Ppsoft Hr Instruc

ACCESSING AND TROUBLESHOOTING THE HR FORMS

How the PS HR forms work: The PAR (Personnel Action Form) and PR (Position Request Form) are the two electronic forms that the HR FAST team has set-up for use with PeopleSoft HRMS. They are accessed through a PeopleSoft tool called “nVision”. NVision works through MicroSoft Excel templates. The forms are accessed as follows in the SAPRD database:

?? Go ?? PeopleTools ?? nVision

An MS Excel template will then load on the user’s desktop. Nvision works through MS Excel template, and, thus, the forms do also. When the Nvision ‘Reports’ template loads, the user selects from the two selections on the far right: Position Request or PAR.

Click once to start the applicable form

When the PAR is selected, it will take a few seconds to initialize and load, but the user will be prompted by a dialog box to enter an Empl ID. If the user wants to pull up a blank template (such as is needed to for new employee), then click the button to ‘cancel’ the form, and then a blank template will load. Then type in the form as it was a normal document or spreadsheet. If the user needs to update an existing employee, then at the EmplID dialog prompt, key in the EmplID, and click the button for ‘Ok’. The PAR will load. The first tab of the spreadsheet will show the EmplID and Name of the employee. The second tab of the spreadsheet will default in the job information (Empl records) for the employee. There is an additional place on the PAR form where the PeopleSoft database is queried again. Under the area for Job Information, where the job/empl records default in, the user can key in the ‘updated’ information. When the user moves to the Position# field, key in the 8 digit position# and tab out. When the user tabs out of the field, the ‘hourglass’ symbol will appear where the cursor is. At this point, code behind the form queries the PeopleSoft database again. If the position# is found, then the position information will default in.

Common problems or error messages: 1. A ‘read-only’ error message is common. There are several things to check. Usually, this means that the following directory is not set-up: C:\user\nvision\instance This folder has to exist, or the form cannot load. If necessary, create that folder path. 2. The ‘read-only’ error message may also be due to an incorrect macro setting on the user’s MS Excel main template. Check the Macro settings as follows: Open a fresh copy of MS Excel. Select ‘Tools’, ‘Macros’ and ‘Security’ from the menu. C heck the macro setting and make sure that it is set-up for ‘medium’ or ‘low’. The form will not load properly with the macro setting set to ‘high’, as this will prevent form macros from loading when the instance is delivered. 3. You may get a message that indicates something like: ‘cannot find spreadsheet executables’. What this means is that PeopleSoft cannot find the MS Excel executable. Under the Windows Start menu, to the PeopleSoft 7.5 group, and go to Configuration Manager. Select the tab for ‘Nvision’. Look at the field for “Excel Installation Directory”. This path should be pointed to where MS Excel is loaded on the workstation. The most common directory path for the Excel.exe is: C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office. If you get this message, contact the FAST Office for additional information. This may be due to an incorrect Excel installation or an incompatible version of Excel. Some Windows XP users report this problem. 4. If you get a message as follows: Run-Time Error -‘2147467259(80004005)’: Oracle client and networking components were not found. These components are supplied by Oracle corporation and are a part of the Oracle version 7.3.3 or later client software installation. Provider is unable to function these components are installed. Continue

End Debug help

This is an Oracle error message, and it means that related Oracle components cannot be found. A change is needed in your autoexec.bat file. If you get this message, call or e-mail the FAST Office, and I’ll give you further instructions. 5. Sometimes the form appears to ‘hang’ or freeze. In most cases, it’s waiting for the user to key in the Empl ID. In some cases the form loads, but a different dialog box comes up such as ‘delivering instance’ or something similar. Look for the ‘Empl ID’ dialog box hidden behind other dialog boxes which may have loaded. Look at your Windows toolbar at the bottom of the screen; if there is a button flashing that says ‘PS Nvision’, then click this once, and the Empl ID dialog box will usually appear. 6. As a general rule, users get a better response from the form if they ‘tab’ out of fields, rather than clicking ‘enter’.

7. If the form will still not load, check and make sure that there is enough space on the “C” drive. If there is not enough space, the forms will not load.. 8. PeopleSoft is certified with Windows 2000 and NT, and should be with ’98. Although, there seems to be more form-related problems with Windows ’98. The forms may not work with Excel ’97. It is strongly recommended to follow recommended system installation guidelines published on the FAST web site: http://www.uh.edu/fast 9. Problems are likely to occur with non-standard MS Office installations, and may cause forms not to load. We recommend only the default installations, with all default directories created during the MS Office software installation. For example, if MS Office loads Excel in a certain folder, avoid moving it to a different folder. 10. Problems may occur with multiple versions of MS Excel existing on the same workstation--even if located on different drives. Look for multiple versions or copies of MS Excel; e.g., one on the “C” drive, and one on the “D” drive. 11. The forms may appear to be hidden due to Windows Display settings. The Windows Taskbar Properties must be set to "Always on top". Start, Settings, Taskbar and Start menu, Taskbar options -- "Always on Top". If it is not, then the form will appear to 'hang', and will not load. Some campuses or remote branches are accessing the SAPRD HR database through a web-server terminal connection, through a web browser. The form will work similarly, but noticeably slower. The same c:\user\nvision\instance folder has to be created.