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Oracle Application Server Adapter for Oracle Applications User's Guide
10g (10.1.3.3.0)
Part Number E05440-01
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Oracle Application Server Adapter for Oracle Applications User's Guide
10g (10.1.3.3.0)
Part Number E05440-01		 Go to Table of Contents
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Introduction to OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

Oracle Applications is a set of integrated business applications that runs entirely on the Internet. Oracle Applications offers you the following:

The applications in Oracle Applications are built on a unified information architecture that consolidates data from Oracle and non-Oracle applications and enables a consistent definition of customers, suppliers, partners, and employees across the entire enterprise. This results in a suite of applications that can give you information, such as current performance metrics, financial ratios, profit and loss summaries. To connect Oracle Applications to non-Oracle applications, you use OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications.

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications provides comprehensive, bidirectional, multimodal, synchronous, and asynchronous connectivity to Oracle Applications. The Adapter supports for all modules of Oracle Applications in Release 12 and Release 11.5.1 to 11.5.10, as well as supports for custom integration interfaces with reference to various versions of Oracle E-Business Suite including Release 12, Release 11i10, and pre-Release 11i10.

Note: This overview includes details about features and capabilities that are new in the current release of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications. For more information, see New Features in This Release.

Features

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications includes the following features:

Architecture

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is based on J2CA 1.0 standards and deployed as a resource adapter in the same Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) container as BPEL Process Manager. The architecture of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is similar to the architecture of technology adapters.

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications Architecture

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Integration Interface Types

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications acts as a highly flexible integration interface for Oracle Applications. The adapter supports the following interface types for integrating with Oracle Applications:

Please note that OracleAS Adapter also supports the following integration interface types that are exposed by the Oracle Applications Module Browser, not by Oracle Integration Repository:

Note: Business events integration interface type is also exposed by Oracle Applications Module Browser, not by Oracle Integration Repository.

The integration interfaces are available for process orchestration through the Oracle BPEL Process Manager.

Support for Oracle Integration Repository

Oracle Integration Repository, an integral part of Oracle E-Business Suite, is a prebuilt catalog of information about the numerous public integration interfaces delivered with Oracle applications, known as business interfaces. It provides a comprehensive view of the interface mechanisms available for Oracle E-Business Suite's business interfaces. These interfaces are exposed because their definitions were annotated at design-time as required by Oracle Integration Repository.

Oracle Integration Repository can only provide information about an integration interface that has been specifically annotated by the developer to make it public. OracleAS Adapter takes advantage of the annotations that have already been created to make the following business interface types visible in the Oracle Applications Module Browser:

These business interfaces are exposed as Web services, and are available for process orchestration through the Oracle BPEL Process Manager.

For more information, see Oracle Integration Repository User's Guide. This guide is a part of the Oracle Applications documentation library. Oracle Applications documentation can be accessed with the following link:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/applications.html

Support for Custom Integration Interfaces in Various Versions of Oracle E-Business Suite

To extend the support for Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter enhances the capability of implicitly or explicitly utilizing Oracle Integration Repository to support custom interfaces, such as customized PL/SQL APIs, with reference to the following versions of Oracle E-Business Suite:

From the business service creation and runtime perspectives, OracleAS Adapter treats customized PL/SQL APIs as part of the seeded PL/SQL APIs. The only difference is that the customized PL/SQL APIs can be exposed by the Oracle Applications Module Browser during the design time.

Support for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12

From Release 12, Oracle Integration Repository is shipped as part of the E-Business Suite which enables OracleAS Adapter to directly connect to the live database of Oracle Integration Repository querying for the public interfaces and then displaying the list of customized PL/SQL APIs under the Other Interfaces node in the Oracle Applications Module Browser.

Supporting Custom Integration Interfaces in Release 12

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Please note that OracleAS Adapter allows you to extract the Integration Repository data file from the live database you connect to Oracle Applications and create a local copy of the Integration Repository in your workplace. Next time when you look for public interfaces, the system can retrieve data from the cache backend connection in your workplace.

For detailed information about connecting to Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, please refer to the Creating a Partner Link or Adding a Partner Link design-time task for each integration interface.

Support for Oracle E-Business Suite Release 11i10

To support the Release 11i10 version of Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter connects to the live database of Oracle Integration Repository and stores the data file within the Adapter for query. At the design time, OracleAS Adapter queries public interfaces from the native XML data file of the Integration Repository located in the Adapter and displays the list of custom integration interfaces under the Other Interfaces node in the Oracle Applications Module Browser.

Supporting Custom Integration Interfaces in Release 11i10

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Support for Oracle E-Business Suite Pre-Release 11i10

To support the pre-Release 11i10 versions of Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter connects to the live database of Oracle Integration Repository for all interface types. Since there is no differentiation between public, private, and customized PL/SQL APIs in the pre-Release 11i10 versions of Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter displays them all under the node of each module through Oracle Applications Module Browser.

Before making a selection from the browser for the pre-Release 11i10, you must select an interface type you want to use in the Adapter Configuration Wizard. All interfaces of your selected type will be displayed in the browser.

For example, you will find a list of concurrent programs associated with e-Commerce (EDI) Gateway displayed in the Oracle Application Module Browser as follows if the EDI Gateway interface type is selected.

Supporting Custom Integration Interfaces in pre-Release 11i10

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When you make a selection through the module browser at design time, OracleAS Adapter validates your selected API against the database. If it exists in the database for a particular version of your instance, then the associated WSDL file will be generated successfully.

New Features in This Release

This section describes the new features that have been added in OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications 10g (10.1.3.3.0).

Support for Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite

To extend the support for Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter now allows you to access Oracle Applications through the live connection of Oracle Integration Repository which is shipped as part of the Oracle E-Business Suite in Release 12.

In addition to the live database connection, OracleAS Adapter also provides the capability of allowing the Integration Repository data file to be extracted from the live database you connect to Oracle Applications and creating a local copy of the Integration Repository in your workplace. Once the local copy is created successfully, OracleAS Adapter will pick it up automatically next time when you connect to the instance. This way, you do not need to retrieve the repository data file each time you connect to Oracle Applications and will have faster and easier data access from your local database.

Support for Custom Integration Interfaces in Various Version of E-Business Suite

OracleAS Adapter now provides enhanced support for custom integration interfaces, such as customized PL/SQL APIs, with reference to the following versions of Oracle E-Business Suite:

Support for Multiple Organization Setups

To support multiple organization setups, OracleAS Adapter now provides a mechanism which allows Organization ID information can be directly entered through the header variable creation during the design time, instead of implicitly deriving it from a profile value during the Oracle Applications setups. Once you declare the header variable and assign a value to the Organization ID for a business activity through a PL/SQL API or an interface which requires the applications context to be set, the organization value specified in the header will be passed and used as an input to the rest of activities in the BPEL process.

The advantage of having this header variable mechanism in supporting multiple organization setups is that with only one single BPEL process, organization information can be easily placed into multiple organizations within the E-Business Suite if the Organization ID value has been specified in the header. While in the past, since Organization ID is implicitly derived from the profile value based on an application logon user's username and responsibility; therefore, only that associated organization for the invocation of the deployed BPEL process can be inserted.

Support for Multiple Languages

By leveraging the Multiple Language Support (MLS) feature from Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter allows a logon user's default language to be dynamically displayed at runtime when the system deploys a BPEL process through an API requested by the user.

With this feature, when an application user retrieves data from the system for a transaction or receives error messages while executing APIs, the user will find the data or error messages displayed in his or her default language. Additionally, if the user has dates set up based on a region, after data retrieval, he or she will find the dates returned with the format and time zone information corresponding to the information defined in the user's preference page.

Understanding Applications Context

Applications context is required for secured transaction processing into and out of Oracle Applications.

Applications context is a combination of Organization ID, Username and Responsibility. To establish applications context, the Organization ID is implicitly derived from the Oracle Applications setup data.

To understand applications context, you need to understand first how Organization ID and multiple organizations are related.

You can define multiple organizations and the relationships between them in a single installation of Oracle Applications. These organizations can be sets of books, business groups, legal entities, operating units, or inventory organizations.

You can define multilevel organization hierarchies, with a business group at the top of each hierarchy. When you define new organizations, they are automatically assigned to the business group associated with your current session. Each organization is part of a business group. The business group is usually the top box on an enterprise organization chart.

Business Group Hierarchy

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Example of a Multiple-Organization Setup

Using the accounting, distribution, and materials management functions in Oracle Applications, you define the relationships among inventory organizations, operating units, legal entities, and sets of books to create a multilevel company structure, as shown in the following diagram.

A Multiple-Organization Transaction

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Consider two different organizations in your company: One is a French sales office and the other is a German warehouse. There is a sales order transaction with the customer, and this illustrates how the entire Order-to-Deliver process would work:

  1. The customer places a sales order with the French sales office.

  2. The German warehouse delivers the product shipment to the customer.

  3. The German warehouse issues an inter-company invoice to the French sales office.

  4. The French sales office makes the inter-company payment to the German warehouse.

  5. The French sales office sends the customer invoice to the customer.

  6. The customer makes payment to the French sales office.

The database architecture is the same for a multiple-organization and non-multiple-organization installation, and uses the standard install tools feature that automatically creates synonyms in the APPS schema for each base product table and defines these synonyms with the same name as the base product tables. For example, the PO Oracle schema has a table named PO_HEADERS_ALL and the APPS schema has a corresponding synonym of the same name, PO_HEADERS_ALL. The PO_HEADERS_ALL synonym can be used to access unpartitioned data.

Schema Synonyms

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Now let's see how Oracle Applications ties Username, Responsibility with Organization ID. While setting up the System Profile Values, the username, responsibility is tied up with the Organization with Username, Responsibility.

Multiple-Organization System Profiles

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The following diagram illustrates how Oracle Applications use the profile options.

Building Applications Context

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  1. When the system integrator runs, the process achieves the integration with Oracle Applications using PL/SQL APIs.

  2. The Apps.Initialize process takes the parameters of Username and Responsibility.

  3. With these parameters, a lookup on the System Profile Values is done to determine the Operating Unit.

  4. The Operating Unit is modeled as Organization ID in the System Profile Values.

  5. The data is read and written into the Oracle Applications with the parameters of Username, Responsibility and Organization ID.

Based on the concept of applications context, OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications provides the following features:

Supporting for Multiple Organization Setups

Instead of implicitly deriving organization information from a profile value during the Oracle Applications setups, OracleAS Adapter provides a mechanism which allows Organization ID information can be directly entered through the header variable creation during the design time to support multiple organization setups.

OracleAS Adapter uses the header variable to include Username, Responsibility, and Organization ID, the three essential elements for applications context. Once you declare the header variable and assign appropriate values to each parameter contained in the header for a business activity through a PL/SQL API or an interface which requires the applications context to be set, these values in the header will be passed and used as an input to the rest of activities in the BPEL process.

Note: Integration interface types that require applications context to be set are PL/SQL APIs, concurrent programs, and EDI programs.

Creating and Assigning Header Variable

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The advantage of having this header variable mechanism in supporting multiple organization setups is that with only one single BPEL process, organization information can be easily placed into multiple organizations within the E-Business Suite if the Organization ID value has been specified in the header. While in the past, since Organization ID is implicitly derived from the profile value based on an application logon user's username and responsibility; therefore, only that associated organization for the invocation of the deployed BPEL process can be inserted.

With the example described earlier in the Multiple Organization Setup section, when a change order is placed within the French sales office, a sales manager from the French office logs on to the system to update the order which invokes a PL/SQL API for that change. If the Organization ID contained in the header variable has been assigned with a value, such as 207 for the French sales office, the Organization ID associated with the sales manager will be set to French sales office for the invocation of the API.

Note: For Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12, Organization ID parameter is automatically included in the header variable along with Username and Responsibility. For Release 11.5.10, you must apply back port patch 4549743 to Oracle Applications instance in order to have Organization ID displayed in the header.

Design-Time Tasks for Organization ID Support in Multiple Organization Setups

OracleAS Adapter uses the following procedures to complete the design-time tasks to support Organization ID in multiple organization setups:

  1. Create a BPEL project

  2. Add a Partner Link

  3. Configure an Invoke Activity and Create the Header Variable

    This activity involves the following tasks:

  4. Assign Organization ID Using an Assign Activity

    After creating the header variable, you need to configure an Assign activity by placing it before the Invoke activity.

    1. Select Copy Operation tab in the Assign dialog box and select Copy Operation... from the Create drop-down list.

    2. In the From group, enter an ORG_ID value, such as '207', in the Expression field. In the To group, locate the variable header where you declare the variable and assign the Organization ID to ORG_ID parameter of the header.

      Assigning Value to ORG_ID

      the picture is described in the document text

Supporting for Multiple Languages

By leveraging the Multiple Language Support (MLS) feature from Oracle E-Business Suite, OracleAS Adapter allows a logon user's default language to be dynamically displayed at runtime when the system deploys a BPEL process through an API requested by the user. When an application user retrieves data from the system for a transaction or receives error messages while executing APIs, the user will find the data or error messages displayed in his or her default language. Additionally, if the user has dates set up based on a region, after data retrieval, that user will find the dates returned with the format and time zone information corresponding to the default information specified in his or her preference page.

To understand how OracleAS Adapter supports the MLS feature, you need to first understand how data is retrieved from the application database.

Many of the APIs that OracleAS Adapter invokes query database views and these views present data in the default language of the applications user that is used to invoke the APIs. In other words, these APIs exposed within OracleAS Adapter are language aware. When an application user requests a transaction through the execution of APIs, data queries from the database views must have been initialized with the default language specified by the user in the preference page.

To identify the default language used in the database session for data query and retrieval, OracleAS Adapter will first examine the ICX: Language profile value at all levels including user, responsibility, application, and site. If it is not set at any of those levels, OracleAS Adapter then takes NLS_LANGUAGE parameter from the database instance National Language Support (NLS) parameters. The NLS parameters initialized in the session are:

Dynamically Displaying Language Based on User's Default Language

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For example, when a user with a default language Japanese logs into the system and performs a transaction through the execution of APIs that the user defined in the Partner link of the BPEL process, OracleAS Adapter uses the username of the logon Japanese user and responsibility to identify the default language code, such as JA for Japanese, used in the database session. Consequently, the NLS context parameters are set in Japanese. That user will therefore see all queried data or error messages displayed in Japanese which corresponds to the user's default language set in the General Preference page of Oracle Applications.

Note: The default language set in the General Preference page updates the ICX: Language profile option.

Please refer to the Set Preferences section, Getting Started with Oracle Applications chapter, Oracle Applications User's Guide for the information on how to set the default language used by the applications user.

Design-Time Tasks for MLS Support

To implement the MLS support feature, perform the following design-time tasks before you configure an Invoke activity so that the variable can be passed to the activity:

  1. Declare the Header Variable (Optional)

  2. Assign the Variable Using the Assign Activity

Declaring the Header Variable (Optional)

You can optionally define the username and responsibility to be used in the execution of the API by setting a header variable {http://xmlns.oracle.com/pcbpel/adapter/appscontext/}Header_msg. This declaration provides context information for Oracle Applications to identify the application user that will be executing the API.

Note: Since the header variable declaration provides context information for Oracle Applications to identify the application user, OracleAS Adapter not only uses this variable declaration to support the MLS feature, but also to support other features that utilize the concept of applications context including the Organization ID support in multiple organization setups.

Declaring Header Variable

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Because the declaration of this header variable is optional, if you do not declare the variable, the default username is SYSADMIN and the default responsibility is System Administrator.

Assigning the Variable Using the Assign Activity

After declaring the header variable, you must assign the variable value using an Assign activity. For example, in the From group, enter an username, such as 'Operation', in the Expression field. In the To group, locate the variable header where you declare the variable and assign the value to username variable.

Assigning a Variable Value

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The username defined in the header variable will be used to derive the NLS variables which will be set in the context of the session that executes the API you defined in the Partner link of the BPEL process.

Installing OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

The installation of the Oracle Application Server Adapter happens out-of-the-box with the Oracle BPEL Process Manager (PM) product. OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is deployed using the Oracle BPEL PM in Oracle JDeveloper.

Note: Refer to Oracle Application Server Integration Business Activity Monitoring User's Guide for more details about installing Oracle BPEL Process Manager. Refer to the section "Notes on Installing Oracle BPEL Process Manager."

Using the Oracle Applications Module Browser

In addition to the interfaces that are made available through Oracle Integration Repository, OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications enables you to use business events, customized PL/SQL APIs, customized XML Gateway maps, and selected concurrent programs, all of which you can explore using the Oracle Applications Module Browser.

Oracle Applications Module Browser

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The Oracle Applications Module Browser is a key component of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications. You use the Module Browser to select the interface needed to define a partner link. The Module Browser combines interface data from Oracle Integration Repository with information about the additional interfaces supported by OracleAS Adapter, organized in a tree hierarchy as follows:

ProductFamilies
 |-[product_family]
 |  |-[product]
 |     |-[business_entity]
 |        |-XML Gateway ([n])
 |        |-EDI ([n])
 |        |-PLSQL ([n])
 |        |  |-[package_name]
 |        |-OpenInterfaces ([n])
 |           |-[OpenInterface_name]
 |              |-Tables ([n])
 |              |-Views ([n])
 |              |-ConcurrentPrograms ([n])
 |-Other Interfaces
    |-Business Events
    |-Custom Objects
       |-PLSQL APIs
       |  |-[package_name]
       |-XMLGateway Maps
          |-Inbound
          |-Outbound

Note: The items under Other Interfaces, as well as certain PL/SQL APIs and concurrent programs under the [product family] hierarchy, are available through OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications, but not through Oracle Integration Repository.

The Oracle Integration Repository interface data populates the [product_family] sections, grouped according to the products and business entities to which they belong. Each interface type heading is followed by a number [n] indicating how many of that type are listed in that section.

Business events appear under Other Interfaces. Customized XML Gateway maps appear under Other Interfaces > Custom Objects, categorized as either inbound or outbound.

Customized PL/SQL APIs appear in two places:

General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes the following issues and workarounds:

 

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