Reapply Customization

Being a PeopleSft Upgrade Consultant, my primary job in an upgrade was to take care of Customizations(because PeopleSft has already refined all the other processes involved in an upgrade). Taking into consideration the above mentioned fact this apllication was one which I needed badly. The reason behind it was, If there is a field in 7.5 eg: EMPLID whose length the Customer chaged from 8 to 12. Then we had to open the new release field EMPLID (in release 8.9). We will ask the Customer to give his feedback in the Vanilla Compare Report that we generated, if the Customer wants the change to be retained in the new release then we will continue with the steps. If the length of the field in new release database is greater than or equal to 12, then we do not make any changes to the field, else we change ONLY the length of the field to 12 (say change it from 9 to 12) and retain all the other delivered properties of the field in the new release. The next few steps really drove me crazy, we will have to open the object in the New release database (Upgraded COP, it has all the Customer created objects in addition to the new release objects. No Customer Modified objects.) make the customization and go to the object property ( 1. File --> Open --> Field --> EMPLID and 2. Field Property)

Now add the following comment to the Field properties description,

UPGCONSUL 01/10/2006
----------------------------

Reapplied Customizations. Changed the length of the field from 9 to 12.

............all the new release delivered comments for the objects are retained here.


My work doesn't end here, I'm supposed to open the Gap Report (at this stage we call this the Notes Report.) Click on the hyperlink to Custom added -- Fields. Write notes to the field EMPLID as "Changed the length of the field.)

What boring work? Why do they need gratuate students to do this job??? (I guess may be to CHEAT the client)

So I started building the application. I wanted the application to be release independent, the way this can be achieved is using the rel scripts. Let me give you the steps that I followed,

1. Configuration Manager ---> Trace ---> SQL statements and SQL variables.

2. Open the trace file in Textpad (This I do because Textpad looks for any changes made to the file and gives us an update)

3. Log on to the application Designer

4. I continue deleting the Trace file and saving it until I hit the operation that I desire.

5. Then once I record the operation which I desire, I save the file as DESIREDOPERATION

6. Now I'll know all the PeopleTools tables which I are required (Actually desired operation doesn't mean that I only change the length of the field, I do otherthings like creating a new field, deleting a field, running a project compare with the trace ON and making sure that the project only contains the Field)

7. This is a HUGE step, I open all the rel scripts, look for the PeopleTools Table and then I do a mapping of these tables right from 7.5 to 8.9. This is not just enough, I continue documenting all the update statements for these PeopleTools table from 7.5 to 8.9.

8. After all these I start coding.

It actually seemed pretty simple at first, but PeopleSoft has really thought about certain things, for example saving database space in storing the properties of objects. For example, the Record Field properties are stored as a decimal number in the backend, USEEDIT1, they have also thought about the future and placed another column in the table for USEEDIT2. Now these decimal numbers converted to Binary will result in a lot of bits, each of these bits will correspond to a check box in the Record Field Property. I took a lot of time documenting these.

Then for reapplying record field Customization the customer could change the position of a field, for example,

7.5 the order of the fields be, here 1, 2, .. represent field names.

1
2
3
4
5
6

The Customized order in 7.5 be,

1
3
4
2
5
6

The new release 8.9 order be,

1
4
3
2
5
6

Then the Tool will act as a Technical Consultant, it doesn't care about the actual Field name and makes the changes as follows,

1
3
4
2
5
6

I had a big argument with my colleagues that what the Tool does will be perfectly satisfying, they did not agree. So I had to generate another Excel sheet which can be reviewed by us without opening the application. For this piece kindly look at the link for Notes, and Click on Customer Modified -- Recrd Flds. Then click on the hyperlink for "DISCIPLIN_STEP". This is the kind of satisfying results which this application has been producing.

A lot of hard work and that is why I've not open sourced the application.


I'm currently workin to prepare a Demo version for the Tool. Kindly give me some more time, when I'm done I'll post the link for the Demo application and the Help Document too.

Do post your feedback. This is one thing which does motivate me to write more.

the link for Notes, (Download the files in the links below into a single folder and then unzip the first file using PKZIP)

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=aDzfm6xO

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=WASY7hx

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=2nKKD4xK

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=XoAuVIp7