The PeopleSoft Tipster Blog

Tools patches, zips and passwords July 21, 2012

As mentioned last week, the way we locate patches has changed. One thing that I didn’t notice at the time was that the method of getting PeopleTools patches has also changed.

Previously, we just FTP’ed them from ftp.peoplesoft.com/outgoing/ptools, and then unzipped them using the password from the note on Oracle Support.

I tried to do the same on Saturday as I was building a new testbed environment, downloaded the 1.2GB zip file and then went looking for the password. As the support site has now changed, I couldn’t find the password anywhere.

The procedure from now on will be to go to Oracle Support and search for your patch (the new interface for finding patches is actually quite quick, and as a bonus you can save your search so it’s even quicker next time). Then click the download button to download the patch from here.

No more FTP’ing.

The zip that you now have contains the actual patch archive, and a document containing the unzip password that you’ll need to extract it.

Two changes to Oracle Support July 10, 2012

There are two upcoming changes to Oracle’s Support site:

Bye, bye Flash

As I suspect you’ve heard, the much maligned Flash Oracle Support site is being retired and replaced with an HTML equivalent. I don’t think many will be sorry to see it go, and to my mind having a site based on the proprietary Flash always sat poorly with Oracle’s stated preference for open technology elsewhere.

Support Gateway

What I didn’t realise until recently (thanks to an email to the PeopleSoft Fans Yahoo Group list by Pamela Lantzy of University at Albany) was that the PeopleSoft Updates & Fixes and Update Gateway will be merged into the Patch Search section that users of other products already use.

I don’t think this change will upset too many people, but with this Gateway being decommissioned it’ll also mean that Change Assistant loses the ability to connect to Support, upload what’s already applied, and then search for and download patches. After 13th July we’ll have to search and download patches manually, and then use Change Assistant just for the application of what you’ve downloaded. The functionality where you can search based on what you’ve already applied will not be replaced, so it’s a bit of a step backwards for us.

There’s a doc for this on the support website, including a video explaining how the new search will work.

Highlights from the PeopleTools 8.53 RVP July 9, 2012

As some of you may have noticed, the Release Value Proposition for PeopleTools 8.53 was made available a couple of days ago. This document is basically a ‘teaser trailer’ for the main release, which I’m hoping we get to see around OpenWorld time.  Somewhere around the same time (likely just after) we should see the version 9.2 Applications – so the RVPs for those should be coming out of Redwood soon-ish too.

The full document is available here (support login needed).

This release is aimed at 3 main themes:

1. A simple and intuitive UI for Self Service.
2. Improving productivity for day-to-day users.
3. Streamlining maintenance, reducing downtime, improving performance.

So, what stood out for me? (more…)