‘wo4n017 ‘OAE —Modifying SAL. Behind Framework Pages| Oracle Apps Tech Blog OAF — Modifying SQL Behind Framework Pages Retadenermtece eooutlpdnte a inn: nena Tps Lunes Su, Ppa MDS OM Ol, Ql Ansan: Hane ‘This article will discuss the process of modifying the seeded SQL that exists behind an Oracle Applications Framework Page, by a Framework page we mean any browser based EBS interface sereen including selfservice pages. The article will discuss the analysis process involved in making such a change, the implementation of the extension using JDeveloper 10g and the subsequent uploading and “Substitution” of the new code within the MDS (Meta Data System) Repository. ATLOAF Pages use a number of “View Objects” to execute SQL queries against the ¥-Business Suite Database. These View Objects are actually XML. files on the application server that contain an SQL query, this XML. fileis used in conjunction with a Java Utility called the JPX Importer to load a pointer to the content of the XML. file into a number of Database tables that EBS uses to identify which SQL queries it should be executing when a page loads. These tables are collectively known as the MDS (Meta Data System) Repository. The MDS holds a lot more than just SQL query definitions but for the scope of this article we need not cover the other content. For this article we are going to use the Oracle Projects Search screen as our OAF web page on an R12 instance. Weare going to modify the SQL that is used to query back a list of projects so that the SQL only returns projects that are within their current start date and end date as opposed to returning all projects. Analysis First of all we need to identify which “View Object” we will be working with, to do this we will need to activate OAF diagnostics. To do so locate the profile option “FND: Diagnostics” and set it to “Yes”. Now take a look at the page weare going, tobe extending, Fig By turning on the “FND: Diagnostics” profile option you will now be able to see two new links on the page. The “Diagnostics” link which will appear in the header and the footer of the page and the “About This Page” ink which will appear in the footer hhipe:keitleyvordoeas.com/20001120SIea-mexstying-ed-bebndramawork-pages! ne‘so8z017 (OAF —Medifying SAL Behn Framework Pages| Oracle Apps Teen Blog only. In order to identify the VO that is being used by the page we will first examine the “About This Page Link” When you click on the “About This Page” link you will see an array of tabs all of which do various tasks which we can use as COAF developers however for the purposes of this article we will be looking at the default “Page” tab which you see when the ‘page opens. AIl OAK pages are made up of a number of BC4J (Business Components for Java) and Web elements known as the MDS. content or “Web Beans”. The BC4J content exists as compiled java code and XML under JAVA_TOP on the application server and the web content exists as meta data in the MDS Repository. The web content is organised into a tree structure ie. you have a page which contains a table which contains fields ete... When the page loads this “Bean Hierarchy” is rendered, according to its structure and this structure is what we can sce in the “Page Definition” section of the Page tab. Click the “Expand All” Link. Ifyou are familiar with OAF development this screen will be very apparent to you as representing the page structure layout that you are used to seeing in JDeveloper when building a page and navigating it will be simple. Ifyou are not used to OAK ‘page development and you are simply trying to identify the SQL behind this page then examine the View Object Column until ‘you see populated content, you should then be able to determine that the “Name” column holds content such as “messageStyledText: Project Manager” and that this is describing the “Project Manager” column that we see on the OAF page. ‘Weecan also see that there is a collection of columns indented below the “Bean” “table: My Projects Result Container” which refers to the result table that we see on the page. Fig 2 ‘We can see in Fig 2 that the “My Projects Result Container” is driven by the “ProjectListVO” View Object. In order to examine the SQL within the VO and to identify more information from the VO Click on the “ProjectListVO” link. From the “About View Objects” screen we can see a large SQL statement, The “Entity Objects” associated with the VO, and a list ofthe VO's available attributes. Any of these attributes could be used as additional content on the “Project Search” page simply by personalising the page however we will not be covering that process in this article. At the top of the page we can also see the name of the VO and a file path in the form: oracle.apps.pa.project.server. ProjectListGenVO this gives us the location of the VO on JAVA_TOP. Having identified the VO and its location on JAVA_TOP we can close the “About This Page” diagnostic screen and return to the Projects Search Screen. Implementation Now that we have identified the VO we need to extend, oracle.apps.pa.project.server.ProjectListGenVO, we need to setup our JDeveloper environment so that we can create a new View Object that contains our extended code. If you have not already got your JDeveloper environment setup then do so now, you can read how to at the Apps Tech Blog post “OAF~ Downloading and Configuring JDeveloper”, hhipe:/keitleyvardoeas.com/20001120SIea-mexsyng-sd-bebndramawork-pages! 26