Understanding Configurable Analysis Framework

Oracle’s PeopleSoft Configurable Analysis Framework (CAF) allows administrators to use a common framework to design end-user pages. These pages are intended to be used to compare or analyze PeopleSoft data. The CAF allows administrators to determine what factors (data) to display for an entity such as customers, suppliers.

There are two display layouts:

  • Comparison - Displays multiple entities and factors in a column and row layout.

    This option allows users to compare the same factor for multiple entities, side-by-side.

  • Analysis - displays multiple factors for one entity in any layout that the user chooses.

    This option allows users to focus on one entity at a time and both display layouts can be saved and shared with other users.

High level feature functionality includes:

  • It is generic so that it can be used to display data for different types of entities and factors without modifying the framework.

  • It is configurable so that the types of the factors and entities can be defined by administrators.

  • It is extensible so that application developers can extend it to provide additional functionality that is not available from the framework.

  • It supports comparison and analysis modes so that it can be used to compare entities or to focus on one entity at a time.

  • It provides an intuitive user interface so that users can easily select the entities and factors to display and arrange them in the way that is most useful for them.

  • It allows users to save a set of factors and entities, and recall it later or share it with other users.

  • It has access control so that security can be applied to control the entities, factors, and actions that are accessible for the users.

Third Party Integration

The Configurable Analysis Framework uses the following third party JavaScript libraries to implement its user interface. They are included as PeopleTools managed objects and don’t reference to external URLs:

  • JQuery 1.8.2, which is used to help interact and manipulate the Html DOM objects.

  • JQuery UI 1.9.0, which is used to implement the drag-drop and re-size capabilities in the user interface

The Fluid Configuration Analysis Framework does not use JQuery.

Performance

The Configurable Analysis Framework is a framework that hosts contents. The contents are provided by various factor handlers. It is not expected that there will be large overhead by the framework. However, depending on the types of factors used, potential performance issues may need to be considered.

Security

Standard PeopleTools security is used to secure the user login and access to the components. In addition, CAF provides access control to control user’s access to the factors and related actions.

To control the access to entities, uptake can add OPRID to the entity record to filter the entities by OPRID, extend the built-in entity handler and override its logic to select the entities, or both. Since factor data is retrieved by factor handlers, it is expected that the factor handler will implement the necessary security (such as row-level security) to control the data displayed.