Tuesday, January 31, 2006

What I want in Oracle Fusion

PeopleSoft Internet Architecture brought the Internet “Look and Feel” to our application, because of which I always compare the application front-end to the best websites that I come across in the internet. Few of these websites need not be the best but still they are the once that I frequent. I want my application to match these websites. In this post I’ll list out certain features which I badly need in my application.

First, I check my emails regularly on Yahoo. I can do it in the following ways,

  1. Go to http://www.yahoo.com/ and then click the “mail” option available on that webpage. After which I sign on to my email account.
  2. Go to http://www.google.com/ and search for “yahoo mail” and then reach the desired webpage and log on to my account.
  3. After I reach http://mail.yahoo.com/ in any of the above mentioned methods I can add it to “Favorites”. When I need access to the webpage the next time I can reach it by using my Favorites.
  4. Go to http://mail.yahoo.com/ and sign on to my account.


Option 1 will be the most undesirable option as it involves these disadvantages,

1. I have to wait for the http://www.yahoo.com/ page to open on my system before I can choose the “mail” option. Then wait for the Mail page to open.

2. It involves two steps to be performed by the end-user, Step 1 to type the url in the address bar and Step 2 to Click the “Mail” option

Option 2 should have been the worst nightmare to imagine (I’m not against Search Engines, kindly read on…), but I keep it lower than Option 1 because there could be instances where I forget the address of both the home page and the intended page, our Search Engines come in handy when this happens. PeopleSoft did provide you this option with the Verity Search Engine.

Option 3 is good but not the “best” (According to me!), because it is only a while before “My Favorites” gets clogged making it unreadable and unusable. PeopleSoft provides this option. I want them to look at the next.

Option 4 is the “best” option available (According to me! I insist this because applications should cater to the needs and requirements of all users). You can achieve this in PeopleSoft if you remember a variety of components that form the building blocks of a PeopleSoft url (Not very attractive!). I see two ways in which this can be implemented.

  1. When we log on to PeopleSoft application we see a standard DHTML Tag containing the links to “Home” and “Sign Out” options. PeopleSoft can add an address box to this along with a “Go” button and let the user type the address of the page that he wants to visit. The user can type in “LEV_REQUEST” and access his Leave Request page. Fortunately the PNLGRPNAME field is unique. PeopleSoft can do this by a combination of SQLEXEC and a simple transfer function on the Field Change event of the button “Go”. The page will not load if the user does not have proper permissions to access the component.

  1. The other option is to enable our application server to accept a parameter from the address url and manipulate on it to determine the page intended by the user. Eg: To access leave request component (LEV_REQUEST), the user types in the url as https://lev_request.my.peoplesoft.com/, where the standard url used by the user to access the application is https:\\my.peoplesoft.com and the component which he intends to access is LEV_REQUEST. I’m not certain about this option being viable as I’ve NEVER done network programming neither do I completely understand the way the Web Server and App Server function. I only believe that it is possible.

Am I done? No not yet, there is one more function which I desire, “Remember my Password” option. Although my password manager can do this, it would be of great help if the Application can provide me with this option. I’m certain that the “classical” Security experts will not agree with this, but this is MY requirement.

If I ever succeed building an ERP (MY ERP), I’ll ensure these features are packaged with it.


Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Customization Analyzer Purpose Clarified

Introduction

The PeopleSoft Compare process delivered by PeopleSoft provides a reliable and efficient method to compare the online objects in PeopleSoft database. The results of the Compare are provided to the end-user in .PRT format (prior PeopleTools 8.46, from 8.46 the Compare process results in generation of .XLS and .XML files). The output file obtained from PeopleSoft Compare is often cumbersome and difficult to understand. The output file lists the objects in alphabetical order rather than the desired Classification of objects into Customer Added objects, Customer Modified Objects etc. The output file created will only contain one object per file and the classification of objects (Custom Added, Custom Modified…) is not readily recognizable to the user. The report generated by this utility helps us overcome all these pit-falls in the PeopleSoft Compare process. In addition the Customer can add any additional documentation to each of his Customizations. A sample output for the utility is available in the following link,

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=17Rgi8

This document outlines the benefits of the Customization Analyzer utility. The document is segmented into three categories depending on the application area of the utility.

Ø Customization Tracking
Ø PeopleSoft Upgrade
Ø PeopleSoft Patch Application


Ø Customization Tracking

The utility can be used to track and document all the customizations made to online PeopleSoft objects. The Customer can document all the Customizations made to his PeopleSoft system. The report generated by the utility is in a user friendly format. The Customer can review all his Customizations from a single Excel document. All the functional documentation can be added to the report, which will help in decision making for an upgrade to a newer release. It facilitates the process of identifying Customizations which are not required i.e. from the report generated the Customer can obtain all the objects created by him where he will be able to identify Customizations which are no longer required in the production.

Ø PeopleSoft Upgrade

The utility aids the process of Upgrade Assessment where the effort required for the upgrade is estimated based on the number of Customizations available on the Customer’s Production environment. The utility also provides a Gap Report which identifies all the Obsolete Modified Objects i.e. the objects which were modified by the Customer in an older release of PeopleSoft that were deleted by PeopleSoft in the new release. The Gap Report aids the Functional Consultants in identifying the Gaps that have occurred between the PeopleSoft releases. The utility helps the Upgrader to delete all the Obsolete Modified Objects by toggling the “Take Action” flag in the PeopleSoft Database.


Ø PeopleSoft Patch Application

The PeopleSoft process for application of patch projects to the production environment requires the Customer to apply patches to Demo instance initially and then Compare and Copy to the production. In this scenario it will be useful to document all the objects affected by the application of patches. The Customer has the flexibility to document all Customizations affected by the application of patches and he can also document the objects omitted (objects that were delivered with the patch and not applied to the Production) by him in his patch application.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Want to be an Enrepreneur? Disclaimer: I'm just advising and will not take responsibilty for anybody's failure

Its been a year since I started working and my Enrepreneur instinct has been growing rapidly. But I know for certain that instincts do not lead you anywhere. I've hated working under somebody. I dedicate this post to the millions of wanna-be Enrepreneur in my country ( Pardon me for being country specific, you will know the reason at the end. Disclaimer: Could be useful in other countries too!!!!!).

*** under-grads -- refers to students pursuing their under-grads

The software industry has taken a shift in its course compared to the past decade. Think about an induvidual wanting to start a software services firm in the 90's. He could have been successful with some hard work and luck. But the situation is different now. If you are a start-up services company, you might probably loose the battle (Disclaimer: Unless you know somebody like Larry Ellison!!!!). So the way to go about it is to start a Product based company. Now if you succeed in making a good product, it doesn't neccessarily mean you can sit back and relax. You should have been bruised by the time you accomplish your goal of building a product (I mean financially!! Disclaimer: Not if you are Bill Gates.). Then waiting for the people in the market to come to you and purchase your product (could be a lot more painful).

Now let me analyze the situation in my country. The under-graduate curriculum is not very punishing in my country. A large number of my friends who left to the USofA tell me that their post-graduation requires them to do a lot more work in terms of assignments(Some kind of Home work which will prevent you from playing your favorite Computer games like Max Payne, Mafia, COD etc....). But even after so much more (comparitive) effort required to finish their assignments all these buddies of mine work part-time!!!!! It just stuns me, may be I could have worked full-time in an organization during my under-graduate program. This is the energy which all the budding Entrepreneur's must tap. I can obviously hire a few of these under-grads to develop a product for me. Ohh Ohhh!!! then what about the knowledge that comes with experience!!! I did build a couple of products without knowing the basics of programming (Claim: The code is way too efficient). I did this only with the help of "Google Search"(- I cannot live a single day without it!!!). This should be our target as budding Entrepreneurs tap the under-grads when they have a lot of energy and can be hired at dirt rates. A service based company cannot do this as the CLIENTS of that organization will start doubting the capability of the organization!!!!(Whatever that means)

The next consideration is that Entrepreneurs do not want under-grads with dirt IQ(Although they need them at dirt rates!!!). In this country there are other considerations too, I can stick a poster for Job vacancy outside my organization, but our under-grads will not respond properly (Number of reasons for this: He thinks "Why should I search for a job?", "What if I don't get a job?"...). This is not a failure to our announcement. Instead, we will recieve a lot of applications from people who have completed their grads and know the answer for all the questions in an under-grads mind. When we recieve these applications be sure to close you shop and start writing down the reasons for your failure.

Do not Panic!!!!!! I have a suggestion to help you tackle this problem. Fortunaltely all the under-grads are exited about getting a job in their "Campus Recruitment" program. We can use this as an oppurtunity to conduct our "On-Campus Recruitment For Part-Time Jobs". Now we get under-grads at dirt rates and as a complement they do not have a dirt IQ.

Once successful this program will only improve the overall economy of our country. Students can start supporting themselves, Parents can start thinking about their Dream house.

No Rights Reseved: I do not want to reserve any rights to this post. Kindly make full use of the advice presented and make our country a better place to live in. ;)

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Oracle Fusion

I was uncertain with the way Orcl will be achieving its Fusion goal. But after reading the Blog of John Wookey, Orcl Exec Vice Pres. I better change my perception. This man has vision. One of the most important aspects of future ERP systems is going to be the powerful front office tools that form a part of the ERP system. Everyone of us is looking forward to this and John did talk about this in his blog. The other aspect which I never realized was the importance of training. John spoke about that too. He talked about future training systems as an on-project guide. This is important because I could be hiring a HR personnel because my organization has a vacancy for that position because the previous employee has left. The person who I hire for this role could satisfy all the requirements to fit that position but he might not have MY ERP experience. Hence a sophisticated ERP trainer is required. The ERP system must have a training instance, where the new employee can practice his job. Then when he works on the real system the system must be able to provide him suggestions/tips for his duties. He could be needed to recruit a new resource, for this when the user searches for "RECRUIT" or any word with this the system must provide all the links and suggestions. After the user goes into the proper page where he can hire an employee, the system should be able to walk him thruoghh the entire process of recruiting an employee.

This will save a lot of time. My organization will not face a downtime required to train the new employee.

But the reason why I did not look at the above mentioned training product could be that I was thinking that ERP could be far less compliated than the current systems.

Current ERPs being complicated is ofcourse agreed upon by other big fellows in the market. For reference read the link given below.

http://www.workday.com/today.html (By WORKDAY, started by Dave x-CEO of PplSft)

But I can still see a bright future for aspiring Entrepreuners, they can look at both the products mentioned above.

1. ERP Trainer.

2. ERP

I feel strongly it is just the beggining of a new era, where developers can aspire to control the future. Atleast for the last decade all the companies started in India were Consulting and Services based organizations. Now I personally know a lot of a ERP companies started in India, although they are small with some guidance and proper goals they should be able to achieve what non of the service based organizations in India could dream of.

Disclaimer: The views mentioned above are strictly mine, I do not expect anybody to concur with it.

With Regard to my earlier post, I have recieved complaints that the Customization Analyzer.zip is in a format which is not extractable.

To make life simpler I'm posting the links where you can download the non-zipped files,

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=0tfLFGv (This is the application. I have changed the file extension to be ".doc", kindly change this to ".exe")

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=P9pZdIlM (This is the help file.)

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=D5bPSlfN (This is the ActiveX component required by the application. For further information read the help document. I've again changed the extension of the file from ".ocx" to ".doc". Kindly do the reverse)

For any further information contact, nextrevolutioninerp@yahoo.com.

Monday, January 09, 2006

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

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Demo Version Of Products

The Customization Analyzer Demo version is currently available for Download. You can download it from the SideBar. You can also Download it using the hyperlink provided below.

The current Demo Version comes with a help document which will walk you through the process.

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=SM6IHla5

People have been asking me the benefits of this utility. Let me get to the point, if you are doing an upgrade, this is your dream Tool. You will now the pain involved in documenting the Customizations and getting proper Customer Feedback.

If you are applying a patch then you could have objects which are delivered with the patch. Now you will need a report instead of the PRT, so run the Tool against the Demo database where you have applied the patch, run a comapare, Run the Tool with Comapre Type = Full Compare. To Test the demo version of this Tool you will need to have records, fields and record fields in your patch project.

If you want to see a sample report then use the link given below.

http://www.fileul.com/view.php?file=17Rgi8

Kindly add a comment when the links expire (It expires once the Download limit exceeds), so that I can upload the file again. Thanks.

I value your suggestions and feedback.