Using PeopleSoft Application Designer

Step One - Designing the Application

Create a development plan. The first phase of development in any environment is always planning. Designers might spend 80 percent of their time designing a sound plan before they work on the first step. In PeopleSoft applications, you will need to fully understand the other seven steps of development to design a good plan. When you finish the development plan, you should have a business requirements document that specifies the tables required and the relationships among them, a list of required definitions (fields, records, and so on) complete with detailed specifications and naming conventions, mock-ups of page layouts, and a navigational hierarchy that will give users access to the pages you create.

Step Two - Creating Field Definitions

Field definitions in PeopleSoft are slightly different from other environments. Designers define fields apart from any tables they may belong to and ensure that they can be reused in any number of separate database tables. The field definition is the basis for all the steps that follow.

Step Three - Creating Record Definitions

PeopleTools-based applications are table-based systems. When creating a record definition, you are actually defining two layers of information: the record level and the field level. At the record level, you define the structure of the database table, and the ultimate purpose of the record definition, and how the system will use the definition. At the field level, you define the characteristics of the fields and any online processing that you want to occur behind the scenes when a user enters data.

Step Four - Building Application Data Tables

After you define a record definition, you must create or build the underlying SQL tables that house the application data that users will enter online in the production environment. This build process is the centerpiece of the data administration features in PeopleSoft Application Designer. The build process takes all of the properties of a record definition and creates a database table from them. Unless you complete this step, no table will exist in the database to accept the application data.

Step Five - Creating Page Definitions

Pages are the user interface for the application. Pages present data to the users and enable them to enter data into the application data table created in the previous step. In this step, you add page controls to a page, associate the page controls with record fields, and configure appearance of the page. The system displays the page to users in a browser window as HTML.

Step Six - Defining Components

Component definitions represent complete business transactions in PeopleSoft applications and are central to navigation and security access. A component holds one or more pages that the user navigates between using tabs or links. In this step, you define the search record and search attributes, the processing mode, and the toolbar buttons that appear at the bottom of each page in the component.

Step Seven - Registering Components

The Registration Wizard makes registering a component easy. In this step, you attach the component to a menu, assign security access for users, and place navigational links in the registry. After you register a component, the user interface is complete and you can view the application in the browser.

Step Eight - Testing the Application

The final step of application development is to thoroughly test the application before delivering the finished product to users. You must test all aspects of the application by opening a transaction in your browser and entering test data into the application. As issues arise, you can cycle back through each of the previous steps to resolve the issues.

Syntax

The following command line syntax applies to all actions identified in this topic:

PSIDE [-parameter value [-parameter value . . .]]

Use this command line syntax to start PeopleSoft Data Mover:

PSDMT [-parameter value [-parameter value . . .]]

You can include as many or as few parameters as you need.

Each parameter starts with a hyphen (-) or a forward slash (/). The value for each parameter follows the hyphen or slash, separated by zero or more spaces. In general, the value does not need to have quotation marks around it, even if it has internal spaces, because the system treats all text following the parameter as part of the value up to the next parameter or the end of the command line.

Available Parameters

The available parameters for pside.exe fall into two general categories:

• Parameters that provide login information.

• Parameters that set general options.

If the command line includes login parameters, it uses them only if no PeopleSoft applications are currently running. If a PeopleSoft application is already running, then the system starts a new instance by using the same login information as the active instance.

This table lists all of the available parameters:

For more information on using the Application Designer command line parameters, see Understanding PeopleSoft Application Designer Command Line Parameters.

Example

This command line statement starts PeopleSoft Application Designer and signs the user in to the DEP7TST database:

PSIDE -CT MICROSFT -CS SEPNTDB05 -CD DEP7TST -CO VP1 -CP password

This command line statement starts PeopleSoft Application Designer using an encrypted password.

pside.exe -CT ORACLE -CO PTDMO -CP encrypted_password -CD QAHRTST

In this case, encrypted_password should be substituted with the actual encrypted password value.

For more information on encryption, see Using the PSCipher Utility.

Application Designer Menus

This topic reviews the general PeopleSoft Application Designer menus. Specific menus appear for each definition when it is open and active. Those menus are discussed in the topic about each definition.

In addition to the standard Microsoft Windows File menu items, several PeopleTools-specific items appear in the File menu. This table lists the PeopleTools-related File menu items:

In addition to the standard Microsoft Windows-based menu items, such as Cut and Paste, two PeopleTools-specific menu items appear in the Edit menu. This table describes their use:

This table describes the use of View menu items:

This table describes the use of Insert menu items:

This table describes the use of Build menu items:

This table describes the use of Debug menu items:

This table describes the use of Tools menu items:

This table describes the use of Window menu items:

This table describes the use of Help menu items:

PeopleSoft Application Designer Toolbars

In addition to the standard Microsoft Windows toolbar button items, such as Cut, Paste, and Save, several items are PeopleTools-specific. The command name appears in parentheses following its description.

Field or Control	Definition
	Open the Definition Properties dialog box (File > Definition Properties).
	Open the Build dialog box (Build > Current Definition).
	Toggle the display of the project workspace (View > Project Workspace).

Project Workspace

View projects and their associated definitions in the project workspace. A project organizes a collection of definitions in logical groups for easier development, adaptation, maintenance, and upgrade.

Image: Project workspace shown with a project open

This example illustrates the fields and controls on the Project workspace shown with a project open. You can find definitions for the fields and controls later on this page.

Work with a development project or an upgrade project by selecting either the Development tab or the Upgrade tab at the bottom of the project workspace.

The text on the Development and Upgrade tabs might not appear if your monitor is not large enough to display it.

Definition Workspace

Use the definition workspace to create and modify definitions. You can maximize, minimize, cascade, or tile them in the workspace.

Output Window

The output window displays status messages of various PeopleSoft Application Designer operations. The output is organized into different categories by using tabs at the bottom of the window.

The text that appears in the output window is context-sensitive, which enables you to select it and perform related operations. For example, if you have a field definition open, select Edit > Find Definition References to list the definitions that reference the active field definition. The list appears in the output window. Double-click any of the related definitions listed to open them.

The output window has several tabs that relate to numerous functions that you can perform with PeopleSoft Application Designer: This table describes the use of the tabs:

Project

Set various project options.

See Setting Project Options.

Validate

Set project validation options, enable the PeopleSoft Application Designer spell check feature, and enable WSRP validation.

See Validating Projects.

See Enabling the Spell Check Feature.

Editors

Set Word Wrap options for the various editors in PeopleSoft Application Designer.

See Understanding the PeopleCode Debugger.

See Understanding the SQL Editor Window.

General

Image: Options dialog box: General tab

This example illustrates the fields and controls on the Options dialog box: General tab. You can find definitions for the fields and controls later on this page.

Owner Id

Set the default owner ID for new definitions you create. Alternatively, leave the option blank, which is the default, to allow users to select the owner ID they want. The Owner ID helps identify which applications team last made a change to a definition.

Image

Set the preferred storage format for newly created image definitions.

See Specifying an Image Storage Format.

Browser

Enter the base uniform resource indicator (URI) to be used by the browser to locate the application and the node name.

See Configuring Browser Options.