PeopleSoft Database Structure: A Tale of Two Data Dictionaries

Abstract

One of the ways that PeopleSoft is able to deliver the same application to any platform is by having its own data dictionary. Different database platforms structure their data dictionaries differently, and platform independence is an overriding principle in PeopleSoft. Except when building DDL scripts and executing audit reports, PeopleTools never interrogates the database’s data dictionary, but instead relies on its own. PeopleTools is also a development environment, so it is necessary to have a way of defining a table before it is actually created in the database—the PeopleSoft data dictionary serves this function.