Why PeopleSoft Update Manager?

Since CS 9.2 information started coming out, PeopleSoft Update Manager (PUM) caught my attention. It was projected as a highlight feature of 9.2 version. So that was something worth to take a look. The first thing as usual was to do some research and gather some information to get started. 

PUM been around for some time from Applications 9.2 with PeopleTools 8.53 except for Campus Solutions that gives me an option to say that I didn’t try that yet :)

Technically this should be making the life easy as Oracle recommends it by making the tool to be the one stop shop for any kind of SELECTIVE (you can decide/adopt the changes that matters to your business) updates / patches / bug fixes. 

Oracle strongly recommends minimum version PeopleTools 8.53.10+ to avail the minimum benefits of the tool and this is again the pre-requisites for CS 9.2 upgrade. Again, this is a no-brainer. It is a free and powerful upgrade anyway.

What are PI’s? 

PeopleSoft Update Images (PIs) are Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machines that you download locally. One PI is available per application (database instance), and each will be released periodically according to the image schedule posted on your application's update image home page. 

The PI is the master source environment from which Change Assistant will pull the updated objects, create a custom change package, and apply updates to your environment. The PI for your application is cumulative, so you will download the most current image and get all of the updates that you need.

The PI is a virtual machine running Oracle cross-platform virtualization software called Oracle VM VirtualBox. The PI is offered with Oracle Enterprise Linux as the guest operating system and with Oracle Database as the RDBMS. No additional license requirements exist for PeopleSoft VirtualBox images used for non-production activities such as maintenance, new feature delivery, and demonstration purposes.

Understanding picturization of PUM

Using PeopleSoft Update Manager is the only way to apply maintenance for PeopleSoft 9.2 and Interaction Hub 9.1.

Why Campus Solutions 9.2?

If you haven't gone through the CS 9.2 FAQ's yet, it is on Oracle Support. Read through and get apprised of its features. 

(Snippet from Oracle Support below)

Announced at Alliance 2014 (March 10, 2014), Oracle is making new, significant investments in Higher Ed solutions that will complement the ongoing investment in functionality to support global Higher Ed operating models in our industry-leading SIS, HCM, and ERP applications.  This includes the creation of a Campus Solutions (CS) 9.2 release, to bring customers a simpler, more productive user experience and more tailored, efficient application life-cycle management process.

 

Campus Solutions 9.2 is focused on three strategic areas:

 

• Intuitive Experience – Campus Solutions 9.2 will take advantage of the significant enhancements by leveraging  the Tools 8.54 User Experience called Fluid to provide a simpler self-service capability that is optimized for mobile devices as well as a more modern, streamlined maintenance process.
• Selective Adoption: Campus Solutions 9.2 will enable new methods for managing the Continuous Delivery Model with PeopleSoft Update Manager.  “PUM” is a new, innovative way to manage system updates, fixes, and new feature functionality as they are released. Customers can tailor their maintenance to the needs of their campus, up taking only the items that meet their needs while also reducing the time, effort, and cost required to maintain Campus Solutions.
• Innovative Functionality: The CS 9.2 release will include all the functionality that has been delivered through the Continuous Delivery Model to the CS 9.0 code line.  CS 9.2 provides the upgrade “event” many customers require to resource, budget, plan and implement the wealth of new capabilities already available to reduce their customizations and improving their business processes.

Happy To Know

http://ps.mytechspeak.com/2014/05/how-to-know-recordfield-names-without.html

Services for Prompt Table and Translate Value Look Up

There are scenarios where a component is integrated with a third party interface to provide service. Say for example, integration Campus Solutions via AAWs using .Net. 

The entire CS functionality is exposed to the interface which has numerous PS delivered Prompts and Translate values. 

How to make sure that the integrated fields refers to the right values and prompts in this situation. Best way is to have a service which tells you the prompt and field values and share it with the third party interface to bind that up to create the drop downs.

And you don't have to create one as there are delivered services which does this job. The service PTLOOKUP retrieves the list of values from PeopleSoft and aid the development efforts.

The two service operations PTLOOKUPPROMT and PTLOOKUPXLAT

The best way to understand how it works and the expected parameters is to go and test it with the test utility. 

You might get a node error initially, then make sure you have an instance to instance routing defined on the respective SO routing tab.

PTLOOKUPPROMT Example:

PTLOOKUPXLAT Example:

Component Interface SDK for Excel

The power of CI is on two areas. Exposing the business rules + integration options. 

You can integrate CI using Java/C++/COM/Web Services. But there is a simple integration which will allow the admin staffs to easily access and review the data in an excel sheet.

That's the CI SDK for Excel. 

You can find the sample Excel SDK file under:                                                     \sdk\pscompintfc\src\com\samples\vba\sdk_bus_exp\sdk_bus_exp.xlsm

Compile the project first, enable the macros, provide the connection details and the excel can work like a from to pull and update data easily for the excel fans.

That's handy.