Flashin Leather

Customizations to delivered objects present an on-going maintenance issue.

So, if you customize a delivered piece of code or a page or a component, when you upgrade (or even just apply a bundle that updates that object), it is going to overwrite the object with the newly delivered version, then you are going to have to go back in and reapply your customization.

Bolt-on objects are just brought forward in an upgrade. So for example, the custom page you have in release 8.9 will come through the upgrade looking exactly like it did in the upgraded 9.1 database. So from the perspective of not having to continually reapply your modifications to delivered objects once they get updated in a fix or upgrade, bolt-on objects are easier to maintain.

However -- the catch is that the bolt-on object still has to be tested and may or may not require re-development. It may point to or relate to delivered objects that have changed or disappeared, so from this perspective, there may be effort to redevelop your bolt-on objects too.

To my mind, though, there is less effort involved with custom-added (bolt-ons) because you may or may not have to do anything to your bolt-ons depending on what you find in testing, but with modification you are always advised to take the newest delivered version of a PeopleSoft object, then reapply your modification to it.