1. Personalizing OA Framework Pages
Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

2. Objectives
After completing this lesson, you should be able to do
the following:
• Understand the differences between
personalizations and extensions
• Understand the capabilities of personalizations
• Understand Administrator-level personalizations
• Understand User-level personalizations
• Understand the benefits of personalizations
• Complete the OA Framework Personalization lab
1-2 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

3. Agenda
• Terminology
• Concepts
• Administrator-level Personalization
• Troubleshooting
• User-level Personalization
• Deploying Personalizations
• Translating Personalizations
• Hands-on Exercises
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4. Terminology
Personalization
• Declaratively tailoring UI look-and-feel, layout or
visibility of built-in content to suit a business
need or a user preference
Extension
• Extending the functionality of an application:
– Adding new content or business logic
– Extending/overriding existing business logic
• Requires JDeveloper OA Extension
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5. System Personalization Capabilities
• Menus and responsibilities
• Cascading Style Sheet (CSS)
• FND messages, lookups, etc.
• Icons and images
• Page Personalization
– Business preferences
– End user preferences
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6. Concepts: Personalizations
• Personalizations modify the user
interface of a page
• Personalizations are layered on Personalization
top of the base page at runtime Personalization
Definition
Personalization
Definition
• Base product pages are not Definition
changed
• Two types of personalizations Base Product
Page Definition
• Administrator
personalizations
• End User personalizations
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7. Concepts: Personalization Levels
• Administrator Personalization
– Function
– Location
– Site Personalization
Personalization
– Organization Definition
Personalization
Definition
Definition
– Responsibility
• End User Personalization
– User Views Base Product
Page Definition
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8. Administrator Personalization Features
• Tailor text for labels, prompts, and tip messages.
• Hide/show components.
• Reorder components.
• Restrict query results.
• Add new items: fields, buttons, links, pick lists,
images, and so on.
• Tailor graphs and charts.
• Seed end-user views.
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9. What Can Be Personalized by
Administrators?
By default, all OA Framework-based pages can be
personalized at the administrator level, with the
following exceptions:
• Pages or regions where the application developer
has disabled administrator personalization
• Personalizations seeded by Oracle development
cannot be changed or deleted
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10. When Is Personalization Not Enough?
• Page personalization has some limitations:
– Cannot add a new region to an existing page
– Cannot modify business logic such as data
validation
– Cannot build new pages
– Limited ability to change page flows
• You may need to create an extension
– Use Oracle 9i JDeveloper with OA Extension
– Extend business logic
– Build new pages
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11. Admin Personalization: Before and After
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12. Admin-Level: Where Do I Start?
How do I create personalizations?
1. Set profile options for your username
2. Analyze your requirements and options
3. Select the page you want to personalize
4. Select Personalize link to enter personalization UI
5. Choose scope and context
6. Create your specific personalization
7. Return to your application page
8. Test your changes
9. Deploy to production
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13. Profile Options for Personalization
• Enable Diagnostics for analysis
– FND: Diagnostics enables About This Page
• Enable or disable personalization capabilities
– Personalize Self-service Defn enables Personalize
link at top of pages for creation of personalizations
– FND: Personalization Region Link Enabled provides
additional Personalize links for every region on a
page (optional)
– Disable Self-service Personal disables ALL
personalizations for support purposes
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14. Analysis
• Use the About This Page feature to analyze:
– Existing personalizations
– Regions in the page
– View objects (underlying data sources) used in the
page
– Menu and function structures used for navigation to
the page
– Current settings of commonly-used profile options
– Flexfields available in the page
– And much more
• Use the personalization UI to analyze existing
personalizations.
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15. About This Page
If diagnostics is turned on, the About This Page link
appears on the bottom of every page.
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16. About This Page
Subtabs provide different information.
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17. Navigate to Page and Start Personalizing
In the page you want to personalize, select a
Personalize link (region-level links are turned on).
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18. Select Page to Personalize
Use the Functional Administrator responsibility to
personalize any page in any OA Framework-based
application.
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19. Set Administrator Personalization Scope
Scope - How far the personalization reaches through
the application
• A page: any shared regions are only changed for
that page
• A shared region: personalizations apply for any
page using that shared region (assuming the
personalization context is valid)
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20. Set Administrator Personalization Context
Context - where and when a personalization applies:
• A particular responsibility, organization, location,
site, function (or a combination of these)
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21. Find Object to Personalize
Expand nodes (or Expand All) to find the region or
item you want to personalize.
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22. Optional: Search for Item in Page
If you know which object you want, Search makes it
easy to find.
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23. Create Your Personalization
Select icons to personalize an object.
• Personalize (item or region)
• Reorder (region)
• Create Item (region)
• Update Item (created items only)
• Delete Item (created items only)
• Seeded User Views (tables in query regions only)
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24. Modify Object Properties
Change one or more properties of an object.
• Set values at multiple levels at one time.
• Check inheritance of property values.
• Overrride dynamic property settings (SPEL values).
• Properties vary according to object style.
...
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25. Common Properties to Personalize
Properties
• Rendered - whether the field exists in the page at
all (either hidden or displayed)
• Disabled
• Required
• Initial Value
• Records Displayed
• Destination URI and/or Destination Function
• User Personalization
• Title, Prompt and/or Text
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26. Modify Query Filters
Change query criteria for a region by selecting the icon
for the Query property.
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27. Change Sort Order
Change the sort order of table columns where
available.
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28. Create a New Item
• Select the Add Item icon
for a region.
• Choose an item style.
• Set properties for the
new item.
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29. Common Item Styles to Personalize
Item styles
• Message Text Input is a text input field
• Message Lov Input is a text input field with list of
values
• Message Styled Text is a display-only data field
• Static Styled Text is boilerplate text on the page
• Tip is instructional text in the Tip format
• Button links to another page or web site
• Image lets you add an image (often used as a link)
• Formatted text lets you add raw HTML content
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30. Connecting a New Item to a Data Source
Use the View Instance and View Attribute properties to
bind a new item to an available data source. Find this
information using About This Page.
• View Instance is the view object instance name.
– <View Object Name>VO<may have a number: 1, 2,
and so on>)
• View Attribute corresponds to the data source
column you want.
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31. Return to Your Application Page and Test
Select the Return to Application link to return from the
personalization user interface.
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32. Managing Administrator Personalizations
• Deleting personalizations
• Enabling or disabling personalizations
• Translating personalizations
• Deploying personalizations (moving from one
environment to another)
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33. Manage Personalization Levels
You can easily enable, disable, or delete selected
personalizations.
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34. Troubleshooting Administrator
Personalizations
Things to check if a personalization does not appear as
expected:
• Is the personalization overridden by another
personalization at a different level or an end user
view?
• Is the current context the same as the
personalization context?
– For example, are you using the responsibility
specified in the context for a personalization?
• If everything seems correct but personalization
does not take effect
– Developer has prevented personalization or may be
overriding it.
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35. Troubleshooting Administrator
Personalizations
What to do if a personalization causes the page to have
an error:
• If the page can run:
– return to the page
– select the Personalize Page link
– either correct the personalization or delete it using
the Manage Personalization Levels page.
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36. Troubleshooting Personalizations
• If the page cannot be run at all, use the Application
Catalog page in the Functional Administrator
responsibility
– find the personalization
– select Manage Levels to go to the Manage
Personalization Levels page
– deactivate or delete the personalization.
• Last resort: use the PL/SQL package JDR_UTILS to
examine and delete a personalization.
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37. Examine Personalizations Using SQL*Plus
As a last resort, use the JDR_UTILS PL/SQL package in
SQL*Plus:
• Allows detailed examination of personalization
documents that already exist in MDS Repository
– List any personalization documents
– Print out existing personalization documents
– Print out any translations of personalizations
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38. User-level Personalizations
• Inquiry pages using query regions can be
personalized to create specific views of data.
– Query filters
– Order of columns
– Column prompts
– Hide or show columns
• Access personalization UI from Save View or
Personalize button.
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39. User-level Personalization Features
• Create and save a search.
• Tailor table column titles.
• Hide/show columns.
• Reorder columns.
• Add a data filter.
• Change sorting order.
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40. User-level Personalizations
Enter the personalization UI using the Save Search
button if it is available on a Search region.
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41. User-level Personalizations: Views
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42. User Personalizations: Sort and Filter
Users can change sort orders where available and can
add query criteria to the personalized view.
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43. User Personalizations: Column Renaming
Users can rename results table columns and total
them if applicable.
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44. User Personalizations: Multiple Views
Users can choose among personalized views and
personalize them further.
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45. Users Maintain User Personalizations
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46. Default Personalizations for Users
User personalizations can exist at three levels:
• Seeded by Oracle development
• Created by administrator
• Created by end user
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47. Deploying Personalizations
Personalizations can be created in a test environment,
then deployed to one or more production
environments.
• Create and test your personalizations in a test
database
– Export personalizations as XML files
– Export tool
• Import personalizations to a different database
– Import tool
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48. Translating Personalizations
XLIFF (.xlf) files allow translations.
• Always create initial personalizations in the base
language of the Applications instance.
• For a small number of translations
– Use Export/Upload Translations buttons on the
Manage Personalization Levels page
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49. Translating Personalizations
• Importing or exporting personalization translations
in bulk
– Use the Export tool to obtain XML files.
– Use the XLIFF Extractor to extract translation
information from the page XML files.
– Use the XLIFF Importer to load translations into the
database repository.
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50. Demonstration
Common personalizations an administrator might do:
• Make a field required or not
• Hide or show a field
• Add a new tip
• Change a prompt and field order
• Changing the destination of the Privacy link
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51. Benefits of Personalizations
• Personalizations survive upgrades and patches.
• Admin-level personalizations are available on any
component.
• User-level personalizations are available on
queries.
• Administrators can easily disable personalizations
for debugging.
• Personalizations can be translated.
• Personalizations can be implemented on a test
system, and they allow for immediate feedback.
1-51 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

52. Summary
In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
• Understand the differences between
personalizations and extensions.
• Understand the capabilities of personalizations.
• Understand Admin-level personalizations.
• Understand User-level personalizations.
• Understand the benefits of personalizations.
• Complete the OA Framework Personalization lab.
1-52 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.