Monday, November 4, 2019

DIY PeopleSoft Chatbots

Chatbots are here in PeopleSoft! The PeopleSoft Chatbot Integration Framework was delivered via Enterprise Components in various Applications (HCM, FSCM, CS, etc.). Utilizing this framework, HCM delivered the 'Absence Assistant' Chatbot in PUM Image 31.

Using an Oracle Cloud trial account, I went through the exercise of spinning up a HCM 9.2 - PI 31 instance on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) using PeopleSoft Cloud Manager, creating an Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) instance on OCI, uploading the delivered 'Absence Assistant' Skill to ODA, configuring the ODA Skill/Channel to point to the HCM instance and likewise configuring the HCM instance to point to the ODA Skill/Channel!

Here is a demo of the 'Absence Assistant' Chatbot in action!


Hat Tip

I am very thankful to all Oracle PeopleSoft and ODA Product Managers, PeopleSoft Development team and PeopleSoft Support team for answering all my questions and pointing me in the right direction. Too many to list them all but they know who they are! Their insights are much appreciated.

Before you get started

Use HCM 9.2 PUM Image 32

If you are just getting started, I would highly recommend you to start with HCM 9.2 PUM Image 32. I started my proof of concept on PUM Image 31 and ran into several issues that were fixed in PI 32. Among other things, I had to pull out certain bugs (30151468, 30151584, 30150506) and the web SDK (ochatjs.zip) from PI 32 and apply them to my PI 31 instance. You will save yourself a lot of time simply by starting with PI 32!

Setup the <Proxy User> userid in PeopleSoft

Before we go any further, it would be a good idea to go ahead and setup the <Proxy User> userid in the HCM instance. This will be needed in the ODA Skill configuration.

PeopleBooks: Understanding Security for Chatbot Integration Framework

Configuration Steps - Blog Series

The following steps detail all the configurations that are necessary to setup the PeopleSoft - ODA Chatbot integration. This series of blogs address several practical tips, tricks and lessons learnt that might not be covered in PeopleBooks and other documentation.

Step 1: Setup PeopleSoft Web Server for ODA
Step 2: Setup the ODA instance on OCI
Step 3: Configure the delivered Skill in ODA
Step 4: Configure PeopleSoft to point to the Skill/Channel in ODA

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8 comments:

  1. PriyankaApril 30, 2020 at 10:24 AM

    thanks for the information

    ReplyDelete
  2. JayJune 8, 2020 at 9:10 PM

    How to setup ODA from non Cloud environment

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sasank VemanaJune 9, 2020 at 9:17 AM

      The setup steps are the same whether the PeopleSoft application is on-premises or on the cloud.

      I must add that some of the steps (related to ODA) detailed here might be outdated because ODA had several configuration changes. Please refer to ODA documentation where you might find differences in the blog and ODA/OCI.

      Delete
  3. Lakshmi HariOctober 12, 2020 at 4:50 AM

    Hi, I am on peopleTools 8.57.07, I cannot use the PCIF framework for integration. Can you suggest what is the best method to integrate my ODA with PS.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sasank VemanaOctober 12, 2020 at 8:39 AM

      Hi Lakshmi,

      You right, there have been a lot of changes with the PeopleSoft ODA integration since the time I wrote this post. So, I don't think these posts are relevant for the current integration.

      Unfortunately, I do not have any blogs on the updated integration. Your best resource would be Oracle documentation.

      Thanks,
      Sasank

      Delete
  4. Lakshmi HariMarch 25, 2021 at 12:24 PM

    Hi Sasank,

    I am serching for a sammple request payload to test the absence application services for the Absence chatbots. Do you have any such sample payloads to share ?

    Thanks,
    Hari

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sasank VemanaMarch 26, 2021 at 11:04 AM

      Hi Hari - Good question. I don't have sample payloads. But it should be some JSON depending on the application service. I might write some posts on this once I explore more.

      But quickly you can try this:
      1. Go to Integration Broker > Service Configuration and remove PTCB_APPL_SVC from the "Restricted Services" list. Assuming this is a development environment, it will give you options to play with the security and set it to something that works. For example, I had to set it to Basic Authentication and remove SSL because I don't have that in my PUM image.
      2. Access this URL (on a browser after logging into the PIA) to see a description of all the available services:
      http://test.hcm92.com/PSIGW/RESTListeningConnector/PSFT_HR/PTCB_APPL_SVC.v1/describe

      You could also append the service name to the URL to get specific description (although, I have not gotten it to work yet). Maybe something with my security.

      Delete
    2. Sasank VemanaMarch 26, 2021 at 1:59 PM

      I figured that for the specific service level details, you want to append the "ID for service URL" instead of the actual App Service URL.

      For example:
      http://test.hcm92.com/PSIGW/RESTListeningConnector/PSFT_HR/PTCB_APPL_SVC.v1/describe/ps.GetMessageCatalogs

      Where ps.GetMessageCatalogs is the "ID for service URL" for App Service ID "EOCB_GETMSGCATLOG".

      Delete

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