PeopleTools 8.62 is packed with many productivity features and improvements, including PeopleSoft Landing Page, smart prompts/drop downs, global search, and so much more. In this post, though, I plan to focus on productivity improvements to Content Reference Administration. Why do you ask? Let’s dive in.
What is a content reference (CREF)? And why should you care about the latest improvements?
Content references are configurations used behind the scenes in several navigational elements such as fluid homepages, dashboards, tiles, navigation collections, and so on. You may have heard the terms portal registry and structure and content. They refer to the pages used to manage content references.
As you can see below, we can navigate the portal registry using the ‘Structure and Content’ page and find content references under a specific folder path.
When we add or edit a content reference, we access the ‘Content Reference Administration’ page.
Now let’s get to why you should care about the 8.62 improvements content reference administration?
Have you seen the PeopleTools 8.62 release highlights video here? Have you heard everyone go gaga over the new PeopleSoft Landing Page design?
If you are one of the lucky people tasked to design and craft a Landing Page for your organization, you will spend a lot of time on content reference administration (Fluid Structure Content > Fluid Homepages). That’s why it will be super helpful to familiarize yourself with the following features.
1. Content Reference – ‘Save As’
The new ‘Save As’ feature enables you to quickly copy (clone) an existing homepage (CREF object under Fluid Homepages) and give it a new name. You would use the homepage ‘Save As’ if you want to take a backup of an existing Homepage before you make changes iteratively, clone a homepage we deliver to make it your own, etc.
Note: The ‘Copy Object’ button that existed previously was built for a different use case. This will only allow you to copy the CREF object over to another portal.
2. View in New Window
If you tab over to ‘Section Assignments’ page – used to assign tiles to specific sections and configure a range of other options, you will now see a ‘View in New Window’ button! This button will enable you to open the current homepage (CREF) in a new window. Why did we create a new button instead of using the component-level pagebar property to enable the new window link? This is because the new window link on the pagebar will open the current component (CREF administration) in a new window. In this case, we want to open the current Homepage (CREF) in a new window.
‘View in New Window’ will be very useful as you make styling and layout configurations for your homepage iteratively.
Additionally, I love the fact that the ‘View in New Window’ button will also trigger a save before opening the homepage in a new window!
3. Optional Longer Title for Tiles
As you design your Landing Page experience, if you find that you need a longer tile label beyond the available space in the CREF label (30 characters), then you can use the new ‘Optional Longer Title’ in the Fluid Attributes page.
If the tile is rendered on a standard homepage, then the tile width may need to be adjusted to display the entire text.
If the tile is rendered on a homepage that implements the new 8.62 homepage styling (psc_hpmodel-A), then the entire text will be displayed as follows. You can then make other styling adjustments as necessary at the section or tile level.
Bonus topics (4 & 5): Now, I am going to cheat a little bit and talk about a couple of existing features. While these are not new in 8.62, they will come in very handy as you design your Landing Page!
4. Browse Image Catalog
If you are not familiar with this, you should know there is a nice image browsing capability available when you select an image for a tile or a section (section images are new in 8.62). You can search for SVG images and preview how they look.
Additionally, you can use the ‘Show Alternate Backgrounds’ option to view white images, which are not visible on the default white background.
5. Creating Style Sheet and Image Objects
As you design your Landing Page, you might eventually find the need to quickly create a style sheet object to override some of the delivered css variables or upload an image object to use as the tile/section image. You can use the Branding Objects page to do just those things without requiring access to Application Designer.
That’s it for now. Stay tuned for more posts on PeopleTools 8.62!