Basic PeopleSoft Interview Preparation Guide

In order to setup a state, at a minimum, the country has to be setup. When the country definition is setup, then user or admin can create a state associated to the country and then go back to the county setup and in the valid address tab add all the relevant states added for the country. Country is setup in Setup HRMS -> Install -> Country table.

Action types are used to access data within the system based on the user and/or the level of security. The four action types available are:

i) Add: Add a new row to a table with a new high level key/primary key

ii) Update/Display: Either data can be updated or displayed with a high level key. To update data, insert a new row of data with an EFFDT greater than the date of the current row.

iii) Include History: Works the same as Update/Display but will allow the user review not only the current and future rows, but history rows as well.

iv) Correct History: View, change and insert rows of data regardless of effective date.

In PeopleSoft we have mainly 2 types of primary buckets for tables: Control tables and transaction tables. Control tables store information related to the org structure of the company and all business rules. Transaction tables store data of employees for daily ongoing business activities. Control tables are mostly driven by SETID. SETID is a high level key that is used to identify a group of rows called table set. SETID is tied to a business unit which is an organizational entity that can maintain its own transaction data. So through the use of SETID, we can expose data from one business unit to the other or keep it restricted to the business unit as applicable. In order to do this, all the control tables are divided into record groups. So when a business unit is created, a row is entered in table set control component for that business unit and for each record group, the SETID for the business unit is defaulted. This is called table set sharing. Based on this setup, when a user goes to transaction page like job data and tries to lookup control table related fields like job or department, user will see those values which are tied to the SETID that users BU is tied to in the table set control setup.

Navigate to PeopleTools -> Security -> User Profiles -> Delete User Profiles. Here you can search by user id and there is an option to delete the user profile. This will remove the employee data from key tables like JOB, PERSON, COMPENSATION, PSOPRDEFN.

An HRMS system can be setup to use no position management, partial position - management or full position management. In full position management system, for the whole employee strength, positions are maintained and the system is then driven by position and not employee. In partial position management, system is driven by both means- position and employee. You can have some departments in the organization driven by position and rest to be employee driven. If no position management is selected, then the system is completely person driven. System doesn’t use position data for employee job records even if positions are setup. This setup is done in the Installation table setup under HRMS options ? Position management option.

In position management, each person is mapped to a single position and there can be multiple positions within a job code. Whenever tracking or budgeting has to be done with respect to a position instead of a person, position management should be used. A position driven system works best in the case when the organization is static, i.e. jobs are fixed and people move in and out of their respective positions.

The approver for self service transactions is decided by Direct report setup in Setup HRMS -> Common Definitions -> Direct Reports for Managers -> Direct Report Setup. Here at a self service transaction component level access for approval can be setup by using access type as: Group id, department manager id, department security tree, partial position management department manager id, partial position management supervisor, reports to position if full position management is used or by supervisor id in job.

In PeopleSoft, an establishment is an entity for regulatory purposes. It always has a physical address (location) and is associated with a company. It is an entity for which information is reported as a consolidated unit. For eg., an establishment can be defined as separate units of a company, based on location. In India, an establishment must be registered under the Factories Act or the Shops and Establishments act.

A company might or might not be attached to a physical location unlike an establishment.

Translate Tables: Tables which store static data like blood groups, days of the week, types of interviews etc. Data in translate tables do not change frequently.

Processing Tables: Tables which store default values which are pre defined values that the system inserts into a field on a particular page. These default values are inserted on the basis of other information the user keys in.