JSON Stream Processing with PeopleCode

Our Integration Tools courses emphasize the importance of utilizing PeopleSoft's native JSON support to parse and process JSON. This feature provides excellent functionality for most scenarios, as PeopleSoft's native JsonObject and JsonArray offer fast and efficient JSON processing. They are particularly useful for generating small integration responses or handling tasks like JWT (JSON Web Token) generation.

It's important to note that PeopleSoft's native JSON definitions employ a DOM-based parser, which builds an in-memory JSON structure. While this is effective in many cases, it does require your server to have enough memory to accommodate the entire JSON document without impacting its normal workload. Large files, therefore, can be problematic.

Stream-based parsing provides an alternative approach. With a stream-based parser, events are emitted as they occur, enabling immediate processing of data identified by these events. Once processed, the parser discards the data and proceeds to the next event. For instance, let's consider a scenario where you have a massive array of users. A DOM parser would load the entire array into memory, whereas a stream-based parser would only load one user at a time, allowing you to process the user and then discard it. Stream-based parsers are often more efficient in terms of resource utilization, as they process and discard data right away instead of constructing a traversable in-memory document.

Although PeopleCode itself doesn't include a stream-based parser, it does include the Java Jakarta stream-based JSON parser, which we can leverage through PeopleSoft's built-in Java support. Let me share an example with you. For testing purposes, I obtained a sample JSON file from https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users. This file is small and perfect for testing. I then incorporated the following PeopleCode into an App Engine step, which you can run locally through App Designer:

REM ** JavaDoc: https://jakarta.ee/specifications/jsonp/2.0/apidocs/jakarta.json/jakarta/json/stream/jsonparser;
REM ** Data: https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/users;
Local JavaObject &Json = GetJavaClass("jakarta.json.Json");
Local JavaObject &reader = CreateJavaObject("java.io.FileReader", "C:\temp\users.json");
Local JavaObject &parser = &Json.createParser(&reader);

Local string &email;

While (&parser.hasNext())
   Local JavaObject &next = &parser.next();
   
   If (&next.equals(&next.START_OBJECT)) Then
      
      Local JavaObject &user = &parser.getObject();
      
      REM ** do something with the object;
      &email = &user.getString("email");
      MessageBox(0, "", 0, 0, "email: %1", &email);
   End-If;
End-While;

Here is some sample output generated by this short App Engine program:

email: Sincere@april.biz (0,0)
 Message Set Number: 0
 Message Number: 0
 Message Reason: email: Sincere@april.biz (0,0) (0,0)

email: Shanna@melissa.tv (0,0)
 Message Set Number: 0
 Message Number: 0
 Message Reason: email: Shanna@melissa.tv (0,0) (0,0)

email: Nathan@yesenia.net (0,0)
 Message Set Number: 0
 Message Number: 0
 Message Reason: email: Nathan@yesenia.net (0,0) (0,0)

email: Julianne.OConner@kory.org (0,0)
 Message Set Number: 0
 Message Number: 0
 Message Reason: email: Julianne.OConner@kory.org (0,0) (0,0)

Are you interested in learning more about PeopleSoft Integration, PeopleTools, Or PeopleCode? If so, check out our subscriptions, on-demand, and upcoming course schedule. We would love to have you join us!

Customization Versus Configuration

During PeopleSoft Reconnect 2023, I posted a LinkedIn poll asking if Event Mapping is a Customization or a Configuration. Here is the final tally:

To apply maintenance faster and more often, we must reduce customizations, and configurations are the best alternative to customization. But how would you define a customization? How about a configuration?

Customization

My friend Graham Smith got it right in the poll comments when he said, "The definition of customisation is the changing of a delivered object." 100% correct. If you change a delivered definition, that change will appear in a compare report. If it appears in a compare report, you must analyze and retrofit that change. It is this "analyze and retrofit" effort that delays and even derails Get-current projects. But what if that "change" to a delivered definition happens at runtime through injection rather than design time through a direct code change? Is it still called a customization if the change happens at runtime?

Configuration

This is where it gets tricky. Are Event Mapping, Drop Zones, and Page and Field Configurator configurations? They certainly facilitate configuration. But true configuration is an application-specific construct. Take data masking as an example. We can mask data through Event Mapping and Page and Field Configurator. Masking in this manner requires code that identifies component buffer fields. What if PeopleSoft removes those fields from the component buffer? Our solution would then fail. We might consider this a configuration because we didn't change Oracle-delivered code at design time. Alternatively, we could call it a customization because we changed Oracle-delivered code at runtime.

A true data masking configuration alternative is the Data Privacy Framework, which allows analysts to configure data masking across the application.

One way to think of it is, "who is responsible for fixing the solution if it breaks?" If the answer is Oracle, then it is a configuration. If the answer is you, then it may be a customization.

Isolated Customization

Think of an Isolated Customization as if you isolated your customization from Oracle's delivered codebase and configured PeopleSoft to reinject your customization at runtime. This describes Event Mapping, Drop Zones, and Page and Field Configurator. The value is that your customization no longer shows in a compare report because you have not modified Oracle's delivered code... or have you? Does the point of injection matter? Put another way, does it change the classification if you inject your modification at design time or runtime?

With the introduction of Event Mapping we also might need to see customization as "additional (custom) code to the delivered code." -- Malik Chagani

So here are my tests to help categorize items:

• Does it show on a compare report? Customization
• If it breaks, is it my responsibility to fix it? Customization or Isolated Customization
• If it breaks, is it Oracle's responsibility to fix it? Configuration

Customization, Isolated Customization, or Configuration... why does it matter?

• Customizations appear on compare reports. We must analyze and retrofit every customization. It is this effort that stalls Get-Current projects.
• Isolated Customizations don't show on compare reports but have the potential to break when applying maintenance. We must analyze and retrofit Isolated Customizations when they are broken. The challenge with Isolated Customizations is finding them since they don't appear on compare reports.
• Configurations are not supposed to impact maintenance. You should be able to get current without touching configurations.

What do you think? How do you handle Customizations, Isolated Customizations, and Configurations? Let us know in the comments!

At JSMpros, we regularly teach a course called Configure, Don't Customize, with hands-on activities showing you how to apply dozens of Configuration and Isolation strategies. The table of contents is available online at jsmpros.com.

Base64 Encoding with Emoji

PeopleSoft's Pluggable Encryption Technology (PET) is used to apply base64 encoding. The first step of the base64 algorithm chain is to convert from PeopleSoft Unicode to ASCII. The conversion makes sense since PeopleCode is a Unicode language, and the base64 algorithm is not. But what if you have Unicode characters you want to base64 encode? So I tried the following "Hello World" example with emoji:

&crypto.UpdateData("Hello World 🤔");

Unfortunately, the PET algorithm dropped the Unicode Emoji. Understandable because Emoji is Unicode. So, what alternatives do we have? The good news is my older PL/SQL approach still works. However, my older Java example no longer works. So, for those who want a cross-platform solution, here is an updated PeopleCode/Java code listing. The good news is this version is documented and much simpler!

REM ** What would you like to encode?;
Local string &textToEncode = "Hello World 🤔";

REM ** Pointer to Java encoder;
Local JavaObject &encoder = GetJavaClass("java.util.Base64").getEncoder();

REM ** Be sure to change the character set to match your source;
Local JavaObject &bytes = CreateJavaObject("java.lang.String", &textToEncode).getBytes("UTF-8");

Local string &result = &encoder.encodeToString(&bytes);

REM ** print the result;
MessageBox(0, "", 0, 0, &result);

At JSMpros, we teach advanced PeopleTools concepts such as this all the time! Check out our events page to see what we are offering next, and become a subscriber to get 24x7 access to all of our on-demand videos, activity guides, and code samples!

PeopleSoft ReConnect 2023

Join me at PeopleSoft Reconnect 2023 for some amazing sessions covering a variety of PeopleTools Topics:

• Wednesday, Oct 25, 7:30 AM Pacific: PeopleSoft Integration Strategies
• Thursday, Oct 26, 8:30 AM Pacific: Getting the Most out of PeopleSoft PeopleTools: Tips and Techniques
• Thursday, Oct 26, 09:45 AM - 10:45 AM Pacific: Moving from Customized to Configured, Make it Your PeopleSoft

Be sure to add these sessions to your agenda, and keep an eye on the schedule, as sessions are subject to change. Event details and registration are available on the Quest PeopleSoft Community website.

See you online on Monday, October 23 for Paco's executive session, the first session of the conference!

Stop Retrofitting and Analyzing Every Customization!

When applying maintenance, we must retrofit every customization. And we will have to continue analyzing and retrofitting as long as we have customizations. The process involves running Compare Reports to identify changes, analyzing customizations, and copying/pasting our old solutions into Oracle's new code base. Occasionally, we must alter a customization to account for Oracle's changes. My point is that we must touch every single customization identified in a Compare Report. The alternative is modern isolation strategies, such as  Page and Field Configurator, Event Mapping, and Drop Zones. We call these isolated customizations because changes are isolated from Oracle's delivered code base. They don't appear in Compare Reports. But should they still be analyzed? Do they require retrofits? Do they break during maintenance?

Without a Compare Report, how do you find isolated customizations? Do you need to find them? We have been discussing this lack of transparency since Event Mapping was released in PeopleTools 8.55. In fact, we've written SQL to help you locate code that includes Event Mapping that was touched by maintenance. But do we need to review every isolated customization? Here is an example. In 2016, I used Event Mapping to change the appearance of the Addresses Page. Notice the iconography next to the Home and Mailing Address in the following screenshot:

I haven't touched this isolated customization in 7 years. That is 7 years and possibly 21 "Get Currents" without a single care for this Isolated Customization! And then, I applied HCM PUM 46. Here is the result:

I've Waited 7 years for this to happen! Shouldn't a compare report have caught this? No. That is the point of an isolated customization. Our code is isolated from Oracle's code. Therefore, there is no Compare Report. But as you can see, sometimes our code still breaks after maintenance.

So what is the solution? How do we identify isolated customizations that broke while applying maintenance? Regression Tests. The solution to this challenge is the PTF Regression Test. Each time you create an Event Mapping, Drop Zone, or Page and Field Configurator solution, you should create a corresponding PTF regression test to prove your solution still works. A PTF Regression Test would have caught the error message and instantly failed the test. I would then analyze and retrofit just this one broken solution, not every single system change.

Compare Reports for Event Mapping, Drop Zones, and Page and Field Configurator? Do you really need them? Wouldn't a proper Regression Testing strategy save you hours, even days, of analysis by avoiding report reviews?

At JSMpros, we teach developers and business analysts how to create PTF Regression Tests through our two-day PeopleSoft Test Framework course. Find out when we are offering it next, or learn at your own pace through on-demand!

"Technical Details" in Page and Field Configurator

I've had this challenge with Page and Field Configurator: 

Some components include the same field but on different records. When selecting fields, Page and Field Configurator shows the record and field, but when viewing the configuration grid, the record name is hidden.

But there is a new-ish feature in Page and Field Configurator: The Configure Field Properties grid now includes a Technical Details tab!

We can now see the record, field, page, and Occurs level for each field in the configuration! It seems simple but has such a huge impact! No more guessing!

Want to learn more about Page and Field Configurator? Sign up for our next Configure, Don't Customize class at jsmpros.com!

Enabling Search Framework Real Time Indexing (RTI)

As we prepare our HCM PUM 46 training servers, we decided to enable Real Time Indexing (RTI). We found several great sample videos and resources but still made a few mistakes. We are sharing our adventure to help you as you implement RTI.

Before implementing RTI, we have a couple prerequisites. First, we must have a working Elasticsearch (OpenSearch) service. Second, we should have some indexes deployed. Since our training focus is PeopleTools, we usually deploy the PTSF_RECENTMENU and the PTPORTALREGISTRY indexes. To summarize the prerequisites, we need a:

• Working Elasticsearch (OpenSearch) installation and
• Deployed indexes

Elasticsearch (OpenSearch) does not store its data in the PeopleSoft database. Instead, we move data into the Elasticsearch (OpenSearch) index storage through scheduled batch processes. The point of RTI is to reduce latency by eliminating scheduling; get data into indexes as fast as possible: Enter data → Search for data.

RTI works by using the following:

• Triggers to insert rows into a staging table and
• A Process Scheduler server process that checks for new rows in the staging table

Enabling RTI is a multi-step process requiring:

• Process Scheduler-specific configurations and
• Index-specific configurations

Process Scheduler Configuration

Let's start with the Process Scheduler Server. Using the psadmin command, make sure Real Time Indexing is enabled, as demonstrated in the following screenshot:

This turns on the "watcher" process. On interval, the PSRTISRV service polls the RTI staging table, PS_PTSF_RTISTG, for new rows to process. We can tune the number of RTI instances through the psprcs.cfg file.

[PSRTISRV]
;=========================================================================
; Settings for Real Time Indexing watchdog
;=========================================================================
;-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Min Instances=1
Max Instances=1

We may configure the polling interval through the Search Instance Search Options Config (PeopleTools > Search Framework > Administration > Define Search Instances). The last several options relate to RTI:

The Heartbeat Interval determines how often the RTI process checks for new rows in the RTI staging table (PS_PTSF_RTISTG). The Real Time Indexing Set Size specifies how many rows to process on each interval. The point is to tune these two numbers for optimal performance. The shorter the interval, the closer to real time, but with a performance cost. The longer the interval, the less the performance impact. Too long of an interval, however, and the number of transactions per interval may exceed the Set Size threshold, meaning RTI may only clear the queue after hours, creating a larger backlog with each run.

As a side note, PeopleSoft queues transactions for RTI through database triggers. A bulk update to a triggered table may generate more transactions than RTI can clear in a single polling interval, creating a latency effect for online transactions. Given the default configuration parameters, PeopleSoft will index 300 transactions every 2 seconds. If we batch update 30,000 rows of data, we may have to wait 4 minutes before that data clears the queue. 300,000 rows of data? Roughly 35 minutes. With this in mind, we may want to remove an index from RTI before a batch update, run the update, re-enable, and then schedule an incremental build to catch up. That way, intermittent, unusual batch processing doesn't interfere with online RTI processing.

Index Configuration

After configuring server settings, we choose which indexes to enable. Navigate to PeopleTools > Search Framework > Configure Realtime Indexing to select an index. To start with, pick indexes that are Disabled. These are indexes that contain RTI metadata, making them trivial to enable. Indexes marked as Not Configured may be enabled but will require additional configuration before enabling.

In our demo environments, we enabled PTSF_RECENTMENU. To enable an index:

• Check the box Enable Real Time Indexing,
• Save, and
• Click the Trigger SQL link to download database-specific triggers.

When you click the Trigger SQL link, PeopleSoft will either open three new tabs or download three new files (it depends on browser configuration and registered handler for SQL files). The file name identifies the database: ora for Oracle, mss for Microsoft SQL Server, and db2 for DB2. If your browser opens them in new tabs instead of downloads, scroll to the end of the address bar to confirm the file name. This is where I made a mistake. I had so many open tabs that I didn't notice PeopleSoft opened three new ones. I only saw one and kept trying to run the DB2 script against my Oracle database.

Alternatively, as described by Ravi and Ramasimha in their Quest Recorded Webcast, we can let App Designer build the proper database triggers for us. I appreciate the App Designer integration because it ensures future record changes won't delete the RTI trigger scripts. It also means I don't have to log into a separate SQL tool or verify that I chose the correct database script.

After enabling RTI for an index, PeopleSoft recommends running a full or incremental sync to ensure all data exists in the target index. After that, you can cancel any scheduled run controls for that index, as RTI will now manage the incremental updates for that specific index.

Here are some great resources with additional information about RTI:

• Siva Koya's RTI YouTube Video
• PeopleSoft Tutorial
• Quest Recorded Webcast

Is RTI Really "Real time"?

Realtime usually means data automatically flows from one system to the next. Create data → Send data. If RTI were truly real time, each update would send immediately. But if you have up to 300 updates within a 2-second period, a real time interface would create 300 connections to incrementally send 300 updates. PeopleSoft's near real time approach, however, is a lot like App Engine's Bulk Update. Another way to think of it is that RTI is a shuttle with room for 300 passengers. A shuttle arrives once every 2 seconds to pick up however many passengers are waiting. This is far more efficient than sending up to 300 vehicles individually. And even better, through parameters, we can tune the interval and passenger count to achieve the best experience for our users.

Which Indexes Should You Enable?

We recommend starting with PTSF_RECENTMENU. This allows the portal search feature to suggest user and enterprise recent items within search results. Next, we suggest enabling indexes used by component keyword search so your users may view transactions immediately after creation.

At JSMpros, we teach PeopleTools concepts every week. Each student who attends a live training class receives a properly sized, personal training server with relevant PeopleTools and application versions for the duration of training. This is one of the ways we provide you with an unparalleled training experience! Check out our website to see what we are offering next!

Access all of our content anytime from anywhere through our all-access subscriptions. Check it out!

PeopleTools Learning Subscriptions

Are you looking to take your PeopleSoft Development skills to the next level? Look no further than our All-access Learning Membership.

With this membership, you'll gain access to a wealth of resources to help you improve your PeopleSoft Development knowledge and skills. From video tutorials to code samples and webinars, you'll have everything you need to become a PeopleSoft Development pro.

The membership also includes access to PeopleSoft experts, where you can ask questions and get feedback.

But what sets the All-access Learning Membership apart from other online learning platforms is its focus on real-world applications. You'll learn how to use PeopleTools to build practical, functional applications that you can use in your own projects.

And with new content added regularly, you'll always have something new to learn and explore.

So if you're ready to take your PeopleTools skills to the next level, sign up for the All-access Learning Membership at https://www.jsmpros.com/groups/all-access/. Your future self will thank you!

HIUG Interact 2023

User group conferences are a fantastic opportunity to network with and learn from peers. And we are just a few weeks away from the Healthcare PeopleSoft Industry User Group meeting Interact 2023! I am presenting my signature session, Getting the Most out of PeopleSoft PeopleTools: Tips and Techniques on Tuesday, June 13 from 9:30 AM - 10:30 AM in room Condesa 3.

See you there!

Eliminate Extra Spacing in JSON

PeopleCode's JsonObject and JsonArray are incredibly important to building a modern PeopleSoft integration, and we teach our students how to leverage them directly. Both have a ToString method that converts the internal object into a String perfect for integration. But the ToString method returns pretty-printed, nicely formatted, human-readable JSON output. This is fantastic for debugging and development! But it wastes valuable bandwidth and disk space with unnecessary characters. Computers ignore those extra spaces. Here is a trick we teach our students to help them reduce their JSON Payloads.

REM ** compress extra space;
Local JsonGenerator &jgen = CreateJsonGenerator();
Local JsonNode &root = CreateJsonNode();
Local string &json;

&root.SetJsonObject(&someJsonObject);
&jgen.SetRootNode(&root);
&jgen.SetPrettyMode( False);
&json = &jgen.ToString();

Got a JSON tip to share? Leave it in the comments. We would love to hear it!

At jsmpros, we teach Integration Tricks like this regularly. Be sure to check our schedule to see what we are offering next! Want to learn more, but at your own pace and in your own time? Check out our on-demand Integration Tools course and All Access Pass!

RECONNECT Live 2023 at Blueprint 4D!

Reconnect Live is just around the corner, and I'm looking forward to reconnecting with you and the rest of the PeopleSoft community. As you plan your schedule, here is a list of sessions I am presenting:

• PeopleSoft Integration Strategies: Tuesday, May 9, 2023, from 3:30 PM to 4:15 PM in Metropolitan
• Getting the Most out of PeopleSoft PeopleTools: Tips and Techniques: Wednesday, May 10, 2023, from 11:15 AM to 12:00 PM in Monet

Are you presenting? If so, share your session details in the comments. See you there!

Fluid Page Naming Conventions

Best practices are an essential part of our curriculum. When creating Fluid pages, we recommend the following page name pattern:

<site-prefix><purpose><page-type>

For example, when creating a Fluid subpage to manage widgets, we would name it JSM_WIDGETS_SBF. Here is a list of page-type suffixes derived from Oracle-delivered pages:

FL

Fluid Page

SBF

Subpage Fluid

SCF

Secondary Page Fluid

SFL

Side Page (1 or 2)

FFL

Footer Page

LFL

Layout Page

But four more page types aren't used enough to have a suffix pattern: Header Page, Search Page, Prompt Page, and Master&Detail Target Page. For those page types, we've come up with our own suffixes:

HFL

Header Page

SRF

Search Page

PFL

Prompt Page

MDF

Master&Detail Target Page

For the most part, the convention is easy to understand. First initial of page type, and then FL. But what about SRF? Where did that come from? There are four page types that start with the letter S. Adding the R after the S looked more like Search than any of the other options we considered.

With Classic already having the suffixes SEC, SUB, and POP, we have suffixes for every page type except Classic standard pages. Should we, therefore, adopt _CL for Classic pages? PeopleSoft uses exception-based design. For example, the page bar is on until you turn it off, and the standard component toolbar is on until you turn it off. Changing these properties would be exceptions. Naming conventions are no different. Our naming conventions document the exceptions. With over 12,000 Classic pages in HCM, Classic is clearly the norm, and everything else is an exception.

What do you think? Do you have different naming conventions you use for page development? If so, share your ideas in the comments!

At JSMpros, we teach PeopleSoft Fluid training and best practices regularly. We look forward to hosting you in a future class!

Does Event Mapping Apply to Content References?

Help! My Event Mapping code isn't firing! Because this happens occasionally, I have a simple debugging process:

1. Insert a "Hello World!" Message Box statement into my code. The point is to prove whether or not Event Mapping is properly configured. If I don't see the Message Box, then I know PeopleSoft ignored my code, and I may have a misconfiguration. If the MessageBox appears, then the configuration is correct, and the problem is in my code.
2. If the Message Box does not appear, the next step is to confirm the correct Content Reference. We apply Event Mapping through Content References. Selecting the wrong Content Reference will keep the code from executing. This is an easy mistake to make because several Content References use the same label. Sometimes the solution is a bit of trial and error, testing various Content References until we find one that works. We can also query PeopleTools metadata to confirm we selected the correct Content Reference.

Those two steps usually identify any issues. But this time was different. First, my "Hello World" Message Box did not appear. Second, I confirmed I was using the correct Content Reference. I was puzzled. What could it be?

As I dug through the metadata, I found something interesting! There were two Content References pointing to the same menu/component combination! The point of a Content Reference is to generate a unique URL fragment. PeopleSoft Component Content References use the menu, component, and market to generate that unique URL fragment. Have you ever tried to create two content references that point to the same menu/component combination? It doesn't work. PeopleSoft won't let you save until you make the URL unique. An old trick that developers use is to add Additional Parameters. A simple "X=X" is usually enough. Or in this case, it was "Tile=Y." (Note: While there may be a reason to create a redundant Content Reference, a better approach is usually to use a Content Reference Link).

Actually, finding redundant Content References is commonplace in today's Fluid Portal Registry. Fluid's framework components, such as Activity Guides, Dashboards, and Homepages require creating Content References that all point to the same menu/component combination, with Additional Parameters identifying uniqueness. We have done extensive research on Event Mapping and found this is normally not an issue. What we found is that applying Event Mapping to any one of those redundant Content References results in Event Mapping applying to all of the Content References. The example we use in our Event Mapping course is applying Event Mapping to Tile Wizard's runtime component.

This is what puzzled me with today's scenario. I already knew there were multiple Content References pointing to the same Menu/Component combination. I've repeated this many times without issue. If I apply Event Mapping to one of those redundant Content References, all exhibit the same behavior. But this time, nothing happened. Or more appropriately, the system didn't do what I thought it should do. Upon further inspection, I found that someone else had used Page and Field Configurator to apply Event Mapping to the other Content Reference. It appears that PeopleSoft properly found Event Mapping for the menu/component combination, but the configuration it found wasn't mine. It seems that Event Mapping queries the database for the first configuration. Mine happened to be second.

I find it interesting that we configure Event Mapping through Content References, not Menu/Component combinations. Based on my experience today, and the fact that we must apply a Menu to a Component Interface to leverage Event Mapping against Component Interfaces, it seems that Event Mapping really applies to Menu/Component combinations, not Content References. What if the Event Mapping configuration asked us to select a Menu, and then gave us a list of Components attached to that menu? What if we configured Event Mapping through Menu/Component combinations, not Content References?

• Redundant Content References would be irrelevant.
• We wouldn't have to create Content References against hidden components simply to apply Event Mapping.
• We wouldn't have to guess if we chose the proper Content Reference based on a label and a root folder.
• We would know for sure that we selected the correct Menu/Component.

With that in mind, I created a new Idea in the PeopleSoft Idea Labs. If you like this idea, please upvote, share, and leave comments.

At JSMpros, we teach Event Mapping regularly. Check out our website to see what we are offering next!

Did Event Mapping Break Your Update?

I love Event Mapping. But I have a concern:

The benefit of Event Mapping is that your customizations no longer appear on a compare report, and the problem with Event Mapping is that your customizations no longer appear on a comapre report.

I know what you are thinking: "Wait, didn't he just contradict himself?" Yes! Let me explain with a scenario:

Let's say you move a customization into Event Mapping. Later you apply an update. You run a compare report and see the beautiful "change/change" with no asterisks. Perfect! You have no customized code, and therefore nothing to retrofit. And then you test the upgraded system. And you find the system is broken. Since you have no customizations identified in the compare report, you should be fine, right? If this happened to me, my first thought would be that something is wrong with the update, and I would file a support ticket. But unfortunately, Oracle support can't replicate the issue. After escalation and further analysis, Oracle discovers that custom Event Mapping is causing the problem.

I share this scenario because it is possible, but it seems like a worst-case scenario. Does it really happen? Do custom, invisible event mapping "configurations" ever break an update/get current? It turns out they do! MOS doc 2798164.1 was posted in 2021 and demonstrates this scenario.

The problem with broken Event Mapping code is that it fails just like any other code, so we can't tell that the failure was caused by Event Mapping. Event Mapping is not a configuration. It is an isolated customization.

Event Mapping is amazing! But until Oracle provides us with LCM tools that identify potential Event Mapping issues, we must perform our own analysis. Here are some options to help you catch troublesome Event Mapping:

1. Use SQL in this blog post to create your own Event Mapping analysis.
2. Use PTF to create Event Mapping and Page and Field Configurator Regression tests.
3. Wrap Event Mapping in a try/catch block to log and notify.

We teach Event Mapping and PeopleSoft Test Framework regularly. Check out our website to see what we are offering next!

See you in St Louis for Alliance 2023!

The HEUG Alliance 2023 conference begins next month! I've been reviewing the schedule, and there are some incredible sessions on the agenda.

I am presenting the following sessions:

Monday, Feb 27th

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: PeopleSoft Fluid: Zero to Hero in 60 Minutes

1:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Getting the most out of PeopleSoft PeopleTools: Tips and Techniques

Tuesday, Feb 28th

9:00 AM - 10:00 AM: PeopleSoft Integration Strategies

See you there!