Disabling TypeAhead functionality in PeopleSoft

Typeahead functionality is a good feature introduced by PeopleTools releases. This feature will bring up all the possible list of values for a prompt field when you start typing in the first letters of the word. This is brought up with the help of Ajax technology. This actually saves the time of the user by reducing the number of clicks and types. Instead of user clicking the prompt button, typing the search text, hitting search button and then selecting the result; now user can directly pick the required result from the same page. This is similar to the search suggestions we see on the google search field.

This is an interesting feature, but it too have the other side. When user types in a prompt field where the possible value list is in millions, the system started to retrieve the millions of rows as typeahead option and as a result the page was getting timed out. This affected most of the customers and they were not able to enter the prompt details.

At the initial release there was no option to disable this typeahead feature and users have to live with the performance issue. Now with the latest release of people tools, Oracle has addressed this issue and now we have two levels of options to disable the typeahead feature.

Option 1

Open the record field property in the app designer. Go to the Use Tab. Check the “Disable Autocomplete for this field”. This will disable typeahead for this record field.

Option 2

Go To: People Tools > Utilities > Administration > Lookup Exclusion Table

Add the record which you want to disable typeahead feature and save it. Unlike the option 1 this is applicable for all fields in the record.

Remember this is a very user friendly feature; disable it only if it is adversely affecting the system performance.