Use Cases

• 1: psLens for Developers
• 2: psLens for Security Administrators
• 3: psLens for System Administrators
• 4: psLens for Business Analysts
• 5: Reducing App Designer Access
• 6: AI Enablement for PeopleSoft

1 - psLens for Developers

The Daily Grind

You are working on a customization. You need to check the structure of PSOPRDEFN, find which pages reference a specific record, or look up a Message Catalog entry. So you open a remote desktop session to the App Designer VM, wait for it to connect, launch App Designer, wait for it to load against the database, navigate through menus, and eventually find what you need. Then you do it again. And again.

On a busy day, you might spend more time looking things up than actually writing code.

How psLens Changes This

Instant Object Search

Type a record name, field name, or any PeopleSoft object identifier into psLens. Results render as you type. You skip the App Designer launch sequence and the menu walk entirely.

Search across all object types at once, or filter to exactly what you need: records, fields, pages, components, SQL objects, application packages, Application Engines, and more.

Understand Relationships

Click into any object and see its relationships immediately:

• Records: See all fields, key structure, related pages and components
• Fields: See every record that uses the field, plus translate values
• Pages: See the component and menu path
• Components: See pages, permission lists, and menu navigation
• Application Packages: Browse the full class hierarchy

Deep Links for Team Communication

Every object in psLens has a permanent URL. Instead of telling a colleague “look at the DERIVED_HR record in App Designer,” send them a link. They click it and see the full definition, no App Designer needed.

Useful for:

• Jira tickets and code review comments
• Slack conversations about technical issues
• Wiki documentation and runbooks
• Onboarding materials for new developers

Markdown Export

Export any object definition to structured Markdown. Use it to:

• Document your customizations
• Create change request descriptions
• Feed into AI tools (ChatGPT, Claude) for code analysis and generation
• Build team knowledge bases

Keep App Designer Access Tight

App Designer is a full development environment. It connects directly to your PeopleSoft database (two-tier), can modify any object, view all PeopleCode, and run arbitrary SQL. That level of access is appropriate for developers who are actively building, not for lookups.

Because App Designer is a Windows-only desktop client that requires specialized network access, most organizations provision dedicated VMs or terminal servers just to run it. That infrastructure needs to be maintained, patched, and secured.

When developers use psLens for day-to-day research, they spend less time in App Designer. That means fewer VM sessions, less infrastructure to maintain, and App Designer access stays scoped to the people who actually need it.

See Reducing App Designer Access for the full picture on access control.

What Developers Search Most

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2 - psLens for Security Administrators

The Challenge

PeopleSoft security is complex. Users are assigned to roles. Roles contain permission lists. Permission lists grant access to components, pages, and web services. Understanding who has access to what means tracing through multiple layers, often across dozens of screens or with custom SQL queries.

An overly-broad permission list can expose sensitive data; a forgotten role assignment can give someone access they should not have. Manual review misses both because there is too much to check.

How psLens Changes This

Automated Security Reports

psLens includes built-in security audit reports that analyze your configuration and surface findings automatically:

• Full Access Report: Identifies permission lists with unusually broad access across components
• Nodes Without Passwords: Flags integration nodes configured without authentication
• Web Service Access Report: Shows which permission lists can invoke web services and REST endpoints

Reports run in the background and store results for review, download, and sharing. Run them on demand or schedule them as part of your regular audit cycle.

Permission List Deep Dives

Search for any permission list and instantly see:

• Component access grants
• Page-level permissions within each component
• Which roles include this permission list
• Which users are ultimately affected

You skip the SQL and the page-by-page click-through.

Role and User Tracing

Start from any direction:

• From a user: See all assigned roles and the permission lists they carry
• From a role: See which users have it and what permission lists it contains
• From a permission list: See which roles use it and which users are affected

Security Chain Visualization

Understanding the full security chain (User > Roles > Permission Lists > Component Access) usually means opening multiple windows and cross-referencing. psLens links everything together — click through the chain from any starting point.

Reduce App Designer Access

One of the simplest ways to improve your security posture is to remove App Designer access from people who only use it for research. Business analysts, functional consultants, auditors, and support staff often have App Designer access because there is no other way to look up PeopleSoft metadata. psLens gives them that capability without the ability to modify objects, run SQL, or connect directly to the database. See Reducing App Designer Access for details.

Common Security Audit Tasks

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3 - psLens for System Administrators

The Problem

You find out about problems when users call. A batch process failed overnight. Integration Broker messages have been stuck for hours. A long-running process is blocking the queue. By the time someone notices, the impact has already spread.

Checking manually means logging into PeopleSoft, navigating to Process Monitor or IB Monitor, setting filters, and scanning for issues. Multiply that by the number of environments you manage.

How psLens Changes This

Real-Time Alerts

psLens runs background checks every few minutes and surfaces problems on the dashboard as they happen.

9 built-in alert types:

• Long-Running Processes: Jobs running longer than expected thresholds
• Process Errors: Batch processes that have failed
• Backlogged Processes: Queue buildup indicating capacity problems
• IB Operation Errors: Integration Broker operations in error status
• IB Operations Stalled: Operations stuck without progressing
• IB Publication Contract Errors: Outbound messages that failed
• IB Publication Contracts Stalled: Outbound messages stuck in queue
• IB Subscription Contract Errors: Inbound messages that failed
• IB Subscription Contracts Stalled: Inbound messages stuck in queue

Each alert type has configurable severity thresholds. Set what matters for your environment.

Process Scheduler Monitoring

View all process requests in one place:

• Running, queued, and recently completed jobs
• Filter by status, server, operator, or process type
• Drill into individual instances for run details and status history
• Spot trends before they become problems

Integration Broker Monitoring

See the health of your integrations at a glance:

• Operation instances with status and timing
• Publication and subscription contract status
• Error details and message content
• Direct links to related service operations and nodes

Dashboard Overview

The psLens dashboard gives you a single screen that answers the question: “Is everything OK right now?”

• The dashboard header shows current alert counts per severity across every environment.
• Click any alert to see the details and take action.
• No need to check multiple environments separately.

Common Sysadmin Workflows

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4 - psLens for Business Analysts

The Gap

You need to understand how something works in PeopleSoft. Maybe you are writing requirements for a customization. Maybe you are trying to understand why a process behaves a certain way. Maybe you need to know what data a page collects and where it goes.

But the tools for answering these questions — App Designer, SQL Developer, PeopleSoft’s technical pages — are built for developers. They require licenses, training, and technical knowledge that is outside your role. So you ask a developer. They look it up and get back to you later. Or you wait.

How psLens Changes This

Self-Service Research

psLens gives you a web browser interface to explore PeopleSoft configuration without needing developer tools or database access. Search for any object by name and see its definition, structure, and relationships.

You don’t need an App Designer license, SQL skills, or a developer’s time.

This also means you do not need App Designer access just to research metadata. App Designer is a full development tool: it can modify objects, run SQL, and connect directly to the database. Granting it for research gives people far more access than they need. psLens provides the research capabilities without that risk. See Reducing App Designer Access for the full picture.

Understand Page and Component Structure

Need to know what fields are on a page? What record drives a component? Which menu path leads to it? Search for the component or page name in psLens and see:

• The pages within a component
• The records and fields on each page
• The menu navigation path
• The security (permission lists and roles) that control access

Research Security Configuration

When you need to understand who can access what:

• Search for a user and see their roles
• Search for a role and see its permission lists
• Search for a permission list and see what it grants access to
• Trace the full chain without asking anyone for help

Share What You Find

psLens deep links let you share a direct URL to any PeopleSoft object. Include links in your requirements documents, Jira tickets, or emails. When someone clicks the link, they see exactly what you are referencing, no instructions needed.

Export to Markdown for inclusion in documentation, presentations, or analysis.

Bridge the Communication Gap

One of the hardest parts of working with PeopleSoft is the gap between business needs and technical implementation. psLens helps bridge that gap by giving non-technical team members visibility into the technical side:

• Understand what fields exist on a record before writing requirements
• See how components are structured before requesting changes
• Review security configuration before requesting access changes
• Cite “PS_PERSONAL_DATA, field BIRTHDATE” in a Jira ticket and paste the psLens deep link, so the developer does not have to guess which page you meant

Common BA Tasks in psLens

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5 - Reducing App Designer Access

The Problem

Someone on the team needs to look something up in PeopleSoft. Maybe a business analyst is writing requirements and needs to see what fields are on a record. Maybe an auditor needs to understand how security is configured. Maybe a functional consultant needs to trace a component’s menu path.

The default answer is: give them App Designer.

This happens because App Designer is the only tool that lets you browse PeopleSoft object definitions. There is no read-only alternative built into PeopleSoft. So people who only need to look things up end up with the same tool that developers use to build and modify the application.

What App Designer Access Actually Grants

App Designer is a full development environment. When you give someone App Designer access, you are giving them the ability to:

• Open and modify any object definition: records, pages, components, Application Engine programs, PeopleCode, and more
• View all PeopleCode source across the entire application
• Use SQL Editor to run arbitrary queries directly against the database
• Create and migrate projects between environments
• Connect directly to the database. App Designer requires a two-tier connection, which means the user’s workstation has network-level access to the database server.
• Require specialized infrastructure. Because of the two-tier connectivity requirement, organizations often provision dedicated virtual machines or terminal servers just so users can run App Designer. That is additional infrastructure to maintain, patch, and secure, all so someone can look something up.

And critically: App Designer activity is difficult to audit. There is no built-in log of which objects a user opened, viewed, or modified through the tool. You are trusting that users will only do what they are supposed to do, with no way to verify.

The Principle of Least Privilege

Least privilege is straightforward: give people the minimum access they need to do their job. If someone needs to look up a record definition, they should not need a tool that can also modify that record, run SQL against the database, and view every line of PeopleCode in the system.

This is not a theoretical concern. Internal and external auditors (SOX, SOC 2, and others) increasingly ask about developer tool access:

• Who has App Designer access?
• Why do they have it?
• What controls exist to prevent misuse?

When the answer is “they have it because they need to look things up and there is no other way,” that is a gap psLens removes by giving the same researchers a read-only browser UI with no SQL, no PeopleCode write access, and no database connection.

How psLens Compares

Beyond Security

Removing unnecessary App Designer access has practical benefits beyond risk reduction:

• License savings. PeopleTools client licenses are not free. Every user who moves from App Designer to psLens is a license you do not need to maintain.
• No desktop installation or VM access. App Designer requires installation on a workstation or access to a dedicated virtual machine or terminal server. psLens runs in any browser, no specialized infrastructure needed.
• Immediate productivity. New team members can start researching PeopleSoft configuration on their first day. No App Designer training, no connectivity setup, no waiting for access provisioning.
• Access from anywhere. psLens is a web application. No VPN or direct database connectivity required (depending on your network configuration).

Who This Applies To

Any role that uses App Designer primarily for research rather than development:

• Business Analysts: researching components, records, and page structures for requirements
• Functional Consultants: understanding configuration and tracing security chains
• Auditors: reviewing security setup, permission lists, and access grants
• Support Analysts: looking up object definitions during incident investigation
• Project Managers: understanding scope and impact of proposed changes
• New Team Members: learning the system during onboarding

If they are not writing PeopleCode or building projects, they probably do not need App Designer.

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6 - AI Enablement for PeopleSoft

The Problem: PeopleSoft Is a Black Box to AI

PeopleSoft hides its source code from the filesystem. Object definitions live in a relational database, not in files. PeopleCode is embedded in the runtime, not on a filesystem where tools can read it. There are no Git repositories, no IDEs with language server support, no standard ways to extract metadata programmatically.

This means AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot cannot see your PeopleSoft system. They have general knowledge of PeopleTools concepts, but they have no way to read your specific records, your PeopleCode, your component structure, or your security configuration. You cannot point an LLM at your PeopleSoft environment and ask it to help.

Unless you can get the data out first.

How psLens Exports PeopleSoft for AI

psLens exports PeopleSoft object definitions to structured Markdown. Every object type has a one-click export, and the output works in two places:

• Web chat boxes like ChatGPT and Claude. Paste the Markdown into the conversation and the model reads the full object definition with structure preserved.
• Local AI coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Aider. Save the export as a file in your project and the agent reads it as context the same way it reads any other source file.

Both paths use the same Markdown artifact. Pick whichever your team already works in.

What You Can Export

Exports include links between related objects so the AI can understand how things connect, not just what a single object looks like in isolation.

Recursive Reference Resolution

For objects containing PeopleCode (such as records, components, application packages, or app engines), enabling Recursively resolve imports in the export card instructs psLens to scan the source code for:

• Application Class imports (e.g. import PACKAGE:SubPackage:Class;)
• External function declarations (e.g. Declare Function Name PeopleCode RECORD.FIELD Event;)

The exporter fetches the source code for each referenced package class and declared function from the database. It appends the resolved code to a ## Resolved PeopleCode References section at the end of the document. This generates a self-contained snapshot containing both the primary object and all its dependencies, providing the complete context required by AI models without manual retrieval.

What You Can Do With It

Code Review and Analysis

Export a project or application package and ask an LLM to:

• Review PeopleCode for bugs, performance issues, or security concerns
• Explain what a complex Application Engine does step by step
• Identify unused variables, dead code paths, or redundant logic
• Compare coding patterns across different programs
• Flag SQL injection risks or other vulnerabilities in PeopleCode

PeopleSoft developers have always done code review by reading PeopleCode in App Designer one program at a time. With psLens exports, you can hand an entire project’s worth of code to an AI and get a full review in minutes.

Technical Documentation

Export objects and ask an LLM to generate:

• Technical specification documents for existing customizations
• Data dictionary entries from record and field exports
• Component documentation including page flow, security, and data relationships
• Migration guides based on project contents
• Onboarding documentation for new team members unfamiliar with a module

This is especially valuable for undocumented customizations — the ones everyone is afraid to touch because nobody remembers what they do or why they exist.

Impact Analysis

Before making a change, export the relevant objects and ask an LLM:

• “What would break if I added a field to this record?”
• “Which components and pages use this record?”
• “What PeopleCode references this field?”
• “If I change this Application Engine step, what downstream effects should I test?”

psLens exports include the relationship data that makes this possible: which pages use a record, which components include a page, which projects contain an object, and where PeopleCode references exist.

Knowledge Transfer

PeopleSoft environments accumulate decades of customizations. The people who built them leave. Documentation is incomplete or nonexistent. New team members struggle to understand what exists and why.

Export key objects and projects to Markdown and use an LLM to:

• Generate summaries of what a customization does and why it might exist
• Create Q&A-style knowledge base articles from raw object definitions
• Translate technical PeopleSoft structures into plain language for non-technical stakeholders
• Build training materials from actual system configuration

Upgrade and Migration Planning

When preparing for a PeopleTools upgrade or a move to PeopleSoft Cloud:

• Export projects containing customizations and ask an LLM to assess upgrade risk
• Identify PeopleCode patterns that may be deprecated in newer PeopleTools versions
• Generate a catalog of all custom objects with descriptions and dependencies
• Compare pre- and post-migration exports to verify nothing was lost

Security Analysis

Export permission lists, roles, and security configuration and ask an LLM to:

• Identify permission lists with unusually broad access
• Find roles that combine conflicting duties (separation of concerns)
• Generate audit-ready documentation of who has access to what
• Recommend security consolidation opportunities

Using Exports With Local AI Coding Agents

The same Markdown export that works in a chat box works as a context file for a local agent. The usage pattern is:

1. Open the object detail page in psLens and click Export as Markdown. The file lands in your downloads folder.
2. Move it into the workspace your agent has access to. For Claude Code or Cursor, that is typically the repo you have open. A context/peoplesoft/ folder is a useful convention.
3. Reference the file in your prompt. For example, in Claude Code: Review @context/peoplesoft/PROJECT_HCM_CUST.md and flag any PeopleCode that does unbounded SQL. The agent reads the file as part of the conversation context.

This pattern works for any agent that reads files: Claude Code, Cursor, Aider, Continue, the local-MCP-host model in your IDE. The agent gets the same structured definition a chat user would paste, with the same one-click export workflow on the psLens side.

For repeated work against the same set of objects (a customization you maintain, an Application Engine you keep reviewing), keep the exported file in version control alongside the agent’s other context.

Why Markdown Matters

LLMs work best with structured text. Markdown gives them:

• Clear hierarchy: headings, sections, and subsections that establish context
• Tabular data: field definitions, metadata, and relationships in a format LLMs parse well
• Inline code: PeopleCode and SQL in fenced code blocks that LLMs recognize as code
• Links and references: relationships between objects that provide the context an LLM needs to give useful answers

Other export formats (CSV, PDF, screenshots) lose structure, context, or both. Markdown preserves everything.

The PeopleSoft AI Gap

Most enterprise platforms have moved toward open formats, APIs, and file-based source code that AI tools can access natively. PeopleSoft has not. Its metadata is locked in database tables, its source code is embedded in the runtime, and its object definitions require App Designer or direct SQL to access.

psLens bridges that gap. It reads PeopleSoft metadata through web services and exports it in the format that AI tools consume best. Your team does not need database access, App Designer, or custom SQL to feed PeopleSoft data to an LLM. They just click export.

Roadmap: psLens as MCP Servers

The export-and-paste workflow above puts the developer in the loop. The next step removes that loop: psLens exposes its surfaces as Model Context Protocol servers so AI tools can query PeopleSoft live.

Planned in two pieces: a read MCP (metadata, security, ops, alerts) and an optional action MCP (running reports, triggering comparisons). Five concrete use cases (metadata research, ad-hoc security Q&A, 2am ops triage, recurring report cadences, post-migration drift) are documented on the Roadmap page.

Planned. No committed date.

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