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Entity Registry Setup for EWS
PeopleSoft Campus Solutions created an “entity registry” framework inside of PeopleSoft. This only exists in the Campus Solutions product. I have always found it a little hard to explain what this is and why it exists.
It’s not well documented, but it sits behind these web services. I personally think it’s over-engineered. It has some cool ideas, but the implementation is a little rough around the edges, mainly because the PeopleSoft development tools that are available are not modern. In areas I have tried to work with it, I have found it frustrating with poor error handling and a lack of transparency into what is happening behind the scenes. If you send some incorrect data, you may get a generic error message that doesn’t help you understand what went wrong and you can spend hours tracing through PeopleCode to figure it out.
Additionally, what I find frustrating is that this is not used elsewhere in PeopleSoft Campus. If you are a PeopleSoft developer, you may be familiar with Application Classes and how they can be used to encapsulate business logic. The Entity Registry is a way to map these application classes to database records and define relationships between them. That is a cool concept, but it is only used in a few places in Campus Solutions, mainly in the Enrollment Web Services (EWS) for handling shopping cart operations and some Admission web services which I don’t recommend using.
However, we’ll add an explanation here to give you an understanding of what it is. This is more for the PeopleSoft developer audience who may need to work with this framework when customizing or troubleshooting EWS.
What is the Entity Registry?
An entity is an object that provides access (view, create, or update) to data in a PeopleSoft record. Each entity is implemented through an application class.
Navigation: Set Up SACR > System Administration > Entity > Entity Registry
The Entity Registry is the configuration layer that connects PeopleSoft’s object-oriented application classes to the underlying database records, enabling web services to read and write data in a consistent, reusable way. For EWS specifically, it powers the Shopping Cart framework that handles class enrollment operations.
The Entity Registry is a Campus Community component (data entry page) that configures how the system should use specific entities. It serves as a central configuration point that:
- Links entities to their underlying database records (both staging and production tables)
- Defines parent-child relationships between entities
- Enables automatic generation of PeopleCode and XML schemas for web services
- Can pull in field descriptions mapping codes to user-friendly names
A key design principle: entities are encapsulated — outside of the Entity Registry, entities are unaware of each other. All the code related to a particular entity is contained within that entity. For example, even if Emergency Contact is a child of Constituent, the Constituent entity knows nothing about Emergency Contact except that a relationship exists in the Entity Registry.
Here is an example of an entity definition in the Entity Registry:
How Web Services Use the Entity Registry
When a web service processes a transaction, the Entity Registry enables the system to:
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Generate code and XML schemas — Based on the specified application class, the Entity Registry automatically generates the PeopleCode that can be pasted into application classes and Integration Broker messages.
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Handle data flow — The Entity Registry configuration tells the system how to pass information between incoming/outgoing web service messages and the underlying PeopleSoft tables.
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Support staging workflows — For transactions that require staging (like admissions applications), the Entity Registry links the stage record to the corresponding production record, so data can be validated before being committed.
Entity Registry in Enrollment Web Services (EWS)
EWS uses the Entity Registry primarily through the Shopping Cart framework. The enrollment shopping cart implementation involves two entities defined in the Entity Registry:
| Entity | Type | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
CourseShoppingCart |
Parent | Container for the cart; uses work record SCC_SHOPCRT_WRK |
CourseShoppingCartItem |
Child | Individual class items; maps to SSR_REGFORM production record |
How It Works
- The Shopping Cart framework receives a request (e.g., add a class to the cart)
- The request includes a
<SCC_SHOP_CART_TYPE>element (value: “Course” for enrollment) - The framework looks up the Shopping Cart Configuration to identify which entities are associated with this cart type
- It builds the entity hierarchy (CourseShoppingCart → CourseShoppingCartItem) as defined in the Entity Registry
- The entities handle the actual data operations against the
SSR_REGFORMtable
Key Point for REST Implementations
For RESTful versions of EWS (like those used by Campus Mobile), the Entity Registry also supports Entity Profiles. Entity Profiles let you create a subset of fields to include in the web service payload — useful for mobile scenarios where you want to minimize bandwidth by returning only the fields the UI actually needs.
Delivered Entities
PeopleSoft delivers entities for:
- Constituent data: Names, Addresses, Emergency Contacts, Phone Numbers, etc.
- Admissions data: Academic Interests, Academic Plan, Academic Program, etc.
- Enrollment data: CourseShoppingCart, CourseShoppingCartItem
Chris Malek
Chris Malek s a PeopleTools® Technical Consultant with over two decades of experience working on PeopleSoft enterprise software projects. He is available for consulting engagements.
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