Oracle PeopleSoft Upgrade System Administration

PeopleTools: Long/Lob & DataTime Datatype Issues

by Wade Coombs 0 Comment

Recently, I was working on a PeopleTools 8.44 to 8.54 Upgrade and ran into some major issues with the fact that the database so far behind in so many areas.  On the Oracle platform PeopleSoft changed the way it handled Long datatype fields and also how it handled Date & Time datatype fields.  The  part that I found was very difficult was some of the scripts that are more current don’t seem to take into account that coming from 8.44 might be an issue in handling these different datatypes.

Basically, in order to make this upgrade work I did a 8.44 to 8.53 upgrade first, and made sure that the LONG TO LOB datatype conversion was ran before the upgrade and that the DATABASE_OPTIONS field on PSSTATUS was set to 34 datatype setting.  Otherwise I ran into all sorts of weird issues with datatypes.

DATE and DATETIME, LONG and LOB fields in PeopleSoft and Oracle database

In PeopleTools 8.49 and earlier, Datetime and time fields are stored as DATE datatype in Oracle database. For example, you could see a DATETIME or a TIME field in Application designer might show as a DATE field in the Oracle database. Similar issues could be seen with LONG, CLOB and LOB datatype fields as well.From PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.50 and higher, the TIMESTAMP datatype is now supported for TIME and DATETIME field types. These datatype changes are mandatory, and the DATE datatype will no longer be used for the  DATETIME and DATE datatype fields.Updating the Database for Timestamp:
This is a separate step performed during an application or tools upgrade. This step invokes a SQL statement called UPGDBOPTIONS_ENABLETIMESTAMP.SQL from PS_HOME/scripts folder. This DMS script updates the database to indicate that the new TIMESTAMP datatype is now enabled. If the upgrade is performed through PeopleSoft Change Assistant(as it should be), the step is displayed and can be run only if the upgrade is from PeopleSoft PeopleTools 8.49 or earlier.

What does this step do?
Why the DATE, TIME and DATETIME formats chosen in PeopleSoft application designer show as DATE field in the database and how is this controlled?
This feature is controlled by the DATABASE_OPTIONS field in  PSSTATUS record.
DATABASE_OPTIONS field can store four different values:

  1. 0 – PeopleSoft is using the old datatypes (Long fields and Legacy Unicode implementation).
  2. 2 – PeopleSoft is using the new Oracle datatypes supported with PT8.48 (LOBs and CLS Unicode implementation).
  3. 32 – PeopleSoft is using old datatypes, (LONGs and Legacy Unicode implementation) with TIMESTAMP post PT8.50 conversion enabled.
  4. 34 – PeopleSoft is using the new Oracle datatypes supported with PT8.48 (LONGs and Legacy Unicode implementation) with TIMESTAMP post PT8.50 conversion enabled.
PeopleTools Version and Features supported:
  1. Datatypes supported with PT8.48 – LOBs and CLS Unicode implementation
  2. Datatypes supported with PT8.50 – TIMESTAMP enabled
Depending upon which version of PeopleTools is installed and what features are enabled, an appropriate number from 0, 2, 32 and 34 will be updated while running this step.