Manage Users with a Component Interface

Sometimes, you might need to work on a PeopleSoft instance that doesn't have a PIA. While you can still do a lot of things, one thing that is quite hard to do is managing users - create new users and modifying existing ones using the database alone.

Fortunately, there's a workaround. If you have two-tier application designer access (i.e., database access), you can use the component interface tester and a few component interfaces to manager users.

Clone a User

If you want to create a new user, the easiest way is to clone an existing one. The component, USER_SAVEAS provides this functionality. There probably won't be a component interface for this so create a new component interface in application designer based on the USER_SAVEAS component, and accept the default properties. You'll need to save the component interface (e.g. USER_SAVEAS_CI) before you can work with it.

Now, click on the right hand side of the screen (CI side), and choose:

Once the tester has loaded, simply select the OPRID of an existing user, like VP1 or PS and click on Get Existing.

Change the following properties:

• OPRID to your new username
• OPERPSWD to an appropriate password
• OPRDEFNDESC to an appropriate description for your user (e.g. their name)
• OPERPSWDCONF to the password you set (confirm password)
• COPY_IDTYPES to N (don't copy the ID information from the user like their Employee ID).

Right click on the top of the CI tree (USER_SAVEAS_CI) and choose the Save method as shown:

If it all works, you will get a Save() results return value of 1. Go check PSOPRDEFN to confirm, and of course try logging in as your new user. Slightly easier than trying to figure out all the relevant PeopleTools tables and writing a script hey?

Modifying an Existing User

To modify an existing user, you can use the delivered component interface, USER_PROFILE which is based off the component USERMAINT - the component you use to edit a user normally.

Again, open the component interface and choose:

You'll need to specify the UserID (OPRID) and press Get Existing. There are many things you could do from here:

• Change the PrimaryPermissionList
• Change the RowSecurityPermissionList
• Expand out EmailAddresses and modify the email address
• Expand out Roles and add another role
• Change the User's Password

If you are adding a value to a collection, like Roles, right click on the collection and choose InsertItem. Use an index [Number] of the last index. For example, if your user has 6 roles, then the last entry will be Roles [6]. So use an index of 6. Note you'll need to do this twice for some strange reason. If you use an invalid index, the following message will appear:

001: Invoke - [InsertItem]. (Errors Pending)
  Invalid item number. {USER_PROFILE.Roles.InsertItem} (91,54)

You'll know it has worked if you see another entry in Roles (and not the error above). Continuing with the example of 6 roles, there should now be a Roles [7] entry you can expand on and where you can specify the role name (e.g. PeopleSoft Administrator). Then go back to the top of the tree, right click on USER_PROFILE and press Save.

You might be wondering how to change the password? Well, right click on the top, USER_PROFILE CI and click on the SetPassword method. Then specify your new password.