OOW 2014 Day 3 Fluid Deep Dive

If the overall theme of OpenWorld has been Cloud then within the PeopleSoft product the big theme has been Fluid (and Mobile).

Fluid is a new "complementary" user interface designed for multiple platforms - not just mobile devices like cell phone and tablets but desktops and laptops.   It's not a replacement of the "classic" interface but is just better suited to writing applications for casual and executive users who may be on a mobile devices one day and a dektop the next. The UI is a "responsive" one that adjusts layout for different screen sizes and orientations,  Read more here.

On Tuesday Dave Bain (Director, PeopleTools Product Management) gave a deep dive session on Fluid and I've tried to capture some key points.  I don't know if non-OOW attendees will have access to the PowerPoint slides on Oracle.com but have a look for this one - they are full of useful information  The session was entitled PeopleSoft Mobility Deep Dive: PeopleSoft Fluid User Interface and More  [CON7588]

Fluid was enabled in 8.54 PeopleTools release but (at time of writing) there have been no apps made available yet.   If you have PUM Image (PI) 008 then you have Fluid but there are no Fluid Apps.  I'm going to blog soon on how to create your first fluid app.  Expect the first Oracle built Fluid apps in November for HCM in PI 009 and for FSCM later in 2014.  Most of the Oracle presenters at conference were using their internal pre-release demo images for their presentations.  I have to say... it looks very nice.  So here's some things that may be of interest...

  1. Fluid is PIA.  Fluid pages are served up by the psc servlet.  In fact, a Fluid page is just another component and page.
  2. Pages are "responsive not fixed".  The HTML uses
    tags and CSS to control layout rather than the "classic" which uses
    tags.  A clever(ish) play on words to describe a  Free fLowing User Interface. (I haven't heard this officially... i'm just speculating this was how they derived the name)
  3. Fluid pages are not pixel perfect.  In other words the fields positioned on the page are rendered in a logical free form mode relative to other objects around them and the size of the device rather than absolute positioning.
  4. A page definition in App Designer is either Fluid or Classic. It cannot be both.  (A check box on the page properties controls if it's fluid or not)
  5. You "can" tick this checkbox on for existing classic pages but "you'll have fun" suggests a wry Mr Bain.  "Fluid pages should be created from scratch" he goes onto affirm.

If you have the PUM Image 008 for FSCM then you have PeopleTools 8.54 and therefore the Fluid framework. (not sure if the HCM Image 008 also has this link missing)  Here's how to access it.

Classic vs Fluid

Comments

Iouri Chadour said…
Thank you for your updates! It must take a lot during the conference.