Intro to Oracle Form Personalization

5/21/2018 Intro to Oracle Form Personalization

1/31Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.1-1

Introduction to

Form Personalization



After completing this module, you should be able to dothe following:

Invoke the Personalizations form

Understand the basic structures : Rules, Context,

and Actions

Make simple changes like changing prompts andhiding objects

Select objects by their current on-screen text

Get the current value for properties

Apply changes immediately to test their effect

Disable personalizations

Objectives



If you are not familiar with the basic construct of anOracle Developer form, including terms such asblock, record, item, trigger, property andbuiltin, youshould consider a course such as OracleDeveloper: Forms Fundamentals, offered by Oracle

University.

The viewlet Oracle Applications FormPersonalization Demonstrationshows many of theconcepts included in this module.

Related Course Material



Agenda

Overview of Form Personalization Rules and Conditions

Context

Actions

Working with Strings Getting it right

Putting it all Together

Limitations

Relationship to CUSTOM library

Summary



All customers wish to:

Remove fields, buttons, tabs, etc. from the screen

because they never use them Re-label fields, buttons, tips to match their terminology

Change the default value of fields

Allow easy access from one form to another, passing

context Do any of the above for only a particular user or

responsibility

Do any of the above only if certain conditions are true.

Do all of the above without writing code, and withoutviolating Support agreements

Your wish is granted!



Overview of Form Personalization

Allows you to make declarative changes to aform.

Changes get applied at runtime when the

proper trigger event occurs.

Changes can get applied based on who you areand other conditions

You can:

Change object properties

Execute certain Forms builtins Display messages

Activate menu entries



Form Personalizations allows you to

fundamentally alterthe behaviorof theproduct that Oracle ships, and access any andall data. Therefore,

This feature should only be made available to

trusted users. Avoid building Personalizations on a production

system.

Form Personalizations should first be

entered and thoroughly QAed on a testsystem before they are loaded to aproduction system

WARNING!



Invoking the Personalization screen

Run the form that you want to modify

Select Help > Diagnostics > CustomCode >Personalize from the pulldown menu

Profiles Utilities: Diagnosticsand Hide Diagnosticsmenu entrycontrol access to this entry

The Personalizations screen will now run

It will automatically query any rules if they exist for thatfunction



Rules and Conditions



Rules govern whenpersonalizations get evaluated:

Function Name: the name of the function that you ran.Personalizations are made for a function, not a form.

Seq: an ordering from 1 (first) to 100 (last)

Description: allows you to record why you are making the

change Enabled: used to temporarily disable a rule

Trigger Event: the event within the form that causesinvocation of the rule

Trigger object: the context for the trigger event, such as aparticular block or item

Condition: an optional SQL fragment that, when it evaluatesto TRUE, allows the rule to execute. An Advanced classdescribes Conditions.

Rules and Conditions, continued



Context


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Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.1-12

Context controls whopersonalizations apply to:

Level: Site, Responsibility, Industry, or User

Value: The specific value when level isResponsibility, Industry, or User

At runtime, if the users context matches anycontext of a rule, that rule is executed.

Context , continued


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Actions determine whatthe personalization does:

Seq: an ordering from 1 (first) to 100 (last)

Type: Property, Message, Builtin, or Special

Depending on the Type, the panel will change toshow additional fields

Description: allows you to record why you aremaking the change

Language: a list of installed languages, and ALL

An action associated with a specific languagewill only be executed in the context of thatlanguage

Enabled: used to temporarily disable an action

Actions , continued


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Actions: Property

Used to set a property of an item

Select By Text: choose an object by its onscreen text

Object Type and Target Object: internal identifier of the object Property Name: the property to change

Value: the new value

Get Value: extract the current property value into the Value field


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Actions: Property Example

This action:

Changes this screen: To this:


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Actions: Message

Used to display a popup message

Message Type: Error, Warning, Hint, Question, Debug

Message Text: the text of the message


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Actions: Message Example

This action:

Causes this dialog

to appear:


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Actions: Builtin

Used to perform processing by calling Forms and AOLfunctions

Builtin Type:

GO_ITEM and GO_BLOCK

DO_KEY

RAISE FORM_TRIGGER_FAILURE,

FORMS_DDL

FND_UTILITIES.OPEN_URL

FND_FUNCTION.EXECUTE

Arguments vary based on the Type


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Actions: Builtin Example

This action:

Opens the

Responsibilities

form (if the userhas permission):


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Actions: Special

Used to activate up to 45 pre-seeded menu entries

Menu Entry: SPECIAL1 through SPECIAL45

Menu Label: the text for the menu entry

Render Line before menu: will draw a line above the menu entry

Enabled In Block(s): the blocks for which the menu entry should beenabled.

Leave blank for all blocks.

Icon Name: the name of a .ico file


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Actions: Special Example

This action:

Activates the Tools

menu and creates

the menu entry, forall blocks of the

form:


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Working with Strings

Every property that takes a string can work one of

two ways If the string you type does notstart with =,

then it be used exactly as you typed it

If the string you type startswith =, then it will

be evaluatedat runtime. You can refer to: bind variables, like :block.field

SQL operators, such as ||, TO_CHAR(), DECODE(),and NVL()

Server-side functions that do not have OUTparameters


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Working with Strings Example

This action:

Causes this dialog

to appear(when run on 25-AUG-04):


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Various features and functions are available to assist you:

Trigger and Target Objects are validated

Add buttons: allow you to select objectswithin the form using lists

Apply Now: applies the current action immediately soyou can see its effect

Validate: for fields that support string evaluation,processes it immediately:

Conditionwill return True, False, or an Error

Valuewill return the resulting string, or an Error

Add messages of Type Debug They will only display when Show Debug Messagesis

checked

Getting it right


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It is possible that a change you make completely breaks aform, to the point that it will not even run! Heres how torecover:

On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics >Custom Code > Off

This will disable all callouts to Forms Personalization

Run the form of interest It should run now, because your changes were skipped

Invoke the Personalization screen and correct theproblem

On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics >Custom Code > Normal to re-enable processing ofPersonalizations

Getting it right, continued


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This is a step-by-step example of changing a prompt. Inthis case, we will modify the 'Users' form, and changethe prompt User Nameto Clerk Name:

1. Open the Users form

2. Select Help > Diagnostics > Custom Code >Personalize from the pulldown menu.

3. Create a rule with the following values:

Seq: 1

Description: Change prompt of User Name

Accept the defaults for all other values of the Rule and

Context

Putting it all Together


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Putting it all Together, continued

4. Select the Actions Tab and enter the following values:

Seq: 1 Press the Select By Textbutton and choose the User

Namerow from the LOV

Property Name: PROMPT_TEXT

Value: Clerk Name

Accept the defaults for all other values of the Actions

5. Save

6. Activate the Users form, then close it.

7. Re-open the Users form. You should see that the

prompt is now Clerk Name.

8. To disable this Rule, set Enabled to unchecked (ateither the Rule or Action level), or just delete the Rule,then Save.


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Limitations

Although it is faster than a speeding bullet, it is not able toleap over tall buildings:

You can only change what Forms allows at runtime:

Cannot create new items

Cannot move items between canvases

Cannot display an item which is not on a canvas

Cannot set certain properties

Cannot change frames, graphics, boilerplate

You can only respond to certain Trigger Events:

WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-BLOCK-INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-RECORD-INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-ITEM-INSTANCE

WHEN-VALIDATE-RECORD (not in all forms)

Product-specific events


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Limitations, continued

May interfere with, or be overridden by, base

product code Expected user is an Admin/Developer

Knowledge of Oracle Developer is extremelydesirable

Knowledge of PL/SQL, Coding Standards and/orAPIs required in some cases

Normal rules for customizations apply

Extensive testing in a Test environmentis required!


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Relationship to CUSTOM library

CUSTOM is a stub library Oracle ships thatreceives Trigger Events. Customers are free toadd any code they like to it.

CUSTOM and Form Personalizations drive off

the same Trigger Events Form Personalizations are processed first, then the

event is sent to CUSTOM

CUSTOM can do more because it has

complete access to all PL/SQL and SQL But for most changes, Form Personalizations is

adequate and is significantly simpler.


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Copyright 2004 Oracle All rights reserved1 31

Summary

In this module, you should have learned how to:

Invoke the Personalizations form

Build a Rule and Action

Select objects by their current on-screen text

Make simple changes like changing prompts and hidingobjects

Get the current value for properties

Apply changes immediately to test their effect

Disable personalizations

Intro to Oracle Form Personalization

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