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Showing posts with label PeopleTools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label PeopleTools. Show all posts

PeopleSoft AWE (Approval Workflow Engine) - Part 2

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Let’s look at one of the AWE Example at higher level and see some of its setups.
Here’s an example of AWE process that comes delivered in the system. When a Time Reporter submits time, the time should be approved by this employee’s Supervisor; The Approval process is setup at Employee TL Workgroup level (not at TRC level).



For the above employee’s workgroup, system will be usin g the Approval Process ID of TLReportedTime (or the Approval Definition ID of TLBySupervisorID).
Also, In the demo system that I will be testing this AWE process, the Email Notification is turned off and only worklist is turned on as shown below :
What this mean is that, only worklists are triggerd when the approval s are routed and the Approver  has to go to the Worklist and pick up the approvals. If the Email Active was also selected, the email notification will also be sent to the Approver.  (there is also one more setup at AWE level for notifications and we assume that the delivered system uses both type of the notifications)
 So Lets Take a look at the Timesheet and submit Time :

If you look at the above screen shot, time is submitted for Friday 05/16 for 8 REG hours. This reported time needs approval;
If you look at the Approval Monitor Link, it looks as shown below :


It shows multiple Approvers. If you look at the Multiple Approvers link, it shows as below:
There are several approvers (17 of them) in the list ,which means that, anyone of the list can be approver and once it is approved, the time can be processed by Time Admin.



Now let’s dig into this AWE Setup and see how it is working and find the Process Flow:
AWE has the What, How, When & Who logic. When the Timesheet is submitted, this is the transaction and this is the “What” part of AWE.  So in AWE, we need to have a Transaction Registry Setup and this identifies how the calling application will interact with AWE;
Now comes the “How” Part which is handled by the Approval Process Definitions: The Approval Process Definition pages allow the functional analyst to define the workflow steps to be executed in order for the transaction to be approved. So with our example, we have KU0016 Employee (Time Reporter) time submission for 05/16 date, and how this should be approved; are there multiple approval levels or just a single level, is there a specific logic involved here? From our example, it is a simple single level approval and there are no multiple levels.
Next is the “When” Part.  There is an Approval Process Configuration page that allows the user to define events that trigger notifications. In our example, the Time Sheet submission should trigger the notification in the form of email or worklist or both.
The last part is the “Who” Part, i.e. who should approve or who would get the notification? This is the User list is which is generated by User Roles, SQL Definitions, PS/Query options and Application Packages. In our Example, we had a PS Query that fetches a list of users who can approve the transaction.
Let’s stop the Part – 2 here and continue with deeper diving in the Part – 3 of AWE. Hope you are following the steps so far. We will take a look at each of the above setups in the next part. See you later.
 

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PeopleSoft AWE (Approval Workflow Engine) - Part 1

Tuesday, October 30, 2012


I am trying to learn about AWE, as I am fairly new to this concept; there is a Red Paper on AWE which I would like to go through and understand some of its concepts. However, before that, I would like to setup some example to make it in a simplified fashion and understand it better.
PeopleSoft provides Red Papers for certain toolsets, which can be used as a practical guide to implement it (i.e. gives an overview and walks through the steps needed to build it.)
As per the Red Paper, you can use Standard Workflow   , which requires advanced technical skills in PeopleSoft PeopleTools to create and maintain or use AWE which is easier to create, configure, and maintain; there are some process within PeopleSoft HCM 9 and 9.1 which still use the Standard Workflow.
Instead of going and understanding the Red Paper, What I would like to do is, look at some delivered examples that uses AWE feature and work on similar example and then look at all different features of AWE and go back to the Red Paper; I want to act as a Functional user and I want to see how easy is it to use and setup AWE; But before that, let's try to understand some of the basic concepts of Workflow Process.
What is PeopleSoft Workflow or why it is used?
PeopleSoft Workflow can be defined as getting the right work to the right people at the right time;
PeopleSoft Workflow consists of a powerful set of tools that enables to automate time-consuming business processes and deliver the right information to the right people at the right time.

Some of the Workflow Terminology:
  • Business Process
  • Activities
  • Steps
  • Roles and Rules.
What is Business Process?
A Business Process includes all of the tasks (or activities) and people that are involved to complete a unit a work. Example would be Hire new employees or Order supplies. So if you look at Hire Business Process, they are numerous task within it such as entering employee info, enroll them in time and labor or benefits, getting emergency contact info or direct deposit info and other tasks.
What are Activities?
An Activity represents specific transaction that you might need to perform. It would consists of Steps that are used to perform a transaction Example would be entering Emergency Info of an Employee or Hire an Employee.
What are Steps?
Steps are the Individual actions that you perform on specific PeopleSoft Pages.
What are Rules?
Rules are your organization’s business practices captured in software. Rules determine when a business event triggers Workflow.
What are Roles?
Roles describe how people fit into the Workflow. A Role is a class of users who performs the same type of work, such as clerks or managers.
An example of business rule would be:
If a member requests leave and it is approved/denied by their supervisor then the member must be notified by email
What is the Approval Workflow Engine (AWE)?
The PeopleSoft Approval Framework is a specialized application used for defining and configuring approvals. Approval Framework enables you to configure approval processes using existing components without writing code; i.e. it uses a series of database objects combined with application component configuration settings to determine how to process approvals using workflow and it is delivered as part of the PeopleSoft Enterprise Components.
AWE is newer concept which comes with latest releases which is much easier to create, configure and maintain and older PeopleSoft Applications used traditional workflow process and some of the Challenges were:
  • Requires development in Application Designer (creating Business Process, Activities, Steps and PeopleCode etc.)
  • Not configurable online
 AWE can be configured online for different transactions; when user submits a transaction that has approval process, AWE comes into play and finds the appropriate approval process definition and launches the approval workflow.  
In next blog, we will go through an example from Time and Labor i.e. when user submits time which needs approval, and look at all the relevant AWE setups for this transaction.

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PeopleSoft Document Resources

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Helpful PeopleSoft Documents (PeopleTools/Technical Related) from Metalink:



Red Paper Topic



Description



Meta Link



Online Performance Configuration Guidelines for
PeopleTools 8.45, 8.46, 8.47, 8.48 and 8.49




Practical
guide for technical users, installers, system administrators, and programmers
who implement, maintain, or develop applications for Oracle PeopleSoft
Enterprise Applications.



rp_e_opcg_845_846_847_848_849.pdf (440.33 KB)




Online Performance
Configuration Guidelines for PeopleTools 8.1x, 8.4, and 8.44




Learn how
to diagnose a PeopleSoft Online Transaction environment, including Pure
Internet Architecture® and Enterprise Portal configuration.




Download
PeopleSoft 8.1x Red Paper
(PDF: 740KB)


Download
PeopleSoft 8.4 Red Paper
(PDF: 844KB)


Download
PeopleSoft 8.44 Red Paper
(PDF: 930KB)


Download
UNIX shell scripts
(ZIP: 5KB) that accompany these red papers.




LDAP Red Paper with Troubleshooting Tips for PeopleTools
8.x , 8.4x






LDAP Red Paper (1,820.02 KB)




Red Paper on Securing Your PeopleSoft Application
Environment




How to secure PeopleSoft
PIA environment




Red Paper (1,382.04 KB)



PeopleSoft PS/nVision Configuration & Troubleshooting
Tips






RP_nVision_guide (1,204.22 KB)




Red Paper on Implementing Clustering and High
Availability for PeopleSoft






Clustering_and_High_Availability-_840.pdf (1,983.35 KB)




Clustering and High Availability for Enterprise Tools
8.4x - 8.50




This
Red Paper provides guidance for building Webserver and Application Server
clusters.




PeopleTools Clustering Red Paper (2,827.3 KB)




Configuring a PeopleSoft Portal




This
Red Paper provides guidance on a variety of aspects involved in configuring a
PeopleSoft portal. It is organized into topics that prove to often be problematic
for portal implementation teams




configuring_ps_8_portal_v1.pdf (1,259.16 KB)




Troubleshooting WebLogic 8.1 and 9.2 Issues













Troubleshooting_Weblogic_81.pdf (234.52 KB)



Troubleshooting_Weblogic_92.pdf (1,367.93 KB)





Approval Workflow Engine (AWE) for HCM 9.0



This
White Paper discusses how to implement and set up the Approval Workflow
Engine (AWE), including how to define all the required support objects



Approval Workflow Engine (AWE) for HCM 9.0 (672.01 KB)



PeopleSoft Performance Monitor Red Paper



Performance
Monitor system for troubleshooting performance problems in your environment.



Performance_Monitor_RedPaper.pdf (3,326.46 KB)



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Test E-mail workflow functionality

Monday, February 22, 2010

Sometimes, you would come accross this situation:

"the mail is not going to the mail user and i am not even getting any error messages. I checked my SMTP in my server its all working fine . I dont know what is the issue. I even tried using Sent Mail function till its not working as expected.... "

Answer:

To troubleshoot this issue, there might be different reasons. You need to have appropriate setup and test the setup to see if your SMTP settings are working in the first place.

Below are setups the required for enabling or using Workflow notifications/emails:

1. The first and foremost thing is to setup: SMTP server Application server/Process scheduler used for the development.

2. E-mail should be enabled and configured for the instance in which the workflow is developed. eMail id's should exist in PSOPRDEFN and PSEXLATOPR tables; Also, emails are triggered using Person Profile.. in some places.

3. The User Profiles for the Roles are already in Place with proper Worklist ID s and Permissions.

Configure the SMTP in your psappsrv.cfg as well as in psprcs.cfg:
Setup the SMTP server ip-address and port number in App. Server / Process scheduler
Invoke the PSADMIN.exe in the PS_HOME/appserv directory and in the application server configuration, SMTP settings section specify the ip-address for the machine where SMTP server is installed.



Under the Setup WorkFlow Defaults:
Make sure the check boxes ‘Worklist Active’, ‘Worklist Active’ ‘HR installed’ and checked. If not, check the checkboxes and reboot the application server
Enable workflow for User Profiles :
For the users who will be using workflow routing (e-mail, Worklist) make sure that the following things are done.
1. They have a valid Worklist-id in PeopleSoft User profile.
2. E-mail and Worklist are enabled for the users



Test the E-mail workflow functionality :
1. Enter the User Id to whom the test mail has to be sent
2. Enter the test mail subject message
3. Save the component
Once the component is saved, it should trigger e-mail to the test users Worklist id specified in the user profile.
If mails are not generated, here are couple of things that will help you to troubleshoot the issue:
1) Since there are a lot of different reasons to get this particular error. In order to get better detail as to why the failure is occurring, you should set the LogFence=5 on the appserver to get SMTP tracing in your appserver log . This only works for the app server,not the Scheduler.
SMTP mail log is created under the PS_HOME\APPSERV\PRCS\\LOGS; This would give you a specific reason of the issue and can help you to troubleshoot the issue.
2)Make sure your SMTP server is working; to test this:
  • Locate an SMTP mail server that you specified in SMTP settings under your App or Prcs Server SMTP settings
  • Prove the mail server is accessible by connecting via telnet or pinging it.

3) Make sure the email id specified is active and exists.


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PeopleSoft PeopleBooks

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Question:


Where can i find Documenation like PeopleBooks related to PeopleSoft?


Answer:

Check the below link that would give you links to PeopleBooks for PeopleSoft Application 9.0, 8.x versionsand PeopleTools 8.4x




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PeopleSoft Query Security

Question:

What do u mean by query security.How it is implemented in peoplesoft?


Answer:

When you talk about PeopleSoft Query Security, these are things that are taken into consideration:



1. Query Profiles...Specifies what query operations, such as create and run, are available to users. For example, you may want certain users to run only existing queries, not create new ones.

2. Query Access Group and Trees....Collections of record definitions in a query tree. After you build a query tree, you can query any table in the access groups that are accessible to you.


3. Define row-level security and query security records....Provides data permission security when you access data using the PeopleSoft Query tool.


All of these are utilized by PeopleSoft Query through user's security settings, row-level security, and primary permission list. Query Profiles are setup in Permission List (PTPT1000) , under Query Tab. Query Access Groups are attached to Permission List (HCSPQUERY), under Query Tab.


About Query Security Record:
One of the Security Feature in PeopleSoft is Data permission security, or row-level security

• It Controls access to user data on an individual or group basis.
• It Specifies the rows of data that user is permitted to retrieve.

For example, you might want users to be able to review personal data for employees in their own department, but not for people in other departments. You would give everyone access to the PERSONAL_DATA table, but would enforce row-level security so that they could only see rows where the DEPTID matches their own.

Since there is Query Tool, through which you can retrieve sensitive data, You can implement row-level security by having Query search for data using a query security record definition. The query security record definition adds a security check to the search.


To apply row level security:


1. Select PeopleTools, Application Designer to open the Application Designer, and open the record on which you want to apply row-level security.

2.With the record definition open in the Application Designer, click the Properties button, and select the Use tab from the Record Properties dialog box.

3.Select the security record definition (usually a view) in the Query Security Record list box.

4.Once you’ve set the query security record definition, click OK to close the Record Properties dialog box, then save the record definition.
The PeopleSoft system automatically adds a WHERE clause to the SQL, joining the user’s user ID, primary permission list, or row security permission list to the following key fields if they are present:


• OPRID
• OPRCLASS
• ROWSECCLASS


For Example, If you want to add a Query Security to PS_JOB record, you need to check the record properties (the query security comes pre-delivered)

and here's what the EMPLMT_SRCH_QRY sql looks like:



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XML Publisher : Question

Question: XML Output options are disabled on the output page in XML Publisher


Hi
I am using peoplesoft HR9.In XMLP, when defining new record definition,the XML Output options are disabled on the output page. Please help Thanks



Answer:


Please make sure that you add 2 delivered permission list to the Peopletools Role:



PTPT2500 (XMLP Power User )
PTPT2600 (XMLP Report Developer )


Note that the delivered reports tend to use the PeopleSoft User role as the author ID. If you are configuring security stick to roles - rather than assigning security by individual users.


You can also change this through:Reporting Tools > XML Publisher > Setup > Report Category

Also, by default, when you load the Report Definition Page, the output page is enabled with all format output options for the template type you pick in the Definition Page. check this table to see if the data is loaded or not:

select * FROM PSXPTMPLOUTFMT


if the data is missing from PSXPTMPLOUTFMT, then you may have to get it from your Demo system.



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Step by Step PeopleSoft Installation

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Question:
Where can i find Step by Step PeopleSoft Installation documents?

Answer:
You can use PeopleSoft deliverd Install documents, but sometime it is hard to follow all the steps there. For Simple step by step Installation instructions including what PeopleSoft Softwares to download , check the below site:

Step by Step PeopleSoft Installation

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Slow performance since oracle 10g upgrade...

Question:


Our IT group did an Oracle 10g upgrade and ever since they did that it has slowed everything down, especially in the Ben Admin module.. has anyone else experienced this? and if so, any ideas as to why this would be happening? Our IT group won't give us an answer...



Answer:



If you using Oracle 10g Database for your PeopleSoft Enterprise Software, please check the below Red Pepper for performance related issues.





PeopleSoft Enterprise Performance on Oracle 10g Database
It is a 56 page PDF document related to performance on Oracle 10g using Enterprise PeopleSoft products. Some of the information covered include:- Generating Statistics

- Reviewing Dedicated Temporary Tables
- Selecting Tablespaces
- Maintaining Indexes
- Using Cursor Sharing
- Selecting Batch Servers
- Capturing Traces
- Sample Script to Gather Statistics On Tables

Download it from here:
Metalink Doc ID 747254.1


Also, there are many white papers and articles on how to improve the perfermonce:

2. Oracle 10g Migration:slow performance after upgrade to Oracle10g

Hope this helps...


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PeopleSoft Compare Reports

Question :

While iam doing compare reports ,i have received the repost saying that SOURCE is -->ABSENT and TARGET is -->Present .What does it mean ,please help me on this.
Answer:
Whether you are doing a PeopleSoft Upgrade or trying to do a compare for certain objects, you need to understand what goes behind the compare process. Below are the points explained from upgrade perspective:



One of task related to PeopleSoft Upgrade is to perform Database CompareDuring the upgrade, you run several compare processes and then review the resulting reports.

There are several steps in the compare process:
1.Determines the Status of each object in Source/Target DB
2.Assign Copy Action
3.Assign Upgrade Action
4. Insert Definitions that differ into the Compare Project
5. Report the Project




from Target Database i.e. Copy of Prod, which is at 8.3 release level:




The LASTUPDDTTM field in our PSobjectDEFN tables—such as PSRECDEFN, PSPNLDEFN, and so on—stores a date/time stamp of when each object was last modified.

• The LASTUPDOPRID field stores the operator ID of the user who made the modification. If Oracle made the modification, the proprietary ID PPLSOFT is used.

If an object definition is defined differently in the Demo database than in the Copy of Production, the compare process will check to see whether either object definition has changed since the comparison release. If the object’s LASTUPDDTTM value is greater than the RELEASEDTTM value for the comparison release level (stored in PSRELEASE), the object has changed. If the object’s LASTUPDDTTM value is equal to or less than RELEASEDTTM, the object has not changed (since the comparison release). Whether the compared object has changed or not, if it has ever been changed prior to the comparison release by someone other than Oracle (LASTUPDOPRID <> ‘PPLSOFT’), the object is identified as a customization.

Below are the status that you would get for Source and Target Databases based on Compare report:








For Example :
When you run the below SQL in Source Database, i.e. a new version Demo Database you get the results of the PS_JOB record:







When you run the below SQL in Target Database, i.e. a Copy of Production Database you get the results of the PS_JOB record:






For Source Status: Since the LASTUPDDTTM (7/12/2006 8:06:39 AM) of PS_JOB in Source DB is less than release table's RELEASEDTTM (11/29/2006 11:38:04 AM) , and sinceLASTUPDOPRID is PPLSOFT, the status for this object in Compare Report should come as "Unchanged"
For Target Status: Since the LASTUPDDTTM (6/4/2008 3:21:51 PM) of PS_JOB in Source DB is greater than release table's RELEASEDTTM (10/18/2001 12:44:59 PM) , and since LASTUPDOPRID is NOT PPLSOFT, the status for this object in Compare Report should come as "*Changed"

Absent in Source Database indicates that either you have created a new object in Copy of prod as part of customization or the object has become obsolete in new version and hence PeopleSoft has deleted/dropped it.
During the compare process, you would create a Project in which all like-named definitions that are not the same in both databases will be populated in the compare project; you also indicate the Compare Options , by going to
1. Select Tools, Compare and Report, To Database
2. Sign on to the target database; Select Options
Use the Compare Options dialog box to indicate this is a database compare:






Use the Report Options dialog box to designate the report options:





Use the Report Filter dialog box to designate which reports will be produced:




Filtering comparison reports doesn’t affect which objects get added to a project during a database comparison, only which objects are reported. Any object defined differently in the two databases will always be added to the project.
Assign Copy Action:

The default actions for each object that you compared are reported in the Action column. The compare sets the action column based on what you need to do to make the Copy of Production database consistent with the New Release Demo database. You should not change these actions. You can decide whether or not to accept each action by setting the Upgrade value. Action types include:





Assign Upgrade Action:

The upgrade action is either on (Yes) or off (No). The system assigns the upgrade action based on the target orientation:This table summarizes the various status, action, and upgrade action possibilities that can be applied to a single definition during the upgrade compare process:




Insert Definitions that differ into the Compare Project :


Report the Project :
Review reports using one of these methods:
1.View report in Application Designer
2.Print report
3.View report in browser
For third option:
1. Navigate to the report folder in Windows Explorer.
2. Double-click CompareViewer.html.





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Trace AE and COBOL processes

Question:


How to trace AE and COBOL processes using the Process Definitions instead of setting on Process Scheduler / App Server Config files.

ANSWER:

For AE, Open the Process Definition under PeopleTools, Process Scheduler. Go to the override tab, and on the Parameter list line select Append from the dropdown, and in the edit box next to it, you can use the desried combination of traces, they all are;


Parameter List Append -TRACE 7 -TOOLSTRACEPC 3596 -TOOLSTRACESQL 31

Save the Definition and hence forth this program will be traced each time it is run, until this is removed. Using Both the -TOOLSTRACEPC and -TOOLSTRACESQL together should only be done when required, as the output from both go into the same file, making it very large and difficult to read. For normal program tracing using just the;


-TRACE 7 -TOOLSTRACEPC 3596






Give the Application Engine Trace, which traces the SQL in an AE program, and the PeopleSoft Trace, which is the pcode trace.


The above settings have equivelent settings in psprcs.cfg, they are;


TraceAE= -TRACE output goes into Application Engine Trace (.AET) TracePC= -TOOLSTRACEPC output goes into the PeopleTools trace file (.trc) TraceSQL= -TOOLSTRACESQL output ALSO goes into the PeopleTools trace file (.trc)


Again, depending on what the program is doing, most commnoly we'd use the -TRACE and -TOOLSTRACEPC together.

The only time I use the -TOOLSTRACESQL is when we're looking for a problem with the psae program itself.


For COBOL the idea is similar, we won't be appending to the parameter list instead we'll be overriding it. So first step is to open the appropriate Process Type Definition, example;

Process Type defn COBOL NT/Win2000 ORACLE


Copy the whole parameter list line into you mouse clipboard;

%%PRCSNAME%%%%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%//%%DBFLAG%%


Then open the Process Definition for the particular COBOL Process, go to the Override Tab, and on the Parameter list line, select Override from the drop down. Then in the Parameter Edit box, paste the whole parameter list from the Process Defn we just got;


%%PRCSNAME%% %%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%//%%DBFLAG%%


Notice at the end of the line after the %%INSTANCE%% and before the %%DBFLAGS%% there are 2 // We need to insert the desired bit map number inbetween the slashes.





Choose the bitmap number you want to use for the trace, and put it between the slashes like so;

%%DBTYPE%%/%%DBNAME%%/%%OPRID%%/%%OPRPSWD%%/%%RUNCNTLID%%/%%INSTANCE%%/255/%%DBFLAG%%

Save the Process Definition and once you launch the COBOL or AE program you can go to the Process Monitor, Details, Parameter List, and see the expanded command line and you'll see your trace value inserted;
Command Line: PSRUN PTPDBTST ORACLE/E840D20P/VP1/%OPRPSWD%/1/475/255/%DBFLAG%

With both the AE and Cobol traces done like this once this is done, everytime the program runs it will be traced. Need to undo all of this setting the override back to None in both Definitions will turn it off.


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About This Blog

Have you got a PeopleSoft Question? Post it in the forums section or in your preferred place or in comments section, so that we can answer it for you in detail with screen shots;

Learn PeopleSoft functionality and how to use the setups and process flow offered in different modules;

Hope this would give you some ideas...

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