With PeopleTools 8.55 released at the end of last year, Oracle continues to focus on delivering the best features and functionality through PeopleTools. Oracle has been focusing on four major investment and delivery areas within PeopleTools. The areas of focus include the following:
Focus Area #1: User Interface—Oracle is continually investing in ways to make the user’s experience within the applications modern and intuitive. In PeopleTools 8.55, Fluid UI is enhanced as Oracle continually looks for ways to provide customers with simplified navigation and mobility. Some Fluid enhancements in PeopleTools 8.55 include master/detail layouts, interactive and auto-sized titles (including a new Tile Wizard that walks users through tile creation step-by-step) and enhancements with Activity Guides and Dashboards. Fluid Homepages are also enhanced to better support tiles, intuitive navigation and personalization.
In 8.55, Fluid UI is the default. When a user now logs into a PeopleSoft 9.2 application, they will see a Fluid homepage with tiles rather than the Classic interface. Users will experience unified navigation with the Fluid header, including the Nav Bar, Menu and Notifications, present on both Fluid and Classic pages.
Focus Area #2: Life Cycle Management—Oracle is focusing on simplifying and streamlining how customers manage their applications. PeopleSoft Update Images are now delivered through Deployment Packages in 8.55. This allows PeopleSoft customers to deploy Update Images on any native OS for Windows or Linux. While VirtualBox still remains an option, customers have additional alternatives and the flexibility to choose. Deployment Packages make it easy to run environments in the Oracle Cloud. 8.55 also offers an Update Manager Dashboard, allowing users to see where they are at with maintenance. As far as what is coming up in 8.56, PeopleTools will be delivered through a continuous delivery model.
Focus Area #3: Analytic and Search Capabilities— 8.55 offers users simplified analytics for aided organizational decision making as well as enhanced search capabilities, making it easy for users to find the information they are looking for. In 8.55, users can see analytics, or visual representations, of the transaction page that they are on with the ability to alter the report to determine which fields or information is taken into account within the analytics. Users can stay on the same page without having to navigate away to create the report or find the information they need. Users can view the report from within a Pivot Grid, drilling down to the transaction level and filtering the data. As far as search capabilities go, PeopleTools 8.55 offers users the Global Search bar throughout applications as well as Secure Enterprise Search. Oracle is currently in the development phase to allow PeopleSoft applications to support Elastic Search as well. Ataway believes that Elastic Search will be delivered in 8.56.
Focus Area #4: Developer Productivity—In 8.55, developers can utilize the Application Designer andPeopleCode Editor, making it easy to build upon or customize PeopleSoft applications. Improvements include features such as find/search for PeopleCode as well as Application Classes and auto-complete, among others.
