Understanding the Content Catalog

The content catalog is a repository of the data that can be associated with person and non-person profiles, and is used by other applications such as PeopleSoft ePerformance, Talent Acquisition Manager, Candidate Gateway, and Learning Management.

In PeopleSoft HCM, the content catalog provides a generic structure for setting up different types of information. The following diagram illustrates the generic structure in which the content catalog contains multiple content types and the content types contain content items. It also illustrates a specific example of where the content catalog contains content types for language skills, degrees, and competencies:

 PeopleSoft HCM generic content catalog structure

With the content catalog you define the different types of information (competency, degrees, languages, and so on) as content types and then set up the data for each content type as content items. For example, within the content type DEG (Degrees), a Bachelor of Arts degree (BA) is a content item.

The structure of the content catalog enables you to easily add new content types to your organization's profiles.

Content Catalog System Data

The PeopleSoft application delivers the content catalog already populated with a set of content types. You can add content types and content items to the content catalog to suit your organizational requirements.

Note: PeopleSoft delivers content items as sample data only.

The following content types are delivered as system data:

Content Type

Description

AREA STUDY

Areas of Study

COMPETENCY

Competencies

CRITERIA

Element Criteria

DEG

Degrees

EDLVLACHV

Education Level

EG SPCL PROJ

(E&G) Educ and Govt Special Projects

ELEMENT

Competency Elements

GEOG_PREF

Geography Preferences

GOAL

Goals and objectives

HON

Honors and awards

INITIATIVE

Initiatives

INTL_PREF

International Preferences

LIC

Licenses and certifications

LNG

Language skills

LOCATION

Current Location

LOCATN_PREF

Location Preferences

MEM

Memberships

MISSION

Mission Statements

NVQ

NVQs

NVQ UNIT

NVQ Units

NVQ ELEMENT

NVQ Elements

RANK

Military Rank.

RESP

Responsibilities

SPECL PROJ

Special Projects

SUB COMP

Sub-Competencies

TRAVEL

Travel Preferences

TST

Tests/Examinations

Note: The RANK content type is for military customers to record rank in profiles. You can integrate Manage Profiles with Job Data using the Event Manager, so that when a person's rank is updated in Job Data, the profile is automatically updated.

See Job Data - Salary Plan Page.

See Understanding Event Setup.

To set up the content catalog you define the following:

  • Content types.

  • Content items.

  • (Optional) Content group types and groups.

    Content groups enable you to categorize content items within a content type.

Note: If you want to use rating models with your content catalog, you must define these on the Rating Model page before you can associate content items with rating models.

See Defining Rating Models.

The first step in setting up the content catalog is to set up content types. After this, the order in which you set up content groups and content items does not matter. If you know how you want to group your content items, create the content groups first and then set up your content items. Conversely if you know which content items you want to add but haven't decided how to group those items, you can set up the content items first, then create the groups and add the items to the groups.

This diagram illustrates the two ways in which you can set up your content catalog: setting up content groups before setting up items, or setting up the items before the content groups:

 Setting up the content groups before content items or setting up content items first

Content Types and Content Items

The Content Type component (JPM_CAT_TYPES) has two pages:

  • The Content Types page lists the properties (fields) for that content type.

    For each property, you define the attributes of the field, which determines how it will appear on the Content Items - Item Details page.

  • The Relationship Rule page defines how the content type is related to other content types in the catalog.

The component for setting up content items is the same for all content types, but the pages and the fields that appear are determined by the content type definition. The Content Items component (JPM_CAT_ITEMS) has three pages:

  • The Content Items - Item Details page is where you set up the main details for the content item.

  • The Relationships page defines relationships between content items.

    The system hides this page if there are no relationship rules defined for the content type.

  • The Group Memberships page defines the groups to which the content item belongs.

    The system hides this page if there are no groups for the content type.

The fields on the Content Items - Item Details page are entirely dependent on the properties selected on the Content Types page.

Note: These fields have no impact on the configuration or display of an item in a profile.

The following diagram shows property selections on the Content Type page flowing though to become fields on the Content Items - Item Details page. The diagram includes a generic content type and two examples of content types (competencies and goals):

 Properties of content types flow through to become fields for content item definitions

Note: For a limited set of profile type properties, the search indexes that you use for the search and compare profile feature store only code-based data.