Setting Parameters for PS Utilities Favorites

My last post I talked about the PS Utilities Chrome Extension. Since it's initial release the PS Utilities extension has been updated with some new features such as

1. adding the toolbar to the sign in page,
2. a Quick Logins menu item on the sign in page to allow you to store credentials and quickly sign in to an environment,
3. managing separate PeopleSoft environments,
4. adding help pages,
5. and improving the overall User Interface.

One feature there from the beginning has been adding Favorites that span your PeopleSoft environments. This makes managing Favorites so much easier. You can skip adding Favorites using the delivered functionality in each individual environment. (Inevitably they always got out of synch for me.) Instead you can use the PS Utilities Favorites functionality. You can add a Favorite once in one environment and the favorite will then show up in each environment you have PS Utilities active.

One great thing is you can add parameters to customize your Favorites. Open the PS Utilities options page and click on the Favorite tab (or choose Manage Favorites from the Favorites menu item.) In the table at the bottom the fourth column is the Parameters tab. The value must begin with a question mark (?) and then include name/value pairs separated with an equal sign (=) and series of pairs separated by an ampersand (&). (See Query Strings and Percent Encoding for more information.) In PeopleSoft the name is almost always the name of the field used in the Search record. For example, if I want to always link to my User Profile, I would include ?OPRID=NYETMAN in the parameters column for the MAINTAIN_SECURITY, USER_MAINT, GBL Favorite entry.

One handy name/value pair you can use is ACTION=A. Most components are registered in the Portal Registry in Update Display mode. But if you include ACTION=A then the component processor switches to Add mode instead (assuming the component has Add mode enabled and you have security access to Add mode.). If you use ACTION=A by itself you will likely be presented with the Add Search page (where you normally have to enter values to uniquely distinguish the new entry you are adding.) But sometimes (like the Personal Data component in PS HCM) that value is pre-populated (NEW in this case) which means the component logic will create the new value automatically. To skip this you can include EMPLID=NEW in your parameter list to jump right into the component in Add mode. The full parameter value for this favorite would be ?ACTION=A&EMPLID=NEW.

The Favorites menu item is probably one of my favorite and most used pieces of the PS Utilities extension.

Chrome Extension for PeopleSoft

My friend and former colleague Uffe Graakjaer has just published a new Chrome Extension called PS Utilities that might be of interest to PeopleSoft users. It can be found here.

The extension is great for developers, administrators, testers, etc. who

1. use Google Chrome web browser
2. to access multiple PeopleSoft environments
3. with different User IDs.

The main features are available through a new toolbar that can be positioned anywhere on the screen. The toolbar is configurable and can include

1. the User ID that you are logged in as
2. the name of the PeopleSoft Environment that you are logged in to
3. a Shortcuts menu which, unlike Favourites, can span all environments
4. a link to display menu/component/page information normally accessed through CTRL-J keyboard combination.

I recommend checking it out. Uffe plans to add more features soon. Any ideas for new features (or feedback on the current extension) would also be appreciated.