PeopleSoft Telephone format

Telephone format is by default of USA.

Telephone format is by default of USA if you want to add the field telephone in Personal information of employees through below navigation:

Main Menu > Workforce Administration > Personal Information > Modify a Person > Contact Details tab.

At times there are requirements to chnage the same in some other country format. I had been change the same Indian format.

In Application Designer, go to Tools > Miscellaneous Objects > Field Formats for PHONE. Define the phone number formats for any country you want to include.

This will hit the field PHONE (descr PS_PERSONAL_DATA for oracle platform).

Maximum number of records found

Maximum number of records found matching specified key(s)

I had been into an issue in past which was related to a warning message when tried to open the component Careers (Candidate Gateway). While trying to open the "careers" component, a warning message was poping up everytime stating "Maximum number of records found matching specified key(s)". Later, it was figured out that due to the drop down limitation to fetch data upto 300 rows only, this message was coming. Below is the problem description and details of resolution applied.

Issue: Message was poping up on Careers component stating "Maximum number of records found matching specified key(s)".
Reason: We had over 300 rows in PS_JOB_FAMILY_TBL. As a result, the Careers component was throwing the following message.
Resolution: Drop down can be changed to a prompt.

Resolution details:

The sub page HRS_CE_E_PREFS_SBP has a reference to Job Family as a drop down list item. The drop down list item can only fetch upto 300 number of items. If the list items exceed this limitation, a message is given that not all items could be displayed.

To fix the problem the drop down can be changed to a prompt.

1. Delete the drop down HRS_APP_JOBFAM.JOB_FAMILY
2. Insert an edit box in grid HRS_APP_JOBFAM (level 2)
3. Set the page field properties

Record name: HRS_APP_JOBFAM
Field name: JOB_FAMILY

Change Assistant and environment management hub

Change Assistant, GUID and Environment management hub.

One of the common issues while your agent(s) is/are not able to update the environment information is due to the reason of GUID field. This field you will find in PSOPTIONS table, where a unique key to each environment has been stored. While crawling the instance, agent find this key and update the information accordingly. In case, you have cloned the instance from some other, this field value remains the same. This is though a manual task, but is must if you use change assistant to apply bundle(s)/POC or any fixes. Steps are below.

1. Bring down the web server and application server.
2. Clear the value of PSOPTIONS.GUID field by query:
UPDATE PSOPTIONS set GUID = ' ' (for Oracle platform).
3. Bring up the application server and web server.
4. When you will reboot the application server, it automatically generates the new GUID field.
5. Check the field by query:
SELECT SHORTNAME, LONGNAME from PSOPTIONS (for Oracle platform).

If there is no field value for SHORTNAME and LONGNAME, please go to the below navigation in PIA and update the values.

Main Menu > PeopleTools > Utilities > Administration > PeopleTools Options

Environment Long Name
Environment Short Name

These values are quite important from the point of distinguish between different environments.


Cleaning up the HUB.

Post making the new value of GUID, there might be an issue with viewer.html file. The new environment has unique GUID but the Environment Management Viewer continued to display the database and GUIDs, even the old GUID. So one database would display twice in the list, with the old GUID and also with the 'new' GUID. Due to this, while to apply a Change Package; a database in the selection list would appear two times.

This issue is due to the old value still persisting with the HUB, so a HUB cleanup is required.


The HUB cleaning would do as follows (windows platform):

1) Bring down the Hub (web server).
2) Remove the below directories:

PSHOME\webserv\...\...\...\PSEMHUB\envmetadata\Persistant Storage
PSHOME\webserv\...\...\...\PSEMHUB\envmetadata\scratchpad
PSHOME\webserv\...\...\...\PSEMHUB\envmetadata\transactions

Also remove directories UNDER \data as in

Pshome\webserv\...\...\...\PSEMHUB\envmetadata\data

Do not remove the \data directory, but everything UNDER that.

3) Remove the below directories:

PSHOME\PSEMAGENT\envmetadata\Persistant Storage
PSHOME\PSEMAGENT\envmetadata\scratchpad
PSHOME\PSEMAGENT\envmetadata\transactions

Also remove directories UNDER \data EXCEPT matchers.xml

PSHOME\PSEMAGENT\envmetadata\data\

4) Remove the below directories:

PSHOME\PSEMVIEWER\envmetadata\Persistant Storage
PSHOME\PSEMVIEWER\envmetadata\scratchpad
PSHOME\PSEMVIEWER\envmetadata\transactions

Also remove directories UNDER \data

PSHOME\PSEMVIEWER\envmetadata\data

5) Remove the below directories:

Program Files\Change Assistant\envmetadata\Persistant Storage
Program Files\Change Assistant\envmetadata\scratchpad
Program Files\Change Assistant\envmetadata\transactions

Do not delete the \data directory but everything under it

Program Files\Change Assistant\envmetadata\data

Bring up the Hub. Start all agents after cleanup. In ideal case, Peer ids should begin with '1'.

Global Payroll -- Rule and Non-Rule packages

Rule & Non-Rule Packages in a Global Payroll bundle
(Note: Some literal text and picture has been take from Peoplebooks)

In a Global Payroll bundle, there are country specific Rule and Non-Rule packages to be applied as per requirement. In any database where you are applying bundle, first you need to apply Rule package and then Non-Rule.

Before discussing any further details of Rule and Non-Rule packages, let us understand something about PIN in a Global Payroll System.

A PIN number is a numeric identifier for an element. Every element in Global Payroll has a unique PIN number, including the elements that you create and the elements PeopleSoft delivers. Global Payroll programs access and process an element by referring to its PIN number, rather than its name. A PIN is referred to as an element in Global Payroll. A PIN and an element are identical, and a PIN number is the same as an element number. We explain the term PIN here because it is referenced throughout the programs and table structure of the application. Think of PIN as the technical name that is used in the programming and table structure and element as the functional name that is used on all pages and discussions.

This is necessary because Global Payroll is designed for use by any organization in any country. Each organization will likely give the elements that form the basis for its payroll system different names, depending on its requirements. And organizations in different countries are going to name their elements using different languages. Also, the system elements delivered by PeopleSoft are often translated into many languages. If the name were the only way to identify an element, there could be problems.

PIN numbers also improve performance within batch processes. It is more efficient for the system to use numeric values than to use character values. This performance improvement is a result of being able to easily read the numeric values into the processing arrays and create a pointer to the correct place in the array. PINs are numbered sequentially.

Note. The system assigns a PIN number to each element that you create. The first number the system assigns is 100,001. PIN numbers prior to 100,001 are reserved for the elements that are delivered with Global Payroll.

Rule Package: In Global Payroll a rule is an element or combination of elements used to define a business rule. For example, an earning or deduction rule or a count or rounding rule. The primary key for rule-definition tables is PIN_NUM. A package comprises of more than one GP rule is known as Rule package.

Non-rule Package: In Global Payroll a Non-rule data includes processing results, payee data, setup definitions, and other data where PIN_NUM isn’t the primary key. A package comprises of more than one GP non-rule is known as Non-Rule package.

How to apply the rule and non-rule packages?

There are predefined steps to apply rule and non-rule packages. Sequence is first to apply Rule and then Non-rule package.

Apply Rule package:

There are Data Mover scripts delivered for Rule package within the bundle (per country extension), which follow this naming convention:

CX******_imp.dms (Rule Packager) where CX stands for two digit country extension and * is the bundle number.

Once you run the dms script through DataMover, you have to login into PIA of the same database and have to first compare and then upgrade the same Rule Package.

NOTE:
i) First step is to compare the package.

ii) Second is to upgrade the package.

iii) Proper attention and functional/business intervention is required while applying a Rule package as this will hit the core of Global Payroll engine: The Element. For example, if due to some business requirement some rule of the element has been changed by functional person and the same rule of that element has been changed by PeopleSoft in bundle, that will override the business specified rule and may leads to wrong results.

Apply Non-Rule package:

There are Data Mover scripts delivered for Non-Rule, which follow this naming convention:

CX******_elements.dms (Non-Rule Packager) and CX******_records.dms (Non-Rule Packager) where CX stands for two digit country extension and * is the bundle number.

Once you run the dms script through DataMover, you have to login into PIA of the same database and have to first compare and then upgrade the same Non-Rule Package.

i) Compare process:

ii) Upgrade process

Clean-up Script

Finally, do not forget to clean-up the database.

From the Data Mover, run the CLEANUP.DMS script. This script needs to be run only for Non Rule Packages. This script cleans up the unwanted PIN numbers which already got resolved during the course of applying Rule and Non-Rule packages, generally more than 50000000.

NOTE: In most of the bundles, clean up scripts is an automatic step which CA invoked by itself and need not to run outside a bundle.