Understanding the Search Framework
Oracle’s search engine is integrated into PeopleSoft applications via the PeopleTools Search Framework. The searches are not performed directly against the database but are performed by the search engine against the indexes stored in the Search Framework server. The indexes are created based on the information contained in PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office. The indexes are not updated online, but through a batch process.
The search is implemented as an Application Class that receives search criteria as input and returns results in the form of resources, orders, and so on, with associated scores.
PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office uses five types of searches:
PeopleMatch
PeopleSearch
Customer Search
Contact Search
Order Search
The first two of these are forward searches, meaning that they look for resources that match specific criteria. The last three search types are reverse searches, meaning that they look for customers, contacts, and orders that match specific criteria, typically a candidate's experience or preferences. The last three searches are combined in a single component called Opportunity Search.
The PeopleSoft product delivers a standard searching template for these search types. However, PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office customers must define their own search criteria for their organization as part of the implementation process.
To optimize searching capabilities and performance, the system extracts data from PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office records via PS Query and places the data into an XML file. The XML file is sent to the Search Framework server for indexing.
For PeopleMatch and PeopleSearch, the system can also extract information from electronic attachments such as resource resumes. However, the creation of search indexes may be slower when electronic documents are processed. To optimize performance when resume searches are needed, PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office provides a field in the Applicant and Employee components into which users can paste resume ASCII text. Using this method (instead of electronic attachments) reduces search index creation time. Even if users paste their resumes this way, they can still attach electronic resumes to the applicant and employee records to present them to customers.
The Search Index Creation process (PTSF_GENFEED) captures search definitions and generates the appropriate index files (XML). The system applies a key to the templates according to a Key field (SRCH_TYPE_CD). This key is used to identify the correct index files for the Search Framework.
When configuring the five search types, you define the following attributes:
The availability algorithm to be used (applicable to PeopleMatch and PeopleSearch only).
Factor weights.
You can define factor weights as part of the search configuration and factor family weights in the actual search pages.
The list of configurable fields and settings used in the search type.
Note: For instructions about installing the Search Framework with PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office, refer to the installation procedures for PeopleSoft Staffing Front Office on the Oracle’s My Oracle Support website.
Reverse Searching
Opportunity Search is a reverse search. Reverse searching consists of searching orders, customers, and contacts that would be a good match for a particular resource.
Forward Searching
PeopleMatch and PeopleSearch are forward searches. They consist of searching resources that meet certain criteria, such as required job order and desired qualifications. Forward searches calculate both the resource qualification and preference scores. These searches can also provide resource availability information.
The choice of availability algorithm is defined in the search type configuration. For an availability algorithm to be used with a search type, the resource calendar must be current.
For additional information about PeopleSoft Search, see Understanding Financials and Supply Chain Search.
Distance search is used on the PeopleSearch and PeopleMatch pages.
To enable the Distance Search feature, a developer must populate the geocode table to map each postal code to its latitude and longitude.
Developer Guidelines:
Locate files containing postal codes, cities, states, latitude, and longitude for the countries to which your organization operates and download them. Many web sites offer these files for free or a small fee. You can also subscribe to a geocoder web service and create your own geocoded files. The key is to create a file containing postal code, city, state, country, latitude, and longitude in a CSV (spreadsheet) format.
Modify the file layout and AE process to populate the geocode table.
Modify the file layout RS_GEOCODE_CITY in Application Designer to match the layout and location of the file created in step one.
Open the RS_GEOCODE AE process in Application Designer.
Change the input file name and path to match the file downloaded from the internet.
Run the process to read the input file and insert the data into the RS_GEOCODE_CITY table.
Normally this only needs to run one time because city locations don’t normally change. It may be necessary to download and import a new file when new cities or postal codes are added to the geocode databases. The RS_GEOCODE_CITY table serves as input to the Search Framework index building processes as well as the location prompt tables.