co-ordinate with PS Administrators to download and apply a specific tax update on the demo instance and on to a specific test instance.

Once the tax update has been applied, I go through the tax notes section of the update, and see what are the specific changes related to different areas (like federal , state , local tax rate changes, garnishments etc). I also go through the Master Resolution from the PeopleSoft Customer Connection for this tax update, by searching, to see of there are any issues after applying the tax updates(from other PeopleSoft customers who have applied the tax update) I also mark the steps that are applicable to the current environment and run a payroll test to see what the affect of the change is. I co-ordinate with Payroll Supervisor to look into specifics notes of the update and make sure that all the test results are validated, and get sign-off from them. Once the approval is done, PS Admins apply the tax update in production instance. 5) Have you worked on W2 Process? Yes, I have worked on W2 process for my previous clients. Once the tax update (like 2007-E for year end tax update) is applied to the test environment, I setup all the tax form, tax print form tables for that year, modify the boxes based on business requirements (like adding a special box ) and then setup the w2 companies for that year and start loading the w2 amounts in year end tables (PS_YE_DATA , PS_YE_AMOUNTS). We also go through audit reports to see if there are discrepancies in employees tax records. We start this testing in October time frame and test this for each month. The client is to out source the w2 printing to other vendors (like TALX) and I used to run another process to extract all the w2 information and send the files to them for all w2 companies. I co-ordinate with the vendor to validate all the w2 amounts and also work on any issues coming out from that vendors place. We used to get some sample test w2 prints (especially for executives) to make sure that all box amounts are coming our correctly What are some of the important tables in Payroll? (look for the above question) 6) Have you worked on Tax Reporting (quarterly taxes?) Yes, I worked in tax reporting process in my previous projects. The client used to have a Tax Compliance team whose main work was to work on submitting taxes to various tax authorities like fed, state and local. The client used to have a third party tax solutions (like ADP , master tax), we used to send extracts related to taxes after every payroll is confirmed. If the client used ADP, they used to submit all taxes for every payroll, and also for quarterly taxes (like state unemployment) we again used to send a feed that extracts tax information. I used to co-ordinate with them for various employees tax issues. 7) What are FIT / GAP analysis? Answer: Fit/gap analysis compares the business processes (of a particular company) with PeopleSoft functionality to see where we need to change our processes and where we need to customize the software. 8) What does Best Practices Mean? Answer: PeopleSoft best practices are the successful institutional practices used as models for the PeopleSoft software.

9) How do you control users during Payroll Process? We worked with PS Security Admins to lock most of the hr, benefit users during payroll, so that there are no changes to the system related to payroll. The security team has written a SQR program that would lock out the users and only provide read-only access at that time. Once the payroll has reached a certain stage, they used to the same program to unlock them 10) Have you worked on Interfaces? Give some examples? I worked on many interfaces, by creating functional design specification for new business requirements, and coordinating with the developers, and working on system test for that requirement and moving them to production after the system test. Examples like : (a) Send the employee garnishment feed to Accounts Payable department based on the data elements they requested. (b) loading bonus data to PSHUP tables for bonus payments. (c ) General Deductions upload process like United Way at the year end (d) One time deduction process during each bi-weekly payroll process. 11) What kind of issues you use to get in Payroll Process and how did you resolve them? Buffer issues related to Pay Lines Sometimes the pay calc process used to fail and this was related to COBOL issues or data issues (like state XX was not found). We used to run PERS_REFRESH to fix the issue (specifically for 8.3 version). Retro Pay used to fail. Had a custom resolution for certain type of errors. Some Ghost pay lines used to stay and we had to SQL them out or run Unsheet process. Many Off-Cycle checks issues. Some times garnishments wouldnt calculate correctly. We have to go check the setups and employee garn spec data. We used to get Time and Labor load issues (the process used to fail sometimes). We follow certain document from peoplesoft to rectify and use the refresh load process. Issues related to off-cycle pay calendar (like special bonus runs) etc etc.

12) Have you worked on FLSA processing? How do you set it up? Yes, Ive worked on FLSA process and Ive done setups related to FLSA processing. In one of my previous clients place, we setup the Paygroup so that the FLSA required box was checked and associated a FLSA Calendar. We also, setup various earning codes to be FLSA eligible. We then ran a system test for all non-exempt employees to make sure that they were getting their overtime rate based on FLSA setups. 13) Difference between 8.3, 8.9 and 9.0 version. Please check the document that I sent you in one of the emails

14) What is person model concept? In PeopleSoft, we can hire PERSONs (employees who have legal relationship with the organization) , CONTIGENT_WORKFORCE (contractors who do not have legal relationship) and Person of Interest type (like instructors, retirees, students etc). the benefit of this is that, when contractors or POI persons join as employees, we can still use the same person id or employee Id and can have the history related to them. If you do not use the concept, we may have to hire them in PS with another ID

Functional Roles and Responsibilities: Some of the roles and responsibilities of a Functional Analyst or a Business Analyst or Support person: You will be a point of Business / Project owners and User group. When a Business owner or User Group contacts you, they would be asking you about a specific requirement (like a change in online page or upload process). You will be assisting them for implementing that specific requirement through analysis, documentation and design of functional requirement and specifications. You will first see if that is a GAP or FIT in PeopleSoft system, based on that you will proceed further. Once you have written functional specs describing what is needed and how it can be done, you may work with Technical Developer, to help in developing the current request. Once development is done, you will test it (system and integration) and then the test is done by the person who requested it. Subsequently once the sign off is done by that person, it will be moved to production and you will be assisting them for any issues that come out of production for that New Business Process. When PeopleSoft releases bundles (like Tax Updates or HRMS Bundles), you will be responsible for complete testing process. You will held responsible to understand the various business process and based on that create Functional Test Scripts. The testing will be done on a test environment. PS Admins will apply the fix/bundle first in DEMO environment and move that bundle to a test environment. Here you should start your testing. Different test cases like Hire, transfer, dept change, location change, pay rate increase, termination, tax location change, EE tax setup changes, pay group changes, payroll process should be created and used in each system testing. SO youll be Conducting module research and analysis, prepare test case scenarios & scripts for data &/or system changes. Analyze, design, construct, test and implement PeopleSoft application software changes, including product upgrades, major enhancements and new development projects. You will liaise with application users, other developers and IT service providers to investigate and resolve issues.

You will lead and conduct project coordination including assessing change requests and developing functional specifications for approved customizations. Facilitate change management process and functional Analysis for PeopleSoft Security Administration. i.e Provide support in change management efforts and deployment. Responsibilities also include demonstrating knowledge of the end-to-end. Functional activities include requirements definition, process analysis, fit/gap resolution, process design and implementation, functional application design, application configuration, testing, training, and cutover. You should know how PeopleSoft Payroll works (how or where to do setups for earnings, deductions, taxes, and for employees). You should know how to calc a Pay Check and what it contains and how each element is related there. Basically this is what you will be doing: Payroll business processes and data (e.g., employee payroll data setup, payroll pre-processing and gross-to-net, payroll reporting, payroll accounting, tax reporting). You will be also asked to define estimates for project or work requirements, how much time would it take to implement it? What is needed? You need to define the scope for the requirement. i.e. Must be able to define scope for Payroll business processes and data, Able to define requirements for Payroll business processes. You will responsible for creating business process documents. One of your responsibilities will be supporting the current production. When there is an issue in production, you will always need a TEST environment to test and see how it can be fixed. You will also need to see how it will be working on a Demo environment. You will sort out the difference between the Demo and your current production and may sometime call it as a BUG if it is not working as delivered. Report / Log Cases with PeopleSoft on various issues that you need help from PS Testing payroll year end updates (W2 Process) Testing and Implementing Payroll Tax Updates. Participates in unit/acceptance testing process. Providing support to testing and training team. Assisting in the FIT/GAP analysis Assist in the design and build of the payroll environment

Important Tables in PAYROLL Setup Related: PS_PAY_CALENDAR PS_PAYGROUP_TBL PS_PAY_MESSAGE PS_EARNINGS_TBL PS_DEDUCTION_TBL PS_STATE_TAX_TBL PAYSHEET, PAYCALC AND CONFIRM: PS_PAY_EARNINGS PS_PAY_OTH_EARNS PS_PAY_LINE PS_PAY_CHECK PS_PAY_DEDUCTION PS_PAY_TAX BALANCE: PS_CHECK_YTD PS_EARNINGS_BAL PS_DEDUCTION_BAL PS_TAX_BALANCE

PAY_GROUP:

The paygroup work unit is used to classify employees into groups of people that are paid the same way. There are several factors used to distinguish paygroups including each employees FLSA status, earnings program, employee type, source bank, and frequency of payment. One paygroup should be created for each unique group of employees that will be processed.
COMPANY:

The Company Table is a delivered PeopleSoft table used to identify organizations that have a unique federal Employer Identification Number (EIN) for tracking and reporting purposes.

Upgrade assistance Upgrade Assistance is now called as Change Assistant. This is a PeopleSoft Product that is used for applying Change Packages (like Tax Updates, Application Bundles etc) , or to do an Application Upgrade or even PeopleTools Upgrade. You can install Change Assistant from PS_HOME/setup/psca directory. When you want to do an Application Upgrade from 8.9 to 9.0 or upgrade your PeopleTools version from PT 8.48 to PT 8.49 or higher, you use this tool. We need to download Upgrade Templates from PS CC relevant to our upgrade , import it in CA. there are lots of stuff related to upgrade / and CA Interface Interface is like a program that would be either an inbound or outbound process. Example would be: when you confirm payroll, you need to send all benefits deductions data to certain vendors. You either write a Application Engine Program or SQR Program to extract the deduction amount for each employee and create a flat file and FTP it to that vendor managing the health benefits. Even bonus upload process that we discussed during PSHUP process can be a inbound interface. Difference between the versions (7.5,8.8, 8.9, 9.0) i have 2 documents that would help you to get this points. Give us few examples for the nightly jobs, One example is TL Refresh security. Pers Refresh (personal Data is a reporting table, collects data from different tables. Needs refresh every night..this is not needed in 8.9 or 9.0 version, but you hire future dated employees, this refresh is needed) PS_Employee (PS_EMPLOYEE is a reporting table..needs refresh every day) Anything you want to schedule as part of your business process and they are setup as AE process or SQR process. (examples when you hire employees, and if you want to setup security to give them self service access, you can create a sqr process to give them ROLE_EMPLOYEE role access..this can be nightly process) component interface high-level description: For PeopleSoft you need know the application development concept: FIELDS

RECORDS SQL BUILD for DB tables And then build a page Then build a component that contains all pages that make up one business process Then attach this component to Menu (plus register the component to portal) And provide security to the menu item and portal content In order to upload data into PeopleSoft or talk to PeopleSoft system from other systems or PeopleSoft talking to third party systems (synchronously or asynchronously) , there is a integration object called peoplesoft component interface. You can create a component interface out of a component. CI contains properties, that relate to objects of a component (record.fields). What we do is using this CI, you can send data to each property field and in turn this will load the data in component. This is like as if you are manually keying the data. Example: you can hire an employee using the Add Person Component. If you have 1000s of employee to be hired every day, the manual entry becomes difficult, you can try to get a file that has every field data corresponding to CI property. You need to write an App Engine program where in this program you assign the data values to each property and execute CI values. This will load the data in Add Person Component. One thing to note here is..there will be validations exactly as if you are entering a manual entry. If you entering online, and you get a warning online, using CI also, the same warning will be logged in the log file. Hope you got an idea here