Find That File
Solving a Common Reporting Problem

Posted on 1/8/2007 (originally published in print on 3/1/2005)

As a consultant I have had the opportunity to work on many different PeopleSoft projects. Each project brings a different set of challenges and each new client benefits from past experiences. One of these challenges is the basis for this article, since it is something I come across on every Version 8 upgrade project.

When this particular issue is brought to my attention, the conversation usually goes like this, "I was testing the Recruitment module and I ran the Recruitment letters and it ran successfully but I do not see the letter. Can you help me find it?" "Sure," I say, and then log on to the Process Scheduler server and retrieve the missing report output. Then the next question is fired, "Will I have to do that every time I run that report?" I answer back with, "it seems we have not applied the required patch so the report output is accessible with the Report Manager." This is usually followed by a couple statements like, "In the old version I did not have that problem. The output would be on my c:\temp, and why can't Version 8 be the same?" I tell them the Process Scheduler does not know about your c:\temp it knows about its c:\temp. Sometimes I join a project early enough to raise the issue myself.

With delivery of Version 8 and the introduction of PeopleSoft's Internet Architecture (PIA), the end users ability to run delivered and custom Microsoft Word letter generation processes was effectively restricted to running on a Windows NT or 2000 Process Scheduler server. These processes were originally designed to run on a Windows client workstation which enabled any number of users to run these processes without worrying about overwriting each other's data or Word files.

By running these processes in Version 8 on a Process Scheduler server, issues of overwriting files and lost reports now come into play. Since the processes were originally designed to output data to the same file names and create the same Word documents each time they are run. I'm sure you have come across similar situations either with the delivered WinWord processes (See Figure 1) or a custom SQR that produces an extract file.