Understanding Desktop Integration with ePerformance
To be evaluatedDesktop Integration is a common framework that orchestrates integration between Microsoft Office products and PeopleSoft application. ePerformance adopts this framework and provides two features around the integration with Microsoft Outlook:
Ability to add email content from Outlook directly to documents as performance notes in PeopleSoft.
Ability to track multiple dates in evaluations (documents) in PeopleSoft as tasks in Outlook.
During the evaluation process, managers enter notes to record performance information about their direct reports or people whom they are reviewing, and employees do so for themselves. In addition to being able to enter the notes manually by clicking the Performance Note icon in the PeopleSoft system, they can also insert performance notes from email messages in their Outlook applications.
Using the PeopleSoft menu add-in that is loaded as part of Outlook, users can add email content as performance notes for themselves (employees) or employees they select (managers).
Performance notes that are created through the Outlook integration are similar to the ones created in the PeopleSoft system. They both have a character limit of 8095 characters (Outlook content exceeding this limit is truncated) and support only plain text (rich text formatting, special characters and images in Outlook content are removed). For each note that is inserted from Outlook, the system appends the Sent from Outlook phrase at the end of the note.
Email attachments from Outlook are not supported; in other words, they are not available as part of performance notes.
With the availability of mid-period evaluation in which an employee’s progress can be tracked in various checkpoints, ePerformance provides a way to help managers and employees manage numerous due dates in their evaluations in the form of Outlook tasks.
The system sends data to Outlook to create tasks for employees and managers at various points in the performance process. Below are the events that trigger the various tasks to be sent to Outlook:
The document is created.
If the manager, employee, or both can update the final criteria document (as specified on the Process page of the template definition for the document), the system sends them a task for the criteria approval due date.
Both the manager and employee receive tasks for each checkpoint due date, if they are allowed to update checkpoints (as specified on the Process page of the template definition for the document).
Specifically, the manager receives a task for each checkpoint due date. The employee also receives a task if they have comments enabled in the role rules setup.
If the manager, employee, or both are authorized to complete the Track Progress step, the system sends them a task for the track progress completion due date.
User begins the evaluation in the manager evaluation (or complete self evaluation) step.
The system sends a task for the evaluation due date to each user who can update the evaluation (as specified on the General page of the template definition for the document).
User accepts a nomination request on the Pending Evaluation Requests page and a feedback document is created.
The system sends the nominee a task for the evaluation due date.
An Outlook task contains this information:
Subject
Subject text includes the role and name of the step in the appraisal process.
Status
The initial value is N, which stands for not started.
Priority
Valid values are High, Normal, and Low. The default priority for new tasks is High.
Due Date
This value is calculated using the due date setup from the template definition for the corresponding step.
Reminder Date
This value is calculated by subtracting the numeric value that is specified in the Reminder Days before Period End Date field on the ePerformance page from the due date.
Message Body
The email body include a secure URL to transfer user back to the associated document in ePerformance.
The system updates the status of tasks when these events occur:
When user clicks to complete a mid-period, final criteria or evaluation document, the status of corresponding tasks for the manager and employee will be set to Complete. For evaluation documents, the status change applies to all roles.
When manager cancels an evaluation document for an employee, the status of corresponding tasks for all roles will be set to Deleted.