Monday 18 September 2017

PeopleSoft- Fluid Dashboards

Introduction:
Dashboards can be accessed through content reference link and are primarily used for decision making. Dashboards give higher management decision support with high level views of team activities, key metrics and real time analysis.

Fluid Dashboards are counterpart to Classic Dashboard and has the ability to extend them to FLUID tiles allowing access to key information from mobile devices and are introduced with PT8.55.
They are highly role based and provide the summary of visual information and performance. They are easy to configure and appear anywhere in menu structure. Users can personalize dashboards according to their needs and will have the information at their fingertips.

Business Benefits:
  • Fluid dashboards are simple and intuitive to use.
  •  Provide an easy way for the user to access key information and gives seamless user experience across multiple platforms.
  •  They can be optimized across multiple form factors. 
  • Provides end user personalization where users can personalize based on their day to day activities.


Similarities with Classis Dashboard:
  • Both the fluid and classic dashboards offers similar functionality e.g., both can be configurable and provides the summary of visual information and are role based.
  •   Definitions are stored in the portal registry accessed through the Structure and Content component


Differences with Classis Dashboard:
Pagelets are used to modify the objects in Classic dashboard whereas Tiles are used in Fluid dashboard.

Steps in Developing Fluid Dashboard:

Step 1: Dashboards are managed under Manage Dashboard Pages component and please find the navigation below.


Navigation: MainMenu > PeopleTools > Portal > Dashboard > Manage Dashboard Pages


Step 2: Provide the required details as shown below and save the page.



Step 3: New dashboard has been created in Fluid Dashboards section. Access the tiles property and select the necessary tiles to publish the content on the dashboard.

Note: By default, tile property is set to optional which makes the tile hidden from the user. In order to make the tile visible change the property to required and save the page as shown below.


Step 4: Access the dashboard from the parent folder where it was created. Below is the screenshot of newly created dashboard.



Step 5: To access the dashboard from homepage directly, click on actions list button and select add to homepage and select the homepage from which the dashboard needs to be accessed as shown below.





Limitations:
  • Unlike classic dashboards, due to some performance reasons, certain types of tiles are restricted for use on FLUID Dashboards only, and cannot be displayed on FLUID Homepages.


      Author: Lakshmi Deepak P
      Kovaion Consulting -PeopleSoft Practice
      Email: lakshmi.deepak@kovaion.com

Monday 11 September 2017

PeopleTools 8.56- Classic Plus

Introduction:
With the new release of PeopleTools 8.56, Oracle has introduced many features which take the User Experience to whole new level and Classic Plus is one amongst them.

Not all the components/pages can be  converted to fluid and Oracle has come up with a new feature in PT 8.56 called Classic Plus (Classic+) which converts classic pages to Fluid ones and thus brings unified look and feel within PeopleSoft.       

Business Benefits:
  •  Improves end user experience exceptionally when the user switching between classic and fluid pages.

 Development Benefits:
  • Reduces amount of rework drastically as the page layout will adjust automatically in Classic Plus compared to changing the component property to fluid mode.

 Best Practices:
The following steps are recommended to make use of Classic+ feature for the application.
  •  Enable global Classic Plus setting in Branding System Options.
  • Enable “Apply Fluid like theme for Classic” in Style tab at component level.
  • Test the page layout and adjust whereever necessary.

 Development of Classis Plus:

Step 1: Enable global Classic Plus setting in Branding System Options.


Navigate through Navigator -> PeopleTools -> Portal -> Branding -> Branding System Options and select Theme Style Type as Fluid like theme for Classic under Classic Components sections and click on save as shown in the screenshot below.

Let us take an example of Personal Data page of converting from classic to fluid using Classic+ feature.

Personal Data page before enabling Classic plus:


Step 2: Open the component in application designer and enable Fluid like theme for Classic option under style tab and save the component as show below.



Personal Data page after enabling Classic plus:


Limitations:
  •  The feature is limited to look and feel only and the classic plus pages are not as responsive as Fluid pages.
  • Rework on some page layout adjustment may be required for complex pages as this feature changes the size of objects.
  •  Though it is a small and simple change, users will not be able to enable as it requires a customization at component level.
      Author: Lakshmi Deepak P
      Kovaion Consulting -PeopleSoft Practice
      Email: lakshmi.deepak@kovaion.com