BI Publisher enhancements in PeopleTools 8.52

Yesterday (January 7th 2012), I attended the online Web Seminar  Why to use BI Publisher? New Features in PeopleTools 8.52 and a few interesting topics were handled that are introduced in PeopleTools 8.52 for BI Publisher

• Data entered in PeopleSoft using a Rich Text Editor for Long fields can now be incorporated in BI Publisher sustaining the formatting


• Ability to transform data, using JDeveloper XSL mapper or any third party tool

PeopleSoft Applications Portal 9.1 Feature Pack 1

Again Oracle shows its commitment to continue investing in PeopleSoft. This time by changing the release model of PeopleSoft Applications Portal, formally known as PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, by adding Feature Packs. With these Feature Packs customers do not need to upgrade or re-implement PeopleSoft Applictions to be able to use the new features, as Feature Packs come as patches that can be applied to the current PeopleSoft application using the change assistent.

Create interactive dashboards with InterWindow Communication (IWC)

In a previous post I mentioned a new feature of PeopleTools 8.52: Dashboard. With this feature you can create custom dashboards with pagletes that provide information about a certain business area. Oracle didn't stop here and also added Interwindow Communication (IWC).

Interwindow communication is a frame-to-frame messaging mechanism that enables browser window objects—such as pages or pagelets—to be aware of and react to field-level data changes that occur in other window objects that share the same browser window. Interwindow communication enables you to publish field-level changes as they occur so that any subscribing page or pagelet becomes instantly aware of the change and then, can act on it in real-time. Administrators, subject matter experts or application developers configure page fields to respond to either changes in value or a mouse click. When the triggering event occurs, the application posts a string-formatted message. Because of partial pagelet refresh functionality, subscribing pagelets can then respond within the context of the data contained in the message. Interwindow communication supports component-based pagelets and noncomponent-based pagelets (iScript-based or other Pagelet Wizard pagelets).

Create apealing Dashboards with PeopleTools 8.52

Oracle has added another great feature to PeopleTools 8.52:

Dashboards

A dashboard is an overview consisting of pagelets containing information about a certain subject. Until now you were able to add pagelets to your home screen or workcenters. Because you only have one PeopleSoft home page, you are limited in the number of pagelets you can add to get a clear view of what is happening in your business or which actions you need to take. Workcenters did add some additional productivity, but you are limited to add pagelets only to one frame of the browser.

Extending PSQuery productivity with Drilling Url

PSQuery is an online PeopleTools functionality heavily used by business analysts and key users to gain information from the PeopleSoft application without the need of development or database SQL knowledge. The biggest con of PSQuery is that you end up with one static list of data, which is usually exported to Excel for further enhancement and analysis.

From PeopleTools 8.50, you now have the ability to create more in-depth analyses and productivity using drilling URLs.

When you build a query using Query Manager, you can define drilling URLs that are associated with this query using the expression option. These settings are saved into the database, along with prompt, criteria, and so on, as part of the metadata for this query. When you execute this query through Query Manager or Query Viewer, the query results page shows results as links, which you can click to be redirected to a different page in a new browser. You can create URLs for:

• Other PSQuery, for more in-depth information about a subject, actual drilldown functionality


• PIA Component, direct link to components where the keys for the search page of the component are extracted from the selected columns in the query


• External URL, non PeopleSoft URLs, for example Vendor sites


• Attachment URL, direct link to an attachment that is stored in the database or file system


• Free Format URL, any type of URL you want to construct, can be used for example to deep link to other non-PeopleSoft applications

So how does one create a drilling URL?

Want to get a glimpse of Fusion Applications?

By now, most of us know it takes more resources to run a Fusion Applications environment, than any other ERP system. Creating a local sandbox, to acquire knowledge and experience of  Fusion Applications, is not done on local servers anymore.

Do not despair ...

PeopleSoft & Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES)

Oracle Secure Enterprise Search (SES) provides a familiar user interface to internet search users and gives secure access to all of your organization's data sources—Web sites, file servers, content management systems, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems, business intelligence systems, and databases.

Looks familiar?

That is indeed familiar, that's Google with an Oracle logo... Oracle seems to have build a search engine and has made use of the familiarity of the Google GUI and behavior to position this tool. Oracle is supplying SES as stand alone product and has integrated SES with it's other products like Siebel, JD Edwards, E-Business Suite & PeopleSoft.

Where Google will search the internet based on supplied keywords, SES will search your Enterprise data based on keywords. Oracle has created an embedded framework in PeopleSoft to integrate and communicate with SES, called PeopleSoft Search FrameWork.