Up and Running with HCM 9.2 on PT 8.54 via PUM "Demo Image"

Yes, you read that correctly. PUM is the new demo image. According to MOS Doc ID 1464619.1 "As of HCM 9.2.006, the PeopleSoft Image and PeopleSoft Demo Image have been combined into one PeopleSoft Update Image. You can use the PeopleSoft Update Image for both your patching and demonstration purposes." If you are current on your PUM images, you probably already knew that. If you are like me, however, and haven't downloaded a demo image for a while, then you may have been looking for demo images on the old MOS demo image page.

Since I use the image for prototyping and demonstrations, I turned off SES and reduced the memory requirements to 2048 MB. It is working great at this lower memory setting.

There are a lot of new and great features in the PT 8.54 PUM:

• Attribute based branding,
• Component Branding (add your own CSS and JavaScript to components without hacking a delivered HTML definition)
• REST Query Access Service,
• Mobile Application Platform (MAP), and
• Fluid homepages

Tip: Access the fluid homepages by visiting the URL http://<yourserver>:8000/psc/ps/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/NUI_FRAMEWORK.PT_LANDINGPAGE.GBL. For example, if you have a hosts entry mapping your PUM image to the hostname hcmdb.example.com, then use the URL http://hcmdb.example.com:8000/psc/ps/EMPLOYEE/HRMS/c/NUI_FRAMEWORK.PT_LANDINGPAGE.GBL.

Accessing Database Photos from Query Access Service

I have been working with the PeopleTools 8.54 REST Query Access Services. I would absolutely LOVE them if they returned JSON instead of XML. With a little help from x2js I am able to work around this "shortcoming." One specific challenge I faced was accessing image data. For example, with PeopleSoft query I can see who has photos in PS_EMPL_PHOTO, but I can't see the actual uploaded photo. With a little help from Oracle and a query expression, however, I can convert the photo blob into base64:

SELECT UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO))
  FROM PS_EMPL_PHOTO
 WHERE EMPLID = 'KU0003'

The only problem with this approach is that Oracle database has a maximum size limit on data that can be encoded and most of the photos I have seen exceed that maximum. The way I chose to work around this limitation is to substring the blob and encode it in fragments. I create a separate column for each fragment, and then concatenate them together in the REST client. Here is some sample SQL from a PeopleSoft query. Each of the CASE statements is a query expression.

SELECT
    CASE
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 1455 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, 1455, 1)))
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) <= 1455 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO))
    END AS C1,
    CASE
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 2910 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, 1455, 1456)))
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) <= 2910 AND DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 1455 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) - 1455, 1456)))
    END AS C2,
    CASE
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 4365 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, 1455, 2911)))
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) <= 4365 AND DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 2910 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) - 2910, 2911)))
    END AS C3,
    CASE
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 5820 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, 1455, 4366)))
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) <= 5820 AND DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 4365 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) - 4365, 4366)))
    END AS C4,
    CASE
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 7275 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, 1455, 5821)))
      WHEN DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) <= 7275 AND DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) > 5820 THEN UTL_RAW.CAST_TO_VARCHAR2(UTL_ENCODE.BASE64_ENCODE(DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO, DBMS_LOB.GETLENGTH(EMPLOYEE_PHOTO) - 5820, 5821)))
    END AS C5
  FROM PS_EMPL_PHOTO
 WHERE EMPLID = 'KUL704'

On the client I use something like this:

var data = data:image/jpeg;base64," + columns.join("");

The end result is something like this (right-click to see base64 data):