Selective Adoption Terminology
There are many terms out there related to selective adoption. In the beginning, the focus was all about PeopleSoft Update Manager (PUM). However, PUM is simply one of many tools that help enable selective adoption. Let’s take a few minutes to clear up some definitions to hopefully provide more insight around selective adoption.
Selective Adoption: Selective adoption is the named process by which PeopleSoft customers are able to “selectively” determine how they will apply maintenance and new features as they are delivered approximately every 10 weeks by Oracle. Customers can choose to take everything, nothing or be “selective” in the content they apply to their production instance.
The following are tools that help enable the selective adoption process.
PeopleSoft Update Manager (PUM): PeopleSoft Update Manager (PUM) is a new Lifecycle Management tool that enables PeopleSoft customers to stay current on application maintenance using selective adoption. PUM works with PeopleSoft Change Assistant to facilitate this new process. PUM leverages PeopleSoft Update Images (PIs).
PeopleSoft Update Images (PI): PeopleSoft Update Images are Oracle VM VirtualBox virtual machines that are downloaded from My Oracle Support (MOS) to your system. PI’s are published and released on a specific schedule approximately every 10 weeks. All PI’s will contain bug fixes and most, but not all PI’s, will contain new features/functionality. PI’s are cumulative, meaning PI 14 will contain all of the content from PI 1 through PI 13.
Change Assistant: Oracle’s PeopleSoft Change Assistant is a standalone, Windows based, Java program that orchestrates the process of updating or upgrading your PeopleSoft system. Change Assistance automates many steps of the update process, provides a step-by step-process for applying maintenance and is integrated with PUM using change packages created from the PI. Change Assistant is one of the primary tools in the process of applying maintenance and new features, either taking all content within an image or selectively.
PeopleSoft Test Framework (PTF): A tool that helps automate the testing process and really allows for the more frequent updating and application of PeopleSoft Update Images. PTF automates various tasks within the PeopleSoft application, primarily functional testing. Automating functional testing enables testers to execute more tests with greater accuracy during a shorter time. A good automated testing strategy is essential to having a sound selective adoption maintenance strategy.
If you would like any information on selective adoption, please drop me a note at larry.zagata@miproconsulting.com.
