Understanding Mass Change

Important! Mass Change is a deprecated product. Support will be maintained for this product, but no new development will be produced for Mass Change. If you used Mass Change in previous PeopleSoft releases, it is strongly recommended that you use Application Engine instead. For more information on PeopleSoft Application Engine, see Application Engine Overview.

When end users manipulate the data in a PeopleSoft application, they are essentially executing SQL statements. PeopleSoft provides many of the statements necessary for updating that data, but you might occasionally need to create more.

Mass Change is a SQL generator you can use to develop and perform custom applications. Using Mass Change, a developer can set up a series of INSERT, UPDATE, or DELETE SQL statements that the end user can execute to perform business functions.

The overall structure of Mass Change is similar to that of PeopleSoft Query, except that Query retrieves data from the database, while Mass Change actually updates the database.

Mass Change is also similar to Application Engine, as far as its end results—updating the database. However, unlike Application Engine, Mass Change generates SQL for you. Also, Mass Change definitions contain no processing logic.

You can use Mass Change to:

  • Perform high-volume, set oriented transactions.

  • Copy data from table to table.

  • Archive table data.

  • Perform transactions not normally supported through PeopleSoft pages.

    Mass Change design is based on three components:

  • Types are the lowest level components. A Mass Change type defines the type of SQL statements to be generated, the records involved, and the sequence of execution. Mass Change types are defined by application developers familiar with SQL and the database design.

  • Templates are built upon Mass Change types. Mass Change templates are used to specify which fields, if any, make up the WHERE clause of the SQL statement and which fields can be hard-coded with a particular value. Templates are typically defined by application developers.

  • Mass Change definitions are built upon Mass Change templates, and are generally created and executed by end users. Mass Change definitions are used to specify the values and operators for each field in the statement’s WHERE clause, and default fields, and to generate the actual SQL statement.

    Anyone who defines Mass Change types or templates should have both a solid understanding of SQL and an extensive knowledge of the PeopleSoft database the SQL will run against. Ideally, your end users should not have to add any Mass Change types or templates. When they create Mass Change definitions, all the necessary information will default from the type and template except for the field and operator values they enter.