PeopleSoft System Restore
There is one important aspect of Microsoft XP which helped me get out of the worst situations with ease – System Restore (I buy all the latest games and install it, download all internet games and without System Restore I would have been doomed). I’ve wondered many a times how will it be if we could perform System Restore in an ERP. This makes me feel good about choosing the appropriate blog title. System Restore is not impossible to achieve with an ERP system, but the complexity lies with the Table structures being modified result in loss of data in certain cases and this cannot be effectively handled with a System Restore that we try and build. Let me provide a scenario, a patch delivered by PeopleSoft changes the Field type from Number to Char and we alter the table to make this change. After a few weeks the Char data which flows into the system might make it impossible for us to revert back to our Numeric field type.
Although it could not be so useful incase of the Field properties which require “Alter” on all tables containing the Field, it would be suitable for all the other Field property changes (like Labels, Descriptions, etc.). The online objects like Pages, Components, PeopleCode, etc. could prove a big advantage for System Restore. This post will mention how we could achieve system restore with PeopleSoft and provide an automated application to achieve the same.
Before applying a project to our existing environment we are bound to perform a PeopleSoft Project compare. We initially apply the Patch project to our Demo environment and then compare with our Development/Test environment and copy the object to our Dev/Test, we reapply our customizations with the help of compare reports, perform tests on the Dev/Test environment and finally copy the project from Dev/Test to Production. To back up and restore our system we can manually list all the objects in our Test/Dev environment and back-up the corresponding rows from PeopleTools tables for the objects in the project. The back-up can be through data mover scripts and the exported .dat file from production can be used to revert back to any specific point.
The manual task of identifying the objects in Test/Dev and then writing export programs to get the Meta Data of these objects in Production can be automated. The link provided below contains an application which will help you achieve system restore for Fields – The application can only back-up and restore the on-line object (the current application can only do it for Fields in a selected project.), it cannot build these changes at the database level – Remember Automate those Migrations by Brent! The export-import through data mover used by the application cannot be suitable for PeopleCode; we might have to use database level import-export options.
Use the link below to download a Zip file which will contain the Setup.exe and the help document. (Approx. 2MB) – Valid for 30 days from today (17th May 2006). Do not be alarmed by “FileUL.com is being moved to a different server, we are sorry for the inconvenience this may cause”. Instead search for this “You can download the file here.” – “here” is the download link.
http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=T0gzdY
The application is still at its primitive stages and I do not expect it to be perfect. Test it and let me know your suggestions. If you want to work on the Source Code and extend the applications features, feel free to send me a mail at nextrevolutioninerp@yahoo.com. I can provide you with the source code and certain design documents to extend the benefits of this application. The application was built with Visual Basic and tested on Windows XP and PeopleTools 8.46. Do not complain about Translate changes as the application will only handle Fields currently and Translates are distinct on-line objects in PeopleSoft projects.
I still feel like a developer at heart and would like to leave consulting for development – Just like the little boy in Alchemist! I’m not sure when that day will dawn, but I’ll keep this blog to motivate myself in the right direction.
1 comment:
I know that this is something similiar to restoring back-up. But just for the sake of few objects there is no point in restoring back-up. I think it is important that we reach a particular date without much hassle.
Initially, I wanted this to export the objects as XML - PeopleSoft project format (With the *.ini file too). But then found out that I'll have to look out for some XML help before I do something like that.
The other feature which must go into the application is the ability to call the PeopleSoft compare process through command line (this must be possible cause the Change Assistant is able to do something like this) and make registry settings to get Excel outputs. These documents can serve as version documents outside the Application Designer.
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