PIA Colour Schemes v2 October 12, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools.comments closed
A few years ago I put together a set of five alternate colour schemes for the PeopleSoft PIA and made them available for free download. The intention was that clients could use a colour for each environment, for example, DEV could be Red, TST could be brown, UAT could be green, SIT could be purple etc.
Version 1 of the colour schemes had a surprising amount of downloads, and it’s quite gratifying to walk onto a customer site and see them in use. There were however, some flaws:
- The PIA Header at the top was not altered (as it relied on graphics, not style sheet changes),
- The small icons in the menu, the navigation collections and the pages themselves were still blue, and
- I’d missed a couple of minor style classes
So, I’ve now finished Version 2 of the colour schemes which addresses each of the above issues.
Details and download here.
A first look at Tools 8.50’s new User Interface October 7, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools 8.50.comments closed
I’ve installed a Tools 8.50 VM and thought I’d post a few screenshots of the new ‘Swan UI’ improvements, just so to get those of you that haven’t taken the plunge yet excited. (more…)
Release of PeopleTools 8.50 September 19, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools, Strategy.comments closed
It’s been a long, long time coming, but PeopleTools 8.50 has been released!
There were a couple of docs floating around that listed 18th Sept as the release date, but no official confirmation from Oracle, so I wasn’t 100% sure that it was coming. Further details here:
http://blogs.oracle.com/peopletools/2009/09/general_availability_ga_of_peopletools_850.html
Rather intriguingly not only is there this release (which is the biggest in the PeopleSoft world for a good year or so) but also a new release of the Oracle Database, and a hardware tie-in with Sun in the last few days. Why are these being released now, with OpenWorld so close? Is there something even bigger that is going to be unveiled during OpenWorld?
A Progress Bar within the REN Window July 20, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools.comments closed
A while ago I showed how to output to the REN Window using PeopleCode while running processes through the Process Scheduler. A post I’ve been meaning to write for a while was a practical use of this some colleagues and I made during a Data Migration.
Typically Data Migration programs can run for a while, and for this client (which had >100,000 employees to process) a fair bit of time was spent watching the screen wondering how long was left (or watching the row counts via SQL). We soon got fed up of this and wrote this very quick progress bar for the REN Window:
This migration routine was just for the employee personal data, but we used a similar trick for the other migration processes also.
We could go and get a coffee, or catch up on some other work and with a quick glance every now and again we could see how long remained.
Real or Fake? July 16, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleSoft.comments closed
Every site will have at least one environment with Demo data in it, and many developers will have a favourite PeopleSoft Demo data employee, one they know the Emplid for better than their own.
Some pick the first in the list, so that’ll be Rebekah Jones or Kimberly Adams. It’s often wise not to pick the top ones as they’re also likely to be chosen by others – and it’s good to find an employee that others don’t mess with.
These names will be instantly familiar to most long-time PeopleSoft (HR) developers:
Darlene Bergsten,
Leo Puddephat,
Paul Acosta,
Beatrice Test,
and my personal favourite: Ginger Buckalew.
I’ve often wondered – and perhaps a PeopleSoft alumni can help with this – were these ever real people? Or did someone fake up a load of demo data one day?
Service Start Up – Automatic (Delayed) July 15, 2009
Posted by Duncan in Administration, Infrastructure, Windows.comments closed
I’ve been spending a little time putting together a VM using Windows Server 2008 and was pleasantly surprised to see that there is a new start-up type when configuring the PIA, App Server and Process Scheduler to start as services.
As well as Automatic, Manual and Disabled, there is now an Automatic (Delayed) option.
David Kurtz has spoken about using service dependencies, but I just want my App Server and Process Scheduler to start after the intial flurry of start-up activity has finished and everything else has calmed down.
Services that have a delayed start still start automatically, they just wait until all the services that aren’t delayed to finish before firing up.
It works a treat!
More PeopleTools 8.50 May 17, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools.comments closed
Following OpenWorld ’08 I posted about some of the new functionality coming in PeopleTools 8.50, including partial page refresh, modal lookup and prompt dialogues, redesigned menu pagelet etc.
Oracle have now made the RVP available so we get a better idea of what is included in the release.
I’ve picked out a few things that I hadn’t heard about previously:
Maximum number of rows to return on search pages
Search pages will now contain an option to limit the number of rows returned. The maximum is also configurable globally in PeopleTools Options.
64 bit only software
It seems from Tools 8.50 onwards that the hardware the components are installed upon will be 64-bit only. No more installing a sandpit environment on your 32-bit laptop … [EDIT 17th May: It seems that running a 64-bit VM on a 32-bit host is possible with VM Ware, but not Virtual PC. See comment below from Jim Marion.]
Parallel file deploy in CA
Finally! This should speed up file copies.
Decoupling of PS_Home
It seems that there’ll be a read-only PS_Home with all of the binaries etc, and a seperate read/write config_home for the environment specific config files.
Graphical routings of messages
Should help troubleshooting Service Operations
Interactive PeopleCode debugger
It appears that during a debug session you’ll be able to change variables on the fly. Pretty nice.
App Class method drilldown
Right-click and jump to the method, just like you can with PeopleCode functions.
New ‘Swan’ contemporary style sheet
A lick of paint for the UI ‘matching Oracle Corporate application standards’, whatevr they may be. I hope that doesn’t mean the ‘mustard and blue’ that Oracle e-Biz suite users had for years.
Looking forward to it, roll on September …
PeopleSoft Conference April 30, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools.comments closed
This year the UKOUG PeopleSoft Conference has been split out from the Oracle Conference (last year it was in the same building, just on a difference floor). We’ve also teamed up with the GPUG (the HCM Global Product User Group) so there’ll be an extra stream of content this year (HCM, Financials, Tech, Round tables and GPUG).
I’ve been for a few years running now and thoroughly enjoy it. There’s always something new in the presentations (check out the agenda if you need convincing), it’s excellent for networking with fellow professionals, and there’s nothing like being able to coral some of the industry’s experts to answer a question or two from back at work.
Finally, there’s been a change of venue. We normally have a contigent of overseas visitors, and seeing as it’s practically on the end of one of Heathrow’s runways it couldn’t be more convenient (just make sure you don’t bring swine flu with you!).
If you’re quick, the early-bird discount will save you a bit of money too …
Applying homepage pagelets to others April 27, 2009
Posted by Duncan in PeopleTools.comments closed
In a previous post I’ve spoken about the benefits of creating a custom Navigation Collection on your homepage.
(Note: this doesn’t need to be Enterprise Portal, this can be done in the HR/Financials/CRM/Student Admin application).
I also covered migrating your setup to other environments. A step I neglected to mention is a common one, when colleagues enviously notice your productive new setup how do you easily apply it to their user profiles so they can benefit also? Or perhaps you’re setting up a homepage to roll-out to the entire user community?
Here’s how you do it:
The PeopleSoft Tipster Blog 