How to customize PeopleSoft Safely

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How to customize PeopleSoftSafely

• Graham Smith
• PeopleSoft Technical Team
• Oxfam GB

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Oxfam GB

• Oxfam is a vibrant global movement of dedicated
  people fighting poverty

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Oxfam GB
750 shops
475 Million 2008/2009 7,000 staff 30,000
volunteers
Make Trade Fair Campaign
Second largest high street retailer
Largest second hand book seller in Europe
Respond to disasters
Arms Control Campaign
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PeopleSoft _at_ Oxfam

• PeopleSoft HR 9.0 and FSCM 8.9
• 4,000 users in 70 countries
• Team of 6 developers 6 functional/support
• Celebrated 10 years using PeopleSoft
• Tough ITC environment
• Technical Platfom
• PeopleTools 8.49
• Microsoft Windows
• SQL Server 2005
• WebLogic

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About me

• Graham Smith
• Lead development team at Oxfam GB
• Technologist for NGOs
• 10 years PeopleSoft experience
• UKOUG PeopleSoft Technology SIG chair

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Agenda

• What is customisation?
• Goals
• The 5 basic foundations
• Tips and tricks for common definition types
• Questions

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What is Customisation?

• Custom and Customised
• Its customised if LASTUPDDTTM is no longer
  PPLSOFT
• Select CONTNAME
• , LASTUPDOPRID
• , LASTUPDDTTM
• From PSCONTDEFN
• Where CONTNAME Not Like 'OX'
• And LASTUPDOPRID ltgt 'PPLSOFT'
• And CONTTYPE 4

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Goals

• Protect core functionality from customisations
• Isolate changes
• Negotiate requirements
• Adhere to standards
• Make it easy to identify customisations.
• Change as little as possible
• Make unintrusive changes
• Adhere to standards

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Foundations

• The wise man built his house upon the rock.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand.
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5 Good Foundations

• Change Control
• Object Naming Convention
• Protect Development System (master codeline)
• Define, document and enforce Standards
• Common Sense
• If its already customised think !
• Can I REMOVE the customisation
• Can I MOVE it somewhere safer
• Customise it further.

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Customisation Guide

• Comments
• Records
• Pages
• Minor Component changes
• Major Component changes
• Menus
• Fields
• PeopleCode
• Keep appearance of vanilla

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1. Comment

• Comment everything all the time
• PeopleCode changes do NOT change Records
• Dont remove replaced vanilla PeopleCode
• Why - NOT what.

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1. Comment
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2. Records

• Shadow Tables
• Same keys as main record
• Same level in component buffer

Same keys as vanilla plus custom field(s).
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2. Shadow Records
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2. Records

• Create custom fields for vanilla Records
• Add custom fields to end of Record
• Do not move fields in Record
• Comment SQL View text

select SERVERNAME , OPSYS ,
PRCSTYPE / Custom Field added / from
PS_SERVERCLASS / OXF1273 GSMITH 04-Aug-2006
include rows with a status of X because X
types are the only server classes that Oxfam
uses. / where GRS_CUSTOM_FIELD 'X'
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3. Pages

• Preserve original component structure
• Visual Page compare from 8.47
• Change page objects without customising page
• Use PeopleCode to hide/disable fields or pages
• Group new fields into sub-page and add this.
• Try to make it as easy as possible
• to re-customise.

Goal
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Visual Page Compare
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Visual Page Compare
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4. Components

• Clone vanilla page for radical cosmetics

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4. Components

• For wholesale changes to components
• Use a Component Interface around 1 or more
  vanilla components
• Preserves vanilla functionality
• Overlay customised

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5. Menus

• Shoot anyone that customises Menus
• No need to customise now the portal controls menu
  access for users
• Always create custom menus for new stuff

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6. Fields

• Vanilla Field Labels a few options
• Change the field label property (just the field)
• Create a new field label and change the page(
  field page)
• Change the page field label (page)
• Use PeopleCode to change the label
• Vanilla Field datatypes
• NO!
• Create NEW fields for custom records unless
  BUSINESS_UNIT, EMPLID, SETID, OPRID are required.

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7. PeopleCode

• Add new code to empty events
• Encapsulate custom code in FUNCTIONS
• Component PeopleCode is not always good
• Not very visible
• Tracing flow is more difficult
• What fires first record or component pcode?

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8. Maintain Vanilla

• Revert all changes back to vanilla
• DMO
• Version definitions to file using Export
• Careful with Chartfield Customisation!
• Updates many objects but leaves them with the
  appearance of vanilla

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QUESTIONS
Graham Smith PeopleSoft Technical Lead Oxfam
GB gsmith_at_oxfam.org.uk
http//i-like-trains.blogspot.com