Understanding Diagnostics Framework

The Diagnostics Framework is a set of delivered classes and plug-ins that enable you to capture detailed information for troubleshooting PeopleSoft application issues.

A diagnostic plug-in is an application package, which is developed following the diagnostic plug-in standard. An application package is a container for application classes or other application packages. Developers use the Application Designer to create application packages that are treated as diagnostic plug-ins by the framework.

PeopleTools delivers Diagnostics Framework base classes in an application package called PT_DIAGNOSTICS, which consists of a collection of application classes as well methods which can be used to develop application packages for the Diagnostics Framework. After implementing and registering the application package within the Diagnostics Framework, the application package becomes a diagnostic plug-in.

The Diagnostics Framework enables you to define and retrieve application data diagnostics from a PeopleSoft database within the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) environment. With this diagnostic information, you can:

  • Discover problematic application-related data.

  • Explore setup details.

  • Present information to Oracle support in a common format.

Using Diagnostics Framework, you can perform diagnostic tests on your system with minimal instructions from the Oracle support. These tests answer application-specific questions to help development and user support teams diagnose and troubleshoot problems that you may be experiencing.

The tests can request additional parameters to tailor the diagnostics to your situation. They output HTML pages that you can open using any supported browser, and XML documents containing the same information in a form suitable for programmatic processing. You can email the HTML or XML documents to an application expert.

Note: Diagnostics Framework is not designed to be a reporting tool, such as Query Reports. Diagnostics Framework should not be used to return large amounts of data. Use it only to get small sets of diagnostic data, for example 100 rows of data or fewer.

Diagnostics Framework includes:

  • Delivered base classes in application packages.

  • Delivered application diagnostic plug-ins developed from the base classes and application packages.

  • The capability to extend delivered base classes to develop additional diagnostic plug-ins and to register the new plug-ins.

  • A common user interface for all diagnostic plug-ins.

Note: Oracle support might give you additional plug-ins to diagnose specific problems. These plug-ins are implemented differently from the plug-ins that you develop.

Diagnostics Framework is installed automatically when you install PeopleTools. Use standard PeopleSoft security administration to grant access to the user interface.

See Setting Up Security for Diagnostics Framework.

Application Classes

By definition, each application class is responsible for asking one diagnostic question. Each class has a method that is called by Diagnostics Framework. This method, in turn, gathers the information and calls methods in extended base classes that return the information to Diagnostics Framework

Diagnostic Plug-ins

Application packages that are used in the Diagnostics Framework are referred to as diagnostic application packages. Each is a collection of application classes and methods encapsulated within an application package. The metadata that defines a diagnostic application package is referred to as a diagnostic plug-in. In this documentation, we refer to diagnostic application packages as diagnostic plug-ins or simply as plug-ins.

Diagnostic plug-ins probe the application for diagnostic information. When you perform diagnostic tests on your PeopleSoft system, Diagnostics Framework executes programs within these plug-ins and then returns the information from those programs in an HTML or XML document. These plug-ins can supply a consistent method of gathering relevant diagnostic information from your system.

These are the categories of diagnostic plug-ins:

Diagnostic Plug-In Type

Description

Delivered

Delivered diagnostic plug-ins that are automatically installed when you install PeopleTools and PeopleSoft applications.

The available diagnostic plug-ins depend on which applications you have installed. Appropriate plug-ins are automatically available after your application installation is complete.

Post-Release

Post-release diagnostic plug-ins that Oracle support might send to you for specific diagnostic purposes.

You import these plug-ins to Diagnostics Framework using Application Designer.

Custom

Custom diagnostic plug-ins that you develop.

You must register custom plug-ins before you can use them.

Note: If you want to register existing plug-ins from other Oracle Enterprise PeopleSoft releases, you must ensure that they're defined according to the guidelines used for custom plug-ins in the current release.

All registered plug-ins appear in the Diagnostics Framework user interface. Delivered plug-ins are grouped according to installed PeopleSoft applications and functional areas within the applications. From here, you can select which plug-ins to run. An Oracle support contact may ask you to run a particular plug-in, depending on the problem that you are reporting.