I had hoped to be able to get the PeopleTools Testing Framework posts complete before I proceeded to installing the latest update patch for PeopleTools. After constantly reading that you need to update to the latest for PTF, I decided I was being silly, and I broke down and went through the update.
Here’s what I did:
This post is a follow up to this thread that I opened. Unfortunately, at this point, I haven’t figured out what I am doing wrong. If you see something, please comment either here or on the thread at Oracle Forums.
I am trying to install the Global Payroll Rules for 856737 and 857845 (both Non-Rule + Rule).
I found that I do this at this navigation: Set Up HRMS > Product Related > Global Payroll & Absence Mgmt > Elements > Manage Global Payroll Packages > Apply Rule Package:
I found a little documentation in PeopleBooks.
Then, I put in the path to my scripts directory, saved, and clicked process.
It said the scripts were not found:
But, as far as I can tell, the scripts are in the directory!
Just for kicks and grins, I copied the DAT files into the same directory:
Still no luck!
My next attempt is the try to see if case matters. The files are in lower case in the directory, but on the page the Package ID is uppercase.
That still doesn’t work because it must be an uppercase field:
My problem was the “/” at the end of path. Once I added the “/” it worked!
Then, when I clicked process, it ran the data mover script:
I have seen several articles on the next version of PeopleTools. So, here are the links. The best date I have seen so far is Quarter 3 of 2011.
Articles:
While upgrading PeopleTools, one of the steps you have to go through is running this PTIBUpgrade Data Mover script. It took me a bit to figure out what the values are for the script.
This ITToolbox Thread helped a little bit.
There are 3 values that you have to change in this script. These are the values that I used:
The namespace is the option that confused me the most. According to PeopleBooks, “The namespace field on the Service pages provides qualification for attributes and elements within a WSDL document. The value defined in the Service Namespace field in the Service Configuration page is used as the default service namespace on the Services page. The default value is http://xmln.oracle.com/enterprise/tools/service.”
If you have better suggestions for the values to use, please comment!
Resources
Thanks to this post on StackOverflow, I learned a new trick with diagnosing TNS Names issues. First, you need to download this tool called Process Monitor from SysInternals.
Installing the program is pretty easy. Simply unzip the program and place it in a good location such as the Program Files directory:
I always like to create a shortcut in the Start Menu. If you right click on the Programs menu in your Start Menu, you can choose the open option to open it. Then, drag with your right mouse button, and you can drop a shortcut in your start menu:
Once you have Process Monitor installed, you can use the filter to narrow it down to show where it is looking for tnsnames. Here is what I found that works:
Add the process name for the process that you want to check. Use psdmt for Data Mover. pside for App Designer. PrcsAppSrv for the App Server launched by psadmin.
Then, if you put tnsnames in for the Path it will show where it is looking for the tnsnames file.
This tool works great for all kinds of situations. I have also used it to diagnose other connection issues. I found it was loading the wrong Oracle client on one installation. I found it was looking in the registry in the wrong place for Tuxedo settings because I had the wrong version.
So, this is a great tool that will help with troubleshooting.
Resources
I needed SYSDBA privileges in order to extend a data file, and I could not make that happen for some reason. I felt rather silly when I figured it out. I’ve got to write it down in case I ever need to come back to it.
First, I opened SQLPlus without logging in:
sqlplus /nolog
Then, in SQLPlus, I tried to connect using OS authentication with SYSDBA access. Here’s the command:
connect / as sysdba
The only response I could get was:
ERROR: ORA-01031: insufficient privileges
I jumped through hoops trying to change the password for sys. I regenerated the file password file. Nothing helped. Finally, I ran across this post that led me to check the OS group. All I had to do was put my Windows User into the Windows group for database administration.
I opened the start menu and right clicked on “My Computer”. Then, I chose Manage from the menu. In the Manage utility I went to “Local Users and Groups”, then I clicked on the Groups folder. In the groups folder I double clicked on the “ORA_DBA” group to open the properties. On the “Members” tab, I added my Windows username to the list.
From there, the connect worked fine. To complete the story, here’s the resize SQL that I used:
ALTER DATABASE TEMPFILE '<path to file>\pstemp01.dbf' AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5M MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
For me, the temp space was causing me trouble. If you want to use a regular tablespace, the syntax is similar:
ALTER DATABASE DATAFILE '<path to file>\<data file>' AUTOEXTEND ON NEXT 5M MAXSIZE UNLIMITED
These days the 32-bit / 64-bit Windows situation is quite frustrating! We need everything to be either 64-bit or 32-bit. This half and half stuff makes things challenging.
This post is just a quick note to remind you (and me) that even though you are running 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Oracle database, the PeopleTools on Windows is still 32-bit. Data mover and the App Server both require a 32-bit database client to talk to the database.
If you don’t install a 32-bit Oracle client, you may get an error that reads something like this:
PS General SQL Routines: Missing or invalid version of SQL library PSORA (200,0)<
Resources:
Again, I did not attend this session, but I did listen to it afterward. Here are just a few thoughts.
You can view their mobile site here: https://m.fiu.edu. It worked fine for me even in Chrome on my laptop.
I noticed they said they only supported WebKit-based browsers, which covered 95% of the browsers. I didn’t catch if they used any HTML5 features. He mentioned that Blackberry is Webkit, so they are included. From the statistics, most of their traffic was from iOS devices, mainly iPhones.
Another feature I caught was that there are no graphics involved. That can’t be totally true because for example on the home page, there is a little icon next to the menu items. The look and feel is very nice though, and they have done an excellent job with their CSS3 usage.
I thought it was cool to see that they were using Google Analytics to track the usage of the site. I wonder if anyone else is using Google Analytics in a PeopleSoft scenario like maybe on self-service pages within PeopleSoft.
The fact that they were planning native apps was interesting to me. The mobile sit seems so robust. What are the benefits to having a native app that makes it worth the effort?
His steps were very helpful. Here are the steps he said:
I wasn’t able to catch this session live, but I have started going back through the sessions i missed to see what I can glean. Several things stood out to me.
The HRMS/CS split is a big deal. The TAG is very involved in this process. I also gleamed from the questions and atmosphere that there is a lot of uncertainty and angst surrounding the split. One of the things that was lacking was any mention of who was jumping in and trying the different options.
Another cool thing that caught my ear was the community source initiative. I have heard about several development efforts that have been shared between institutions, but no organized sharing method exists. I would love to get involved with this sharing of the code, but so far, it has eluded me. I just ran back across Grey Sparling’s Code Repository, and they have started down this path. It would be cool to see an official place from Oracle. It would be cool to have something like an App Store with both free and paid solutions.
I thought it was cool that TAG was making an effort to get the institutions using the new features. One easy way to frustrate a programmer is to ignore a new tool he has created that he thinks is the next sliced bread. I also thought the slight mention of getting everyone to PeopleTools 8.50 was interesting. The balancing act is waiting long enough to give people time to implement yet at the same time you want to start using your new features in applications and such.
Another interesting mention was Oracle Fusion. I still don’t quite understand how it comes into play. Is there some sort of roadmap for getting the Fusion tools integrated with PeopleTools?
The menu is one of the biggest visual differences in PeopleTools 8.5x. What I didn’t realize at first was that it was optional.
Here’s the navigation to the setting: PeopleTools > Portal > General Settings
This is what the old style looks like:
To flip the option, I just saved the Settings page, and all I had to do was log out and back in.
Now, to make it look nice, you need to switch to the Swan Stylesheet. You can do that on PeopleTools > Utilities > Administration > PeopleTools Options. Notice the heading looks better with the menu this way:
Surprisingly enough, I didn’t have to restart the web server or app server. I just had to log out and log back in and it looked like this.
Another thing to note is that the menu at the top works differently between PeopleTools 8.50 and PeopleTools 8.51. In 8.50, you click once to open the menu, and you just hover over to the menu folders to make them open and show their contents. In 8.51, you have to click on each folder.
Also, as I understand it, when you upgrade an older tools release, the left hand menu stays active. So, you have to intentionally choose the new drop down navigation for an upgrade. When you do a new install from scratch in Tools 8.5x the Drop Down navigation is default.
Resources
Grey Sparling Solutions: Navigation Changes in PeopleTools 8.51