Understanding the PeopleSoft Online Help and PeopleBooks

You access the PeopleSoft Online Help on Oracle’s PeopleSoft Hosted Documentation website, which enables you to access the full help website and context-sensitive help directly from an Oracle hosted server. The hosted documentation is updated on a regular schedule, ensuring that you have access to the most current documentation. This reduces the need to view separate documentation posts for application maintenance on My Oracle Support, because that documentation is now incorporated into the hosted website content. The Hosted Documentation website is available in English only.

If your organization has firewall restrictions that prevent you from using the Hosted Documentation website, you can install the PeopleSoft Online Help locally. If you install the help locally, you have more control over which documents users can access and you can include links to your organization’s custom documentation on help pages.

In addition, if you locally install the PeopleSoft Online Help, you can use any search engine for full-text searching. Your installation documentation includes instructions about how to set up Oracle Secure Enterprise Search for full-text searching.

See PeopleTools 8.53 Installation for your database platform, “Installing PeopleSoft Online Help.” If you do not use Secure Enterprise Search, see the documentation for your chosen search engine.

You can access downloadable PDF versions of the help content in the traditional PeopleBook format. The content in the PeopleBook PDFs is the same as the content in the PeopleSoft Online Help, but it has a different structure and it does not include the interactive navigation features that are available in the online help.

Common help documentation contains information that applies to multiple applications. The two main types of common help are:

• Application Fundamentals

• Using PeopleSoft Applications

Most product lines provide a set of application fundamentals help topics that discuss essential information about the setup and design of your system. This information applies to many or all applications in the PeopleSoft product line. Whether you are implementing a single application, some combination of applications within the product line, or the entire product line, you should be familiar with the contents of the appropriate application fundamentals help. They provide the starting points for fundamental implementation tasks.

In addition, the PeopleTools: PeopleSoft Applications User's Guide introduces you to the various elements of the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture. It also explains how to use the navigational hierarchy, components, and pages to perform basic functions as you navigate through the system. While your application or implementation may differ, the topics in this user’s guide provide general information about using PeopleSoft Applications.

PeopleSoft documentation includes definitions for most fields and controls that appear on application pages. These definitions describe how to use a field or control, where populated values come from, the effects of selecting certain values, and so on. If a field or control is not defined, then it either requires no additional explanation or is documented in a common elements section earlier in the documentation. For example, the Date field rarely requires additional explanation and may not be defined in the documentation for some pages.

The following table describes the typographical conventions that are used in the online help.

PeopleSoft Online Help topics use International Organization for Standardization (ISO) country and currency codes to identify country-specific information and monetary amounts.

ISO country codes may appear as country identifiers, and ISO currency codes may appear as currency identifiers in your PeopleSoft documentation. Reference to an ISO country code in your documentation does not imply that your application includes every ISO country code. The following example is a country-specific heading: "(FRA) Hiring an Employee."

The PeopleSoft Currency Code table (CURRENCY_CD_TBL) contains sample currency code data. The Currency Code table is based on ISO Standard 4217, "Codes for the representation of currencies," and also relies on ISO country codes in the Country table (COUNTRY_TBL). The navigation to the pages where you maintain currency code and country information depends on which PeopleSoft applications you are using. To access the pages for maintaining the Currency Code and Country tables, consult the online help for your applications for more information.

Information that applies only to a specific region or industry is preceded by a standard identifier in parentheses. This identifier typically appears at the beginning of a section heading, but it may also appear at the beginning of a note or other text.

Example of a region-specific heading: "(Latin America) Setting Up Depreciation"

Oracle customers have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.

For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.