Standard Request Submission provides you with a standard interface for running and monitoring your application's reports. You no longer need to design and maintain special forms to submit reports. Standard Request Submission lets you avoid programming custom validation logic in Oracle Forms when you add a new report to your application.
Standard Request Submission provides you with a single form you use to submit any of your application reports and concurrent programs, as well as another form you use to check on your reports' progress and to review your reports online. Standard Request Submission also lets your users create sets of reports to submit all at once. Standard Request Submission includes an easy-to-use interface you use to add new reports and to specify the parameters to pass to your reports.
Standard Request Submission includes all the features your users need to submit and monitor their reports without using concurrent processing terminology. Although Standard Request Submission is designed with end user reporting in mind, you can use it to submit concurrent programs that do not create output.
To learn about running requests, viewing reports, creating request sets, and other end-user features of Standard Request Submission, see the Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide. To learn about administration of request sets, customization of the Submit Requests window, and other system administrator features of Standard Request Submission, see the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide Documentation Set.
Oracle Application Object Library provides you with the features you need to satisfy the following basic application development needs:
Provide your users with a standard interface for running and monitoring your application reports and other programs
Let your users create and run sets of reports
Let your users view any of their reports on line
Let your users automatically run reports and request sets at specific time intervals
Let your users specify whether reports in a set should run sequentially or in parallel
Let your users specify whether to continue with the next report if one report in a sequential set fails
Provide your users with a single report that summarizes the completion information about all the reports in a set
Restrict reports users can run
Define report parameters that have different types of validation without programming your own validation logic
Invisibly pass parameters whose values come from your user's environment to your reports
The Submit Request form is the standard form you and your users use to run reports and other programs. You need not build forms that submit requests to run your reports or program trigger logic to validate report parameters.
With just one simple form to learn and use, your users save time in submitting reports and request sets. Your users can quickly submit as many reports and request sets as they want. Pop-up windows let your users easily choose the information they want to see in their reports.
Standard Request Submission can automatically resubmit your report or request set periodically. When you submit your report or request set, you can specify the starting date and time, the interval between resubmissions, and whether to measure the interval between the requested submission time or the completion of your request.
Alternately, you may specify a time of day for the daily resubmission of your request. You can also specify an end date and time when your request should cease resubmitting.
You can define sets of reports, then submit an entire set at the same time with just one transaction. Your request sets can include any reports or programs you submit from the Submit Request form. Using request sets, you can submit the same reports regularly without having to specify each report or program every time you run the set.
Users own the request sets they define, and can access their private request sets from any responsibility. Only Oracle System Administrators and owners can update a request set. Users may run request sets they do not own if their report security group includes the request set.
You can define whether the reports in a request set should run in a particular order. If you specify that the reports in a set should run sequentially, you can control whether a request set continues to run reports in the set or stops immediately if a report in the set ends in an error.
For each report in a set, you can specify a printer for the output, the number of copies, and whether to save the output to an operating system file. Standard Request Submission saves these options so you do not have to specify them every time you run a request set.
Oracle Application Object Library produces a single log file that contains the completion status of all reports in a request set. If a report in a request set fails, you can quickly identify it and review the appropriate detailed log file to determine the reason for failure.
You and your users can monitor your reports' progress using the View Requests form. After your reports complete, you can view them online through a scrolling pop-up window without the delay of printing out the entire report.
Your users can use Standard Request Submission to run reports that belong to applications other than the one they are currently using. Oracle E-Business Suite products typically use the APPS schema, so cross-application reporting can be greatly simplified. However, to enable cross-application reporting where you have custom schemas and custom applications, or you are using multiple APPS schemas, your ORACLE DBA must ensure that the Submit Request form can access the tables in the report's application needed to validate report parameters. The concurrent manager automatically uses the ORACLE schema associated with the report's application to run the report.
Oracle E-Business Suite system administrators define data groups for each responsibility. Data groups contain lists of application names and ORACLE schemas. The responsibility's data group determines which ORACLE schema to use for a given application name.
A child request or a sub-request is a request submitted by another concurrent request (a parent request). In the case of Standard Request Submission, when you submit a request set, the request set submits the reports and programs that you have included in the request set. The reports included in the request set become child requests when the request set submits them for concurrent processing.
A value you specify when you run a report. For example, if you run an audit report, you might specify the audit date as a parameter when you run the report.
A parent request is a concurrent request that submits other concurrent requests. In the case of Standard Request Submission, a request set is a parent. When you submit a request set, the request set submits the reports or programs that you have included in the request set. A parent request may be sequential or parallel which determines whether the requests it submits run one at a time or all at once.
The application with which you register your report in the Concurrent Programs window.
The application with which you define your responsibility in the Responsibility form.
What you enter as a parameter. A value can be a date, a name, text, or a number. The Submit Request form provides you with lists of values for most parameters, to ensure you choose valid values.
A set of values against which Oracle Application Object Library validates values your end user enters when running your program. You define your value set by specifying validation rules, format constraints and other properties. For example, you could define a value set to contain values that are character strings, validated from a table in your application. You can specify that Oracle Application Object Library use the same value set to validate different report parameters. You can also use value sets that you use in your flexfields to validate your report parameters.
Your system administrator controls which responsibilities have access to the reports and other programs in your application. You or your system administrator should first create related groups of reports and request sets. When you define a new responsibility, you assign a report security group to that responsibility.
When you or your system administrator define new menus, you should put the Submit Request, View Requests, and Define Request Set functions on the menu of every responsibility that should have access to Standard Request Submission reports. Be sure to define a request group for any responsibility that has access to the Submit Request form.
See: Menus Window, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.
To take advantage of Standard Request Submission, you must:
Build your report as a concurrent program, from writing the execution logic and placing the execution file in the correct location on your file system to defining a Concurrent Program Executable for your program
Design the parameter pop-up window your users see on the Submit Requests form
Define necessary value sets and validation tables
Define your concurrent program to use Standard Submission and define your report parameters to make use of Standard Request Submission
The following sections provide you with implementation suggestions for the preceding actions.
You write a concurrent program and define it as a Standard Submission report. You plan your parameter window and identify the value sets you need to validate your parameters. Define any new value sets that Standard Request Submission will use to validate your report parameters. Note that although Standard Request Submission is designed with end user reporting in mind, you can allow your users to use the Submit Requests form to submit any custom concurrent programs.
If your report requires parameters, it should expect to receive them in the same order as your users enter them in the pop-up window. For any type of report except a Oracle Reports report, you as the developer have to maintain the same parameter order in both the report and the pop-up window. When your report is an Oracle Reports report, the order is irrelevant because your parameters are passed to the report with parameter names (tokens) attached.
After you finish writing the report, place it in the appropriate place for your platform. For example, in Unix, use the sql or srw directories under the appropriate application top directory.
Use the Concurrent Program Executable window to define your report file as an executable file. You'll use this executable to define your concurrent program.
Determine what parameters your report requires. Then determine what order in which your user should enter parameters in the pop-up window on the Submit Requests form. To define the pop-up window, you also need to define one value set for each parameter. Design value sets to limit the user's choices to valid values. You have the option of restricting the list of values for a table-validated parameter based on the values your user entered for earlier parameters. You set up these restrictions by using defining cascading dependencies when defining your value sets.
You may want your report to expect parameter values such as internal ID numbers that are meaningless to your users while the pop-up window takes user-friendly values. You can select the column to use for the ID as well as the user-friendly meaning, description or other columns you want to use. You can define value sets to have independent, dependent, table, special, pair or no validation.
For more information, see the Oracle E-Business Suite Flexfields Guide.
Validating parameters in a report pop-up window is very similar to validating segments in a flexfield. You create values sets for your values, decide whether to provide a list of values for your users, and specify any security rules for your values.
Typically, when you write a report or other concurrent program, you want to pass parameters that have specific data types and values. Before you can define and use your report with Oracle Application Object Library, you need to specify the value sets of your parameters. Use the Value Sets window to define a value set for each of your report parameters. When you define a value set, you specify format options as well as other attributes such as whether a value is mandatory and the maximum size of a value. Your value set can have Validation Type of Table, Independent, Dependent, Special, Pair or None.
Important: If you are using a value set for an Oracle Reports parameter that expects a numeric value where precision will be entered as part of the value, you must define this value set with the format type Character with the Numbers Only option selected. Oracle Reports parameters cannot use value sets with format type Number if precision is to be entered as part of the value.
You can define a value set to validate from a table in your application, such as a lookup table. Make sure the maximum size of your value set is large enough to accommodate your validation data. Once you define a value set, Oracle Application Object Library can use it to validate parameters you pass to your report.
If you already have value sets defined for your key or descriptive flexfields, you can use these to validate your concurrent program parameters. Note that if you share value sets with flexfields, flexfield value security can affect the report parameter values your users can choose. You should specify for each parameter whether you want to enable security.
With Special and Pair value sets you can pass flexfield combinations as parameters to your report. Or you can call other user exits from your Special value sets.
For more information, see the Oracle E-Business Suite Flexfields Guide.
After you register your report parameters, each report parameter references a value set. If you are using independent or dependent value sets, you can enter values into each corresponding value set using the Segment Values form.
You can easily identify your value sets by using the Segment Values form. You select the program and parameter for which you want to define values using the Find window.
For more information, see the Oracle E-Business Suite Flexfields Guide.
You must define your report as a concurrent program with Oracle Application Object Library before your users can run it from the Submit Requests form or an application form. Use the Concurrent Programs form to register your report. Define your report just like any other concurrent program, including defining a concurrent program executable. To indicate that your users can use the Submit Requests form to run the program, simply check the Use in SRS check box of the Concurrent Programs form.
If your report requires parameters, press the Parameters button to get to the Parameters block to define your report parameters.
While you are registering your report parameters, you are also defining the structure of a pop-up window that pops up when your users submit the report in the Submit Requests form. Enter your report parameters in the sequence you want them to appear in the pop-up window and in the order in which the report expects them. Standard Request Submission passes arguments to your report in the sequence you specify. Please keep in mind that what your users enter in the pop-up window and what Standard Request Submission passes to your report can be different if you have specified different Value and Meaning columns for your table-validated parameters.
Make sure you enable all parameters. You specify the value set that identifies valid values, whether the parameter requires a value, whether security is enabled and a default value, if any. Specify if the parameter should display to the user. If you want to link two values in a High_Low relationship, choose High or Low in the Range field. Low values must come before high ones.
The Request Set window accessible from the Oracle System Administration menu also allows you to selectively display the parameters of a report.
You decide whether your users enter a value for a parameter or whether the parameter is passed behind the scenes to your report by checking or unchecking the Display check box. If this is a parameter your users enter, then you must define a prompt for the parameter. You can specify a default type and value for the parameter.
If your parameter is displayed, your users can override the default value you specify. If your parameter is non-displayed, your report receives the value you specify as the default value. Use non-displayed parameters to pass hidden values from your users' environment, such as SET_OF_BOOKS_ID, to your report.
See: Concurrent Programs Window, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration
You can use the cross-application reporting capabilities of Standard Request Submission to run a report belonging to an application other than the application associated with the user's current responsibility.
When you submit a report using Standard Request Submission, your concurrent manager uses a different method from previous releases to decide which ORACLE schema to use to process your request. The concurrent manager accesses the information recorded by the Rapid Install process to detect what products you have at your site and the products' interdependencies.
Rapid Install and the Oracle E-Business Suite system administrator set up data groups containing list of Application Name/ORACLE schema pairs. Each responsibility has an assigned data group. When you run a concurrent program from the Submit Requests form, the application name of your program is matched with its associated ORACLE schema in that responsibility's data group.
If you are using the cross-application reporting capabilities of Standard Request Submission to run a report, the Submit Requests form uses the ORACLE schema of the report's application to validate the report parameters. The application name is matched with an ORACLE schema through the responsibility's data group. Your database administrator should make sure that the ORACLE schema that the Submit Requests form uses to validate your report parameters has all the necessary grants, synonyms, and database privileges to access the validation tables that your report uses.
Oracle E-Business Suite products typically use the APPS schema, so cross-application reporting can be greatly simplified. However, to enable cross-application reporting where you have custom schemas and custom applications, or where you are using multiple APPS schemas, your ORACLE DBA must ensure that the Submit Request form can access the tables in the report's application needed to validate report parameters. The concurrent manager automatically uses the ORACLE schema associated with the report's application to run the report.
For example, suppose you want to run an Oracle Payables report using the Submit Requests form in an Oracle Purchasing responsibility. The parameters of the Oracle Payables report are validated against tables in the Oracle Payables ORACLE schema. The data group assigned to the Oracle Purchasing responsibility contains a listing of the ORACLE schema associated with Oracle Payables (which might be APPS). The report runs in that ORACLE schema.
If you submit a custom application report using a responsibility associated with a different application, you and your system administrator need to provide the concurrent manager with the correct ORACLE schema to use. You should include your custom applications in the data groups of any responsibility using your custom reports.
See: Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.