Customizations May Not Be Taboo Anymore
Recently, I met with a customer who was considering implementing a new PeopleSoft module. The attendees included a functional executive, several of her managers, and two IT managers. At the beginning of the meeting, the executive announced that no matter what was decided, she did not want any customizations to the software.
Generally, history and experience have taught us that avoiding customizations are a good policy. Upgrading or updating customized software can be challenging. However, the new features of PeopleTools 8.56 and 8.57 mean that customizations aren’t always an automatic NO. Two new features that give you the flexibility to change the appearance and function of a page are Page and Field Configurator and Drop Zones. They allow you to create custom fields within a page and still easily move to future PUM updates. Below is a brief description of each in layman’s terms.
Page and Field Configurator
The Page and Field Configurator allows you to change the look and function of a page without the need for customizations. It gives you the ability to hide fields or even an entire page that are not necessary to your specific needs. It also allows you to change the look and behavior of any field by changing the field label, making it required, or adding a default value in the field. These changes happen through configuration settings. Therefore, they stay configured during PUM updates making the update process easier.
Drop Zones
Drop Zones give you the ability to add your own fields to delivered Fluid pages without having to customize the component. In simplified terms, a placeholder is inserted into the Fluid page at the time of design. The placeholder is a protected area which allows you to create your own fields which are not impacted with PUM updates. PeopleSoft has already created Drop Zones on many Fluid pages to help with the initial design and implementation.
In conclusion, these are empowering tools which can expand the capabilities of your existing software. Some customers have used these features to reduce the amount of customized software. Additionally, some have used it to add needed functions without customization. This is a very high-level overview of these capabilities. Good, new options now exist for organizations that want to try to eliminate customized software or for those that were opposed to customizations. I encourage you to look at the details of these features.
Please follow this link for an instructional blog on how to use Page and Field Configurator: https://blog.miproconsulting.com/2018/10/page-and-field-configurator/
Please follow this link for an instructional video on how to use page and field configurator: https://blog.miproconsulting.com/2018/10/configurator-instructional-video/
To read more about MIPRO Consulting, click here.
