Impact Analysis

Impact analysis is about determining what impact if any a change made to a PeopleSoft definition will have. A classic scenario for example is what would happen if you increased the length of the EMPLID field? What other definitions and processes could potentially be impacted?

At minimum your impact analysis should cover:

  • COBOL and DMS scripts
  • SQRs and SQCs
  • PeopleCode (all types)
  • Application Designer SQL including Record Views, Application Engine and Standalone (normal) SQL definitions

You may also need to cover other batch objects such as nVision templates, Crystal Reports, Winword documents etc. What I'm getting at is that a simple find-object references is not enough!

I've found the best way to perform an impact analysis is to grep the relevant files. I usually set up directory structure like this:

+ SQRs
+ PeopleCode

And place the relevant files in each.

You will need to export PeopleCode to file. You'll also need to export/copy the contents of the table PSSQLTEXTDEFN to a file (e.g. CSV). SQLTools++ makes this pretty easy as you can export query results directly to a CSV file. TOAD and most other SQL clients can do something similar.

Impact Analysis Tools

  • Check out iMPACTUS! by KBA products. There is a really good video on the site that goes through how the product works.