PeopleSoft Signon Process.

For understanding the peoplesoft signon process it is crucial to be aware of the various IDs which PeopleSoft uses.

The below list of IDs are used by peoplesoft to perform the connection to the database,

1. User ID
2. Connect ID
3. Symbolic ID
4. Access ID

User ID:
The user ID is used by the user to enter his personal login credentials in the PIA login page.
Connect ID:
The connect ID is stored in the psappsrv.cfg file of the application server, and is used to make the initial connection to the database. The connect ID has select access on the PSACCESSPRFL, PSOPRDEFN and PSSTATUS and PS.PSDBOWNER tables.
Symbolic ID:
The symbolic ID acts as a bridge between the connect ID and the Access ID.
Access ID:
The access ID is the database owner ID. The final connection is made with this ID to access the tables of the application.

Signon Process:
The basic outline of the peoplesoft signon process is as below,

1. The User enters his user ID and password in the PeopleSoft signon page.
2. The application server retrieves the password of the Connect ID from the psappsrv.cfg file and makes the initial connection to the database.
3. Using the connect ID the application checks the PSOPRDEFN for the user details and the symbolic ID. The application then uses the symbolic ID to fetch the appropriate Access ID from the PSACCESSPRFL table and checks the Version and Owner ID from the PSSTATUS tables. The owner ID and database name is retrieved from the PS.PSDBOWNER table.
4. Once all these information is retrieved the application will disconnect and connect using the access ID.

If there is ever an issue in booting up the application server, the issue will probably be in these 4 tables.

PeopleSoft Application Server

What is the PeopleSoft Application server?

The Application server is the portion of the Peoplesoft pure internet architecture which is used to handle the business logic and bulk of the workload of the PeopleSoft system.

What is the technology of the Application Server?

Oracle Tuxedo is used to process transaction requests. Oracle Jolt interfaces Java and makes the tuxedo technology to extend to web based environments.
The server processes can be configured for unique purpose, some processes can be used to handle the browser data, while others can be used for Integration broker requests.

How to make use of the Application Server?

The web server will have a configuration.properties file which contains information about the application server to which it needs to connect. The IP address and Jolt Port of the application server is mentioned in that file, now the requests will get directed to the application server which has been configured.

The application server can have multiple domains each one containing multiple server processes running. The request from the webserver will get forwarded to the application server which has the appropriate Jolt port as mentioned in the configuration.properties file. Each application server domain will have an appropriate psappsrv.cfg file which will be created when the domain is deployed. The psappsrv.cfg file contains all the domain information, including the JSL port and the database connectivity details.

How to handle the application server?

The application server is handled using the psadmin utility, which is created as part of the people tools installation. The psadmin utility helps in creating, configuring,deleting and maintaining the application server domains.

PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture

What is PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture?

The PeopleSoft application runs on various technologies which are spread across what is called the PeopleSoft pure internet architecture, this architecture contains the below elements,

1. The RDBMS database server.
2. The Application Server.
3. The Batch Server.
4. The Web Server.
5. The Client web browser

Explain the Components of the PIA?

The Client Web Browser:
The Client or User will be able to access the application using a web browser which is certified to be supported by PeopleSoft as documented by Oracle. PeopleSoft provides a thin client and there is no software or applet which is required in the client-side.
The browser uses HTTP protocol to send a request to the servlet present in the web server which communicates with the application server. The application server only sends information of the below formats,

1. HTML
2. XML
3. JavaScript
4. Cookies

The browser should have session cookies enabled, as PeopleSoft leverages the browser cookies to store a unique access token after the user is initially authorized. The unique access token will be used by PeopleSoft to bypass the sign-in process when the user accesses another PeopleSoft system in the same browser.

The Web Server:

The PeopleSoft WebServer forwards the requests made by the Web Browser to the application server and also returns the response back to the Browser. The supported web containers are Oracle WebLogic and IBM Websphere.

The Application Server:

The Application Server uses Oracle Tuxedo and Oracle Jolt to convert the Java based HTTP requests to a C++ environment. The application server will send SQL requests to the database server to fetch information from the database server.

The Batch Server:

PeopleSoft facilitates in creating exclusive Jobs, or processes to do tasks. The Batch Server is deployed for serving as a dedicated resource for running Jobs and processes, it can be created in a Linux or Windows environment. Some processes might be dependent on software which are available only in Windows, such as the nVision and Crystal processes.

The Database Server:

The Database Server is the most important component of the PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture, it contains the PeopleSoft database. The supported database servers are Oracle, DB2 and SQL Server. The application server contains the connectivity information of the database in its configuration file.


How are the components of the PIA connected?

The below diagram explains the architecture.






The Web Browser connects to the Web server over internet or intranet connection. The Web server contains a configuration.properties file which stores the information of IP and Jolt Port of the Application server. The application server contains a psappsrv.cfg configuration file which contains the connectivity information about the database server. Similarly the batch server contains a psprcsrv.cfg configuration file which stores the database connectivity information. If the Batch and Application servers are not in the same machine as the Database server then they would require the Database Client software to be installed in their machines individually.