PeopleSoft Techincal Support: PS Basics

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Peoplesoft hrms functional diagram,
Peoplesoft hrms functional architecture diagram

Workflow

DEFINITION:-

Workflow capabilities enable you to efficiently automate the flow of information throughout your enterprise—crossing both application and functional boundaries.

Components of Workflow

Rules: Rules are your company's business practices captured in software. Rules determine what activities are required to process your business data

Roles: Roles describe how people fit into the workflow. A role is a class of users who perform the same type of work

Routings: Routings connect the activities in the workflow. They are the system's means of moving information from one place to another, from one step to the next

Eight Steps of Developing Workflows

ü Design Workflow Application

ü Build the underlying Application

ü Create Workflow maps

ü Define Roles and Users

ü Create Worklist Records

ü Define Workflow Objects

ü Define Event Triggers

ü Test

Route controls identify the aspects of a situation on which you want to base routing decisions, and they enable you to associate values with role users.

Approval processes

Approval processes are a very common form of business process, and you can define approval rules on an Approval Rule Set map.

Two tools can read and implement the approval rules from the map:

· Virtual Approver automatically tracks the approval process. As users complete transactions that require approvals, Virtual Approver determines the appropriate approver and sends a workflow routing. As each approver completes the approval, Virtual Approver determines whether additional approvals are needed and, if necessary, sends additional workflow routings.

· GetApprovers PeopleCode determines the entire list of required approvals at once, so that you can develop custom approval tracking applications.

PS_BAS_PARTIC,
PS_BAS_PARTIC_COST,
PS_BAS_PARTIC_DPND,
PS_BAS_PARTIC_INVT,
PS_BAS_PARTIC_OPTN,
PS_BAS_PARTIC_PLAN,
PS_BENEF_COMMENT,
PS_BEN_PROG_PARTIC,
PS_DEPENDENT_BENEF,
PS_DISABILITY_BEN,
PS_FSA_BENEFIT,
PS_FSA_PAYMENT,
PS_HEALTH_BENEFIT,
PS_HEALTH_DEPENDNT,
PS_LEAVE_ACCRUAL,
PS_LEAVE_PLAN,
PS_LIFE_ADD_BEN,
PS_LIFE_ADD_BENEFC,
PS_PENSION_BENEFC,
PS_PENSION_PLAN,
PS_RTRMNT_PLAN,
PS_SAVINGS_BENEFIC,
PS_SAVINGS_INVEST,
PS_SAVINGS_PLAN,
PS_VACATION_BEN

Enterprise Learning Management 9.1

Leading organizations implement talent management best practices designed to ensure that their employees have the skills and competencies required to meet corporate objectives. Ensuring that all employees have access to the training tools needed to improve their skills and meet those corporate goals is an integral part of learning. PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management 9.1 provides you with the ability to ensure that your employees are at maximum competency, thereby increasing your organization’s productivity and profitability.

PeopleSoft HCM 8.9/9.0 users can use the powerful learning management functionality of Enterprise Learning Management 9.1 immediately. You simply install a separate instance of the Enterprise Learning Management 9.1 application and enable the existing connectivity options with your already installed Human Resources application.

PeopleSoft Talent Management 9.1 to PeopleSoft HCM Integration for Recruiting Solutions

Recruiting good talent is a key function in maintaining your current workforce, supplying successors, and growing new initiatives. In today’s business environment, recruiting, like most other key organizational functions, faces the challenge of improving efficiency without compromising quality. As workforce dynamics continue to fluctuate, recruiters and hiring managers need to rapidly identify the top candidates for their positions and engage them quickly.

The Recruiting Solutions Integration is planned to enable you to leverage new 9.1 features such as online job offers, screening and questionnaire enhancements, and better usability.

PeopleSoft Talent Management 9.1 to PeopleSoft HCM Integration for Career and Succession Planning

PeopleSoft’s Plan Careers 9.1 business process in Human Resources ensures that your organization uses employee talents to their fullest. Career planning enables you to assess and rank workers, record job preferences, create career paths, develop long-term goals, assign mentors, identify competencies, devise training plans, and create development plans.
Succession planning is the process of identifying long-range needs and cultivating a supply of internal talent to meet those future needs. The process anticipates the future needs of the organization and assists in finding, assessing, and developing the human capital necessary to successfully carry out the organization’s strategy. PeopleSoft’s Plan Careers and Successions 9.1 enables your organization to develop multiple succession plans and to react to expected future talent shortages.
The Career and Succession Planning Integration enables you to leverage new 9.1 features. Career Planning now includes employee and manager self-service access, a graphical view for career paths, and customer resume creation. Succession Planning now includes succession plans for both job codes and people, integrated search match capabilities, talent pools, 9-Box ratings feature, and self-service succession 360º graphical view with drag and drop capabilities.

PeopleSoft Talent Management 9.1 to PeopleSoft HCM Integration for ePerformance

Performance management, the process of setting employee goals, identifying individual development targets, and assessing progress toward achieving those objectives, continues to be a critical foundational element of a solid talent management strategy.
The ePerformance Integration allows you to leverage new 9.1 features including the ability to create and publish business objectives, display objectives in an organization chart view, link individual goals to business objectives, and all with better usability.

Deploying the Connector
Deploying the connector involves the following steps:
■ Step 1: Verifying Deployment Requirements
■ Step 2: Copying the Connector Files and External Code
■ Step 3: Configuring the Oracle Identity Manager Server
■ Step 4: Configuring the Target System
■ Step 5: Configuring the PeopleSoft Listener Web Service for Change-Based
Reconciliation
■ Step 6: Importing the Connector XML Files
■ Step 7: Configuring Reconciliation
■ Step 8: Compiling Adapters
If you want to configure the connector for multiple installations of PeopleSoft User
Management, then perform the following procedure:
■ Configuring the Connector for Multiple Installations of the Target System

Oracle Identity Manager

■ Oracle Identity Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide for JBoss

■ Oracle Identity Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide for WebLogic
■ Oracle Identity Manager Installation and Upgrade Guide for WebSphere
■ Oracle Identity Manager Administrative and User Console Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Administrative and User Console Customization Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Design Console Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Tools Reference Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Audit Report Developer Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Best Practices Guide
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for BMC Remedy User Management
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for CA-ACF2 Advanced
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for CA-Top Secret Advanced
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Database Application Tables
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Database User Management
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for IBM RACF
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for IBM RACF Advanced
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for IBM Lotus Notes and Domino
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Microsoft Active Directory
■ Oracle Identity Manager Password Synchronization Module for Microsoft Active

Directory Installation and Configuration Guide

■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Microsoft Exchange 2000 and 2003
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Microsoft Exchange 5.5
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Microsoft Windows 2000
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Microsoft Windows NT 4.0
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Novell eDirectory
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Novell GroupWise
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Oracle e-Business Employee Reconciliation
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Oracle e-Business User Management
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Oracle Internet Directory
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for PeopleSoft Employee Reconciliation

Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for PeopleSoft User Management

■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Siebel Enterprise Applications
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for RSA Authentication Manager
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for RSA ClearTrust
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for SAP CUA
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for SAP Employee Reconciliation
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for SAP Enterprise Portal
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for SAP User Management
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for Sun Java System Directory
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for UNIX SSH
■ Oracle Identity Manager Connector Guide for UNIX Telnet

Oracle is committed to delivering the best and most recent information available. For
information about updates to the Oracle Identity Manager 9.0.2 connector

documentation set, visit Oracle Technology Network at

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/index.html

PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM Cumulative Feature Overview
PeopleSoft Global Payrol Cumulative Feature Overview

Global Payroll

•Online features make evaluating and projecting absences easier.
•Enhancements to the absence management features enable you to:
􀂃Use the new Absence Types page to create an unlimited number of absence types, such as vacation, illness, personal, or maternity, for all countries or for specific countries.
􀂃Define one or more absence reason codes for each absence type.
􀂃Add details about an absence event in a Comments field during absence entry.
􀂃Complete up to 16 user-defined fields when recording absence events on the Absence Event Input Detail page.
􀂃Enter additional characters in the user-defined fields on the Take - Calculation page.
􀂃Specify the rate and amount for generated positive input when defining a take element on the Take - Day Formula page.
•Self-service web transactions enable your employees and managers to perform absence-related tasks online.
•You can designate multiple recipients for a deduction taken from an individual’s pay.
•Enhancements to earnings and deductions functionality allow you to:
􀂃Override the value of a supporting element that’s used in the definition of an earnings, deduction, absence take, or absence entitlement element.
􀂃Use the PRORATE system element to prorate an earnings, deduction, absence take, or absence entitlement element when there is no segmentation.
􀂃Assign an element, rather than a numeric value, for an arrears payback amount on the Deductions - Arrears page.
􀂃On the Calculation page of an earnings or deduction component, enter instructions to execute a preprocess and/or a postprocess formula immediately before or after the resolution of the earnings or deduction.
􀂃On the Element Name page, you have greater flexibility in designating whether you want to store earnings and deduction results that resolve to zero.
•Additional security is provided for element ownership and report security.

Approval feature provides the ability to freeze and approve payroll calculations for an individual or a subset of payees prior to finalizing the entire calendar group.
•Enhanced supporting elements with:
􀂃Duration elements able to include or exclude absence daily data, according to your preference.
􀂃Formula elements able to no longer need to be assigned a value.
􀂃Rate code elements able to return a value without undergoing frequency conversion (annualization/deannualization).
•Significant changes to improve the usability and efficiency of the utilities that let you view the relationships between elements, package and move elements and data between databases, and delete elements.
•Writable array feature you can use to populate your own result table.
•Enhancements to Positive Input feature provide a faster, easier option for data entry.
•Integration between Global Payroll and the Human Resources Manage Variable Compensation business process.
•Time-saving enhancement provides the ability to automatically create calendars for payroll processing.
•Payee Calendar Override page provides the ability to override the calendar group definition at the payee level.
•Pay Entity - Processing Details page has a new rounding option. When selected, the rounding rule is executed whenever currency conversion occurs, regardless of the source of the value (for example, accumulators and positive input).
•Component interfaces enable you to create alternate methods for entering positive input (including supporting element overrides), entering absence events, making payee earnings/deduction assignments (including supporting element overrides), entering supporting element overrides for pay groups and pay entities, and creating payee sections. You can use the Variables by Category page, which uses a component interface to access the Variables component to view and update definitions for a specific category of variable elements.
•New delivered query allows you to retrieve information for Global Payroll elements.
•System can retrieve a payee’s mailing address from Human Resources during the batch process.
•Cancel interval on the installation table. This field indicates the maximum number of payees for whom result table data can be deleted at one time. The system retrieves this value during the cancel process.
•Ability to share retroactive adjustments among run types. Using the Retro Adjustment Sources field on the Run Type page, you can automatically pull retroactive adjustments from previously established run types.
•Absence take daily processing enables you to process absence takes in a daily order rather than by a process list order. You can accurately represent daily entitlement activity before applying a new absence take. When multiple events occur on the same day, the system follows a set of rules that consider the take element order on the section list, the absence date, and other factors to resolve the order of processing overlapping events. You can choose between daily order and process list order processing.
•Country field is now a key field for trigger definitions, event definitions, the segmentation table and retro trigger table. The Country field is also on the iterative trigger table. This enables multi-national companies to create unique trigger definitions and event ID names for each country without having to agree on one trigger definition per record or one event ID across all countries. Also, because all triggers now have an associated Country value, it is no longer necessary for the system to expand retro triggers before processing them.
•Each time you execute a payroll process, the system generates a list of affected payees. You can access this information to view an inquiry list that includes all payees processed during each batch process, learn the reason behind each action taken for a payee, and review all of the calculation-related information including the payee messages, payee status, and payee results pages.
•Enhancements to the rules packager feature provide the ability to move data between the source and target database without the need for both databases to have the same base language. Using Data Mover functionality, the rule packager can create a new row for the base language or replace it if that base language is in the related language table in the source database.
•New Additional action type enables users to enter values for existing positive input components that are processed in addition to the automatically generated resolution of the element, without overriding the automatically generated amount. The Additional action type can be used with multiple instances, rules for mixed action types, eligibility, and generation control, among others.
•Ability to select retroactive calculation methods for banking and General Ledger postings.
•Off-cycle payroll processing provides payroll processing outside the normal on-cycle payroll processing window, including scenarios such as paying a new hire who was not included in the regular run, corrections for timesheet omissions, and pay errors. The user can launch an off-cycle process without creating additional calendars, and the payee is automatically suspended from the on-cycle run.
•Ability to configure and view user-defined payroll results online.
•You can configure the supporting element override fields on the detail pages for both earnings and deductions assignments and positive input entries.
•Standard global Payee Messages SQR report that enables payroll administrators to print out a list of messages that are created during the payroll process for a selected population, providing the ability to identify payees who may need further editing to make it through finalization of the payroll.
•You can cause an element to resolve multiple times in a single period by assigning multiple instances of an element to a payee on the element assignment pages or defining an accumulator driver to cause multiple resolutions of an earning or deduction.

When using net pay validation (NPV), you can specify a priority order for taking deductions when net pay won’t cover all deductions (previously, only processing order was available).
•Ability to override each individual component (rate, unit, base, percentage) in a post-process formula, which provides a full solution to additional amount and limit requirements.
•Automatically create employee triggers based on changes to setup tables. You define the fields, records, and components that will activate the trigger by creating a Trigger Definition. Employee triggers are generated on setup tables that are not keyed by EMPLID.
•Banking enhancements allow you to:
􀂃Limit the payment method of check and cash to one of each for net pay distribution.
􀂃Override the payment method for employees’ net distribution for a specific run type or calendar group ID or by payee.
􀂃Put a net or recipient payment on hold and pay it at a later date.
􀂃Distribute net pay based on calendar period and segmentation.
􀂃Void a payment online.
•International Bank Account Number (IBAN) is part of the employer and payee bank account information and the electronic file transfer (EFT) files use this code where needed.
•Bank reconciliation process enables you to reconcile payments made from the Global Payroll system.
•Standard ChartField configuration provides consistent use of ChartFields between General Ledger, Time and Labor, and Global Payroll. Financial Management allows General Ledger users to define how their ChartFields are displayed and used in combinations. HRMS displays ChartFields exactly the way they appear in Financial Management.
•PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll with PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne General Ledger Integration enables synchronization between PeopleSoft Enterprise Payroll for North America or PeopleSoft Enterprise Global Payroll and PeopleSoft EnterpriseOne General Ledger.
•You can interface your Global Payroll system with the data warehouse in Performance Management. Through the Finalize phase of the Payroll COBOL process, you can publish earning, deduction, and accumulator information into Global Payroll “EPM” tables, where the Performance Management product can access and subscribe to the data.
•Identify a balance as an absence accumulator or a payroll accumulator. You can then configure the system to store this balance in the result tables only after the appropriate calculation.
•Bundle positive input that is written by the absence process for use by the payroll process. This enables you to consolidate several rows of daily absence data into a single row of generated positive input.
•History rows no longer stored on the two parent result data tables (process stat and segment stat).
•Rate-as-of-date is an attribute of the generated positive input table itself, and no longer uses the additional SOVR row.

•Employees can submit a time-off request with a minimum of clicks. The user interface displays only the required amount of information needed to submit the request and is tailored to each kind of absence.
•Absence Request History page displays a list of the employee’s absence requests for a specific default range of dates that the employee can change and refresh the list.
•Employees can easily view their current absence entitlement balances.
•Employees can click the Forecast Balance link that appears on employee self-service pages to calculate projected absence entitlement balances as of a future date.
•Managers can easily submit a request to take time off on behalf of one of their employees.
•Managers can easily view their employees’ current or projected absence entitlement balances.
•Managers can easily call up a list of all absence requests that are awaiting approval (pending), approved, or denied.
•Manager can use the Request Details page to approve, deny, or push an absence request back to the previous step in the approval process. Manager can forecast the employee’s absence balance to verify eligibility for the type of absence requested.
•Ability to change the terms viewed in self-service pages so that they can better match local needs.
•Enhanced shared scheduling components including employee self-service view monthly schedule, self-service scheduling pages for managers and employees, streamlined approach to building work schedules, ability to create personalized schedules for individual employees, and rotating schedules.
•New Approval Framework features for the absence approval process with the Approval Workflow Engine (AWE) providing capabilities for creating, running, and managing the approval processes.
•Enhanced Rules Packager tool enables the movement of element-based data from one database to another. This enhancement improves the overall setup and procedure for the packager utilities, providing a more flexible, simple, and straightforward process.
•Delivered templates with documentation for archiving Global Payroll results data under specific conditions.
•Trigger enhancements that enable you to:
􀂃Segment and prorate earning and deduction assignments.
􀂃Manage used or obsolete segmentation triggers to prevent unnecessary segmentation of payroll results and possible calculation errors.
􀂃Identify the source and cause of a trigger—that is, the record, field, or field value change that generates a trigger.
􀂃Define offsets for retro triggers so that you can control the effective date of a retroactive data change.

•Option to process and prorate earnings/deductions assigned to only a portion of the pay period—regardless of whether they are active as of the end date—in addition to those that are active as of the period end date.
•Sample rules that are meaningful and useful for customers seeking to utilize best practices for common payroll requirements when using Global Payroll for configuring their own country extension.
•Generate Report Data for Global Payroll and all country extensions, which eases the extraction of data from the result tables.
•Enhancements to make the processing of off-cycle transactions easier.
•Administrators can view or print a copy of employee payslips online.
•Ability to view absence entitlement balances and enter absences from the Time and Labor Timesheet page. Users can report and approve absences using the Timesheet page, thus facilitating absence entry and validation within Time and Labor.
•Enhanced Approval Framework features for the absence approval process, improved user experience for creating, running, and managing the approval processes.
•Delegation to authorize another person to serve as his or her representative when working with absence transactions.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management Cumulative Feature Overview
PeopleSoft Enterprise Learning Management (ELM) represents an ongoing commitment to providing best-in-class applications that provide real business value. This Cumulative Feature Overview serves to provide high-level, concise descriptions of new features and functionality in PeopleSoft ELM since general availability of ELM 8.8.

•The learning catalog is a repository of detailed information about the learning activities and programs that are available to your organization’s employees, customers, and suppliers. Users can search or browse the catalog for programs or activities of interest, and enroll in the activities or register for the programs. Users can also add activities they plan to take to their learning plans.

•Learning activity definition enable you to:

􀂃Set enrollment rules, such as last drop date, last enrollment date, maximum enrollment, and seat reservations.

􀂃Define activity price and drop fees for internal and external learners.

􀂃Define completion rules for how learners should complete the learning components.

􀂃Add notes that can appear on self-service pages.

􀂃Display facility details on self-service pages.

􀂃View session details from the Sessions page.

􀂃View room details from the Session Details page.

􀂃View and resolve session conflicts.

􀂃Calculate total and “per seat” costs based on maximum and minimum enrollment.

􀂃Send ad-hoc notifications as well as Application Engine driven activity-related notifications.

•Blended learning provides training administrators with the ability to combine multiple learning components with different delivery types to achieve a learning goal.

•Programs allow organizations that require numerous courses, completed in a specific order and period, in order to achieve and maintain a particular certificate, license, skill, or competency, to meet these requirements. ELM provides two types of programs—curricula and certifications.

•Install Defaults component on which you can select options and default values for various general, enrollment, and attendance functions as well as set counter records. ELM also provides a Payment Methods page on which you can define default payment methods for an organization during installation.

•Several methods of enrollment and registration supported. Learners can browse or search the catalog for activities and programs, and enroll in the activities and register for the programs directly. Learners can also add activities to their learning plans and enroll in the planned activities later. Managers can enroll and register direct reports in activities and programs, and approve or deny enrollment or registration requests for direct reports. Administrators can enroll and register small groups of learners through group enrollment and large groups of learners through mass enrollment.

•Financials integration feature enables customers to:

􀂃Import the following ChartFields from Financials: Account, Alternate Account, Budget Reference, ChartField1, ChartField2, ChartField3, Class Field, Department, Fund Code, Operating Unit, Product, Program Code, and Project.

􀂃Automatically post chargeback and revenue transaction data to an ELM subledger when certain enrollment and registration conditions are satisfied.

􀂃Export chargeback data in the ELM subledgers to General Ledger, through the Financials Journal Generator.

􀂃Produce a variety of general ledger, payment, purchase order, and training unit reports.

􀂃Edit for valid combinations of ChartField values.

•Activity roster components that administrators and instructors can use to manually mark attendance statuses, passing statuses, grades, and scores for learning activities. Administrators and instructors can also use the learning component rosters to override any attendance statuses, passing statuses, and scores that have been automatically updated.

•Learning environments provide a way to create separate domains within the learning catalog. An administrator's learning environment controls which parts of the catalog she or he can update. Specifically, learning environments control which administrators have control of which catalog items, activities, and programs. Learning environments also enable administrators to access the instructors and resources that are available for assignment. A learner's learning environment controls what the learner can see and enroll in when searching or browsing the catalog. Furthermore, learning environments control the default values and options that one can set up for activities and programs within a particular learning environment.

•Administrators can manually create learning objectives (often thought of as “learning goals” in many businesses today), or you can use define integration points to import them from competency tables in PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS. For organizations that license and interface the ELM product with PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS, you can seamlessly map competencies in your human resources system to objectives in ELM.

•Resource management addresses the business need to offer learning in one form or another and to manage the resources required to offer that learning. It addresses this need by enabling you to define and maintain your resources, such as materials, equipment, facilities and facility rooms, and instructors.

•Designed for optimal integration with PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS and Financials and Distribution Management (FDM). Using common business objects and defined integration points, you can minimize data entry and streamline cross product line processing.

•A large selection of learning and financial reports are available.

•You control access to pages, menus, and processes using roles and permission lists.

•Self-service pages allow learners and managers can to manage their personal training plans by viewing a schedule of upcoming learning activities and their learning history or transcript and monitor and edit the learning plans of their team members (direct reports).

•Supplemental learning feature enables learners to receive credit for completing other forms of learning.

•Webcast integration feature enables you to offer instructor-led, virtual-classroom instruction to your constituents through third-party webcast vendors.

•Catalog Management offers a unique solution to catalog integration and is designed for organizations that want a web-based application to access, transform, and integrate structured content to meet their catalog management needs.

•Common Partner Registration enables an enterprise to share its PeopleSoft applications with outside parties, which reduces the enterprise's workload and streamlines its processes.

•Data Transformer provides an extract, transform, and load (ETL) utility to convert data from remote or local data sources to a data source of your choice.

•Enhanced certifications requirements including nested programs, cascading expiration dates and completion rules.

•Enhanced objective, prerequisite and equivalency support.

•Support for eSignatures.

•Enhanced effective dated support for new program requirements.

•Enhanced back-office administration for program roster and setup components, and a new ability to clone programs.

•The ability for an administrator to waive, revoke, expire and reissue a certification.

•Enhanced configurable security settings to allow administrator to manage certifications.

•New notifications for certification status changes like waived, expired, revoked and reissued.

•Advanced reporting options for tracking certification completions, compliance and auditing issues.

•Approval Framework can be used with enrollment requests (for activities), registration requests (for programs), and supplemental learning records.

•Ability to “push back” an approval request to previous approver/path. (This is available as standard Approval framework functionality).

•New Approvals Monitor for senior administrators to review pending approvals across the organization.

•Usability enhancements including:

􀂃Learner Self-Service enhancements include a redesign of the My Learning page including the addition of a “launch” button; and improved search capabilities and better search results.

􀂃Manager Self-Service enhancements include a redesign of the team Members page to include Approvals and team members on a single page where managers can select multiple team members and perform group actions, such as enrollment.

􀂃Administrator enhancements include redesigned activity and program rosters; the ability for an administrator to add supplemental learning records; enhanced configurable system setting to allow the administrator to be the default requestor for back office enrollment; additional “download to Excel” capabilities; new approval monitoring components; and the ability to manage incoming Learning Requests.

•Learning Requests provide the user with a way to submit requests for learning, which they were unable to locate while browsing or searching the catalog. Once the request has been submitted an administrator can review the requests and then determine whether to schedule new learning, recommend existing learning or let the requestor know that no learning will be offered for their request.

•Enhanced waitlist management provides administrators with the ability to manage learners who did not get enrolled in activities they signed up for and to add them to Learning Request lists or enroll them in other activities.

•Prerequisite enhancements provide the ability to create complex course and program prerequisites and allows “concurrent enrollment” in activities.

•Supports enhancements to the Person Model that were implemented in PeopleSoft Enterprise HRMS 8.9 such as Person of Interest (POI), non-contingent workers and multiple jobs.

•Integration with new Human Resources Manage Profiles business process functionality including:

􀂃Import of Catalog Types/Items.

􀂃Import of Job Profiles.

􀂃Import of Person Profiles.

􀂃Learning Objective gap analysis based on enhanced Job Role Objectives.

􀂃Update to Human Resources Manage Profiles based on completed learning including certifications.

•Integration with ePerformance including:

􀂃Real time status updates of Learning section in Performance Document.

􀂃The ability for learners to locate programs and activities to help them meet a particular performance objective.

􀂃The ability for managers to link to ELM and review progress details on specific learning activities and to find and assign learning based on development objectives.

•Ability to specify planned cost for courses.

•Ability to specify budgets for training departments.

•Forecasting the budget plan for the next plan period (for example, annual, semi-annual or quarterly).

•Learners can complete learning while “disconnected” using integration implemented through Oracle’s partner Backweb, giving a learner the ability to download SCORM or AICC compliant content, complete the learning while off-line, and automatically upload their progress and scores to ELM when they reconnect to the network.

•“AND” logic to define learner groups.

•Enhanced user interface to define learner groups.

•One place to define learner groups using pre-defined criteria or queries.

•Ability to upload catalog meta data from external sources, in SCORM or AICC formats, and simultaneously creating multiple courses or activities.

•Ability to create templates.

•Ability to quickly create courses and activities using user defined templates.

•Utilizing service oriented architecture and Integration Broker, provides synchronous integrations with Human Resources 9.0 and ePerformance 9.0 applications including Department Hierarchy Service (consumer), All Learning Service (provider), and Learning Profile Item Sync (consumer).

•(FRA) Ability to plan and budget the training for the next plan period, for example a calendar year, and create a training plan report for the Worker’s Council.

•(FRA) DIF ("Droit Individuel à la Formation" or Individual Training Right) has been introduced by the 2004 training law, which tracks the training hours for specific, identified learning.

•(FRA) Ability to track the training information needed for the 2483 report.

Value of Upgrading

With each release of PeopleSoft Enterprise HCM, we strive to add value to your vital business processes.

HCM 9.0 represents a continued commitment to excellence and quality and centers on three key business drivers:

•Enterprise-Wide Talent Management We continue our leadership in the talent management space. The introduction of a centralized Profile Management business process delivers enterprise-wide talent management, offering organizations seamless integration of talent management applications.

•Lean Business Processes We offer more flexible and configurable products that enable organizations to tailor applications to business needs. Made possible by new capabilities such as SmartHire, a template-driven approach to streamlining the onboarding process, HCM 9.0 represents a truly configurable application. Enhancements throughout the application set deliver more flexibility so customers are able to adapt the system to their individual requirements while reducing the need for customizations.

•Extended Value with Innovative, Standardized Technology We’ve leveraged the rich technology foundation offered by Oracle’s Fusion Middleware. The extended value of this technology centralizes common tasks and components, helping change the way people do business. Oracle XML Publisher reduces the high costs associated with the development, customization and maintenance of business documents while increasing the efficiency of document and reporting management. We provide an embedded common approval framework across the suite. Our ongoing commitment to Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) is delivered with enhanced and additional web services to improve extensibility and performance.

HCM 8.9 offered our customers dramatically improved functionality and experience and centered on four key business drivers:

•Total Ownership Experience In 2003, PeopleSoft management made a commitment to address our customers’ total cost of owning PeopleSoft applications. PeopleSoft made installations and implementations faster, simplified upgrades, offered real-time support and performance diagnostics, and delivered robust integration with other eBusiness software.

•Implementation We automated the people-intensive process of installing, configuring, and integrating software. PeopleSoft continually improves installation, configuration, and integration to dramatically reduce implementation time and costs.

•Usability We enhanced usability across the product suite reducing the time and number of clicks needed for key processes, establishing industry leadership in task completion rates, and making marked improvements in the usability of key functions throughout the HCM suite.

•Supportability We incorporated extensive improvements in the areas of supportability, performance, and upgrades. PeopleSoft offers three system-aware diagnostic and support tools as part of the PeopleTools 8.44 Total Ownership Experience release, including Change Assistant, Performance Monitor, and Diagnostic Framework.

HRMS 8.8 continued the global expansion of our world-class HRMS solutions, adding new countries to the list of supported locations and enhancing our products in those regions already familiar with PeopleSoft. New products included:

•PeopleSoft Mobile Time Management. Part of the PeopleSoft Mobile Workforce application suite, this application employs PeopleTools Mobile Agent to enable your mobile workforce to record, report, and update time through a laptop or PDA (personal digital assistant) while disconnected from a network.

•PeopleSoft ePerformance Management.

•PeopleSoft Global Payroll extensions for Brazil, India, The Netherlands, New Zealand, and Singapore.

HRMS 8.3 expanded the global footprint of our world-class HRMS solutions, adding new countries to the list of supported locations and enhancing our products in those regions already familiar with PeopleSoft.

We improved PeopleSoft HRMS Collaborative Applications for better, faster decision making at the desktop by including self-service features and integrating more content from industry leading suppliers.

Recruiting Solutions combined several applications to provide a fully integrated, end-to-end recruitment tool. We included more self-service and integrated content from leading suppliers.

This release included major new functionality and performance enhancements in other areas as well.

Clustering and High Availability for PeopleSoft 8.4

This post discusses various components used for scalability and high availability of internet services. Instead of covering all possible configurations/devices, the discussion shall be limited to systems that apply to PeopleSoft architecture and have been tested in the field. The complexity and cost of the system is largely dependent on the required level of Quality Of Service (QOS) of the system. The QOS of a system specifies the level of scalability and fault tolerance the system would provide. In the simplest case there is one server with no guaranteed uptime of service and on the other hand we can build a system to provide 24x7 with better than 99.999% availability i.e. telecommunication grade service. Most of our customers will choose a level of service somewhere in between
based on their budget.

Manufacturers of network devices provide MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) numbers which should be carefully considered. The higher the number the better but it costs more. Do not make a judgment solely based on MTBF without also considering MTTR (Mean Time To Repair) because units that are difficult to repair will eventually contribute to higher down time. The value of MTTR is difficult to calculate because it factors in issues like time to diagnose a problem, availability of parts, engineer’s knowledge of the affected unit etc. Calculate availability of overall infrastructure as:

Availability of a component x, A x = MTBF/(MTBF+MTTR)

Availability of a redundant component group of x and y is A x+y = 1 – ((1 – A x) * (1 – A y))

Availability of two redundant groups in series to complete a system A overall = A x+y * A p+q

The various components to consider in the system are:

Internet Connectivity – For high availability internet connectivity should be obtained from multiple (at least two internet service providers). In the event of a failure of one of the providers users would still be able to access the system via the second provider. The key feature to look for is diversity in connectivity between the two providers,

e.g. consider installing leased line for primary provider and satellite or cable modem for the backup. Smaller sites could setup dial backup on backup router, for a more cost effective solution. With cooperation from both the providers it is possible to run full BGP 4 (Border Gateway Protocol) routing protocol for advanced failure detection and failover.

Routers –The router needs to be fault tolerant. At a minimum the network architecture should be dual redundant.The routers could be configured to run in primary/backup mode running either Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol

(VRRP) or HSRP (Hot Standby Routing Protocol) for Cisco routers. Under these protocols each unit in a pairsends out packets to see if the other will respond. If the primary fails the backup will take over its functions. Most routers also have certain firewall capability, e.g. packet filtering, port blocking etc. These features should beenabled for added security whenever possible.

Customers using colocation will generally not have access to the router because this is part of the colocation
providers equipment. In these cases all security features must be implemented within the system using additional equipment (firewall, loadbalancer NAT, reverse proxy server etc).

Switches/VLANS – Switches interconnect all the network devices in a system. To build a redundant system at least two physical switches should be used. In the discussion that follows layer 2 switches are used. Failover for these devices can be configured by using the spanning tree protocol and connecting the devices with a trunk link.

The trunk must use redundant interconnect to prevent the LAN from splitting in two. In the configurations shown in this document we have avoided cross connecting switches with routers and hosts. This is a simple configuration that all routers and hosts will support but in an event of a failure of one of the switches half of the servers (all servers connected to the affected unit) in the network are taken offline.

Firewalls – The firewall is possibly the most difficult device to incorporate on a system that is being designed for high availability. In most systems if not properly designed it would soon become the bottleneck. It is not uncommon for extremely high throughput systems to avoid a firewall at the incoming internet entry point. Instead a combination of routers, loadbalancers and reverse proxy servers are used to achieve the necessary level of security for the first tier of the system. High availability with firewalls can be tricky too, most vendors provide some means of clustering capability that allows either an array of identical servers dividing up the load among themselves or an active/active pair of units.

In the following sections we use a 3-pronged firewall. In this device the firewall has 3 interfaces, one for Internet,one for Intranet and one for the DMZ services. This configuration has a single point of protection (security failure) limitation for the Intranet site. If this is not acceptable the 3-pronged firewall should be preceded with another pair of redundant firewalls. It is possible to run loadbalancers to distribute load among identical firewall units (FWLBS) for greater scalability but the configuration is not simple. To implement the 3-pronged firewall with redundancy it will take 6 extra loadbalancers and 6 extra switches/VLANS to implement.

Loadbalancers – A highly recommended device to achieve high scalability and fault tolerance at a reasonable cost. The current street price for these units range from $5,000 to $50,000. Some units starting at $12,000 can be configured to replace a firewall and provide a hardware SSL accelerator which provides security and scalability at a reasonable cost. Again, a pair should be deployed for redundancy. On most loadbalancers each physical unit can be configured into multiple logical units. Network security and architecture permitting the logical units can be used to loadbalance multiple applications.

Reverse Proxy Servers – Reverse Proxy Servers (RPS) are generally used as part of the security infrastructure. Most sites will deploy them if there is a security concern about IP packets from untrusted users to make it to the production webservers. A RPS provides protection from attacks that are launched to take advantage of vulnerability such as buffer overflow, mal formed packets etc. This also adds another tier to the security architecture. Other sites may use them as a single signon portal server, one which allows RPS authenticated users to access multiple internal systems with varying authentication schemes to be accessed without individual authentication to those systems.

RPS is almost always loadbalanced using a loadbalancer. For PeopleSoft applications a sites domain name
mapping will map to the loadbalancer for the RPSs. In this document an example site portal.corp.com should be mapped to a VIP 123.123.123.100 by external DNS systems and this VIP should be mapped to the RPS loadbalancer.

Servers – Servers themselves have a number of fault tolerant mechanism built into them, e.g. redundant network cards, raid array, dual power supply, fault tolerant motherboard etc. As a minimum there should be at least two servers configured as a dual redundant system. Other than the vendor recommended database-clustering PeopleSoft applications do not use any OS provided server-clustering mechanism. This provides greater flexibility for our customers to pick the best of the breed HW/SW solutions.

DNS Servers – A PeopleSoft production system should avoid using DNS name resolution whenever possible. It may be necessary, however, for PeopleSoft Portal or Applications Messaging to be able to access remote servers. If this is a requirement and if adding an /etc/hosts entry for those name(s) is not convenient only then should DNS name resolution from a local server be considered. Under no circumstances should the local DNS servers be allowed to receive DNS updates from remote servers. The local DNS server should also be prevented from sending DNS queries to the remote server for local addresses. So, in other words, the local DNS server should only query the remote server for addresses that are outside the local domain of the site. High availability is maintained by running a primary and a backup DNS host, connected to two separate switches. All hosts that need access to DNS service should be configured to use a primary and backup DNS host.

Storage – All PeopleSoft data (configuration meta data) and user data is stored in databases. The databases
should be stored in some sort of a fault tolerant device e.g. a RAID (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks) device. At a minimum the storage subsystem should be chosen to use data striping, e.g. RAID 5 for low cost systems and RAID 10 i.e. 0+1 or 1+0 for high performance systems

Power Supply – A minimum of two UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) is recommended. For systems with higher availability requirement the UPS should be backed by power generators and power drop from two separate substations.

Disaster Recovery Plans – Finally all installations small or large must create a disaster recovery plan. For large installations this should include creation of a second data center at a distant geographic location. The current version of the document does not address all aspects of disaster recovery.

VIPs – VIPs are not physical devices. These are IP addresses where the world points its browsers to access the services. These IP address could point to a real webserver in the simplest case. In most of the systems described in this document it will point to a logical service implemented using firewalls, loadbalancers, proxy servers and real servers. A VIP is also the IP address that the sites DNS name shall map to. In this document an example site portal.corp.com is mapped to a VIP 123.123.123.100 by external DNS systems.

Periodically (and unpredictably) BenAdmin may issue a Maximum Number of Pay Calendars error message in the program section get-cal.  Sometimes this may occur at the end of the year after you have created pay calendars for the new year.  Often the error seems unpredictable - rerunning BenAdmin will eradicate the error.

The reason for this is that the Pay Calendar is a case where we cumulatively read in calendars, as needed for each employee we process, until we're full, and then we abort.  Since the system must accommodate all possible event date rules, we read in all calendar rows from the start date forward into the future for all built-out entries.  Standard practice is to build out the entire current year, or the next year when you get well into the current year.  As you can see from the SQL, you would not want to build out years into the future, since that is going to be returned to BenAdmin unnecessarily.  One thing that is controllable by the customer is that "starting date": it's either the OE Event Date, or it's the EM Start Event Date.  So if the customer has not advanced the Start Event Date for a while, they might want to consider doing that.

As currently configured (PSCCALTB.CBL), the Pay Calendar array can hold 5000 total pay-period rows spread across 250 separate Company/Paygroup combinations.  This is a reasonable mix of monthly (12 pay-period rows) through weekly (52 pay-period rows) pay groups.  Similarly, as currently configured (PSCBATBL.CBL), the Eligibility Override array can handle an aggregate of 1500 entries, across all Elig Rules being referenced.

Here's the SQL that retrieves the pay calendars.  To test how many pay calendar entries are actually on your system, copy the SQL into Query Analyzer or SQL Talk, change the variables to match the values on your system, and see how many rows the SQL retrieves.

SELECT
PAY_BEGIN_DT
,PAY_END_DT
,COMPANY
,PAYGROUP
FROM PS_PAY_CALENDAR
WHERE COMPANY=:1
AND PAYGROUP=:2
AND PAY_END_DT>=:3
AND PAY_OFF_CYCLE_CAL = 'N'
ORDER BY
COMPANY ASC
,PAYGROUP ASC
,PAY_END_DT ASC

The best solution is to move up that Start Event Date on the installation table.

SSUE:
End users are intermittently seeing "This page is no longer available" message or intermittently kicked out to the search page. These problems occur since the end user's sessions are not sticky and end user's session are bouncing between multiple webservers. Incorrect load balancer setup may cause other intermittent problems.

SOLUTION:
Verify PIA and load balancer are setup correctly with the following checklist:

1. For customers that use a load balancer, Oracle recommends using a cookie (session) based load balancer and sticky bits enabled. IP based load balancing is not recommended and IP based load balancing is known to cause session stickiness problems.

For more information on cookie based load balancing and sticky bits, please follow up with your load balancer vendor.

F5: http://www.f5.com/pdf/deployment-guides/f5-peoplesoft-dg.pdf

2. Ensure all your webservers have the same cookie name in each weblogic.xml file. This file can be found in the following directory:

/webserv//applications/peoplesoft/PORTAL/WEB-INF/weblogic.xml

In this example, there's two webservers behind the load balancer. Therefore, verify that your cookie names are the same:

weblogic.xml (webserver 1):

CookieName

pststweb-7011-PORTAL-PSJSESSIONID

weblogic.xml (webserver 2):

CookieName

pststweb-7011-PORTAL-PSJSESSIONID

Save both weblogic.xml files.

** If you're running Enterprise Portal and have content providers, please ensure that all Enterprise Portal webserver cookie name are all exactly the same. The content provider's webserver cookie names should have their own set of cookie names. Therefore, both Portal and content should not have the exact same cookie name. Suppose Enterprise Portal had 4 webservers and HR had 4 webservers. All 4 Enterprise Portal cookie names could be eportal-7011-PORTAL-PSJSESSIONID, but all 4 HR cookie names could be hrms-7011-PORTAL-PSJSESSIONID.

3. In weblogic.xml, ensure CookieDomain is set in all weblogic.xml. This value is automatically set when entering the authentication domain during the PIA install. If the authentication domain isn't set during PIA install, please reinstall PIA and set authentication domain.

CookieDomain

.company.com

4. In PIA, navigate to "PeopleTools -> Web Profile -> Web Profile Configurations". Search for your Web Profile. Click on

Virtual Address and populate your default addressing. For example, suppose your end users access your load balancer with the following URL:@ http://mycompany.com/ps/signon.html You would need to set the following:

Default addressing Protocol: HTTP
Default addressing Name: mycompany.com
Default addressing Port: 80

* The above is an example. You'll need to populate with your load balancer info.

5. Please ensure PIA "Inactivity Logout" in seconds matches HTTP timeout in minutes.

a) In PIA, navigate to "PeopleTools -> Web Profile -> Web Profile Configurations". Search for webprofile. Click on "Security" tab. PIA timeout is "Inactivity Logout" in seconds. Suppose "Inactivity Logout" = 1200 seconds.

b) In WebLogic, open web.xml file. This file can be found in the following directory:

/webserv//applications/peoplesoft/PORTAL/WEB-INF/web.xml

WebLogic HTTP timeout appears in minutes:

In this example, ensure WebLogic HTTP timeout is 20 minutes to match "Inactivity Logout" (1200 seconds).

The Load Balancer's timeout should be higher than the PIA "Inactivity Logout" timeout and webserver HTTP timeout. Please consult with load balancer vendor to find out where to set load balancer timeout.

6. After updating weblogic.xml, web.xml and webprofile, you must bounce your webservers.

KEYWORDS: SPOTLIGHT, "page is no longer available", Load Balancer

This resolution is meant to address the most common issues encountered when implementing or modifying Single Signon between PeopleSoft Applications (Enterprise Portal and HR for example). It doesn't cover 3rd Party authentication or customizations required to authenticate to/from PeopleSoft. Please note that we require the Portal's PeopleTools version to be >= the Content Provider's PeopleTools version. We have seen where they run without complying with that rule, but if there is any issue, it will need to be replicated under this configuration before reporting it to development.

*** Definition: Single Signon means that after a user has been authenticated by one PeopleSoft application server, that user can access a second PeopleSoft application server without entering user ID and password again.

*** EXAMPLE TRANSACTION:

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.49 PeopleBook: Security Administration > Implementing Single Signon > Sample Single Signon Transaction for more details:
1) User Signs on to Enterprise Portal (PA)
2) PA Application Server Authenticates User
3) PA Application Server Generates SSO Token
4) Web Server Creates Cookie in User's Browser
5) User Accesses Content Provider Application (CP)
6) CP Web Server Receives PS_TOKEN Cookie
7) CP Application Server Authenticates PS_TOKEN

*** PS_TOKEN: is generated using either the database's SSL Certificate or User ID, Language Code, Timestamp, Issuing System Default Local Node, Default Local Node Password which is encrypted using SHA1_Hash

*** CONFIGURATION FOR SINGLE SIGNON:
1) The Default Local Node of one system must match in Name and Password to a Remote Node on the second system. The reverse is also true; the Default Local Node of the second system must be represented with a Remote node of identical Name and Password on the first system. This is a basic trust relationship model.
2) The AuthTokenDomains must match between systems. This means that the following must be consistent:

a) Authentication Domain in the General Tab of the Web Profile must be set

b) CookieDomain session parameter value must be set in the %PS_HOME%\webserv\sitename\applications\peoplesoft\PORTAL\WEB-INF\weblogic.xml file.

c) URI values on all nodes involved must include the fully qualified domain name, not simple machine names.

3) If systems use the same web server, defaultPort and defaultScheme must be set on the configuration.properties. If using 8.44+ PeopleTools, the Protocol and Port must be set on the Virtual Addressing tab of the Web Profile.
4) Nodes MUST use passwords or an SSL certificate.
5) The Nodes (both the Default Local and Remote node) must be trusted in all databases.
6) User ID must exist with same name (not necessarily same password) in both systems.

*** TROUBLESHOOTING COMMON ERRORS:
1) Your User ID and/or Password are invalid
  a) AppServ Log: PeopleSoft Token authentication failed: invalid token signature
  a) Resolution: Password needs to be set on Default Local Node and the password needs to match the remote node in Content provider
  b) AppServ Log: PeopleSoft Token authentication failed: invalid token signature
  b) Resolution: Password needs to match exactly between the two environments, Portal and content provider nodes
  c) AppServ Log: Token authentication failed: issuing node PSFT_PA is not a trusted node
  c) Resolution: Default Local Node of portal should be defined as a trusted node in content provider
Navigate to PeopleTools > Security > Security Objects  > Single Signon to add a trusted node (8.4 and above)
Navigate to PeopleTools > Maintain Security > Setup > Single Signon (8.1x)
  d) AppServ Log: Error Setting Sign on PeopleCode context for User
Error Setting App Server context to user
  d) Resolution: Userid need to match in both the environment for single signon to work successfully

2) STR_PCMINVPORTAL: Invalid portal name EMPLOYEE in request. Portal not defined. Unable to process request with an invalid portal.
  Resolution: Make sure that the Hosted by node of portal is defined as a remote node in the content provider with the URL pointing back to portal.  Typically this involves logging into the Content Provider Database (HR, Financials, CRM , etc.) and opening the EMPL node in that system.  The EMPL node URI values are setup to point back to the Enterprise Portal.  The EMPL node within the Enterprise Portal system hosts the EMPLOYEE registry by default, so if any change has been made, a different node would have to be used.  If The EMPL node of the Content Provider is setup, but is pointing to the wrong domain, the error message should say that the domain is incorrect.

3) Cannot open http://url.  Configuration.properties
  Resolution: Move one web server to a different machine.
Add a second DNS entry for the web server in the same domain.
Set the defaultPort and defaultScheme or In 8.44+, the Default Addressing on the Virtual Addressing tab of the Web Profile on both systems.
Fix the PIA sitename

4) Authorization Error -- Contact your Security Administrator
  Resolution: Make sure to use the content provider node or a node with the same URI value while creating a CRef. If any other local node is used, it will result in the authorization error

5) You are not authorized to access this component
  Resolution: Content Provider node should always be a remote node and not a local node in portal.

6) Link Errors
  Resolution: Although not specifically a part of Single Signon, it's related, and the GSC gets many cases on this.  Our delivered Single Link and Application links (e.g. EPM to Financials for ledgers) use a node, which is not the same as the remote node in your Portal database. This node is defined as the HPNODENAME in the Portal URL weblib parameter. In other words, a delivered link may fail because it is trying to pull content from the Portal registry simply because the node it's using hasn't been properly defined.  Let's say you configure your portal with a remote node for the content provider.  Since PeopleSoft has no way of knowing what that node is, we default everything to ERP, HRMS, CRM, etc. to correlate with our applications.  Those delivered nodes do not have the proper URI values in order to attempt a link to the content provider, so the Portal is stuck trying to retrieve that content from it's own registry.  It fails in this, and the error message depends on the Tools versions involved.  Generally, there will be nothing on the screen but a URL which includes the Content Reference URI + the Portal Server URI. Be sure that the HPNODENAME value is set to a remote node that has it's URI information populated. The Node Name for the content Reference itself should remain blank or set to LOCAL_NODE.

7) "This is not a valid site. The site name is case sensitive." is received in the PIA window for SSO.  This error can be resolved by using the proper case for the PIA SiteName in the URI value of your Node Definition.

For example, if a customer is using http://server.company.com/psc/epprd/ in the URI value, but the actual URL value when you navigate to the site is http://server.company.com/psc/EPPRD/ it will cause this error.

8) Your Portal and content provider webserver time are not in sync. Make sure the time and timezone are match on both servers.

***NOTES:
For 8.1x PeopleTools, it has been noted that there can only be a 7-character password on the nodes max. (so corresponding nodes must be the same as well).

Also for 8.1x, there is only one Local Node (thus it is default) and node values are configured via App Designer, not online.

If the AuthTokenDomain wasn't setup when PIA was installed (on either the content provider or the portal) then typically we see expiration issues with the content provider. Thus you get the signon screen. This is because customers add the AuthTokenDomain to the webprofile, but fail to add the domain to the webserver's configuration. When seeing single signon related expiration issues, that you check the weblogic.xml for the session cookie domain and if it's not there, re-run the PIA install. Check this for the portal and all web server content providers.

If re-running the PIA install is not an option, an administrator can modify the %PS_HOME%\webserv\sitename\applications\peoplesoft\PORTAL\WEB-INF\weblogic.xml file manually by adding the following with the proper domain value. Additionally, the Authentication Domain value (General tab) must be set in all WebProfiles in use. Here is a sample of how it looks in the WebLogic XML:

-

CookieDomain

.us.oracle.com

In OAS orion-web.xml, when authentication domain is not set during PIA install, will be missing. Here's example of OAS orion-web.xml when authentication domain is set during PIA install. Here's an example:

Strange behavior, such as missing images and the following error message, especially on Windows 2000 machines using IE can indicate that the Virtual Addressing tab of the webprofile needs a protocol, server and port set.

Site name is not valid. Check your URL syntax and try again.

On Pre 8.44 systems, this would be the default port and default scheme.

***HTTP/HTTPS:
If the Portal is pulling in HTTPS content, it must be on HTTPS itself.  Anytime SSL is used on the content providers, the Portal source must have SSL as well.  This is a requirement.  Also, when reconfiguring/cloning databases, we often see where the original was HTTPS, but the subsequent clone doesn't have HTTPS setup yet.  So, while it is using HTTP, all of the URI values are still listed with the old protocol type.

Further, if both systems are using HTTPS, it will be necessary to load the ROOTCA and Public Key of the Portal into the Content Provider via PeopleTools > Security > Security Objects, Digital Certificates.  This is required or you will get an error similar to ' Untrusted Server Certificate Chain '.  This simply means that the encrypted request from the Portal can't be decrypted by the Content provider.  Since typically both system's share the ROOTCA when generating their public keys, both systems generally just load all of the following:
1) ROOTCA (generally shared)
2) Local Public Key
3) Remote Public Key of the calling system.

For example, in a Portal > CRM SSO configuration, the CRM system would need the ROOTCA, it's own public key (local), and the public key of the Portal which is making the call (remote).  For two way single signon, the reverse would also be true.  So for Portal <> CRM SSO, the above needs to be completed and then the Portal not only has to have the ROOTCA and it's own public key (local), but also the public key of the CRM system (remote)

***ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS:

When considering setting up Single Signon, many customers wish to have different internal vs. external access. This means one Intranet website setup and one Internet. Unfortunately, the PeopleSoft database only has one default local node. Due to this fact, single signon to content providers will only accept one valid URL for a Portal system. In this regard, for example, an Enterprise Portal which is access via a Reverse Proxy webserver in a corporate DMZ would have a different URL from it's direct access via the internal (inside the firewall) webserver. Due to this, the content providers, such as Financials, CRM, HCM, etc. can only validate one of those addresses. Either the externally available or internally available URL. This poses a problem for customers who wish to setup SSO for internal users at one URL and for external users at a different URL.

More information about this functionality can be found in the following:

1. Red Paper: Clustering and High Availability for Enterprise Tools 8.4x (Doc ID <<747378.1>>)

2. The Enterprise Portal Installation Guide: PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal Solutions 9 Installation (Doc ID <<701192.1>>)

3. PeopleTools 8.49 PeopleBook: Security Administration > Implementing Single Signon

Every customer's situation is unique, as are their security requirements and infrastructure. For this reason, the GSC can not make recommendations for which path to utilize for Single Signon, as it is considered a Consulting/Implementation matter. Each customer should evaluate their needs to make appropriate decisions based on requirements.

As the GSC isn't equipped to make recommendations in general, selecting how to implement SSO is considered out of scope. However, general information can be provided which may help and doing the actual setup is straightforward and supported:

Options Available:
1. Enable a Reverse Proxy Server (RPS) inside the DMZ. This RPS would handle incoming traffic and redirect to the internal website through 1 port in the firewall. However, since the browser makes direct connections to any content providers, Single Signon (SSO) will not function unless the PeopleSoft Applications (such as HCM or CRM) are also accessible via an RPS system in the DMZ. This is because the end-user's browser actually makes the connection directly to SSO applications as part of the transaction and from then on accesses that content directly even while Portal makes requests as well.

For this setup, the node URI addresses as well as AuthTokenDomain, must reflect the URL the users will actually use to access the system (i.e. the external URL). This generally means that either internal and external users must use the same URL to access the system (the external URL), or the internal URL is otherwise redirected or "spoofed" at the DNS level so while it might appear to users they are on the internal URL, they are actually accessing the system via another. This latter setup for redirection is out of scope. The PeopleSoft GSC supports setting up the rest of this environment where the internal and external users share the same setup. For more detailed assistance, the Server Tools team in the GSC would need a new SR created asking for "how to setup Reverse Proxy Server".

2. Utilize Load Balancing systems to virtualize the URLs used. The Load Balancer handles the session affinity and traffic redirection. Implementations such as this are out of scope, but more information can be found in the documentation listed above. The idea here being that an internal user touching the internal URL is actually remapped to the load balancer URL which is what is used for the Single Signon setup. The GSC has no documentation on this scenario and customers are urged to discuss with their consulting partner or seek assistance from other customers via Rugs and User Support group websites for PeopleSoft.

3. As is the case at many customers, external (internet) users access a Virtual Private Network, or VPN, system to gain internal access to the network. This essentially puts them on the LAN/WAN and allows for access to content. However, this doesn't usually work for large external customer bases. It has been used for suppliers, contractors, and the like. This is likely the most secure scenario available. and there is no RPS involved in the configuration unless desired as another internal layer of security. In this scenario all users access the system via an internal URL which is inaccessable via the DMZ.

4. It is possible, however not recommended, to utilize the Enterprise Portal (EP) as a sort of Proxy server itself. Single Signon would take place, but all internally behind the DMZ. The EP system would collect the content from the other PeopleSoft Applications and present it without the need for the users browser to actually "touch" those other applications. For this scenario, the EP system is granted access through an RPS in the DMZ, and the entire system must utilize an HTML template instead of the Default Dynamic Template. The problem here is that most of the Enterprise Portal features rely on dynamic templates and as such this option would limit functionality. This is generally never recommended and is only rarely implemented.

***GSC ASSISTANCE:
If you are unable to resolve the issue, the following should be sent to your GSC analyst handling the case:
1) weblogic.xml or server.xml (Websphere) from both systems
2) Application and PeopleTools releases from both systems
3) SELECT * from PSMSGNODEDEFN from both systems
4) SELECT * from PSNODEURITEXT from both systems
5) SELECT * from PSTRUSTNODES from both systems
6) SELECT * from PSWEBPROFDEF from both systems or the configuration.properties file if 8.1x/8.2x PeopleTools
7) Screenshot of the Content Reference page used to connect to the content provider.
8) AppServer log entry from the Content Provider time-stamped to the failure with test UserID info.

Frequently Asked Questions About PeopleSoft and the Micro Focus COBOL Compiler

Find answers to the most frequently asked questions about PeopleSoft applications and the Micro Focus COBOL software.
The Micro Focus COBOL Compiler is a software program that converts COmmon Business Orientated Language (COBOL) source code, a programming language developed in the 1960s, into code that can be executed on a computer.

Some PeopleSoft applications use routines written in Micro Focus COBOL. Since COBOL is primarily suited to batch processing, you'll likely use COBOL with applications like PeopleSoft Payroll. There are two components: a runtime engine and a compiler. You will typically only have a few named persons that will actually use the compiler, but you could have up to thousands of runtime users, based on the usage of certain applications.
What is the Micro Focus COBOL Compiler and when do I need it?

Micro Focus has two main COBOL Compiler suites:
Net Express—Microsoft Windows platform.
Server Express—UNIX platforms.

Some products within PeopleSoft Human Resources Management (HRMS), Financial Management Solutions, and Supply Chain Management use Micro Focus COBOL routines. PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Performance Management, and Portal solutions do not use Micro Focus COBOL routines. Find a complete list of PeopleSoft products that contain routines written in COBOL in our

If you have licensed any of these products you must have Micro Focus COBOL in order to initially compile the code when installing the software, and to re-compile the code if any fixes are necessary, you will need the Micro Focus Compiler.
Can I use a different COBOL Compiler from vendors like AcuCOBOL or IBM?

No. The PeopleSoft routines written in COBOL are specifically written for the Micro Focus
Compiler syntax. They will not work correctly with other COBOL Compilers from manufacturers
such as Ryan McFarland, AcuCOBOL, and IBM.

Can I customize the delivered COBOL code?

Yes, however, we discourage customization because we don't support customized code.

I never used to compile COBOL unless I added a fix, why do I need this now?

With PeopleSoft 8.4 we delivered the Micro Focus COBOL code as source and not compiled. In previous versions we delivered the source code and compiled code. To avoid the potential for mismatches in compiled versions we ship, and newer versions of the COBOL Runtime Engine/Compiler at installation time, it is safer that the sources are re-compiled during the installation process. This also has the added benefit of reducing the amount of binaries that we ship on the CD.

Who are Micro Focus and Merant?

Micro Focus is the vendor. Merant acquired Micro Focus in 1999. However the company returned to private ownership in August 2001.

What do I have to buy?

Consult the Supported Platforms section to determine the version of Micro Focus COBOL that has been certified with your PeopleSoft application, database, and operating system.
Why is Micro Focus COBOL not included with my PeopleSoft software?

Most PeopleSoft contracts include Micro Focus COBOL as a separate line item, however, some contracts do not include this additional license for many reasons. Some of our products do not require COBOL (for example, PeopleSoft CRM).

Please contact your account manager for more information regarding license costs.

Where do I buy Micro Focus COBOL Compiler??

While a number of vendors sell the Micro Focus COBOL Compiler, Oracle/PeopleSoft has negotiated a very competitive price for a compiler package that includes a license covering an unlimited number of run-time users. This is crucial for a PeopleSoft Enterprise system because the same run-time license from another vendor would invariably be priced on a per-CPU basis and result in a much higher price. In addition , Oracle/PeopleSoft is best equipped to support the installation and use of the product within a PeopleSoft infrastructure. For these reasons it is highly recommended by both Micro Focus and Oracle that you purchase the Micro Focus COBOL Compiler software directly from Oracle.

Do I need a support contract with Micro Focus?

No, if you purchase the Micro Focus COBOL Compiler from PeopleSoft, it will include a support contract.

Do I need Net Express or Server Express and which version?

To determine which version of which product you need, please check the Supported Platforms section for your database and operating system combination.

Which PeopleSoft products require Micro Focus COBOL?

In the COBOL Validator spreadsheet attached below, you will find a listing of PeopleSoft Enterprise products and an indication of whether COBOL is required for that product. The criteria for determining whether COBOL is required for your product is based on the following:

1. COBOL code is in the product that is delivered on the CD; or,
2. There is a required dependency with another product that has COBOL delivered under their product on the CD. A "required dependency" means that a customer has to have this other product along with their product.

Examples include:

General Ledger has COBOL that is delivered on the CD, so the COBOL requirement is "yes".
Resource Management has No COBOL they deliver (and no required dependency on a product that has COBOL) so the requirement is "no".
Supply Planning has no COBOL they deliver, but they have a required dependency on Inventory (who does deliver COBOL), so the requirement is "yes".
Please contact your customer service executive or the PeopleSoft Global Support Center if you have any questions regarding COBOL designated products.

What are NetExpress and Server Express?

Which PeopleSoft product lines use Micro Focus COBOL?

The COBOL Validator attached shows the individual product lines and products that require COBOL. As mentioned previously, this chart is a list of PeopleSoft product line products that contain routines written in COBOL. Please contact your customer service executive or the PeopleSoft Global Support Center if you have any additional questions regarding COBOL designated products.

How much does it cost to license Micro Focus COBOL?

Please contact your customer service executive or the PeopleSoft Global Support Center for current pricing.

PeopleSoft Techincal Support

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