Matthew Haavisto, Product Management Director, wrote a blog about the value of personalized analytic notifications. The concept of thresholds has been available in PeopleSoft a while now, but combining thresholds with notifications and making them personalizable by end users provides additional power and value that many people may not initially recognize.

The Value of Personalized Analytic Notifications

How Are Thresholds Expressed in PeopleSoft?

Thresholds can be applied to almost any pivot grid or Simplified Analytic. They can capture many different business conditions or events that may be important to your enterprise. When a value in your system reaches, exceeds, or falls below a threshold, it’s captured and expressed in the pivot grid. Thresholds can display a distinct value or a range of values.

Why Is This Valuable?

Haavisto explained that the most valuable aspect of applying thresholds is that they enable you to capture important business rules in your PeopleSoft system. When you combine thresholds with notifications, you can not only see when important rules are violated, but the system will notify you so you can act on those conditions. You don’t even have to be logged in to PeopleSoft to receive notifications; the system can send you an email or text when a rule has been violated.

How Does It Work?

First, an administrator or Subject Matter Expert (SME) defines a threshold in a pivot grid. This is done in Step 4 of the Pivot Grid Wizard. Here is where you define the threshold values and determine which users are notified when a condition exists. The important thing is that you are expressing an important business rule that your people need to be aware of so that they can act.

Some rules may be hard and fast and you don’t want end users changing them. However, in many cases, you may want to provide users some flexibility in how they define and handle thresholds. When the latter is the case, administrators can grant that privilege by simply checking a couple of boxes in the Data Model options of the Wizard.

Setting these options allows end users to modify the threshold as they use the pivot grid.

Administrators will also set the frequency by which a threshold is evaluated and users are notified.

What Do End Users See?

First of all, users that have access to a pivot grid will see thresholds displayed visually in the pivot grid. If you are on the notification list, you will receive notifications when thresholds violations occur. If notification personalization options are available, users can determine how they are notified: Text, Email, Push, or any combination of these methods. This is done through My Preferences. If personalization is not set for analytic notifications, users will be notified by the method set by the administrator.

Personalizing Thresholds and Notifications

If threshold personalization is granted as described above, users can modify the threshold itself including the type, threshold values, and display color. If notification personalization is available, users can set the channels they prefer in their preferences. This is set on the Notifications page.

If you choose text as a notification channel, you must add your cell phone number in the preferences in General settings.

Using What You  Have

Most customers have many pivot grids and simplified analytics that could take advantage of PeopleSoft Personalized Analytic Notifications. Haavisto recommends reviewing your catalog of analytics and determining where this feature could help you.

Also, most customers have numerous queries that are candidates for pivot grids and simplified analytics. Those can then be used for thresholds and personalized analytic notifications as well.

How to Take Advantage of PeopleSoft Personalized Analytic Notifications

PeopleSoft Personalized Analytic Notifications provide two important benefits:

1. They enable you to capture important business rules and be notified when those rules are violated.
2. They change the way users interact with your PeopleSoft system. Now your users don’t have to be logged in to be notified when important conditions need their attention.