Tools of the Trade (with examples)

It is important to know what configurable tools are available in the PeopleSoft IH arsenal before we dive into the technical configurations.  

One of my favourite quotes is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery and it goes as such:  

If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

So let's begin!

I will use three key examples from our environment to demonstrate how we configured the system to suit our needs.

Guest View Public Access ~ we do not know who you are at this point.

Key attributes:

Branding template modified

• No Main Menu
• Larger Header

Two Pagelets

• Login Pagelet: signs you into IH
• News Alert Pagelet: able to be modified by communications team / service desk

Footer

• Display other important company / support info.

Authenticated Student View ~ Authenticated Access ~ we know you are an active undergraduate student

Key attributes:

Branding Template Modified 

• Addition of Main Menu
• Addition of Home | Signout Links
• Smaller header to preserve critical screen real-estate

3 Tabs:

• Show tabs based on Role
• Universal Home Tab that All users see
• Student Center: Tab that links directly to a component
• Student Guide: Tab that links to a dashboard

5 Pagelets:

• Universal News Pagelet: seen by all users to convey important institution wide messages
• Important Links Pagelet: Navigation collection, that displays important content references based on who you are
• Ask McMaster: Free Text Pagelet that takes in Form data to post to an external website
• Welcome: Free Text Pagelet that displays an image
• My Learning Links Navigation Collection that displays if you are a certain type of student.

Authenticated Staff View (Home Tab of a staff member who is authenticated):

Key attributes:

Branding Template Modified ~

• Addition of Main Menu
• Addition of Home | Signout Links
• Smaller header to preserve critical screen real-estate

5 Tabs

• Show tabs based on Role
• Universal Home Tab that All users see
• Documentation, My Profile, My Work, Support tabs that deliver links to important business functionality.

4 Pagelets

• Universal News Pagelet: seen by all users to convey important institution wide messages
• Important Links Pagelet: Navigation collection, that displays important content references based on who you are.  Content References such as View Paycheck takes you to the Human Resources PeopleSoft Server, and Chartfield Mappings takes you to PeopleSoft Financials.
• McMaster Daily News: RSS Feed Reader:
• Calendar of Events:  important messages for staff

Authenticated Staff View (My Profile Tab of a staff member who is authenticated):

Key attributes:

WorkCenter Dashboard

Contains 2 Pagelets

• My Profile Quicklinks: Navigation Collection that remains on the left as you browse through certain functionality.  Content references (such as View Pay Statement) will change based on your permission to them in the system.
• About My Profile: the Dashboard component: more like a home page within a home page. Can be used to display pagelets to convey news and other information.

Getting There:

To get here we had to sit down with a number of stakeholders across all systems in our environment and get these two questions answered thoroughly:

1) who will be using this software

• brainstorm all different users across the system
• group them into logical categories
• determine if each group will also be members of other groups (IE an employee who is also a student)

2) what will each group of users need to access

• list important self-service functionality
• determine importance of communication within your organization

Taking all of this information and organizing it, is paramount to the success of the launch of this software.  We used these two rules for guidance:

• Less is more: if the system becomes too cluttered with links, the usability of the system shoots down.  Also, showing users information not important to them is an issue.
• Configuration not customization: we will strive to use all tools available to us, and not go too far in developing our own. This will reduce the cost of development, encourage stability and simplify our maintenance process during future PeopleSoft software releases.

Looking at our user landscape, the most important discovery we made is the fact that we have a lot of cross-appointed users.  This fact alone drove the creation of a common Home Tab that all users see.  The home tab employs tools that will change based on who you are.  Navigation Collections and News Publications are key to this ~ they will change based on role, and will display even more information if you have 2 or more roles.  Ensuring the News and Important Links Pagelets are locked to the Top Left (no matter who you are) ensures a common user experience across the whole system, and that critical business information remains visible.

A good understanding of how these tools work is required.  Some components, such as the Calendar are "All or Nothing".  IE you can't customize it based on who is seeing it, you can either show it to one group, or not at all.  All or Nothing components don't work well in a dynamic environment.

This system uses roles to determine which group of user you are.  If we are to adhere to our "less is more" rule, we should understand if the Group of Users is "EVERYONE", then we should ensure tailored to that group, and that the content be limited in scope.  If we have a more specific group such as "Expense Report Approvers" we can feel more comfortable that the content we are creating will be relevant to those who need it, and will be invisible to everyone else.

Now that we have the functional foundation laid out, let's proceed with the technical foundation.  It's time to start collecting wood.