April 4, 2007

A PeopleSoft Home Page

Today I'd like to revisit and expand on a post from several years ago. The idea is simple. Many (if not most) PeopleSoft support teams email URLs to their administrative users when new environments are created. This works just fine until you decide to reconfigure a server, change a port, retire an environment or make other changes. Then your users have old broken links in their email or favorites.

An easy way around this is to create a type of menu. Don't develop this within PeopleSoft. Instead, just create a regular HTML page and save it on a shared drive. You don't need a web server for this. Send out a link to the page, including the full file name (and HTML extension). From then on, you can change this one page as necessary without worrying about informing your users of the changes.

Another advantage of this is that you can suspend access to an environment if necessary. For example, if you are rebuilding or upgrading a database or have taken it offline for some reason, you can "turn off" the link or redirect it to a simple informational page. You could send out an email broadcast, but email can be forgotten or go to a large number of people who did not plan to use the database anyway.

In addition to the various PeopleSoft environments, here are some of the other things you might include:

External links. Link to Customer Connection, your users' departments' intranet pages, the company's main page, etc.
Documentation. Point to PeopleBooks, procedure guides, training materials, or other files. Just create a link to the file and it will open in the appropriate application (Word, Excel, Acrobat or whatever it may be).
File folders. Create a link to a file folder and it will open in Windows Explorer. This is a good way to keep important folders visible and easily accessible.
Related tools. Link to your issue tracking system and other applications related to PeopleSoft support.
News and information. Add a section to the page for general announcements, information about the PeopleSoft support group, a calendar, contact lists, or whatever else might be useful.

Maintenance of this page is very simple—just open it in a text editor and make changes.

Until next time...