People Soft Overview

PeopleSoft is a pioneer in creating an application which integrates all the HR functions of an enterprise into one.PeopleSoft founded by David Duffield in 1987 became one of the most implemented ERP solutions for HR and Finance across the world. PeopleSoft provides ERP packages for HR, Finance, CRM, Student Administration, Learning and Performance managements for Enterprises and Universities.

PeopleSoft when initially launched was a client server architecture based system. However, the entire suite currently is migrated and works on web based architecture called the PIA (Pure Internet Architecture). It provides for all the HR functionalities like Recruting, Time and Labor, Payroll, Benefits etc. It also provides extensions for each country payroll so that an employee's pay is calculated based on tax laws of his location. PeopleSoft can be implemented on a variety of Database platforms like Informix, DB2, MS-SQL Server, Sybase and Oracle.It also provides ease for the developers to customize the solution with an integrated development environment. The solution can be customized as per the needs of the organization by changing the configuration from the web or changing the code using the IDE.

PeopleSoft PIA uses a three tier architecture where the webserver interacts with the application server and application server interacts with the database server. The typical request is handled in the following manner. A user requests for a page on the application which is sent in HTTP format to the webserver. The webserver inturn sends the message to the application server using JOLT Api. The application server retrieves the information regarding the webpage from the database and sends information to the webserver again via JOLT. The webserver then creates the necessary HTML for the page dynamically and sends it to the user. In Peoplesoft all the information regarding webpages, the code etc is all stored in the database and not in individual files. All the information can be accessed and modified easily from the IDE. The changed information can be immediately viewed from the webclient and validated.PeopleSoft uses BEA Tuxedo Server as Application server for all its applications.

PeopleSoft was the pioneer in providing effective dated logic in ERP systems. The effective dated logic simplifies and enhances the way of storing history information about a particular object of data. For example, all the job history of the employee can be stored in a single table where Effective date also is a key along with the Employee Identification number. The effective dated logic is being used by all the ERP systems of the current day to maintain histories of same data.

With the launch of latest versions of applications, Peoplesoft also moved the internal technology completely to an Object Oriented manner which makes the access of data very secure and also making the solution more configurable and easily customizable according to customer's needs from the web.PeopleSoft HR and Finance systems continues to zoom forward into the next decade with more implementations and is being used despite the take over by Oracle.

This Article is Written by Rahul Pantula, who has wast experience and expertise in People Soft for around 8 years. He developed and designed solutions for the organizations like Polaris, Accenture and IBM.