Parameterized Landing Page Section Templates

Dynamic Sections are a powerful feature of PeopleSoft’s modern Landing Pages that use App Classes to render data-driven results. Many sections, such as My Direct Reports, My Queries, My Expense Reports, and My Advisees, require no parameters, with each having its own App Class. But what if you want to leverage the same business logic across multiple sections? How would you pass parameters to your Dynamic Sections?

For example, imagine you are an Integration Broker administrator responsible for ensuring smooth operations across your PeopleSoft environment. You know how challenging it can be to keep track of integration queues, especially when operations get stuck in New status. Wouldn’t it be helpful to have a dynamic landing page section that automatically lists these problematic operations, complete with links to investigate each one?

Note: A dynamic section such as this one is perfect for an Integration Administrator Dashboard, but may not be a candidate for a consolidated Landing Page.

Here is a screenshot of my section configuration:

But just as important as messages stuck in New status are messages in Error status. It was while creating the "Messages in Error Status" dynamic section that I noticed the similarities. The code for the Messages Stuck in New Status and Messages in Error Status classes is nearly identical. In keeping with best practices, I applied the D.R.Y (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle and refactored that shared logic into a common base class. Here is what my class hierarchy looks like:

The base class declares an abstract property, and each implementation provides a value for that property. This is the beauty of object-oriented programming: shared logic and multiple implementations. But do you know what else we have? Multiple configurations. Each App Class will have its own section configuration. If we create Landing Page Section Templates, then we would have one template for each App Class.

Is there a way to parameterize the App Class or Section template so we can use just one App Class (IBMsgStatusLoader) and have it derive the desired status from a parameter? Yes, in fact, there is! At the bottom of a Section configuration, you will find Section Attributes:

We use Section Attributes to identify stylesheets and style classes. The delivered Landing Page API exposes these two specific attributes as section properties. But what about other Section Attributes? Can you define your own attribute keys? We traced it and discovered that Section Attributes are stored in the PSPTHPAGATTR table. We can access a section's attributes through the SQL:

SELECT PORTAL_ATTR_VAL
  FROM PSPTHPAGATTR
 WHERE PORTAL_NAME = :1
   AND PORTAL_OBJNAME = :2
   AND PORTAL_OBJNAME_PGT = :3
   AND PORTAL_ATTR_NAM = :4

We can extract a section parameter, therefore, using the following PeopleCode:

SQLExec(SQL.TRN_LP_SCTN_ATTR_VAL, &portalName, &tabName, &sectionName, &attributeKey, &attributeValue);

The Portal name, tab name, and section name are available in the Loader constructor through the &oTab and &oSection variables:

&m_portalName = &oTab.PortalName;
&m_tabName = &oTab.TabName;
&m_sectionName = &oSection.SectionName;

You may find a copy of our Parameterized Section Loader base class in our PeopleCode Templates GitHub repository.

What section templates would you like to parameterize? Leave us a comment to let us know!

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