PeopleSoft Technology Blog

PeopleTools Strategy is pleased to announce the availability of upgrade scripts for the 8.50 release of PeopleTools. So for those of you wanting to upgrade to PeopleTools 8.50, now it is possible. Please follow the links below to get more information (My Oracle Support login required):

(Link for Tools 8.50 upgrade page:)
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&id=889204.1&type=NOT

(Link for Tools 8.1x to 8.50 upgrade page:)
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&id=889174.1&type=NOT

Those of you who avidly watch OTN and eDelivery will have noticed a new addition to the Oracle VM Templates site, the availability of PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 and PeopleTools 8.50 virtual machines. Here's a link:
Oracle PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 and PeopleTools 8.50.02 (64-bit only)
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/vm/templates/peoplesoft.html

These templates are pre-configured for demonstration and other non-production purposes only, but deliver a "quick start" PeopleSoft HCM system. The PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 system is packaged with Oracle WebLogic, Oracle Database and Oracle Enterprise Linux.

We have also set up a landing page to encourage community interaction and discussion: http://wiki.oracle.com/page/Community+Support+Resources

Please download, join the community and contribute your experience.

Enterprise Portal customers running 8.9-9.0 who are considering upgrading to PeopleTools 8.50, please consider the following:

PeopleTools 8.50 has been released in Sept 2009, bringing exciting new capabilities for PeopleSoft application customers including Enterprise Portal. For customers looking to leverage the capabilities of PeopleTools 8.50 with their existing Enterprise Portal deployments, the they must wait for PeopleTools 8.50 UA (upgrade availability). The PeopleTools 8.50 upgrade UA will provide customers with scripts that can be used to upgrade existing applications running on prior releases of PeopleTools to PeopleTools 8.50. This is called a PeopleTools only upgrade of PeopleSoft applications. Oracle will provide fixes required to run the Enterprise Portal with the 8.50 PeopleTools release, after the PeopleTools 8.50 UA is available. These fixes will be posted to the Oracle Support site. Customers will be required to apply these fixes once they have upgraded the PeopleTools to 8.50 on the Enterprise Portal application. Look for announcments of PeopleTools 8.50 UA.

We have been talking with customers and partners, and other interested parties (of whom there are many!) about the possibility of putting in place something to allow them to do in a more organized way what they have already been doing, collaborate!

PeopleSoft Projects is the place.

PeopleSoft Projects is based on a repository hosted by Collabnet, but which subscribes to Oracle.com authentication. So your OTN user ID and password will get you access. Bookmark the link when you access the PeopleSoft Projects site, so you can easily return to the home page. We have some branding fronting the general UI of samplecode. Have a look around samplecode anyway, there are some interesting non PeopleSoft related projects out there already. samplecode is another hidden gem!

From the PeopleSoft Projects home page you can link to category areas for PeopleTools, HRMS, FSCM, CRM, and Campus We also have a general area for those projects which don't neatly fit in the other areas.

When you've submitted your project or code sample, please send the link to it to the PeopleSoft Projects admin at peopletools_ww@oracle.com We want to make sure the links to those projects and code samples are available on the category home pages. There are upgrades planned for the samplecode site which will make additional features available to the PeopleSoft Projects site in the future.

We welcome any suggestions you have to extend the feature set and usability of the site, please send your comments and suggestion to the admin email address above.

PeopleSoft Projects uses Subversion for project management, there are links on the category home pages for the command line client and some useful GUIs.

If you're registering for an OTN account for the first time, don't forget to click on the Subscriptions link (top right hand corner of the OTN page) and check out the newsletters available, including Critical Patch Update notifications.

NOTE: The PeopleSoft demo pods are in Moscone South, not Moscone West.
If you're going to be at OpenWorld, don't forget to visit us at the Demo Grounds in Moscone South. PeopleTools people will be in booths S-113, S-114 and S-116 and below is a table listing all the PeoplSoft booths
(use "Edit>Find on this page" or Control-F to search the list)

Product Knowledge Area	Demo ID - Title	Track
Order to Cash Plan to Produce Order Management Inventory Cost Management Product Configuration Manufacturing Planning Fulfillment	S-119 - PeopleSoft Order-to-Cash & Plan-to-Produce Solutions	Supply Chain Management
Asset Lifecycle Management Maintenance Management IT Asset Management Real Estate Management Asset Management	S-120 - PeopleSoft Asset Lifecycle Management Solutions	Financial Management
Project Management Project Portfolio Management Staffing Program Management Resource Management Project Costing	S-123 - PeopleSoft Enterprise Service Automation Solutions	Project Portfolio Management
Travel Expenses Payment Processing Invoicing eSettlements Accounts Payable	S-121 - PeopleSoft Expenses & Invoices to Pay Processing	Financial Management
Credit-to-Cash Credit Collections Billing Accounts Receivable eBill Payment	S-122 - PeopleSoft Credit-to-Cash Solutions	Financial Management
General Ledger Treasury Financial Control & Reporting Compliance Financial Gateway Enterprise Performance Management	S-124 - PeopleSoft Financial Control and Treasury Solutions	Financial Management
PeopleTools Performance Security Enterprise Portal Infrastructure Lifecycle Management	S-113 - PeopleSoft PeopleTools	Applications Tools and Technology
PeopleTools Integration Broker Web Services Integration Service Oriented Architecture	S-116 - PeopleSoft PeopleTools Integration Technologies	Applications Tools and Technology
PeopleTools Reporting BI Publisher (XML Publisher) Crystal PSQuery nVision	S-114 - PeopleSoft PeopleTools Reporting Solutions	Applications Tools and Technology
Customer Service Customer Support Field Service Marketing Sales Order Capture Multichannel Communications Online Marketing	S-115 - PeopleSoft Marketing, Sales, and Service Solutions	Customer Relationship Management
Procure to Pay Purchasing Requisitioning eProcurement Catalog Management Services Procurement eSupplier Connection Supplier Enablement	S-117 - PeopleSoft Purchasing and Procurement Solutions	Sourcing and Procurement
Spend Analytics Spend Management Strategic Sourcing Supplier Contract Management	S-118 - PeopleSoft Strategic Spend Management Solutions	Sourcing and Procurement
Core HR Payroll (NA and Global) Benefits	S-127 - PeopleSoft Human Resources Solutions	Human Capital Management
Absence Management Time & Labor	S-128 - PeopleSoft Workforce Management Solutions	Human Capital Management
Workforce Communications HR Self-Service HelpDesk for Human Resources	S-125 - PeopleSoft Workforce Engagement and Service Delivery	Human Capital Management
Recruiting Performance Management Succession Planning Compensation Learning Management Profile Management Career Development	S-126 - PeopleSoft Talent Management Solutions	Human Capital Management

Today we are pleased to announce the general availability of PeopleSoft Portal Solutions 9.1, the primary component of which is Enterprise Portal. The PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1 release continues our strategy that began with release 8.8: that of providing functionality beyond just a portal framework. PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal offers a rich set of functional Web 2.0 features, which distinguishes it from conventional framework portals. In addition to new framework improvements and benefits accrued from PeopleTools 8.50, we have added functional features to the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal--especially in Collaborative Workspaces--that will enable you to introduce Web 2.0 concepts and practices into your enterprise with a resulting improvement in effectiveness, efficiency, and profitability. PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1 is focused on these key areas:

• Enhanced Web 2.0 features
• Improved user experience

It's not possible here to list all of the enhancements but the following lists most of the major new features.

Enhanced Web 2.0 Features

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal contains many Web 2.0 capabilities. Collaborative Workspaces--which is a set of features that come with PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal--supply the majority of those capabilities.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 9.1, along with PeopleTools 8.50, also introduces an exciting innovation that allows business analysts to provide collaborative services in their PeopleSoft application pages. Now users can work collaboratively in the context of the business data, in their PeopleSoft application pages, without having to go to a portal or collaboration workspaces. More importantly, the collaborative content is contextually tied to the business data and always available to the users of these applications.

PeopleSoft Enterprise portal 9.1 will provide these important new features:
• Wikis
• Blogs
• Tagging (also known as Social Bookmarking)
• Feeds (ATOM) publishing
• Related Discussion
• Tagging
• Links services

The new features when combined with existing Web 2.0 features provide a comprehensive Web 2.0 platform. These include:
• Discussion forum
• Document management
• Community Calendaring
• Action items
• Polling

These features, along with the inherent, delivered integration with PeopleSoft applications, make PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal a strong platform to support your PeopleSoft-focused business processes as well as those that require external or other content.

Enhanced User Experience

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal is delivered on PeopleTools 8.50. This will give Portal some important usability improvements. Among the most notable:
• Partial page/pagelet refresh. (Content in a single pagelet can be refreshed without refreshing everything in the Portal. This improves performance.)
• Drag-and-drop pagelets. Now users will be able to arrange the layout of their portal by simply dragging pagelets to their desired location.
• Composite UIs/Mashups delivered via Related Content framework
• Improved search.
• Contemporary styles

Downloading

PeopleTools 8.50 is now available for download through Oracle Electronic Product Delivery (EPD) and the Oracle Store. Check EPD for specific platform downloads, which are updated regularly.

Reference Material

PeopleSoft Portal Solutions 9.1 Documentation Home Page on My Oracle Support (Doc ID 887960.1)

Haven't been able to find all of those really interesting PeopleTools sessions in the sea of goodness that is OpenWorld?

Check out ... FOCUS ON APPLICATIONS TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGY (PEOPLETOOLS) http://www.oracle.com/ocom/groups/public/documents/webcontent/033233.pdf (scroll down past the general sessions to get to the individual PeopleTools related sessions) Even the last page of this document has something of interest! We have an Unconference session, way to be avant-garde! "PeopleSoft Web Services setup in PeopleTools 8.50 for WS-Security And SAML" on Monday 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Floor 3 Overlooks. (meet the PeopleTools security developers)

Check out the other PeopleSoft sessions. Remember PeopleTools 8.50 and PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 are both GA now so expect a lot of up to the minute information!
See the Oracle Press Release.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Financial Management (PDF)
http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/033232.pdf

PeopleSoft Human Capital Management (PDF)
http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/033435.pdf

PeopleSoft SCM and SRM (PDF)
http://www.oracle.com/us/openworld/034448.pdf

Historically we had the view that properly configured firewalls and proxies would protect against intrusion. As direct attacks became more prevalent, technologies like Intrusion Protection Systems and Intrusion Detection Systems were introduced. However, as more and more "threat unaware" users are provided with access internally, the perimeter is disappearing. People take the work laptops home or on engagements and, without other controls, there is no limit on the sites they can access outside the corporate domain. In many cases people inside the domain have access to the Internet to "help" them work more efficiently. People are also using multiple email services. If you consider that after nearly 20 years of media coverage, people are still being caught by the 419, advance fee fraud, scams. In the corporate environment, even with constant internal notification, users will click on links they shouldn't, or visit those too good to be true malware sites, for example, "Turn your CD drive into a DVD burner and copy DVDs with this free software!" People have also learned to click the "Accept" or "OK" button on security or certificate notices without understanding the impact, other than they can keep going.

What is happening is that the owner of the malware site uploads the code after the browser user clicks "OK". This code can be binary that runs as a service or every time the workstation is started or BHO to run in every browser session. Once the code is running, it calls out to the malware site owners site on a "safe" port like 80 which is generally open outbound on most protected sites. This connection to port 80 opens a session for the malware site owner to control the target system which is inside the firewall and so the malware site owner can either automatically or manually upload additional code without the browser user being aware. The malware site owner also has the capability to scan the rest of the systems inside the firewall for other unprotected or susceptible systems.

This view of security compromise is known as de-perimeterization. The Jericho Forum from the Open Group has created awareness around this http://www.opengroup.org/jericho/deperim.htm
"... today's traditional approaches to securing a network boundary are at best flawed, and at worst ineffective"

This is a recent blog entry I posted - http://blogs.oracle.com/peopletools/2009/02/the_insidious_threat_the_hacke.html

Note: I do not have the link to the "Turn your CD drive into a DVD burner and copy DVDs with this free software!" site!

Additional References
PeopleSoft Enterprise supports Oracle 9i [and above] Advanced Security Option
https://support.oracle.com/CSP/main/article?cmd=show&type=NOT&id=763255.1
"... PeopleSoft is pleased to announce that PeopleSoft Enterprise now supports Oracle 9i Advanced Security Option (ASO). We have had numerous requests from customers for this support and have recently completed the testing necessary for us to certify the use of ASO with Enterprise applications. Customers interested in using ASO can do so with any version of PeopleTools that supports Oracle 9i (PT 8.1x, PT 8.2x, and PT 8.4x)."

Oracle Database Security Checklist
http://www.oracle.com/technology/deploy/security/database-security/pdf/twp_security_checklist_database.pdf

Project Lockdown - A phased approach to securing your database infrastructure
http://www.oracle.com/technology/pub/articles/project_lockdown/project-lockdown.pdf

Oracle Adaptive Access Manager
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/id_mgmt/oaam/pdf/wp_oaam.pdf

Some more great news: PeopleSoft HRMS 9.1 is now generally available. Customers can start downloading it from the Oracle Electronic Product Delivery (EPD) site now. Physical shipment delivery will be available on October 1.

There are numerous activities are planned for the upcoming HR Tech and Open World conferences.

To find out more, check out the following site:

• PeopleSoft HCM 9.1 Documentation Home Page on My Oracle Support here

also ...

Check out the PeopleSoft Information Portal
The PeopleSoft Enterprise Information Portal provides customers with a single entry point to locate the documentation, training, and other useful information they need to help with their implementation process and improve their daily experience with our products.
PeopleSoft Enterprise software offers many information solutions to help our customers succeed. By using our popular PeopleSoft Enterprise Information Solution data sheets, customers can easily access information and links to PeopleBooks, Documentation Updates, Instructor-Led Training, Online Classes, User Productivity Kits (UPK), Self-Study CDs, Certification Programs, and other helpful information.

Update on "Got PeopleTools enhancements?" posting

You may have seen that we are looking to gather as many great ideas as possible and let you, the customer/partner/consultant, tell us what the best ideas are. So if you have a great idea, please join the PeopleTools Strategy group on Oracle Mix at https://mix.oracle.com/groups/18611? and enter your idea so that others can review it and vote on which ones are the best. If you feel your idea is not ready to be voted on or if you would like us to submit it on your behalf, even anonymously, please email your idea to peopletools_ww@oracle.com.

The best ideas will be discussed in the "Got Enhancements for PeopleTools" OOW session scheduled for Wednesday, October 14th from 1:00 - 1:30 PM.

Check out the ideas, vote on those you like or suggest your own.