[Athen] please resend to list - Peoplesoft and JAWS

[Greg Kraus]

Hi Jean,

There are a couple of things that may help, but some of this will be
out of your control. These recommendations are based on how we have
implemented PeopleSoft, so I'm not 100% sure if it will apply in your
context.

1. The version of PeopleTools (the environment all of the PeopleSoft
Apps are written and delivered in) makes a big difference in
accessibility support. I believe PeopleTools 8.51 was where they made
some significant accessibility improvements. (I hesitate saying
significant, because that implies I might be happy with it. It is
significant in that it is better than the older version of
PeopleTools.) Moving all of your apps to a newer version of
PeopleTools is a major undertaking. You just need to ask your
PeopleSoft developers what version of PeopleTools you are running.

2. It depends on if you are using PeopleTool's built-in UI components.
When you use the default PeopleTools UI elements, they know for the
most part how to also display themselves accessibly when a certain
flag is set (see #3 below). If you are developing your own UI and are
simply using the PeopleSoft business logic to do most of the work,
like using it as an API, then you are responsible for providing
accessibility support for your UI.

3. There is a user variable that you can set to always display the UI
in the accessible view. It is in the user's preferences, although it
is not always the easiest thing to find. I'm not sure how much of this
language is customized for our version of PeopleSoft, but once I log
in I need to go to "My Personalizations", then "Personalize General
Options", then "Accessibility Features", and set it  to "Use
accessible layout mode". You will most likely need to log out and back
in for the setting to take full effect. Depending on other
circumstances and the type of disability the user may need someone
else to make this setting for them initially.

With #3, your PeopleSoft developers might not even know this feature
exists. One problem we ran into was the user could make that setting
in our "Portal", which is just the landing page you get to after
logging in, but the setting didn't automatically propagate down to the
individual apps. Our developers had to do something to make that
happen. It wasn't hard, but it is something that can get overlooked
when an underlying app gets updated.

Again, we have a fairly robust implementation of PeopleSoft, so our
environment may be a little different than yours. I hope some of this
helps. If your developers need some help with the implementation of
this I could put them in touch with some of our PeopleSoft developers.

Greg

--
Greg Kraus
University IT Accessibility Coordinator
NC State University
919.513.4087
gdkraus at ncsu.edu


On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Jean M Salzer <jeano at uwm.edu> wrote:

> There was so much chatter about mathtype - not sure if anyone saw my query

> regarding peoplesoft/oracle and JAWS.

>

> Message: 2

> Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 15:21:07 -0500 (CDT)

> From: Jean M Salzer <jeano at uwm.edu>

> Subject: [Athen] Accessible Instant Messaging Client?

>         PeopleSoft/Oracle        Access?

> To: athen-list at u.washington.edu

> Message-ID: <782116435.802863.1377807667752.JavaMail.root at uwm.edu>

> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

>

>

> Hello,

>

>

> WE have a new blind staff member in our Graduate School who uses Jaws. The

> IT person for the school and the university have been trying to learn more

> about accessibility related to the following items.

>

>

> 1. PeopleSoft (student information) tool: I've spoken with students of mine

> who have said that PeopleSoft is workable to a certain point, then they just

> prefer a sighted person. If I'm not mistaken, we were able to get Jaws and

> PeopleSoft to play nice up to the point a person needed to search for a

> class or a grade or whatever. This is, of course, several versions ago.

>

>

> The staff member is fairly adept at Jaws and yet is unable to get into the

> screen past the login. She has tried the usual keystroke combinations and

> can't get anything going. I've advised the Grad School's tech person to

> contact the company, but in the meantime, thought I'd see what others had to

> say.

>

>

> Peace.

>

> Jean Salzer, Sr. Counselor

> BVI Program/Alternative Text Coordinator

> Accessibility Resource Center

> UW-Milwaukee

> 414-229-5660, Mitchell Hall B16

>

>

>

> _______________________________________________

> athen-list mailing list

> athen-list at mailman1.u.washington.edu

> http://mailman1.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list

>