In 1997, the Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) began one of North America’s largest rollouts of PeopleSoft, or Enterprise, as the customized HRMS was known within DND. Enterprise replaced six existing human resource systems and became DND’s total human resource management system for 80,000 military and civilian personnel. Phased rollouts in 1998-1999 have impacted 2,300 military and civilian human resource specialists. DND is planning for eventual access to Enterprise by all employees and service members via its intranet.

The user population is large, geographically dispersed and multilingual (English and French). The initial rollout population was made up of civilian and military personnel from six different functional groups: Military Clerk, HR Officer, Commander, Headquarters Staff (NDHQ), Compensation (Comp) Specialist, and Career Manager. Each group uses the Enterprise system differently. 78% of the military population have been on the job less than five years, 38% less than one year. 80% of the civilian population have been on the job 10 years or less, 41% between 6-10 years. The civilian and military personnel had varying levels of computer experience and many individuals were resistant to change.

Enterprise replaced six existing legacy systems. No formal training and support program existed for those systems. New hires were, at best, given instructor led training or one on one on the job training. User manuals were available but seldom used. There were no documented business procedures. The user population had lived through several unsuccessful training experiences and was skeptical about the value of new training initiatives.

DND selected Sterling Resources to develop Enterprise Coach, an online coaching system (EPSS) for the support and training of Enterprise users. Enterprise Coach links business and system procedures, providing users with step-by-step instruction to complete job tasks from beginning to end. Sterling worked with DND to develop a total of 556 business and system procedures for the different functional groups. The procedures were translated into French and coded into two separate Enterprise Coach databases. Users can view the information in the language of their choice.

Enterprise Coach was developed utilizing performance centered design concepts to support total job performance. Enterprise Coach consists of two panels: the Enterprise Control Panel and the Enterprise Coach Panel.

Users quickly access information they need through the Enterprise Control Panel, which operates like a table of contents. Information is organized into four categories: System Procedures, Business Procedures, Reference and Bulletin Board (news). Information is organized by job function; the Group View feature segments information for the appropriate user group. Therefore, users are able to access the specific information they need to complete each task. The Settings options allow users to control how Coach behaves on their desktops. Users generally select the "Keep on Top" feature, which allows them to work in Enterprise while viewing the step-by-step instruction.

Figure 1

Procedures are displayed in the Enterprise Coach Panel, which "sits on top" of Enterprise; users can follow the step-by-step instruction while working in the system. Through the use of expanders, users are able to select the appropriate level of detail, based on their knowledge of the specified task. This approach allows experienced users to select high-level overview information and inexperienced users to drill down to detailed, step-by-step instructions. Decision trees guide users through the appropriate path, showing only the instruction that applies to a specific situation.

Figure 2

A Military Leave Clerk, responsible for setting up a Leave account for a new recruit, accesses the business procedure through the tab in the Control Panel. After expanding the Military Leave folder, she clicks on the Initialize Military Leave Account procedure, which appears in the Enterprise Coach panel. She proceeds to work through the steps. Step 3 represents a decision tree; the answer selected (Yes/No), determines the path of instruction. Because there are Leave credits to transfer, the clerk selects Yes to view how to record the member’s leave limits in the Leave module of Enterprise. By clicking on Leave in Step 4, Enterprise Coach hyperlinks to the Record Military Leave system procedure. Notice that in Step 4, the clerk is given the task specific code (M11) to use in the Leave code field.

Figure 3

Example, continued (Figure 4)

The Control Panel minimizes automatically when a task is selected, allowing the Clerk to work in Enterprise, while following the system procedures presented in the Enterprise Coach Panel. Steps 1-4 present high level information about each step for the more experienced user.

Figure 4

Example, continued (Figure 5)

Our Leave Clerk needs an additional level of information to complete Step 3. She clicks on the bold word Transactions in Step 3 to "expand" the detail for completing the Transactions panel. The Comments popup was launched from Step h. to display a third level of information. After completing the steps in the system procedure, the Clerk hyperlinks back to the business procedure to complete the task. Throughout the process the Clerk is in control of the amount of detail she views to complete the task.

Figure 5

Enterprise Coach utilizes a relational database to store all the content of the EPSS. The graphic user interface (GUI) elements (Control Panel and Coach Panel) use SQL queries to extract the necessary content from the database, based on a user’s topic selection in the Control Panel or hyperlink choice in the Coach Panel. This database strategy has numerous benefits: very fast network response time (on one of the world’s most geographically dispersed WANs), reusable content "objects" (e.g. description of "Logging In" used as Step 1 of nearly every system procedure), easy to update content, and very compact size (less than 6 MB for the equivalent of over 2,000 pages of documentation). Enterprise Coach can also provide hyperlinks to external files and programs (e.g. existing CBT, audio clips, MS Office files, email programs, etc.) when they are deemed relevant to the procedure. Enterprise Coach was delivered to DND ready to be deployed in any combination of standalone PCs, LANs, or the WAN, at the discretion of the project implementation team. In the year 2000, when DND proceeds with its "Self Service Strategy," intranet access will be enabled by a utility that will automatically export relevant Enterprise Coach procedures to an HTML format.

DND realized numerous benefits by incorporating EPSS into its implementation training and support strategy.

Enterprise Coach was an integral part of the users’ classroom training experience. Based on the number of users and the scope of the system, a traditional training plan would have required 10 to 15 days of classroom training for each participant. This traditional classroom training would have had to be supported by a 1,500 page training manual. In contrast, the final training plan consisted of 2 ½ days of classroom training for each user, a 250 page training manual and Enterprise Coach. This represented savings in reproduction and mail costs alone of over $200,000 (US). Even more impressive, DND saved over $1,000,000 (US) in employee productivity and reduced training costs.

A survey conducted by an independent consultant after implementation found a remarkably favorable response (91%) to the overall training and support approach. 85% stated that Enterprise Coach is a valuable and useful tool that assists them in their daily job functions.

After implementation, DND upgraded from PeopleSoft version 5.0 to 7.5. Changes were made to the Enterprise Coach database to reflect new procedures and were instantly available to all users. Also, users were provided with a video highlighting the differences between the two versions. No additional classroom training was required and DND experienced a seamless transition to version 7.5. DND has maintained and expanded Enterprise Coach, which currently contains 580 system and business procedures.

Enterprise Coach is an integral component of DND’s Help Desk support strategy. Support calls are handled more quickly and easily since Enterprise Coach is used by all system users as well as Help Desk support personnel. Users familiar with using Enterprise Coach as part of their day to day routine are less dependent on the Help Desk and rely more on Coach. Help Desk personnel encourage this behavior by guiding the user through Coach during the call, rather than simply providing an answer. Eventually, users become accustomed to looking up the answers in Coach on their own without bothering to call the Help Desk in the first place. Enterprise Coach significantly reduces the cost of providing Help Desk support. By reducing the number of calls, DND is able to reduce the staff required to support the Help Desk.

For further information contact:

Andy Zolper
VP & Managing Director, Technology Solutions Group
6 Forest Avenue
Paramus, NJ 07652
201-843-6444
zolpera@sterlingnet.com