PeopleSoft Campus Community 9.0 Fundamentals PeopleBook

Setting Up Affiliations

This chapter provides an overview of affiliations setup, lists prerequisites, and discusses how to:

Define affiliations.
Define affiliation status.
Define affiliation rankings.
Map institution departments to affiliations.

Understanding Affiliations Setup

Affiliations is designed to enable institutions to create and track the roles or relationships that a constituent may have simultaneously with an institution. The configuration of business rules to create and assign these affiliations will vary from institution to institution. Setting up the affiliations feature enables each institution to tailor the specific affiliation code, create a hierarchical structure for the affiliation code, and specify how the affiliation code is managed, either manually or through application-specific transactional events.

Affiliation setup relies on PeopleTools Integration Broker, Constituent Web Services messaging, and an Affiliation Engine. There are two main concepts to consider when implementing affiliations for your institution:

Define your requirements.

The user needs to understand what changes in the Campus Solutions system will trigger an affiliation. These are usually data changes driven by PIA pages or batch programs. In addition, consider what conditions will trigger the assignment and removal of an affiliation.
Implementation of the Integration Broker message and triggering code.

When you create an affiliation, you will write PeopleCode that determines – based on the information in the message contents and possibly data in the database – whether a constituent will be assigned an affiliation or whether the affiliation will be removed.

The PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Affiliations Developer's Guide contains detailed information about web services in general and affiliation setup examples.

Steps for setting an affiliation in the system

There are five high-level steps to set an affiliation:

A constituent's information is changed in the system.

This change might result from an applicant applying online, an administrator updating a constituent's information, or from a batch program that updated a constituent's records.
As a result of the information changes, an integration broker message is fired.
The affiliation framework listens to the Integration Broker message and adapts it to a constituent object so that the Affiliation Engine can understand and process it.
The Affiliation Engine evaluates the constituent object and determines whether, based on the institution's rules, an affiliation should be assigned or removed.
If an affiliation was assigned or removed, the system sends a constituent message to notify downstream processes that utilize affiliation data.

Affiliations functionality enables your institution to create and manage detailed, complex relationships with the people in your Campus Solutions system; it does not replace existing Relations with Institution functionality in Campus Community or Constituent Types functionality in Contributor Relations.

Prerequisites

Before you can set up or use Affiliations functionality, your institution must enable Constituent Web Services. There are also more technical setup prerequisites, such as defining services and configuring Integration Broker; these steps are covered in the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Affiliations Developer's Guide.

Defining Affiliations

This section discusses how to:

Create affiliation codes.
Setting triggers.

Pages Used to Define Affiliations

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Definition	SCC_AFL_TBL	Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Setup, Definition	Define affiliation codes and the hierarchical structure of those codes.
Trigger	SCC_AFL_TRGR	Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Setup, Trigger	Define simple events that trigger the system to determine whether to assign or remove an affiliation.

Creating Affiliation Codes

Access the Definition page (Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Setup, Definition).

The PeopleSoft system delivers two predefined affiliation code examples: Alumni and Recruiter. The application class and the triggering event information is already set up for these codes. You can not only define the details of an affiliation code but assign it a place in a hierarchy. Hierarchies of affiliation are designated with the Root Indicator and Children Indicator check boxes.

Application Class	Enter the application class assigned for this affiliation code. The Application Class field is available on the last node or leaf of the hierarchy, at the lowest level. The class is created in App Designer and contains the implementation logic or transaction validation logic for the specific affiliation code. The system uses the class defined here to determine which affiliations are set and not set for a person. The PeopleSoft system delivers two application class templates. Each template file name ends with "_template": Alumni Affiliation code: ALUMN_TMPL Application class: SCC_AFFILIATIONS:IMPLEMENTATION:Alumni_template Recruiter Affiliation code: RECTR_TMPL Application class: SCC_AFFILIATIONS:IMPLEMENTATION:Recruiter_template Information on how to define application class logic is contained in the PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Affiliations Developer's Guide.
Sponsoring Department	The department that is responsible for creating the affiliation code. Note that this field is informational only. Note. Root and child affiliations codes can each have their own sponsoring department; child affiliations do not necessarily need to inherit the sponsoring department of the parent affiliation code.
Root Indicator	Select this check box to indicate that the Affiliation Code is at the highest level of the affiliation hierarchy. Clear this check box to indicate that the code is a branch within the hierarchy of the specific Affiliation Code. If there are no children for this code, you must specify the application class here.
Children Indicator	Select this check box to indicate that for the specific Affiliation Code, additional nodes or children exist below this branch in the affiliation hierarchy. When this check box is selected, the Application Class field is no longer available at this level of the hierarchy, and the Child Affiliations group box appears, where you can define and view children of the affiliation. If no root or child indicator box is selected, the affiliation code is at the lowest level, and you must define implementation logic here (the application class).
Manual	Select this check box to indicate that the affiliation code can be assigned and end dated only manually. When you select the check box, the system removes the capability for a user to add an affiliation class and also applies a dummy event for triggering the affiliation as part of its definition. There is no underlying PeopleCode logic that determines whether the affiliation code can be assigned or end dated for triggering events. Because there is no logic associated with the affiliation code, the code cannot be used as part of affiliations batch processing and has no triggering events.

Warning! It is strongly recommended that you do not create affiliation hierarchies such that an affiliation code is dependent on another affiliation code, as it will create sequencing problems during affiliation processing.

Child Affiliations

You can enter child affiliations in two ways: click the Add Child Code link to actually create the child affiliation code or select a Child Affiliation Code, if one has already been defined.

Add Child Code	Click this link to create a new individual child affiliation code (on a second Definition page). After you create and save the child affiliation code, the system returns to the original Definition page and the Child Affiliation Code becomes available to be selected and assigned.
Child Affiliation Code	Select an existing code to assign to the child level of the affiliation at the institution.

Single-Level Hierarchy Example

In this example, the Root Indicator check box is selected and the Children Indicator check box is clear. This specifies that there are no additional subcategories or children associated with this affiliation code. Since this is the lowest level in the hierarchy, the application class is entered here to define the transactional logic.

Two-Level Hierarchy Example

In this example, the Root Indicator check box is selected and the Children Indicator check box is selected for the parent/root affiliation. This specifies that the root has additional subcategories or children associated with it. When you select the Children Indicator check box, you can then enter an associated Child Affiliation Code that has already been defined.

The lowest level of a hierarchical affiliation does not have the check boxes for either Root Indicator or Children Indicator selected. In a two-level hierarchy, the child of the affiliation has no indicator boxes checked and the Application Class field contains the actual affiliation application class value.

Three-or-More-Level Hierarchy Example

In this example, both the Root Indicator check box and the Children Indicator check box are selected for the parent/root affiliation code. This specifies that the root has additional subcategories or children associated with it. When you select the Children Indicator check box, you can then define or enter an associated Child Affiliation Code that has already been defined.

For the middle-level affiliation codes, the Root Indicator check box is cleared and the Children Indicator check box is selected. This specifies that the affiliation code is not the root and it has additional subcategories associated with it. When you select the Children Indicator check box, you can then enter the associated Children Affiliation Code that has already been defined for this affiliation code.

The lowest level of a hierarchical affiliation does not have the boxes for Root Indicator or Children Indicator selected. These are left clear and the Application Class contains the actual affiliation application class value.

Setting Triggers

Access the Trigger page (Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Setup, Trigger).

Add the Event Name, registered through the Constituent Event Registration component, that associates the application class with a constituent management service operation for the affiliation code. There are two delivered triggers that correspond to the system-defined affiliation templates for Alumni and Recruiter. These are:

Alumni: SCC_AFL_ALUMNI_CHANGED
Recruiter: SCC_AFL_RECRUITER_CHANGED

Defining Affiliation Status

This section discusses how to set up affiliation status details.

Page Used to Define Affiliation Status

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Affiliation Status Setup	SCC_AFL_STTS_SETUP	Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Status Setup	Define the statuses to be assigned to affiliation codes.

Setting Up Affiliation Status Details

Access the Affiliation Status Setup page (Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Status Setup).

An affiliation status of Active, Inactive, or Error can be set for various reasons. The fields on this page enable you to further clarify a specific status that provides additional meaning to all three affiliation statuses: Active, Inactive, and Error.

You cannot delete an affiliation, but you can make it inactive.

Preferred

Select this check box to indicate that a status' description should be the default value to appear on affiliation pages, when that status is selected.

Defining Affiliation Rankings

This section discusses how to assign rankings to affiliation codes.

Page Used to Define Affiliation Rankings

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Affiliation Ranking	SCC_AFL_RANKING	Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Ranking	Manually assign a five-digit ranking to an affiliation code, per institution.

Assigning Rankings to Affiliation Codes

Access the Affiliation Ranking page (Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Affiliation Ranking).

This page enables users to assign a numerical rank to all tiers of an affiliation, both root and children. There is no logic attached to the rankings that you assign.

Note. Multiple affiliation codes can have the same ranking.

Mapping Institution Departments to Affiliations

This section discusses how to map departments to institutions.

Page Used to Map Institution Departments to Affiliations

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Institution Department Mapping	SCC_AFL_INS_DEP	Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Institution Department Mapping	Map departments with no institution key to an affiliation.

Mapping Departments to Institutions

Access the Institution Department Mapping page (Set Up SACR, Common Definitions, Affiliations, Institution Department Mapping).

This page is used for affiliation codes, based on data model structures within Campus Solutions, that are not keyed by institution but rather by department (such as employee). These codes enable the user to map such a department to an institution for use within the affiliation framework structure.