Application Data Sets (ADS)

Application Data Sets (ADS) provide the underlying transport technology to move, compare, validate, and merge configuration data. Configuration data includes:

  • setup data

  • application data

  • tools configuration

  • managed objects

Application Data Sets are designed to manage the complexity of migrating configuration data across multiple PeopleSoft systems. It is very common to have four or more databases in a PeopleSoft environment, including one or more for development, another for quality assurance, as well as the primary production system. PeopleTools migrates managed objects between environments in PeopleSoft projects that are extracted from one database and imported into another, which works well for PeopleTools metadata however it does not handle application configuration data.

ADS provides the ability for any authorized developer to easily define application data sets, create and modify projects and to compare and copy the objects in the projects similar to the way managed objects have been copied and compared for many years.

Application Data Sets:

  • Enable developers to use PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) to create data set definitions as a hierarchy of records with some collective properties. A data set definition defines the shape of data set instances. It consists of the following elements:

    • A root record. The primary keys of the root record are then keys of the data set instance

    • An optional hierarchy of related child records, where each child record includes the keys of its parent record.

    • An optional set of properties.

    • An optional set of relationships to other data sets, and their properties.

    • An optional set of attribute groups and their properties.

    • An optional application class having PeopleCode that transform and/or validates the data set instances at copy, compare and validate time.

    Data set definitions are like record definitions: record definitions define a group of fields that constitute a record; data set definitions define a group of records that constitute a data set. Both record definitions and data set definitions are metadata that define the shape of data.

  • Data sets support relations and groups. Relations make it possible to associate two or more data sets based on keys, criteria and properties. Data Sets that include relationships with the family property make it possible to merge the attributes when the data set is copied to the target database. Groups can be used to define records and fields that can be safely merged or that should be hidden from compare.

  • Enable developers or administrators using PIA to insert data set instances (data content) into projects to represent a unit of work as an ADS project. ADS projects are like managed object projects: a collection of data set instances having various data set definitions.

  • Enable developers or administrators using PIA or Change Assistant to copy, compare, validate, and merge data sets that get included in an ADS project.

  • Enable PIA-based copy and compare to use powerful servers rather than the Windows workstations required for PeopleSoft Integrated Development Environment (PSIDE)-based copy and compare.

  • Integrate with the Enterprise Components Approval Framework to provide administrative control of the project copy from file process.

  • In some cases, provide enhanced security to assure that the data set definitions are suitable for copying data, that the user has access to the PIA data set pages, and that user has the right to copy and compare the data.

  • Provide an alternative to Data Mover that offers greater visibility and control for managed changes of a customer's environment.

  • Allow pre-defined target configuration fields values to be preserved within each instance. The object owner defines what fields can be preserved using groups. The customer can review and choose to override default behavior with interactive PIA-based compare.