Planet PeopleSoft

Thanks to the working environment, I have published this article in Infosys K-shop these days.

According to the suggestion, it will a kind of IP of the company ^_^

Susan Cramm, writing for HarvardBusiness.org:

We have an opportunity to help business leaders manage IT as an organizational asset — not simply an organizational structure. Technology will fall far short of expectations if business leaders continue to try to operate IT via remote control. Emerging technologies — such as social media, business intelligence, business process management — aren’t applications in so much as they are innovation toolkits. While they require (business-smart) technologists to implement and configure, they also require IT-smart business leaders (at all levels) to experiment and exploit their potential.

The notion of ‘business-aligned IT’ has been bandied about for years, but only now are companies figuring out what it really means.  It used to be great PowerPoint fodder for c-level presentations, but it doesn’t cut it anymore.

Because management and IT both know there’s a giant disconnect between them, and its become the white elephant in the room.  It’s finally at critical mass, and now it’s time to put action behind the catchphrase.

So what does the action look like?  For starters:

• Communication and involvement. Business leaders need to explore emerging technologies with a business context and mind, and they need to explain to IT technologists why it’s important.  On the other hand, IT staff needs to understand what the business is trying — really trying — to accomplish.
• Open minds. Business leaders can’t just look at IT as operational infrastructure or data services, and IT can’t look at business leaders as tech-feeble suits.
• A eye towards doing things much differently.  As Cramm notes, modern applications are ‘innovation toolkits’ more than mere applications.  How are companies doing something today?  It it unsatisfactory?  Has a competitor leapfrogged you?  How can you do things radically different and get your pole position back?

We have discussions like this every day.  We see customers in asset-intensive industries move to PeopleSoft EAM solutions away from tactical point products, and their IT teams fully understand what’s being sought.  We have clients ask us about the best way to gather business intelligence requirements — in fact, business intelligence requirements gathering is one of the most popular search terms leading to this blog — because they want that BI layer to span business leaders and IT to enable smarter decisions.

So yes, it’s happening, but it’s not all kittens and moonbeams.  For a great many companies out there, they’re happy enough if business leaders and IT aren’t in a catfight du jour.  They’re happy if the silos are getting along.

That’s far from enough these days, and the sooner a company makes its own changes to its thinking, the more adeptly it will sidestep real circumstance that will force the lesson upon them anyway.

(Via Jim)

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management), Workday and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog.  If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website.  If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.

Interested in Oracle/PeopleSoft Enterprise Asset Management (EAM)?  Attending this year’s Oracle Maintenance Summit and looking for more information about asset maintenance and reliability?  Given that EAM is our specialty, below are our top posts about EAM/PeopleSoft Maintenance Management, as decided by (a) pageviews and (b) inbound search terms.  Hopefully you find them useful as you conduct your research.

• INTERVIEW: Dave Loesch, Oracle’s Sr. Director of Enterprise Asset Management (Part 1)
• INTERVIEW: Dave Loesch, Oracle’s Sr. Director of Enterprise Asset Management (Part 2)
• What Drives Clients to PeopleSoft Real Estate Management (REM)?
• Quantifying the Value of Integration With PeopleSoft Maintenance Management: A Real Life Example
• Quick Look: PeopleSoft Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) 9.1 Enhancements
• PeopleSoft IT Asset Management: A Deeper Look
• Ditch Your Spreadsheets! Why PeopleSoft Retail and Hospitality Industry Customers Have an Opportunity Right Now
• The Value of Integration for PeopleSoft Customers in Asset-Intensive Industries
• PeopleSoft Maintenance Management: a deeper look
• PeopleSoft Real Estate Management (REM): A deeper look
• An introduction to PeopleSoft Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM): Part I
• Why should you consider a Real Estate Management application?

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management), Workday and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog.  If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website.  If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.

Oracle just launched "PeopleTools Viewlets" at http://download.oracle.com/peopletools/viewlets.html.  The viewlets are short training videos on PeopleTools topics like Web services & Integration Broker, reporting, security, enterprise 2.0 etc.   They're great if you need a quick refresher or want to see a live example of something you need to do.  Check it out.

We’ve been mentioning this for the past month or so, but tomorrow’s the big day.

Oracle’s 4th annual Maintenance Summit kicks off tomorrow and runs through Wednesday, March 10th, and if you’re interested in PeopleSoft’s EAM solution suite, this show is 2010’s best venue to meet with other Oracle maintenance practitioners.  There will be a plethora of best-practices information shared among attendees, and everyone will have a prime opportunity to provide product-specific feedback to Oracle.

If you’re going to be there, look for us.  Among our ranks will be:

• Jeff Micallef, Managing Partner
• Chris Bishop, President
• David Brunet, PeopleSoft Practice Director
• Gayla Burns, Sr. Client Executive
• Dave Cohune, Sr. Client Executive

The PeopleSoft-specific agenda looks like:

• From Point Solution to PeopleSoft: Practical & Cultural Issues East Kentucky Power
• Benchmarking Your Project Drummond Co & Kansas City Board of Public Utilities
• From Resistance to Respect: Winning Over Maintenance Deloitte
• Driving Capital Program & Facilities Management Success MIPRO
• All New! PeopleTools Capabilities Oracle
• 9.1 EAM Demonstration

Look forward to seeing you there!

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MIPRO Consulting is a nationally-recognized consulting firm specializing in PeopleSoft Enterprise (particularly Enterprise Asset Management), Workday and Business Intelligence. You’re reading MIPRO Unfiltered, its blog.  If you’d like to contact MIPRO, email is a great place to start, or you can easily jump over to its main website.  If you’d like to see what MIPRO offers via Twitter or Facebook, we’d love to have you.

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The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way to make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him and show your distrust.  –Henry L. Stimson

If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.  –African Proverb

The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.  –Frances Willard

Every now and then go away—for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.  –Leonardo DaVinci

I'm not a genius. I'm just a tremendous bundle of experience.  –R. Buckminster Fuller

Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.  –Henry Ford

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.  –Charles Dickens

People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.  –Edmund Hillary

On two occasions I have been asked [by members of British Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.  –Charles Babbage

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Then connect without specifying the LanguageCD (it should take the one from the browser) :
And receive the error, nothing wrong it is not installed, since this is not a translation :
But the same worked fine in ealier release, here below the same in Peopletools 8.49 :

So, to work around, two possibilities, or use LanguageCD-ENG in the URL like here below, but this is not very nice :


Or change the default setting in webprofile for UK English, and this is the one will test here

Add en_GB=ENG
Right now, after bouncing the webserver, the connection without LanguageCD but still with UK English (en_GB) as default language of my browser, everything works fine :

Of course, if you're using the link UK English, you'll still receive the error :

So far UK English is nothing, but an additional configuration to be done, and certainly not an British translation of the based US English language. Sorry guys...
Note (04-MARCH-2010) : none of the application 9.1 are translated, and not planned to be neither, it seems only Campus Solution 9.0 is planned to be translated in UK English later in 2011... maybe an official Peoplesoft note about that would be welcome.

Find out more in the PeopleSoft Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 Prerelease Notes (Doc ID 846860.1) and My Oracle Support note #988042.1.

Nicolas.

• I have added a comment that contains the name of the application engine step that generated this SQL.  This has can be added automatically with the aeid.sql script on my website.  It can be difficult to identify which step generated which static SQL statement.  It can be impossible to do that with dynamic SQL.  This identifying comment appears in the SQL.
• I have added a QB_NAME hint to the sub-query, and then the hint can refer to that sub-query (see related blog entry Hinting Sub-Queries on Oracle).
• Rather than specify the index name in the INDEX hint I have use the table_name(column_list) construction to specify an index on a named table that starts with the named columns.  This is good general practice, the hint remains valid in the case that an index name changes.  However, it is also useful here because there is no meta-data that I can use to construct the name of the index.

UPDATE /*+INDEX(@SUB1 ln@SUB1 PS_XXX_SPLT_TA2(process_instance,resource_id))
          INDEX(PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1 PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1(process_instance,iu_line_type))*/
    /*ID-IU_PROCESSOR.P150.P150-010.S*/ 
    PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1 
SET    iu_line_type='U'
WHERE iu_line_type='2' 
AND process_instance=12345678 
AND setid_iu='XXXXX' 
AND ledger_group = 'ACTUALS' 
AND EXISTS (
    SELECT /*+QB_NAME(SUB1)*/ 'X' 
    FROM PS_XXX_SPLT_TA2 ln
    where ln.EMPLID2 = PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1.EMPLID2 
    and ln.SEQ_NUM = PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1.SEQ_NUM 
    and ln.BUSINESS_UNIT = PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1.BUSINESS_UNIT 
    and ln.RESOURCE_ID = PS_XXX_SPLT_TA1.RESOURCE_ID 
    AND ln.setid_iu = 'XXXXX'
    AND ln.ledger_group = 'ACTUALS' 
    AND ln.process_instance = 12345678 
    GROUP BY ln.BUSINESS_UNIT_GL , ln.ledger, ln.OPERATING_UNIT, ln.BUSINESS_UNIT, ln.RESOURCE_ID, ln.EMPLID2, ln.SEQ_NUM 
    HAVING SUM(ln.RESOURCE_AMOUNT) <> 0)

UPDATE /*+INDEX(@SUB1 ln@SUB1 %Table(%BIND(line_wrk2_rec,NOQUOTES))(process_instance,resource_id))
        INDEX(%Table(%BIND(line_wrk_rec,NOQUOTES)) %Table(%BIND(line_wrk_rec,NOQUOTES))(process_instance,iu_line_type))*/
    /*ID-IU_PROCESSOR.P150.P150-010.S*/
%Table(%BIND(line_wrk_rec,NOQUOTES))
  SET iu_line_type='U' 
 WHERE iu_line_type='2' 
   AND process_instance=%BIND(process_instance) 
   AND setid_iu=%BIND(iu_proc_002_aet.setid_ledger) 
   AND ledger_group = %BIND(iu_proc_002_aet.ledger_group) 
   AND EXISTS (
     SELECT /*+QB_NAME(SUB1)*/ 'X' 
      FROM %Table(%BIND(line_wrk2_rec,NOQUOTES)) ln 
        %BIND(iu_where_aet.iu_where_sql,NOQUOTES)%BIND(iu_group_by_aet.iu_group_by_sql,NOQUOTES) 
        %BIND(iu_proc_002_aet.where_bu,NOQUOTES) 
       AND ln.setid_iu = %BIND(iu_proc_002_aet.setid_ledger) 
       AND ln.ledger_group = %BIND(iu_proc_002_aet.ledger_group) 
       AND ln.process_instance = %ProcessInstance
      GROUP BY ln.%BIND(iu_sys_tran_aet.fieldname_bu_gl,NOQUOTES), ln.ledger%BIND(iu_proc_001_aet.iu_group_by_sql,NOQUOTES)
      HAVING SUM(ln.%BIND(iu_sys_tran_aet.fieldname_base_amt,NOQUOTES)) <> 0)

©David Kurtz, Go-Faster Consultancy Ltd.

In installing PeopleTools 8.50/HCM91, I noticed that PeopleTools began placing its Application Server configuration files in a different location.  Instead of finding them in %PS_HOME%/appserv, I found them at %USERPROFILE%\psft\pt\.  The culprit appears to be the PS_CFG_HOME environment variable. I found the documentation for this on page 30 of the Enterprise PeopleTools 8.50 Installation for Oracle (Task 1-5-7: Defining Server Domain Configurations).  I also just found a pretty good link in PeopleBooks about the settings. In order to fix my problem, I did the following:

• Shut the Application Server and the Process Scheduler Server down
• Configured the PS_CFG_HOME variable
  • Right click on My Computer
  • Choose Properties
  • Go to the Advanced Tab
  • Click on the Environment Variables
  • Add a new system variable
  • Enter PS_CFG_HOME for the variable name
  • Enter the path to the PeopleSoft Home directory for the value
• Copied everything from the %USERPROFILE%\psft\pt to the PeopleSoft Home directory.  There were several folders that it wanted to merge, but I didn’t see any files that it wanted to overwrite.  I skipped the peopletools.properties file because it was the same in both locations.
• Checked the value of %PS_CFG_HOME% in a Command Window.  If the value is not accurate, you might need to close the window and reopen a new one.
• Reconfigured the Application Server and Process Scheduler (I didn’t change any values, but this let it regenerate the configuration files)
• Booted the Application Server and Process Scheduler

Akshata

Hi..I would like to install peoplesoft in my personal comp. Could you please tell how should I go about doing it.

I came accross the site edelivery.oracle.com providing the files for downloading and installation of peoplesoft.But if somebody could guide me on which files are mandatory and can i install only peopletools first ..is the HRMS/CRM package type necessary to be installed.

And I already have oracle 10g installed on my pc.Should I still download the files related to oracle database from the site.

Thank you for posting your question
Answer –

I’ll assume that you are installing the latest PeopleSoft versions (Eg: HRMS 9.1/PeopleTools 8.50) for the purpose of learning.

Download and go through the detailed Installation guide, HW/SW requirements for PeopleTools 8.50 and HRMS 9.1 from this location: http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/psftent.html
From the edelivery site, you can download the PeopleTools 8.50 Media Pack and HRMS 9.1 Media pack for your OS Platform.

Demo license codes can be obtained here: http://licensecodes.oracle.com/ent_keys_by_prod.html

If you have Oracle 10g software already installed, then you just need to follow the instructions in the installation guide for creating the PeopleSoft Database.

Thanks
Charles Praveen Janarthanan

Ravi Jain
How to design / create Parallel Processing AE for Data Import ??

We have to import millions of customer information from legacy system into PeopleSoft CRM. We have developed an AE which uses delivered Application Packages to do that. However, it requires 4.5 days to import 3.2 lac customer info.

1. How to develop an AE, multiple instances of which will import data in Parallel, thus reducing the import time ?
2. What will be impact (or likelyhood of deadlocks) if all the instances insert / update data for same set of records ?

Environment Details:
CRM 9.00, PeopleTools 8.49
DB: Oracle 10g Enterprise on AIX 6.1 (4 dual core Xeon / 8 GB RAM) App Server: Windows 2003 Enterprise
 
Thank you for posting your question. Answer to your second question is -

To release the deadlocks, you can use commitwork() and collectgarbage() after processing each set of data, (say count=10000 rows) in Application Engine peoplecode.

Thanks
Nithya R

Sri Lakshmi
I am using PT_WF_NOTIFICATION to send mail.In mail some part of text should be displayed as BOLD. I have used html tags but these are displayed in the mail.How to print text in bold?
I am using message catalog to display part of message.

Thank you for posting your question
Answer –

Most Possible reason is email is being sent as Text, that’s the reason HTML tag are not accepted.

In the application package PT_WF_NOTIFICATION, for the notification class there is a property called ContentType which should initialized if HTML tag are going to used.

Please refer peoplebook for sendmail function; code for content type is:

Content_Type = “Content-type: text/html; charset=utf8″

Thanks
Akash Awadhiya

During the year 2004, I worked on an Enterprise Directory implementation for one of our customers with Peoplesoft Directory Interface. Because of the importance of the project, I took the exam “Sun Certified Engineer for Sun ONE Directory Server 5.x” and passed. It is a LDAP Directory Certification with emphasis on Iplanet Directory Server.  I am not sure whether this certification is still valid, However I still try to keep myself informed about latest happenings in these areas.

Now-a-days, LDAP Directories are getting increasingly popular. Most of the Organizations with IT infrastructure has a Windows Domain Contoller (with Active Directory – Which is a LDAP Directory). Some other Organizations do not want to use their Active Directory for LDAP Directory purposes because of interoperability issues. They build a seperate Enterprise Directory infrastructure to keep their user’s Authentication related information.

In this blog entry, I am planning to write a consolidated LDAP Directory related information for the latest Peopletools Version 8.50. As you are all aware, Peopletools provided an abstract layer for the application to run. Peoplesoft has many applications such as Human Capital Management (HCM), Financials and Supply Chain Management (FSCM), Campus Solutions etc. All these applications run with Peopletools internally. Peopletools provides an Abstract layer for these applications to run on top of it.

Introduction to LDAP Directories

Many People  get confused with LDAP terminologies. Just to be clear, LDAP is a protocol – Lightweight Directory Access Protocol. If you are using the term LDAP, make sure, you are refering to a Protocol or a standard, created for accessing LDAP Directories over the network. A LDAP Directory is a software that stores information or data in a tree like format for easy access. As per my experience with LDAP Directories, these are the major LDAP directories:

• Sun Java System Directory Server (earlier Iplanet Directory Server)
• Novell’s NDS eDirectory
• Microsoft’s Active Directory (AD)
• Oracle Internet Directory (OID)

Now that Oracle and Sun got merged as Oracle, Oracle corporation may standardize their LDAP Directory offerings with Sun Java System Directory Server. It is just my prediction because Sun Java/Iplanet Directory server is used in many organizations, Oracle corp may standardize their LDAP Directory offerings for their customers.

Directory Information Tree (DIT)

In any LDAP Directory server, information/data is stored in Directory information Tree called DIT. It has a Tree like format with many parent and child leaves. A LDAP Directory’s DIT can be accessed using a standard LDAPSEARCH Utility.

LDAPBIND and LDAPSEARCH Utilities 

LDAPBIND Utility is used for checking the authentication with LDAP Directory. An Exam command usage is shown below. A “bind successful” means that you have valid authentication details for this directory server.

$ ldapbind  -h 192.168.1.11 -p 389 -D “CN=testuser,CN=Users,DC=tserver,DC=com”  -w “mypassword”
bind successful
$

LDAPSEARCH Utility can be found in many Oracle installations, I always use the one under $ORACLE_HOME/bin directory if I dont have the utility (and I have some version of Oracle Server or Client installed under $ORACLE_HOME).

Here is an example:

ldapsearch -h 192.168.1.11 -p 389 -D “CN=testuser,CN=Users,DC=tserver,DC=com”  -w “mypassword” -b “” -s base “objectclass=*” defaultnamingcontext

Result:

defaultNamingContext=DC=tserver,DC=com

-h -> Hostname or IP Address of the LDAP Directory Server

-p -> Port Number for the LDAP Directory, defaut LDAP port is 389, LDAPS port is 636.

-D -> Bind DN – LDAP DN for connecting to LDAP Directory

-w -> Password for the Bind DN.

-b -> Base DN for the search – here it starts from the top.

-s base -> Search Scope is base (other values are sub and one)

This above command provides the value of default naming context of the top level domain where all the objects are referred to. similarly you can query a lot of other parameters or atttibues as well.

LDAP Directories supported with Peopletools Version 8.50

As far as I understand, there are two scenarios for Peoplesoft Applications requiring an LDAP Directory. One for using Single Sign On (majority of the cases). The other one is for supporting Enterprise Directory for a organization-wide database for user authentication information.

For HCM, Peoplesoft has a product called Directory Interface – I assume it is an additional product and needs to be purchased seperately – that supports major LDAP Directories listed above. Earlier this product used to be called PDI (Peoplesoft Directory Interface). Now they call it just “Directory Interface”. HCM’s Directory interface allows building an Enterprise Directory for your organization. Using Directory Interface, you can populate and push Directory information from HRMS System.

For Single Sign On, major LDAP Directories are supported as well. Additionally, there is a support for Active Directory Application Mode (ADAM) in Peopletools 8.50. For a complete list, I would recommend to search the Oracle Web site for Product Certifications.

Please post your comments. We will meet soon with another topic.

Until then

Vijay Chinnasamy