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Activity guides are a powerful and easy-to-create way to present guided processes to your users.
And when you implement these intuitive and simple user interfaces you don’t need to train your users to use them.
Many PeopleSoft applications are delivering new features using activity guides,
but you can easily create activity guides for your business processes in PeopleTools - without writing any code.
The PeopleTools activity guide framework, based on our WorkCenter framework, provides all the structure you need
to define your process and its steps, and then expose that process in a WorkCenter.
Activity guides can be created dynamically from templates
which are master copies of all the tasks that have been identified for a particular process
For this video, we’ll specify the steps - and their order - for a simplified employee onboarding process.
If your task is complex enough, you can also specify grouping and dependencies within a task.
You can also make non-PeopleSoft pages, a part of a process and display them in the activity guide.
Including content from other applications, queries, or external web sites.
Let’s start by creating an activity guide template. A template is a master copy of all the tasks
that have been identified for a particular process. Instances are unique copies of a template that have different context data.
Use the Create Template button to add a new activity guide template and assign properties
Next, enter an Activity Guide ID, title, and a description.
If you don’t use all ten characters in the ID, the system adds characters to make sure the ID is unique.
You can specify security for activity guides at either the user or role level.
There are three different sets of privileges you can grant: - Administrators can update templates and their related instances.
Contributors are participants that complete action items within a template’s related instance
And Viewers can view but not update action items in an instance.
Instances - unique copies of a template with different context data – are defined on the Advanced Options page.
For our demonstration the Operator ID field makes this instance unique.
The fields in the Instance Creation Class box enable you to write business logic to set the initial values for an instance after it is created.
Use the Pagelet Options page to specify navigation buttons, other than Previous and Next.
For example, a Mark as Complete button. This page also controls whether the progress bar appears in the pagelet area for action items.
Now we can add action items to our template.
Use the Add Item button to add action items.
Then, enter the Item ID and Title – as with the Activity Guide ID, if you don’t use all 10 characters for the Action Item ID,
the system adds characters to ensure the ID is unique.
Enter a Sequence Number to control the display order of the action items.
Specify the assigned contributors either at the role or user level.
An assigned contributor is the person that must complete a particular action item.
More than one person can perform activities, with different people performing different action items.
If the action item is assigned to a role, anyone in that role can perform it.
Specify the type of link for this action item. You can display a PeopleSoft page, non-PeopleSoft web page, or a PS/Query.
This requires a related content service definition before you can define the link. RC services are easy to create.
For our demonstration, we created the RC service before recording this demonstration.
You can create summary items in activity guides to group a logical set of action items.
The next action item for our template is Personal Information –
This summary item contains detail items such as a phone number and address.
Select the Summary check box to make this action item a summary item.
Now, click the Create Detail Action Item button to create the address and phone items.
At this point, you would repeat the steps we just performed for your remaining action items.
For this video, we’ll jump ahead to creating a pagelet for our activity guide.
Once you have created all of your action items for your template, you need to generate a pagelet for the Activity Guide
that contains the navigational and action items. The Pagelet Wizard works in exactly the same manner for any pagelet you create –
for an activity guide or any other WorkCenter or dashboard.
After you complete the wizard steps – you simply publish the pagelet.
Next, you need to associate a WorkCenter with your Activity Guide using the Manage WorkCenter page.
Generally, the label you use for the WorkCenter corresponds to the activity guide.
Select Activity Guide Layout as your layout template for this pagelet.
Then, add the template or homepage pagelet you created to the WorkCenter.
Finally, review Your Activity Guide Navigate to your Activity Guide through the primary page of your WorkCenter.
Activity Guides are a powerful way to present your business processes to your users. They’re easy to create and simple to use.
You can create Activity Guides within PeopleTools - without writing any code.