Have you met our friend Max, the Phoenix who just can't seem to catch fire? With new AI, automation, and cloud tools all around us, you'd think there'd be plenty of fuel to light a blaze of organizational transformation. Why is it so hard to get from smoke to flames?

Paul Taylor, founder and CEO of Gideon Taylor will discuss ideas that can move transformative results from far-off roadmap wishes to this quarter's win column. You have the right people, technologies, and partners - let's light this bird!

Paul will share the successes of GT innovators you'll want to emulate, and reveal new GT tools you've been dreaming of! The key ingredient, though, is in your hands - the will to step forward, strike the match, and rise.

If you're new to Gideon Taylor, this is the session for you! Join us for a high-speed crash course on "all things GT". Whether your interest is AI, UX, chatbots, process automation, or cloud enablement, we've got you covered. We're passionate about helping YOU drive ever greater productivity, efficiency, performance, and functionality within your enterprise applications. Do more with what ya' got! Join us to get a quick intro to GT eForms, WebUX, Ida digital assistant and AI agents, cloud hosting, and managed services. We'll be sure to sneak in a few demos that will get your wheels turning and IGNITE your curiosity!

No sales pitch. No canned demos. Just real problems and real solutions from our panel of experts. This interactive panel session brings together GT experts to discuss how we approach problem-solving across the full GT solution set. We'll crowdsource the biggest challenges attendees are facing — technical, functional, and strategic — and walk through how GT's tools and services can be combined to address them. Expect practical recommendations, honest discussion, and maybe even a little humor (world peace not guaranteed).

GT eForms for Cloud represents the next step in delivering flexible, enterprise-grade forms and workflow automation on any platform. In this session, we'll break down what GT eForms for Cloud is, why organizations are choosing it, and how it fits alongside GT eForms for PeopleSoft applications. We'll discuss system requirements, availability, pricing, and how the product supports customers planning a move beyond PeopleSoft. The session will include demonstrations of a solution built for our beta client and the creation of a new form in GT eForms for Cloud. We'll also outline the migration approach and key considerations to help attendees confidently plan their next phase of automation.

Modernizing PeopleSoft doesn't have to mean ripping and replacing. This session focuses on how to enable better user experiences through thoughtful design, flexible styling, and intelligent assistance. We'll walk through GT WebUX, CSS customization, Redwood-aligned interfaces, and AI capabilities that reduce friction and guide users through complex processes. Attendees will leave with ideas they can apply immediately to improve engagement and usability.

The promise of enterprise AI has never been louder, but the results tell a different story. Institutions are investing heavily in AI only to end up with pilots that never scale, chatbots that frustrate users, and tools that sit unused. This session takes an honest look at the most common pitfalls driving these failures, from poor integration and data silos to organizational resistance and the unrealistic dream of finding "one AI to rule them all." We'll walk through practical examples of what's actually working in PeopleSoft environments, including conversational AI for self-service, intelligent assistants for eForms and administrative processes, embedded AI within transactions, and predictive models for fraud detection. You'll leave with a clearer framework for evaluating AI opportunities and avoiding the expensive lessons others have already learned.

Learn it. Style it. Win it. Join this high-energy, hands-on session focused on the latest CSS styling features in GT eForms. We'll start with guided instruction and examples, then break into teams for a friendly styling competition. Whether you're a designer or an administrator, you'll leave with new skills, practical experience, and maybe even bragging rights if your team takes home the prize.

Brigham Young University partnered with Gideon Taylor to lift and shift their PeopleSoft Campus Solutions environment from the BYU data center to be managed and run in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI). Come learn from the team how the project was pursued, preparation steps, approach, validation and go-live activities. Technically the presentation will dive into key integrations, database replication approaches, OCI design, and other considerations. In addition, details will be shared regarding the project plan, resources involved, and involvement from the student account team, financial aid office, and other teams. Lastly, Gideon Taylor was selected as the implementation partner that worked with BYU staff to make this transition to run PeopleSoft in the Cloud. An update will also be given regarding performance, stability, and day-to-day experience with PeopleSoft running in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.

This workshop offers a high-level view of how Gideon Taylor is shaping the future of enterprise automation, user experience, and intelligent operations — and how it all fits together. Attendees will gain insight into the evolution and direction of GT's product ecosystem, including AI Enablement, Process Automation, User Experience, Cloud Hosting, and Application Services. You'll see how new features, service models, and delivery approaches are coming together to create a cohesive platform that supports modern staffing strategies, project delivery, and managed services. Leave with a clear understanding of where GT is headed, how upcoming innovations align with market trends and customer priorities, and how the roadmap can help inform your own long-term technology and operational planning.

Take your GT eForms skills to the next level in this dynamic, solution-focused session. Whether you're a functional lead or a technical pro, this session will equip you with practical tips, creative workarounds, and powerful configuration strategies to get the most out of GT eForms. We'll explore the NDUS form intake process, integrating PeopleSoft data through component interfaces, and improving user experience with smart styling and search features. We'll also discover how the eForms AI assistant can streamline user interactions. Real-world examples and lessons learned from recent implementations will be shared, including accessibility considerations, form optimization strategies, and helpful naming convention approaches.

This session delivers a clear and practical overview of the end-to-end process for hiring and managing temporary employees, including student workers, adjunct faculty, and staff. We begin by introducing the Hire eForm, which supports departments in initiating hires accurately and efficiently. For departments managing multiple hires, the session introduces the Batch Upload feature, which allows for quick and accurate submission of multiple records—saving time and reducing manual entry errors. We also explore the Mass Approval Hire Action Center, which simplifies the approval process for large volumes of hires, making it easier for approvers to review and act on requests in bulk. To complete the overview, we explain how the Job Changes eForm is used to update employment details such as pay rate changes, earnings distribution changes, or departmental transfers and early terminations for temporary roles. This ensures that employment records remain current and compliant throughout the employee lifecycle. By participating in this session, attendees gain the clarity and skills needed to manage temporary employment actions with efficiency, accuracy, and alignment to institutional standards.

The 23 colleges that comprise the Virginia Community College System have leaned into AI to support students since 2021; they most recently enhanced their system chatbot to provide more personalized and nuanced information that is scattered across several prominent web platforms. Presenters will walk through the functionality of the VCCS's enterprise chatbot and how it allows students to begin exploring program and course options, which can facilitate decision making and improve the quality and efficiency of their first advisor meeting. Presenters will also review key technologies that interface with the chatbot (Canvas, Salesforce, Peoplesoft) to provide a seamless handoff to college services, and guide participants through data-driven decision making that these key technologies provide.

What if the path to reducing custom development and technical debt in campus systems was simply better design? For too long, the drive for efficiency has inadvertently created complex, unintuitive platforms that users are forced to use. At UC Berkeley, we asked: What if we could make systems easy to use while reducing development efforts? By putting users first, we stripped away complexity and rebuilt security access and eForm navigation into a simple, seamless experience that just works. At Berkeley, the Security Access Request (SAR) eForm and the new eForm Center were designed to turn cumbersome, maintenance heavy, multi-step processes into intuitive, user-centered workflows. Every element, from request forms to the homepage, was approached with the goal of making complex tasks clear and actionable for any user, regardless of experience. Through workshops, planning sessions, and user research, we identified pain points, debated design choices when opinions differed, and tested iterations with both staff and student perspectives. The result is an eForm experience that balances technological capability with usability. Beyond improved technical streamlining and reduction of maintenance, these projects established new design practices and implemented existing best practices: limiting custom development, leveraging configuration options, and improving hand-offs to Business Systems Analysts with clear recommendations. We will showcase how intentional, user-focused design methods can transform administrative processes, illustrate the evolution of design decisions, and provide actionable strategies for creating forms and systems that are as simple as they are powerful. Join us to learn how UX Designers fit into eForm building to streamline eForm designs within limited configuration options, making compromises, and using user feedback from all user populations to drive the process.

Do your students —undergrads, graduate students, residents, post docs, or fellows—struggle to get reimbursed for conference travel, memberships, or supplies? Are administrators bogged down filling out claim forms on their behalf? At Western University, moving from paper to electronic claim forms during COVID solved many challenges and streamlined processing. But no good deed goes unpunished: because students aren't able to access PeopleSoft Financials (FSCM), the burden shifted to administrators to submit claims for them. Our solution was to provide limited system access that empowers students to submit their own expense claims, paid by direct deposit (EFT in Canada)—without requiring vendor profile setups! Bonus: We'll also showcase our PeopleSoft Insights dashboard developed in partnership with Gideon Taylor, which provides administrators with real-time visibility into student (and guest) expense claims. With dynamic visualizations, the dashboard tracks total active forms, forms grouped by approver and cost center, completed forms over time to highlight peak periods, and form summary details that are filtered automatically as you explore the data and drill into visualizations, boosting efficiency and transparency for administrators.

PeopleTools provides powerful capabilities to create an engaging, efficient, and intuitive user experience. In this session we will show how we leveraged PeopleTools to achieve a premium UX. The University of California recently completed a transformative project using PeopleTools features and Gideon Taylor's UX expertise and techniques to provide a personalized experience. By using PeopleTools, the technical environment was simplified resulting in retiring legacy systems and reducing costs. Today, when we talk about UX, we must also talk about AI. UCOP is extending this vision through a three-phase AI and Generative AI deployment supporting over 280,000 employees, including PathPal, the HR AI Agent integrated with PeopleSoft and Salesforce to deliver instant, context-aware support. Together, these UX and AI initiatives show how UCOP is reimagining enterprise systems to be not only user-friendly but intelligent, proactive, and transformative.

How do you implement and manage a single digital form across five universities, each with distinct needs, policies, and student populations, without duplicating effort or losing control of data and compliance? This session explores how the University of Houston System (UHS), which includes University of Houston, University of Houston-Clear Lake, University of Houston-Downtown, and its partner Texas A&M-Victoria, has successfully leveraged Gideon Taylor (GT) eForms within Oracle Campus Solutions to streamline, centralize, and scale workflow-based form processes across multiple institutions. Through real-world examples such as the multi-campus Service Account Form and the Residency Form, attendees will gain an inside look at the strategic and tactical decisions that go into implementing shared forms in a complex system environment. Presenters from the UHS Campus Solutions Services (CSS) team will discuss development strategies, project planning, collaboration models, and governance considerations, offering a transparent view of both the benefits and trade-offs involved in shared form implementations. Whether you are just getting started with GT eForms or seeking to expand usage across multiple departments or campuses, this session will equip you with practical insights, lessons learned, and actionable recommendations for success.

Find out how Los Rios Community Colleges said goodbye to multiple PDF Hire forms and used the power of GT eForms to simplify their hiring of Adjunct Faculty into Service Agreements. Also, how using approvals to manage the workflow improved communication and ensured payroll completion. You will also see how we took the business process from pilot project to Production and see how the active partnership enabled a seamless deployment and active user community acceptance.

Accessibility work can feel overwhelming — especially as new WCAG requirements and tighter timelines approach. This session provides a high-level look at the current state of accessibility in PeopleSoft, including where delivered Classic, Classic+, and Fluid pages meet (or fall short of) current standards. We'll review who is impacted, what's changing, and practical options for closing accessibility gaps, such as adopting compliant Fluid pages, modifying existing pages, building custom Fluid or eForms solutions, and leveraging chatbot technology with visual and auditory support. Attendees will leave with an actionable view of how to move forward with confidence.

Rumor has it the 2025 GT Birds of a Feather was the most engaging session at Alliance in New Orleans - so don't miss out on 2026! Seats are limited, so get there early! The GT eForms community is filled with knowledgeable and creative minds - eager to streamline processes, remove barriers, and save trees! This room will be filled with a caring group - ready to talk through solutions to any question thrown out - as the room is filled with a strong combination of users across higher ed, as well as the great folks at GT! This session we will dive into an open discussion covering a wide range of user topics, including best practices, project strategies, exploring exciting new functionalities, and sharing tips and tricks for a smoother user experience. This interactive conversation will offer attendees the opportunity to ask questions and engage this interactive community to gain valuable insights, actionable advice, and practical knowledge that can significantly elevate the use of Gideon Taylor eForms. This session will help foster a community of empowered users, driving excellence in eForms implementation and usage!

Trapped between business users looking for custom functions in PeopleSoft and IT leadership preaching, "Vanilla, Vanilla, Vanilla"? Never fear, you've got the super-powered tools to keep everyone happy: Page & Field Configurator, Activity Guides, PS Insights, and GT eForms. Maximize functionality while keeping technical debt to a minimum. It's never been easier to deliver 100% custom functionality inside PeopleSoft with ZERO mods. Join us as we walk through each of these tools, how they work, and how they can make YOU the hero!

Western University, in partnership with Gideon Taylor, implemented PeopleSoft Insights to deliver real-time, ledger-secure analytics for eForms users. Through a dashboard exposed as a content reference, end users see only the data they're authorized to view—while administrators get a clear, actionable view of items requiring attention, with links from Insights directly into the originating eForms. This session walks through the building blocks of Open Search Insights and the design of a dashboard for the "Expense" Form Family—covering Guest and Undergraduate Student expense forms. We'll show how to create visualizations for transaction volume, form status, age (from creation/last update), department, and claimant details. We'll also detail how Western applied PeopleSoft ledger security to Insights so each user's experience is scoped to their access, preserving governance without sacrificing usability. Attendees will leave with a design pattern and configuration tips to accelerate their own analytics journey.

Is your institution overrun with unpaid appointments? Do you find managing and renewing this population to be an administrative burden or tracking nightmare? In this session, you will learn how University of Missouri System reduced their risk and tackled this large population by creating a GT eForm to specifically manage this subset of workers within our institution.

Oracle has announced it will no longer develop new AI use cases for PeopleSoft and will deprioritize its PICASO tool. While this marks a change in direction, it is not the end of AI for PeopleSoft. Instead, Oracle plans to publish technical guidance and build new AI integration anchor points to help customers build their own AI integrations, signaling a shift toward customer-driven or partner-enabled innovation. This session will explain what Oracle's update means, why it is actually a step forward, and how organizations can continue to progress with AI in PeopleSoft. We will explore the AI tools that are now available, real-world examples of successful AI deployments, and how to decide between building in-house or working with an expert partner like Gideon Taylor. Whether your organization is just getting started or already experimenting with AI, you will leave this session with practical insights and a clear sense of what to do next.

The transition from WorkCenter to Homepages presents both an opportunity and a challenge for institutions aiming to modernize their user experience. Gideon Taylor's eForms are a critical touchpoint for students, staff, and faculty but may still seem separated from other business processes when accessed via various navigation paths or via a WorkCenter. This session will demonstrate how to redesign and migrate eForms from the WorkCenter to a Homepage in PeopleSoft, with a focus on simplifying the end-user journey, unifying all stakeholders experience to streamline system maintenance, and aligning with intuitive design principles. We will cover: Our path to reimagining the navigation paths to minimize clicks and streamline access. Our design concepts realized in configuration to leverage delivered functionality to improve usability. Our approach to configuring Homepages, Tiles, Navigation Collections, and Content References to improve usability by audience. Our strategy for communicating changes to stakeholders.

Once upon a time, security access requests were anything but magical. At Berkeley, the process was confusing, time-consuming, and full of twists and turns that left both requesters and reviewers frustrated. Built through a campuswide collaboration that combined user-centered design with technical innovation, security access was reimagined from the ground up. The result was not just an upgrade, but a transformation: the Security Access Request (SAR) eForm. With the guiding principle that every user, no matter their background, should feel confident and supported, we turned a tangled story into one of clarity, simplicity, and trust. The SAR eForm introduces a kind of "magic" powered by automation and design. Features like robot reviews and request expirations, reminders that prevent bottlenecks, configuration pages for security roles and row-level security, and even a mid-form component interface log that tracks system updates made mid-form troubleshooting issues is not a black hole. Perhaps the most enchanting twist is the ability to create user profiles on the fly, granting access right at onboarding so a user can begin their journey without delay. What started as a dream to make processes easier became a reality of efficiency, transparency, and collaboration. And with future phases exploring tools like the eForm Assistant, this story is far from over; it's the beginning of happily ever after for security access at Berkeley.