Introduction to Form Personalization

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Objectives
After completing this module, you should be able to do the following: Invoke the personalization form Understand the basic structures : Rules, Context, and Actions Make simple changes like changing prompts and hiding objects Select objects by their current on-screen text Get the current value for properties Apply changes immediately to test their effect Disable personalization
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Related Course Material

If you are not familiar with the basic construct of an Oracle Developer form, including terms such as block, record, item, trigger, property and builtin, you should consider a course such as Oracle Developer: Forms Fundamentals, offered by Oracle University. The viewlet Oracle Applications Form Personalization Demonstration shows many of the concepts included in this module.

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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

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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 without violating Support agreements

Your wish is granted!

1-5 Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Overview of Form Personalization

Allows you to make declarative changes to a form. Changes get applied at runtime when the proper trigger event occurs. Changes can get applied based on who you are and other conditions You can: Change object properties Execute certain Forms builtins Display messages Activate menu entries
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WARNING!
Form personalization allows you to fundamentally alter the behavior of the product that Oracle ships, and access any and all data. Therefore, This feature should only be made available to trusted users. Avoid building personalization on a production system. Form personalization should first be entered and thoroughly QAed on a test system before they are loaded to a production system
1-7 Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Invoking the Personalization screen

Run the form that you want to modify Select Help > Diagnostics > CustomCode > Personalize from the pulldown menu

Profiles Utilities: Diagnostics and Hide Diagnostics menu entry control access to this entry It will automatically query any rules if they exist for that function

The personalization screen will now run

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Rules and Conditions

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Rules and Conditions, continued

Rules govern when personalization get evaluated:
Function Name: the name of the function that you ran. personalization 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 causes invocation of the rule Trigger object: the context for the trigger event, such as a particular block or item Condition: an optional SQL fragment that, when it evaluates to TRUE, allows the rule to execute. An Advanced class describes Conditions.
1-10 Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Context

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Context , continued
Context controls who personalization apply to: Level: Site, Responsibility, Industry, or User Value: The specific value when level is Responsibility, Industry, or User At runtime, if the users context matches any context of a rule, that rule is executed.

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Actions determine what the 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 to show additional fields Description: allows you to record why you are making the change Language: a list of installed languages, and ALL An action associated with a specific language will only be executed in the context of that language Enabled: used to temporarily disable an action
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Actions , continued

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 AOL functions 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 user has 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 be enabled.

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, for all 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 not start with =, then it be used exactly as you typed it If the string you type starts with =, then it will be evaluated at 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 OUT parameters

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Working with Strings Example

This action:

(when run on 25-AUG-04):

Causes this dialog to appear

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Getting it right
Various features and functions are available to assist you: Trigger and Target Objects are validated Add <object> buttons: allow you to select objects within the form using lists Apply Now: applies the current action immediately so you can see its effect Validate: for fields that support string evaluation, processes it immediately:

Condition will return True, False, or an Error Value will return the resulting string, or an Error They will only display when Show Debug Messages is checked

Add messages of Type Debug

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Getting it right, continued

It is possible that a change you make completely breaks a form, to the point that it will not even run! Heres how to recover: On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics > Custom Code > Off

This will disable all callouts to Forms Personalization It should run now, because your changes were skipped

Run the form of interest

Invoke the Personalization screen and correct the problem On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics > Custom Code > Normal to re-enable processing of personalization

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Putting it all Together

This is a step-by-step example of changing a prompt. In this case, we will modify the 'Users' form, and change the prompt User Name to 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

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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 Text button and choose the User Name row from the LOV Property Name: PROMPT_TEXT Value: Clerk Name

5. 6. 7. 8.

Accept the defaults for all other values of the Actions Save Activate the Users form, then close it. Re-open the Users form. You should see that the prompt is now Clerk Name. To disable this Rule, set Enabled to unchecked (at either the Rule or Action level), or just delete the Rule, then Save.
Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

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Limitations
Although it is faster than a speeding bullet, it is not able to leap 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 WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-BLOCKINSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-RECORD-INSTANCE, WHENNEW-ITEM-INSTANCE WHEN-VALIDATE-RECORD (not in all forms) Product-specific events

You can only respond to certain Trigger 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 extremely desirable Knowledge of PL/SQL, Coding Standards and/or APIs required in some cases

Normal rules for customizations apply Extensive testing in a Test environment is required!

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Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Relationship to CUSTOM library

CUSTOM is a stub library Oracle ships that receives Trigger Events. Customers are free to add any code they like to it. CUSTOM and Form Personalization drive off the same Trigger Events

Form Personalization 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 Personalization is adequate and is significantly simpler.
1-30 Copyright 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Summary
In this module, you should have learned how to: Invoke the Personalization form Build a Rule and Action Select objects by their current on-screen text Make simple changes like changing prompts and hiding objects Get the current value for properties Apply changes immediately to test their effect Disable personalization

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