Understanding Elements
When you create your absence management system using Absence Management, you want to be sure that it meets all the requirements of your organization. One of the ways that PeopleSoft ensures this is by building the absence management system through the use of components called elements.
This topic discusses:
What is an element?
Combining elements into rules.
Why the core application uses element name number (PIN) processing.
An element is the smallest component of Absence Management. Elements are building blocks that relate to other building blocks to define your absence management system.
You define each element only once and use it repeatedly anywhere in the system.
This table lists the element categories:
|
Type of Element |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Data retrieval |
Retrieves data. Some are predefined elements (called system elements) that are delivered by PeopleSoft. Others you define when creating your absence management system. |
|
Calculation |
Performs a calculation. |
|
Organizational |
Defines the structure and framework for the system. |
This table lists alternative element categories:
|
Type of Element |
Description |
|---|---|
|
Primary |
Represents primary rules for absence takes and entitlements. |
|
Supporting |
Usually not used alone, but used to create other, more complex elements. |
|
Miscellaneous |
Represents such things as eligibility criteria, accumulators, and certain types of rules. |
You can combine these elements in an unlimited number of ways to produce the results that you need for your absence management processing.
In Absence Management, you create and store rules by entering data through the online pages.
These rules drive the core application and define the absence management process. Think of a rule as what defines how an element is calculated. Rules define the absence management process itself.
Each country using Absence Management defines its own rules. Absence Management enables you to define rules that address your specific absence management processing needs.
This diagram shows how elements and rules define your absence management process.
Important! There is usually no need to modify the Absence Management COBOL programs. Using the online pages, you can configure the system to meet your absence management processing needs. PeopleSoft strongly discourages the modification of the delivered COBOL programs—with the possible exception of modifying array size—because modifications can affect the integrity of the entire system.
An element name number (PIN) is a numeric identifier for an element. Every element in Absence Management has a unique element name number, including the elements that you create and the elements the PeopleSoft system delivers. Absence Management programs access and process an element by referring to its element name number, rather than its name.
A PIN is referred to as an element in Absence Management. A PIN and an element are identical, and a PIN number is the same as an element number. We explain the term PIN here because it is referenced throughout the programs and table structure of the application. Think of PIN as the technical name that is used in the programming and table structure and element as the functional name that is used on all pages and discussions.
This is necessary because Absence Management is designed for use by any organization in any country. Each organization will likely give the elements that form the basis for its absence management system different names, depending on its requirements. And organizations in different countries are going to name their elements using different languages. Also, the system elements delivered by PeopleSoft are often translated into many languages. If the name were the only way to identify an element, there could be problems.
PIN numbers also improve performance within batch processes. It is more efficient for the system to use numeric values than to use character values. This performance improvement is a result of being able to easily read the numeric values into the processing arrays and create a pointer to the correct place in the array.
PINs are numbered sequentially.
Note: The system assigns a PIN number to each element that you create. The first number the system assigns is 100,001. PIN numbers prior to 100,001 are reserved for the elements that are delivered with Absence Management.
This graphic shows how elements are accessed by PIN number rather than by element name.
