PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions And Answers 2024

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions And Answers. Here Coding compiler sharing a list of 42 interview questions on PeopleSoft Application Engine. These app engine questions were prepared by PeopleSoft experts and asked in various PeopleSoft interviews. We hope that these PeopleSoft app engine questions will help you to crack your next job interview. All the best for your future and happy learning.

Table of Contents

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions

What is PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What are the components of PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What is a program in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
Does PeopleSoft Application Engine generate SQL or PeopleCode?
What is Batch Processing in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What is PeopleSoft meta-SQL?
Can you write a sample code in meta-SQL?
What are the key Application Engine Program Elements?
What is a program in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What is a section in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What is a step in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What are actions in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What are Do Actions in PeopleSoft Application Engine?
What are the types of Do Actions in Peoplesoft Application Engine?
What is a Log Message in Peoplesoft Application Engine?

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions And Answers

1) What is PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine is a PeopleTool designed to help us in develop, test, and run background SQL processing programs.

2) What are the components of PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine comprises two distinct components, they are designer and runtime.

A designer where we can define our batch program and the runtime where you run and monitor your program.

3) What is a program in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) In PeopleSoft Application Engine, a program is a set of SQL statements, PeopleCode, and program control actions (that enable looping and conditional logic) defined in PeopleSoft Application Designer that performs a business process.

4) Does PeopleSoft Application Engine generate SQL or PeopleCode?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine does not generate SQL or PeopleCode, it executes the SQL and PeopleCode that you include in an Application Engine action as part of your overall program.

5) What is Batch Processing in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine is designed for batch processing where you have a large (or small) amount of data that must be processed without user intervention

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 6) What is PeopleSoft meta-SQL?

A) PeopleSoft meta-SQL is designed to replace RDBMS-specific SQL syntax with a standard syntax, called meta-strings.

PeopleSoft meta-SQL enables you to dynamically generate portions of your SQL statements.

7) Can you write a sample code in meta-SQL?

A) For example, if you want to join two tables on their common keys, use the following code:

%Join(COMMON_KEYS, PSAESECTDEFN ABC, PSAESTEPDEFN XYZ )

8) What are the key Application Engine Program Elements?

A) A PeopleSoft Application Engine program is made up of several key elements:

Program
Sections
Steps
Actions
Do Actions
SQL
PeopleCode
Log Message
Call Section
State Record

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 9) What is a program in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) Program Identifies the set of processes to execute a given task. A program must contain at least one section. The execution of the program always starts with the section defined as “MAIN.”

10) What is a section in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) Sections Comprise one or more steps and is equivalent to a COBOL paragraph or an SQR procedure. All Application Engine programs must contain at least one section entitled “MAIN.”

A section is a set of ordered steps that gets executed as part of a program.

Interview Question on PeopleSoft Application Engine

11) What is a step in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) The smallest unit of work that can be committed within a program. We can use a step to execute a PeopleCode command or log a message, typically, you use a step to execute a SQL statement or to call another section.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 12) What are actions in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) There are multiple types of actions that you can specify to include within a step. Keep in mind that it is common to have multiple actions associated with a single step.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 13) What are Do Actions in PeopleSoft Application Engine?

A) Do actions contain a SQL SELECT statement designed to return results on which subsequent actions depend. For instance, if a SELECT returns no rows, subsequent actions may not need to execute.

14) What are the types of Do Actions in Peoplesoft Application Engine?

A) A Do action is equivalent to a COBOL PERFORM statement and has similar constructs.

The four types of Do actions are:

Do While
Do When
Do Select
Do Until

15) What is a Log Message in Peoplesoft Application Engine?

A) A Log Message action can be used to write a message to the MESSAGE_LOG based on a particular condition in your program. This gives your program multi-language capability.

The system stores the message generically as a message set, message number, and parameter values. When the end user views the messages using the Application Engine Messages panel, PeopleTools retrieves the appropriate message string from the Message Catalog based on the user’s language preference.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 16) What is a State Record?

A) A PeopleSoft record that must be created and maintained by the Application Engine developer. This record defines the fields a program uses to pass values from one action to another.

17) What are the various types of Application Engine programs?

A) There are five types of Application Engine programs, they are,

Standard, which is a normal entry-point program.
Upgrade Only, which is used in PeopleSoft Upgrade utilities.
Import Only, which is used by PeopleSoft Import utilities.
Daemon Only, a special type of program used as a daemon.
Transform Only, another special program type used to support XSLT.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 18) What is PSDAEMON?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine has a new daemon process, called PSDAEMON, that runs continuously when the Process Scheduler is running, and is intended for recurrent jobs.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 19) What is a Transform Program Type?

A) These type of programs enable different systems to communicate with one another by transforming messages into appropriate formats.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 20) What is definition view?

A) Definition view is where you create your definitions within a defined hierarchical structure. Within the metaphor of the definition view, nodes represent the definitions. A node is the visual representation of a section, step, or action that you can select, collapse, modify, and so on.

PeopleSoft App Engine Interview Questions

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 21) What is a Program Flow View?

A) The Program Flow view is a read-only view that shows the expected sequence of steps to be executed at runtime for the program you are developing.

22) What are the actions available within a step in application engine program?

A) The following types of actions are available for an Application Engine program:

SQL
Do (When, While, Select, Until)
PeopleCode
Call Section
Log Message
XSLT (enabled for Transform Only program types)

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 23) What does DO When action?

A) The Do When action is a SELECT statement that allows subsequent actions to be executed if any rows of data are returned.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 24) What does Do While?

A) The Do While action is a SELECT statement that, if present, runs before subsequent actions of the step. If the Do While does not return any rows of data, the action terminates.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 25) What does Do Select?

A) The Do Select action is a SELECT statement that executes subsequent actions once for every row of data that the Do Select returns. For instance, a Do Select can execute a SQL statement for each row returned from the SELECT statement.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 26) What does Do Until?

A) A Do Until action is a Select statement that runs after each action when a step completes. If the Select returns any rows of data, the step terminates.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 27) What are PeopleCode Actions?

A) Use this action type to insert PeopleCode within your Application Engine program. You can invoke the PeopleCode Editor directly from the designer interface to code your PeopleCode programs.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 28) What is Call Section Actions?

A) Use the Call Section action to call another section defined in an Application Engine program. You can call a (local) section defined within your current program and you can make external calls to a section defined in another Application Engine program.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 29) What are State Records?

A) We can assign variables for your Application Engine program through state records, while sections, steps, and actions pass values to subsequent program steps through state records.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 30) What is Set Processing?

A) Set processing is an SQL technique used to process groups, or sets of rows at one time rather than processing each row individually.

Set processing enables you to apply your business rule directly on the data (preferably while it resides in a temporary table) in the database using an update or insert/select statement.

Advanced PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 31) What is a %Bind?

A) Retrieves a field value from a state record and can be used anywhere in a SQL statement. When executed, %Bind returns the value of the state record field identified within its parentheses.

%BIND([recordname.]fieldname[,NOQUOTES][,NOWRAP][,STATIC])

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 32) What is %ExecuteEdits?

A) Enables PeopleSoft Application Engine to support data dictionary edits in batch. It is Application Engine-only meta-SQL, you cannot use it in COBOL, SQR, or PeopleCode—not even Application Engine PeopleCode.

%ExecuteEdits(<type>, recordname [alias][, field1, field2, …])

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 33) What is %Select?

A) This function is required at the beginning of any and all SELECT statements. For example, you need one in the flow control actions and one in the SQL actions that contain a SELECT.

The %SELECT function identifies the state record fields to hold the values returned by the corresponding SELECT statement. In other words, you use %SELECT to pass values to the state record buffers.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 34) What is %SelectInit?

A) This meta-SQL construct is identical to %SELECT with the following exception if the SELECT returns no rows, %SelectInit reinitializes the buffers. In the case of a %SELECT and no rows are returned, the state record fields retain their previous values.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 35) What is %SQL?

A) When you use %SQL in a statement, PeopleSoft Application Engine replaces it with the specified SQL object. This enables commonly used SQL text to be shared among Application Engine and PeopleCode programs alike. In PeopleSoft Application Engine, you use %BIND to specify your bind variables.

In PeopleCode SQL, you can use

:record.field
or
:1

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions For Experienced

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 36) What is %Table?

A) This function returns the SQL table name for the record specified with recname. The basic syntax is:

%Table(recname)

For example,

%Table(ABSENCE_HIST)

Returns the record PS_ABSENCE_HIST.

37) What is %TruncateTable?

A) This construct is functionally identical to a DELETE SQL statement with no WHERE clause, but it is faster on databases that support bulk deletes.

38) What is %UpdateStats?

A) PeopleSoft Application Engine replaces this meta-SQL construct with a platform-dependent SQL statement that updates the system catalog tables used by the database optimizer in choosing optimal query plans.

39) What is AESection Object?

A) The AESection PeopleCode object enables you to change the properties of an Application Engine program Section dynamically without having to modify any of the Application Engine tables directly. This enables you to develop “rule-based” applications that conform dynamically to variables that an end user submits through a page, such as the Application Engine Request page.

40) What is File Layout Object?

A) The file layout object enables you to perform file input/output operations with PeopleSoft Application Engine using PeopleCode. With the File object, you can open a file (for reading or writing), read data from a file, or write data to it. Using the combination of the File Object and PeopleSoft Application Engine provides an effective method to integrate (or exchange) the data stored in a legacy system with your PeopleSoft system.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 41) What is CommitWork function?

A) This function commits pending changes (inserts, updates, and deletes) to the database.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions # 42) What is Parallel Processing?

A) Parallel processing is used when considerable amounts of data must be updated or processed within a limited amount of time, or “batch window.” In most cases, parallel processing is more efficient in environments containing multiple CPU’s and partitioned data.

PeopleSoft Application Engine Interview Questions And Answer