Setting Up Oracle Workflow

This chapter describes the requirements for Oracle Workflow and the steps necessary to set up Oracle Workflow at your site.

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of Setting Up

After you install Oracle Workflow, implement it for your site by setting up the preferences and components appropriate for your enterprise.

Related Topics

Oracle Workflow Hardware and Software Requirements

Overview of Required Setup Steps for Oracle Workflow

Optional Setup Steps

Other Workflow Features

Identifying the Version of Your Oracle Workflow Server

Oracle Workflow Setup Checklist

Oracle Workflow Hardware and Software Requirements

The components of Oracle Workflow require the following hardware and software configurations.

Overview of Required Setup Steps

  1. Set up the default Oracle Workflow user preferences for your entire enterprise using the Workflow Configuration page. The Workflow Configuration page also lets you define your workflow administrator role. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

  2. Ensure that a directory service is set up to provide information about the individuals and roles in your organization who may utilize Oracle Workflow functionality and receive workflow notifications. During installation of Oracle E-Business Suite, directory service views for users and roles from the unified Oracle E-Business Suite environment are automatically implemented for you. See: Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service.

  3. Set up background Workflow Engines to control the load and throughput of the primary Workflow Engine on your system. You can specify the cost threshold level of your primary and background engines to determine the activities an engine processes and the activities an engine defers. See: Setting Up Background Workflow Engines.

  4. Set up the Business Event System to communicate business events between systems using event subscription processing and Workflow process event activities. See: Setting Up the Business Event System.

Optional Setup Steps

  1. You can partition the WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES, WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H, WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES, and WF_ITEMS tables for performance gain. See: Partitioning Workflow Tables.

  2. Set up additional languages if you want to use Oracle Workflow in languages other than English. See: Setting Up Additional Languages.

  3. Set up one or more notification mailers if you want to allow your users to receive notifications by e-mail. See: Implementing Notification Mailers.

  4. You can modify the templates for your electronic mail notifications. See: Modifying Your Message Templates.

  5. You can give users access to the Advanced Worklist, Personal Worklist, Notification Search, and Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester pages from any responsibility you choose. See: Adding Worklist Functions to User Responsibilities.

  6. You can control which reassign modes are available to users from the Notification Details page. See: Setting the WF: Notification Reassign Mode Profile Option.

  7. You can specify whether users can respond to a group of notifications collectively from the Worklist and Notification Search pages, without navigating to the Notification Details page for each notification individually. See: Setting the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response Profile Option.

  8. You can enable the Notification Details pop-up window in the Worklist and specify the size of the pop-up window. See: Enabling the Notification Details Pop-up Window.

  9. You can control the item types for which users can define vacation rules and grant worklist access, using the WF: Vacation Rule Item Types lookup type and the WF: Vacation Rules - Allow All profile option. See: Setting Up Notification Handling Options.

  10. You can configure the two-part user list of values that appears in several Oracle Workflow pages by defining grants to restrict the partitions and the users and roles that appear in the list of values. See: Configuring the Oracle Workflow User List of Values.

  11. You can set up users to enable electronic signatures in notification responses. See: Setting Up for Electronic Signatures.

  12. You can customize the company logo that appears in the Oracle Workflow Web pages. See: Customizing the Logo on Oracle Workflow's Web Pages.

  13. You can include additional icons to your Oracle Workflow Icons subdirectory to customize the diagrammatic representation of your workflow processes. Use custom symbols for each activity you define. See: Adding Custom Icons to Oracle Workflow.

Other Workflow Features

Before deploying Oracle Workflow and custom process definitions to other branches of your enterprise, you can protect your data from further modification by determining the level of access your users have to the data. See: Overview of Oracle Workflow Access Protection.

You can also use the Workflow Definitions Loader to load workflow process definitions from flat files to the database without using Oracle Workflow Builder. See: Using the Workflow Definitions Loader.

Additioinally, you can use the Workflow XML Loader to load XML definitions for Business Event System objects between a database and a flat file. See: Using the Workflow XML Loader.

For details about configuring Oracle Workflow security, see: Oracle Workflow Security.

Identifying the Version of Your Oracle Workflow Server

If you ever need to determine the version of the Oracle Workflow server you are running, you can connect to your Oracle Workflow database account using SQL*Plus and run a script called wfver.sql. See: wfver.sql.

In addition, all Oracle Workflow modules, such as the Workflow Definitions Loader, Oracle Workflow Builder, notification mailers, and the Workflow Monitor, automatically verify that the module is compatible with the version of the Oracle Workflow server that it is operating against. This version compatibility check helps to prevent problems such as running Oracle Workflow Builder 2.6.3 against an Oracle Workflow 2.0.3 database.

Oracle Workflow Setup Checklist

The following table lists Oracle Workflow setup steps and shows whether each step is required or optional. You need to perform optional steps only if you plan to use the related feature or complete certain business functions.

Setup Checklist
Step Number Requirement Step
Step 1 Optional Partitioning Workflow Tables
Step 2 Required Setting Global User Preferences
Step 3 Required Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service
Step 4 Optional Setting Up Additional Languages
Step 5 Required Setting Up Background Workflow Engines
Step 6 Optional Implementing Notification Mailers
Step 7 Optional Modifying Your Message Templates
Step 8 Optional Adding Worklist Functions to User Responsibilities
Step 9 Optional Setting the WF: Notification Reassign Mode Profile Option
Step 10 Optional Setting the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response Profile Option
Step 11 Optional Enabling the Notification Details Pop-up Window
Step 12 Optional Setting Up Notification Handling Options
Step 13 Optional Configuring the Oracle Workflow User List of Values
Step 14 Optional Setting Up for Electronic Signatures
Step 15 Optional Customizing the Logo on Oracle Workflow's Web Pages
Step 16 Optional Adding Custom Icons to Oracle Workflow
Step 17 Required Setting Up the Business Event System

Step 1: Partitioning Workflow Tables

Partitioning addresses key issues in supporting very large tables and indexes by letting you decompose them into smaller and more manageable pieces called partitions. SQL queries and DML statements do not need to be modified in order to access partitioned tables. However, once partitions are defined, DDL statements can access and manipulate individual partitions rather than entire tables or indexes. In this way, partitioning can simplify the manageability of large database objects. Also, partitioning is entirely transparent to applications.

You can optionally run a script called wfupartb.sql to partition certain Workflow tables that store runtime status data. This step is highly recommended for performance gain.

The script partitions four Workflow tables and recreates the associated indexes. The following table shows the Workflow tables and indexes on which the script runs.

Partitioned Tables and Associated Indexes
Table Indexes
WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_PK, WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N1, and WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_N2
WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H_N1 and WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H_N2
WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES_PK
WF_ITEMS WF_ITEMS_PK, WF_ITEMS_N1, WF_ITEMS_N2, and WF_ITEMS_N3

Before running the partitioning script, you should back up these four tables so that you can restore them in case the script fails.

To run the script, you must have sufficient free space on the table and index tablespaces. During the creation of the partitioned tables, the script requires slightly more diskspace than the underlying tables, in the same tablespace where the underlying tables are located. Similarly, sufficient free space is required for the index tablespace.

Additionally, you should allow sufficient time for the script to run. The amount of time needed depends on the amount of data in the tables. When the tables already contain existing data, such as after an upgrade from a previous release, the script requires more time than it does when the tables are empty, such as after a fresh installation of Oracle Workflow. To minimize the time required, run the script as early as possible in your setup process.

Important: If you are running the partitioning script through Oracle Net Services, then you must set the TWO_TASK variable before you begin.

The wfupartb.sql script is located in the admin/sql subdirectory under $FND_TOP. Use the script as follows:

sqlplus <apps_user>/<apps_passwd> @wfupartb <fnd_user> 
<fnd_passwd> <apps_user> <apps_passwd>

For example:

sqlplus apps/apps @wfupartb applsys apps apps apps

If the partitioning script fails, you must perform any necessary cleanup manually. Since the script's operations are DDL operations running in nologging mode, rollback is not possible.

Related Topics

Partitioning for Performance

Step 2: Setting Global User Preferences

Users can control how they interact with Oracle Workflow by specifying user preferences. As a workflow administrator, you also have access to set default user preference values globally for the entire enterprise, using the Workflow Configuration page. An individual user can override a default user preference at any time by modifying his or her preference setting, using the Preferences page in Oracle E-Business Suite.

See: Set Preferences, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

To Set Global Preferences

  1. Use a Web browser to navigate to the Workflow Configuration page, using a responsibility and navigation path specified by your system administrator. See: Oracle Workflow Administrator Navigation Paths.

    Note: You must have workflow administrator privileges to set global workflow preferences in the Workflow Configuration page. If you do not have administrator privileges, you can view global workflow preferences, but you cannot modify them. After installation of Oracle E-Business Suite, workflow administrator privileges are initially assigned to the SYSADMIN user by default. You can change that assignment in this page.

  2. In the Workflow System Administrator field, select the role to which you want to assign workflow administrator privileges. Any user associated with this role can set global workflow preferences in this page, view and respond to any user's notifications, define rules to handle notifications automatically in a user's absence, view workflows owned by any user and perform administrative operations in the Status Monitor, run test workflows in the Developer Studio, and maintain Business Event System objects and raise test events in the Event Manager. See: Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service.

    If you want all users and roles to have workflow administrator privileges, such as in a development environment, enter an asterisk (*) in the Workflow System Administrator field.

    Note: To find out which role currently has workflow administrator privileges, without accessing the Workflow Configuration page, you can use the following command:

    select text 
from wf_resources
where name = 'WF_ADMIN_ROLE';

    After installing Oracle Workflow, you should change the Workflow System Administrator preference from the default setting to the role that you want to have administrator privileges. The default setting after installation is SYSADMIN. You must log in as the SYSADMIN user to access the Workflow Configuration page and specify the preferences you want.

    Note: The SYSADMIN role is different than the role associated with the System Administrator responsibility in Oracle E-Business Suite. If you want to assign workflow administrator privileges to this or any other Oracle E-Business Suite responsibility, you must set the Workflow System Administrator preference to the internal name of the workflow role associated with that responsibility.

    You can query the WF_ROLES view to find the role name for a responsibility. For example, to find the role names for various administrator responsibilities in Oracle E-Business Suite, use the following command:

    select name, display_name
from wf_roles
where display_name like '%Admin%';

    If you set the Workflow System Administrator preference to the role name of a responsibility, then any Oracle E-Business Suite user with that responsibility will have workflow administrator privileges.

    Note: The user through which a notification mailer accesses Oracle Application Framework content must have workflow administrator privileges in order to access the content for every user's notifications. If you change the Workflow System Administrator preference, ensure that the Framework User mailer parameter is set to a user that is a member of the Workflow System Administrator role, or, if you set the Workflow System Administrator preference to a responsibility, ensure that the Framework User mailer parameter is set to a user that has that responsibility. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

  3. If you are integrating with Oracle Internet Directory, specify the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) server information for the LDAP directory to which you will connect. If you already configured these parameters while installing Oracle Application Server with Oracle E-Business Suite, Oracle Workflow displays those values here. For more information, see: Installing Oracle Application Server 10g with Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12 (My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 376811.1) and Oracle Single Sign-On Integration, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

    • Host - The host on which the LDAP directory resides.

    • Port - The port on the host.

    • Username - The LDAP user account used to connect to the LDAP server. This user name must have write privileges and is required to bind to the LDAP directory. For example:

      cn=orcladmin

    • Old Password - Enter your current LDAP password. Oracle Workflow validates this password before letting you change it.

    • New Password - Enter the new LDAP password you want to use. The password must be at least five characters long.

    • Repeat Password - Enter your new LDAP password again in this field to confirm it. You must enter exactly the same value that you entered in the New LDAP Password field.

      Note: LDAP password values are masked as asterisks in the display and are stored in encrypted form.

    • Change Log Base Directory - The LDAP node under which change logs are located. For example:

      cn=changelog

    • User Base Directory - The LDAP node under which user records can be found. For example:

      cn=Users,dc=oracle,dc=com

  4. Specify details about the local system that identifies this installation of Oracle Workflow in the Business Event System. See: Systems, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

    • System Name - The system name for the database where this installation of Oracle Workflow is located. Oracle Workflow automatically creates the system definition for this database in the Event Manager during installation.

    • Status - Select the execution status for the local system.

      • Enabled - Subscriptions are executed on all events. Oracle Workflow sets the system status to Enabled by default.

      • Local Only - Subscriptions are executed only on events raised on the local system.

      • External Only - Subscriptions are executed only on events received by inbound agents on the local system.

      • Disabled - No subscriptions are executed on any events.

    Note: The local system settings are specific to this installation of Oracle Workflow and are not included when Business Event System data is replicated to other systems.

  5. Specify default workflow preferences for your users.

    • Notification Style - Specify whether Oracle Workflow should send e-mail notifications to users, and if so, in what format. A user can override this default setting by specifying a different notification style in his or her individual Oracle E-Business Suite preferences.

      • HTML mail with attachments - Send notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail with attached links to the Notification Details page. Users must read their e-mail using an HTML e-mail client.

      • Plain text mail with HTML attachments - Send notifications as plain text e-mail but include the HTML-formatted version of the notifications and links to the Notification Details page as attachments.

      • Plain text mail - Send notifications as plain text e-mail.

      • Plain text summary mail - Send a summary of all notifications as plain text e-mail. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on individual notifications.

      • Do not send me mail - Do not send the notifications as e-mail. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on their notifications.

      • HTML mail - Send notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail only, without any standard attachments. If custom attachments have been defined for individual notifications in a process, however, those attachments will still be included. Users must read their e-mail using an HTML e-mail client.

      • HTML summary mail - Send a summary of all notifications as HTML-formatted e-mail, with a link to the Worklist page as well as links to each notification in the Notification Details page. Users must use the Worklist Web pages to view and take action on individual notifications.

      Note: To send e-mail notifications, you must configure and run a notification mailer. Additionally, users who are to receive e-mail notifications must have an e-mail address defined. You can run a diagnostic test through Oracle Diagnostics Framework to check that all users with a notification preference to receive e-mail have an e-mail address defined. See: Implementing Notification Mailers, Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service, and Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

      Users can always access their notifications through the Worklist Web pages, even if their notification preference also includes e-mail notifications.

      Note: Oracle Workflow also uses a notification preference called Disabled, which is set automatically at the user preference level for a user with an invalid e-mail address. Do not set the global notification preference to this value.

    • Browser Signing DLL Location - The location of the Capicom.dll file that is used for Web page operations with encryption in the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser. This preference is required only if you plan to use certificate-based digital signatures to confirm notification responses, and your users access Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

      By default, this preference is set to a URL at which the Capicom.dll file can be downloaded from Microsoft's Web site. In most cases, you do not need to change this setting. However, you can update this preference if the location of the Capicom.dll file changes, or if you choose to store a copy of the file on your local network and point to that location instead.

      For more information about setting up for certificate-based signatures, see: Loading Certificates for Digital Signatures.

  6. Review details about the JInitiator plugin in your Oracle E-Business Suite installation. Oracle Workflow uses JInitiator to launch Oracle E-Business Suite forms linked to notifications.

    • Class ID - The class identifier for this version of JInitiator.

    • Download Location - The location where the JInitiator executable is staged for download to users' client machines.

    • Version - The JInitiator version number.

Note: The global notification and DLL location preferences are saved to the Oracle Workflow preferences table for a special user name called -WF_DEFAULT-. The workflow administrator role, LDAP, local system, and JInitiator information is saved to the Oracle Workflow resources table.

Step 3: Setting Up an Oracle Workflow Directory Service

Oracle Workflow requires a directory service to provide information about the individuals and roles in your organization who may utilize Oracle Workflow functionality and receive workflow notifications. Oracle Workflow references this user and role information through the following views.

See: Workflow Directory Service Views.

Oracle Workflow provides a predefined directory service for you that is implemented by default during installation, with directory service views for users and roles from the unified Oracle E-Business Suite environment. See: Setting Up a Directory Service for Oracle Workflow.

You can also create your own directory service by defining custom views with the required columns. However, note that only the predefined directory service provided by Oracle Workflow is supported by Oracle. See: Oracle Workflow Support Policy, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Oracle Workflow provides local directory repository tables called WF_LOCAL_ROLES and WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES. These tables should always be included in any implementation of the WF_USERS, WF_ROLES, and WF_USER_ROLES views.

Oracle Workflow also provides tables to support extended directory service features.

The Workflow local tables store denormalized user and role information originating from various other Oracle E-Business Suite modules, so that the directory service views can access this information with good performance. You can also use these tables to store ad hoc users and roles by calling the appropriate Workflow directory service PL/SQL APIs.

You should periodically purge ad hoc users and roles from the Workflow local tables after they have expired in order to improve performance. See: Directory, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

For more information, see: Workflow Directory Service APIs, Oracle Workflow API Reference, Ad Hoc Users and Roles, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide, and Oracle Workflow Security.

Setting Up a Directory Service for Oracle Workflow

Oracle Workflow uses a directory service model in which denormalized information is maintained in the Workflow local tables for performance gain. The Workflow local tables store user and role information originating from various other Oracle E-Business Suite modules, as well as ad hoc users and roles, so that the WF_USERS, WF_ROLES, WF_USER_ROLES, and WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V views can access this information with good performance. You should ensure synchronization is maintained between the user and role information stored in application tables by the source modules and the information stored in the Workflow local tables.

Directory Service Views

The predefined WF_USERS, WF_ROLES, WF_USER_ROLES, and WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V directory service views for Oracle Workflow are based solely on the Workflow local tables where the denormalized information is stored. These view definitions are automatically created for you during installation. See: Workflow Directory Service Views.

Note: You can customize your directory service by creating your own custom view definitions, provided that you define the required columns and map to the Workflow local tables. However, note that only the predefined directory service views provided by Oracle Workflow are supported by Oracle. See: Oracle Workflow Support Policy, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

The only roles in WF_LOCAL_ROLES that are marked as individual users with the user flag set to Y are roles that represent Oracle E-Business Suite users, originating from the FND_USER table, roles that represent Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA) person parties, roles that represent TCA contacts (relationship parties), or roles that represent ad hoc users. Records originating from other application tables are treated solely as roles, with the user flag set to N. The WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES table is used to associate Oracle E-Business Suite users, TCA person parties, and TCA contacts with roles defined by other applications.

Note: An Oracle E-Business Suite user may be associated with an Oracle Human Resources person. In this case, some person information is combined into the user's record in WF_LOCAL_ROLES. In such a combined record, the originating system is changed from FND_USR to PER, and the display name is taken from Oracle Human Resources, while the internal name is the Oracle E-Business Suite user name from FND_USER, and the user flag is still set to Y.

Each Oracle Human Resources person is also represented in WF_LOCAL_ROLES as a role with the originating system PER_ROLE and the user flag set to N. This record remains unaffected whether the person is linked to an Oracle E-Business Suite user or not.

The following table summarizes the different ways in which Oracle E-Business Suite users and Oracle Human Resources people are stored in WF_LOCAL_ROLES.

Oracle E-Business Suite Users and Oracle Human Resources People in WF_LOCAL_ROLES
Type of Role Orig_System User_Flag
Oracle E-Business Suite user, not linked to an Oracle Human Resources person FND_USR Y
Oracle E-Business Suite user linked to an Oracle Human Resources person PER Y
Oracle Human Resources person PER_ROLE N

To link an Oracle E-Business Suite user to an Oracle Human Resources person, navigate to the Users window in Oracle E-Business Suite and select the appropriate person name in the Person field for that user. See: Users Window, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

You should only link an Oracle Human Resources person to one Oracle E-Business Suite user. If a person is linked to more than one user, notifications for that person may become inaccessible, and workflow processes may be halted while waiting for those notifications to be completed. Additionally, assigning a person to multiple users may cause errors in other Oracle E-Business Suite modules as well. For this reason, you must not link an Oracle Human Resources person to more than one Oracle E-Business Suite user.

The WF_LOCAL_ROLES and WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES tables are partitioned by the originating system within Oracle E-Business Suite that was the source of the denormalized information. This partitioning provides faster data access and also allows each originating system to be synchronized with the Workflow local tables individually. Each table also includes a separate partition that contains ad hoc users and roles as well as data from any system that does not have its own partition.

The partition information for each originating system is stored in the WF_DIRECTORY_PARTITIONS table. There are partitions for the following systems:

Note: Normally each partition contains only records that originate from the corresponding system. However, the FND_USR partition can contain both roles with an originating system value of FND_USR, which are unlinked Oracle E-Business Suite users, and roles with an originating system value of PER, which are Oracle E-Business Suite users that are linked to Oracle Human Resources people.

See: Ad Hoc Users and Roles, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Synchronizing Workflow User and Role Information

For each Oracle E-Business Suite module that is a source of Oracle Workflow user and role information, the information stored in the source application tables must be synchronized with the denormalized information in the Workflow local tables. The Workflow local synchronization APIs are used to perform this synchronization.

Incremental Synchronization

Oracle Workflow automatically performs an initial synchronization of the user and role information in all the related originating systems during installation. Subsequently, you must continue synchronizing the user and role information from the source modules with the Workflow local tables. Each Oracle E-Business Suite module that stores user and role information in its application tables automatically synchronizes that information with the information in the Workflow local tables on an incremental basis, using the Workflow local synchronization APIs.

Bulk Synchronization

If necessary, you can run a concurrent program named Synchronize WF LOCAL Tables to perform synchronization in bulk, periodically refreshing the information in the Workflow local tables for the affected modules. This concurrent program is provided for troubleshooting and diagnostic purposes or to synchronize the Workflow local tables with the user and role information stored in the product application tables in case incremental synchronization is not being performed automatically for any reason.

Oracle Workflow provides a request set named Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables that contains ten instances of the Synchronize WF Local Tables program, one for each originating system. You can use this request set to submit requests for all the originating systems at once. Note that because this program is incompatible with itself, each request is defined as a separate stage and the stages will run sequentially. By default, this request set is scheduled to run once a day to provide a minimal level of synchronization. You can modify the schedule for the request set to perform synchronization more frequently.

You only need to run the bulk synchronization program for products that are not successfully performing incremental synchronization. If you want to run the Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables request set for a subset of products, you can remove the program instances for other products' originating systems from the Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables request set. See: Defining Request Sets, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

Note: Products that use role hierarchies do not participate in bulk synchronization. These products must perform incremental synchronization.

To submit the Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables request set

  1. Navigate to the Submit Requests form in Oracle E-Business Suite (System Administrator: Requests > Run). See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

  2. Choose to run a request set and select Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables as the request set to run.

  3. Enter the values you want for the program parameters. See: To submit a single request for the Synchronize WF LOCAL Tables concurrent program.

  4. Select the print and run options you want to define the schedule for this request set, and choose Submit to submit the requests.

To submit a single request for the Synchronize WF LOCAL Tables concurrent program

  1. Navigate to the Submit Requests form in Oracle E-Business Suite (System Administrator: Requests > Run). See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

  2. Choose to run a single request and select the Synchronize WF LOCAL Tables concurrent program as the request to run.

  3. In the Parameters window, enter the values you want for the following parameters:

    • Orig System - Select the name of the originating system whose user and role information you want to synchronize with the WF_LOCAL tables. These system names are stored in the FND_WF_ORIG_SYSTEMS lookup type. You can select the following systems:

      • ALL - All originating systems

      • AMV_APPR - MarketView Approvals

      • AMV_CHN - MarketView Channels

      • ECX - XML Gateway Ad Hoc Users

      • ENG_LIST - Engineering Approval List

      • FND_RESP - FND Responsibilities

      • FND_USR - FND Users

      • GBX - Federal HR Group Boxes

      • HZ_GROUP - TCA Groups

      • HZ_PARTY - TCA Parties

      • PER_ROLE - HR People

      • POS - HR Positions

      • PQH_ROLES - Position Control Roles

    • Parallel Processes - Enter the number of parallel processes to run. Usually this parameter is set to 1. However, if your hardware resources allow, you can optionally set this parameter to a higher value in order to parallelize the queries during execution of the program.

    • Logging Mode - Select the logging mode you want. This mode determines whether redo log data is generated for database operations performed by the bulk synchronization process. The default value for this parameter is LOGGING, which generates redo log data normally. You can optionally set the logging mode to NOLOGGING to suppress redo log data, obtaining a performance gain. Without this redo log data, no media recovery is possible for the Workflow directory tables and indexes, requiring that you re-run the bulk synchronization process in the event of a media recovery scenario. One additional scenario that would require the process to be re-run is when you open a standby database, whose maintenance also depends on redo log data.

    • Temporary Tablespace - Select the temporary tablespace the program should use.

    • Raise Errors - Select Yes or No to indicate whether the program should raise an exception if it encounters an error. Usually you can leave this parameter set to the default value, which is Yes.

  4. Select the print and run options you want to define the schedule for this request, and choose Submit to submit the request. You can submit multiple requests for this program to perform synchronization for different originating systems at different frequencies. However, note that because this program is incompatible with itself, only one request for the program can run at a time.

    Note: Additionally, you must not run bulk synchronization using APIs or scripts from SQL*Plus while you are running the Synchronize WF LOCAL Tables concurrent program or the Synchronize Workflow LOCAL Tables request set, as the two processes will interfere with each other.

How Bulk Synchronization Is Performed

The bulk synchronization program retrieves user and role information from an originating system through views that present the information that was formerly included in the previous implementation of the Workflow directory service views. Each originating system provides two new views, one that contains the same columns as WF_ROLES and one that contains the same columns as WF_USER_ROLES.

Note: Originating systems that use role hierarchies do not participate in bulk synchronization. These originating systems must perform incremental synchronization.

For backward compatibility, the originating systems' synchronization views must present exactly the same user and role information that was included for that system in the previous implementation of the Workflow directory service views. The information must be presented in the format required by Oracle Workflow, with no duplicates. For example, the internal name for a user or role must be sourced from a column that is no longer than 320 characters. It is recommended that internal names be all uppercase. If the source table in the originating system does not have a column that meets these criteria, the internal name should be defined to be <orig_system>:<orig_system_id> instead, so that Oracle Workflow can reference the original base table where users or roles are stored and a unique user or role in that table.

Note: If internal names in all uppercase are used, the names should be initially entered in the database in all uppercase. Forcing the names to uppercase in the view definition results in poor performance when accessing these views.

Note: You can customize these originating system synchronization view definitions to specify the data you want to include in bulk synchronization, provided that your customized views meet the requirements listed above. However, note that the originating systems that have implemented incremental synchronization will also be propagating user and role information to the Workflow local tables automatically, so the synchronization views used for bulk synchronization are not the only source of data for Oracle Workflow. Also note that only the predefined synchronization views provided by Oracle E-Business Suite are supported by Oracle. See: Oracle Workflow Support Policy, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

When you run the bulk synchronization program for a particular originating system, the program extracts the role and user/role association information from that system's synchronization views and loads the information into staging tables. The program then performs a partition exchange between the staging tables and the WF_LOCAL_ROLES, WF_LOCAL_ROLES_TL, WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES, and WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS tables to update the partitions for that system in the Workflow local tables. Finally, the staging tables are truncated.

Note: The bulk synchronization program does not store or modify any information in the WF_LOCAL_ROLES partitions within the WF_LOCAL_ROLES and WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES tables that contain ad hoc users and roles.

Role Hierarchies

Roles can be related to each other in a hierarchy so that users assigned to one role automatically inherit membership in its superior roles as well. Role hierarchies enable role-based access control in Oracle E-Business Suite.

For example, a company could define a role hierarchy with three roles: sales manager, sales representative, and employee. A user with the sales manager role automatically inherits the sales representative role, and a user with the sales representative role automatically inherits the employee role. If user A is assigned directly to the sales representative role, then user A will also have an inherited assignment to the employee role. If user B is assigned directly to the sales manager role, user B will also have inherited assignments to both the sales representative role and the employee role.

Oracle Workflow stores hierarchical relationships between roles in the WF_ROLE_HIERARCHIES table. Oracle Workflow also stores denormalized information about direct and inherited assignments of users to roles in the WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS table for performance gain. If a user is associated with a certain role through more than one direct or inherited assignment, the WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS table tracks which assignments are currently valid and expires the user/role association only when all assignments have ended.

Note: Originating systems that use role hierarchies do not participate in bulk synchronization. These originating systems must perform incremental synchronization.

Validating Directory Service Information

You can run a diagnostic test through Oracle Diagnostics Framework to check that there are no duplicate roles in the WF_LOCAL_ROLES table. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

If you encounter inconsistencies in your directory service information, Oracle Support may direct you to run the Workflow Directory Services User/Role Validation concurrent program (FNDWFDSURV) to validate and correct the information about user/role associations. You should also investigate the cause of any inconsistencies. Use Standard Request Submission to run this program, specifying the following parameters.

See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

Workflow Directory Service Views

Oracle Workflow relies on views named WF_USERS, WF_ROLES, WF_USER_ROLES, and WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V to reference user and role information. Other views provide further access to Workflow directory service data, including WF_ALL_ROLES_VL, WF_ALL_USER_ROLES, and WF_ALL_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS. These directory service views for the unified Oracle E-Business Suite environment are automatically defined for you during installation.

Note: An expiration date can be assigned to each role in WF_LOCAL_ROLES, each user/role association in WF_LOCAL_USER_ROLES, and each user/role assignment in WF_ROLE_HIERARCHIES. After that date, an expired role is no longer included in the predefined WF_USERS and WF_ROLES view, an expired user/role association is no longer included in the predefined WF_USER_ROLES view, and an expired user/role assignment is no longer included in the WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V view.

However, note that although the expired rows no longer appear in these views, they still exist in the Workflow local tables. You should periodically purge expired ad hoc users and roles using the WF_PURGE.Directory() API in order to improve performance. See: Directory, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

You can also create your own directory service by defining custom views with the required columns. However, note that only the predefined directory services provided by Oracle Workflow are supported by Oracle. See: Oracle Workflow Support Policy, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

If you create your own custom view definitions:

Note: Avoid making a join to a view that contains a union, as this results in poor database performance. The Oracle Database is unable to preserve the indexes in that view when you make such a join. The workflow directory service views you create will most likely contain unions; therefore you should not join to them directly. If you need to retrieve data from any of the three directory services views, use the appropriate directory services API. See: Workflow Directory Service APIs, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

WF_USERS

The WF_USERS view references information about the individuals in your organization who may utilize Oracle Workflow functionality or receive workflow notifications.

Note: In WF_LOCAL_ROLES, a role that is an individual user has the user flag set to Y.

Note: This view includes only Oracle E-Business Suite users originating from the FND_USER table, TCA person parties, TCA contacts, and ad hoc users, although an Oracle E-Business Suite user record may also include information from Oracle Human Resources if the user is linked to an Oracle Human Resources person.

The WF_USERS view must contain the following required columns:

WF_ROLES

The WF_ROLES view references information about all the roles in your organization who may utilize Oracle Workflow functionality or receive workflow notifications. This view must contain the following required columns pertaining to the roles in your repository. Those columns that are preceded by an asterisk (*) are similar to the corresponding columns described for the WF_USERS view.

Important: Each user identified by WF_USERS must also appear in the WF_ROLES view as a role. This is a requirement for Oracle Workflow.

Note: If a user is a member of a role and the user information such as language and notification preference is different from the role information, the Expand Roles option for a notification addressed to the role determines whether the user information or the role information takes precedence. If the Expand Roles option is not checked and the Notification System delivers the notification to the role, the role information will override the user information. If Expand Roles is checked, however, then each user in the role will receive a separate copy of the notification, and the user information will override the role information.

If a user has a notification preference of SUMMARY or SUMHTML, and the user is also a member of a multi-user role with a different notification preference such as MAILHTML, the Notification System will use the Expand Roles setting to determine whether to deliver the notification according to the role or user notification preference. However, even if Expand Roles is not checked and the notification preference of the role takes precedence, the notification will still appear in the user's summary message because the notification is part of the user's worklist.

WF_USER_ROLES

The WF_USER_ROLES view is an intersection of the users and roles in WF_USERS and WF_ROLES, showing which users are members of which roles.

Note: A role can contain only individual users as its members. It cannot contain another role. However, roles can be related to each other in a hierarchy so that users assigned to one role automatically inherit membership in its superior roles as well.

The WF_USER_ROLES view must contain the following required columns:

WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V

The WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V view is an intersection of the users and roles in WF_USERS and WF_ROLES, that tracks how assignments of users to roles are made directly or inherited through role hierarchy relationships. The view shows only currently active assignments.

The WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V view contains the following columns:

WF_ALL_ROLES_VL

The WF_ALL_ROLES_VL view contains role information similar to the WF_ROLES view. However, WF_ALL_ROLES_VL includes all roles, whether not yet valid, currently valid, or expired.

The WF_ALL_ROLES_VL view contains the following columns:

WF_ALL_USER_ROLES

The WF_ALL_USER_ROLES view contains user/role association information similar to the WF_USER_ROLES view. However, WF_ALL_USER_ROLES includes all user/role associations, whether not yet valid, currently valid, or expired.

The WF_ALL_USER_ROLES view contains the following columns:

WF_ALL_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS

The WF_ALL_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS view contains information about how assignments of users to roles are made directly or inherited through role hierarchy relationships, similar to the WF_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS_V view. However, WF_ALL_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS includes all user/role assignments, whether not yet valid, currently valid, or expired.

The WF_ALL_USER_ROLE_ASSIGNMENTS view contains the following columns:

Step 4: Setting Up Additional Languages

The Oracle Workflow Web pages, your workflow definitions, and workflow notifications can be translated to the languages defined in your Oracle installation.

Note: You can only display languages that require a multibyte character set if your database uses a character set that supports these languages, such as UTF8. For more information, see: Choosing a Character Set, Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide.

Note: The path of the language-dependent Oracle Workflow resource file in Oracle E-Business Suite is $FND_TOP/$APPLRSC/wf<language>.res.

WF_LANGUAGES View

To support additional languages, Oracle Workflow uses a view called WF_LANGUAGES that identifies the languages defined in your Oracle installation. This view is automatically created during installation. Oracle Workflow uses the WF_LANGUAGES view to create, in its translatable tables, a row for each language that maps to a row found in the corresponding non-translated base table.

The WF_LANGUAGES view includes the following columns:

See: Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide.

To Display Oracle Workflow Web Pages in Other Languages

You select and install additional languages as part of the Oracle E-Business Suite installation. Users can set their language preference to an installed language through the Personal Homepage in order to view Oracle E-Business Suite Web pages, including Oracle Workflow pages, in that language. See: Selecting NLS Settings, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation Guide and Set Preferences, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

To Create and View Workflow Definitions in Other Languages using Oracle Workflow Builder

  1. Set the NLS_LANG environment variable for the new language, territory, and encoded character set that you want to use for the workflow definition. Run the registry editing utility for the version of Microsoft Windows on your PC and locate the NLS_LANG setting under the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/ORACLE hierarchy. Double click on NLS_LANG. Then set the variable to the new value and save your work. Specify the value for NLS_LANG in the following format:

    LANGUAGE_TERRITORY.CHARSET

    For more information about setting NLS_LANG, see: Globalization Support, Oracle Database Installation Guide.

  2. Start Oracle Workflow Builder. Create a translated version of your workflow definition and save it as a flat file (.wft), or open and view a workflow definition that is already translated.

Note: Although you can enter and view property values for your workflow definitions in other languages, the Oracle Workflow Builder user interface is still displayed in English.

To Load Workflow Definitions in Other Languages to a Database

  1. Ensure that the WF_LANGUAGES view has been created in your workflow server. This view is automatically created during installation.

  2. Ensure that the language you want is set up in the database. You select and install additional languages as part of the Oracle E-Business Suite installation. See: Selecting NLS Settings, Oracle E-Business Suite Installation Guide.

  3. Load the translated workflow definition to your workflow database using either the Workflow Definitions Loader or the Workflow Builder.

    • Before running the Workflow Definitions Loader program, you must set the NLS_LANG environment variable to the appropriate territory and character set for the workflow definition you want to load. The character set must match the character set encoding used to create the workflow definition file, which is determined by the NLS_LANG value that was set on the client PC before the .wft file was created in the Workflow Builder. For example, if the .wft file was created in the Japanese native character set encoding JA16SJIS, then you must specify JA16SJIS in the character set portion of NLS_LANG before loading the file, and you cannot specify a different character set such as UTF8.

      To set NLS_LANG before running the Workflow Definitions Loader, use the following format:

      _TERRITORY.CHARSET

      Note that it is important to include the underscore (_) before the territory name and the period (.) between the territory name and the character set name in the NLS_LANG value. For example, if the .wft file was created in the Japanese native character set encoding JA16SJIS, set NLS_LANG to the following value:

      _JAPAN.JA16SJIS.

      You do not need to include the language in this NLS_LANG value because the Workflow Definitions Loader uses the language specified within the .wft file to determine the language to load. See: Using the Workflow Definitions Loader.

      Note: If you create all your translated workflow definition files in Unicode encoding, you can simply set NLS_LANG to .UTF8 before loading these files. In this case you will not need to reset NLS_LANG for translated files in different languages, because the .UTF8 character set applies to all the files in Unicode encoding.

    • Before using the Workflow Builder to save a translated workflow definition to the database, you must set the NLS_LANG environment variable to the appropriate language, territory, and character set. If you are saving several workflow definitions in different languages, you must reset NLS_LANG for each language. See: Opening and Saving Item Types, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

    Note: The translated versions of Oracle Workflow's standard and demonstration workflow definitions are provided in native character set encoding, not in UTF8.

To Send E-mail Notifications in Other Languages

  1. Determine whether Oracle has translated the e-mail notification templates to the language you wish to set by checking for the file containing the templates in the appropriate language subdirectory, $FND_TOP/import/<lang>. The standard templates are delivered in a file called wfmail.wft. See: Modifying Your Message Templates.

  2. If the e-mail templates are available for the desired language, Oracle Workflow uses the language preference for the notification recipient to determine the language for an e-mail notification.

    Oracle E-Business Suite users can set their language preference in the Preferences page. This preference is also stored in the ICX: Language profile option. See: Set Preferences, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

    Note: Users can select a session-level language in the Oracle E-Business Suite login window, which overrides their user-level language preference for that session. However, Oracle Workflow still uses the user-level language preference to determine the language in which e-mail notifications are sent.

Step 5: Setting Up Background Workflow Engines

When the Workflow Engine initiates and performs a process, it completes all necessary activities before continuing to the next eligible activity. In some cases, an activity can require a large amount of processing resource or time to complete. Oracle Workflow lets you manage the load on the Workflow Engine by setting up supplemental engines to run these costly activities as background tasks. In these cases, the costly activity is deferred by the Workflow Engine and run later by a background engine. The main Workflow Engine can then continue to the next available activity, which may occur on some other parallel branch of the process. A workflow process can also include a Wait activity, which defers the continuation of a process until a later time. This type of deferred activity is also completed by a background engine.

A background engine must also be set up to handle timed out notification activities. When the Workflow Engine comes across a notification activity that requires a response, it calls the Notification System to send the notification to the appropriate performer, and then sets the notification activity to a status of 'NOTIFIED' until the performer completes the notification activity. Meanwhile, a background engine set up to handle timed out activities periodically checks for 'NOTIFIED' activities and whether these activities have time out values specified. If a 'NOTIFIED' activity does have a time out value, and the current date and time exceeds that time out value, the background engine marks that activity as timed out and calls the Workflow Engine. The Workflow Engine then resumes by trying to execute a <Timeout> transition activity.

Additionally, a background engine must be set up to handle stuck processes. A process is identified as stuck when it has a status of ACTIVE, but cannot progress any further. For example, a process could become stuck in the following situations:

The background engine sets the status of a stuck process to ERROR:#STUCK and executes the error process defined for it.

The following table lists the standard queues used in background engine processing.

Background Engine Queues
Queue Table Queue Name Payload Type Retention Time Description
WF_DEFERRED_QUEUE_M WF_DEFERRED_QUEUE_M SYSTEM. WF_PAYLOAD_T 0 days Standard background deferred queue
WF_OUTBOUND_QUEUE WF_OUTBOUND_QUEUE SYSTEM. WF_PAYLOAD_T 0 days Standard background outbound queue
WF_INBOUND_QUEUE WF_INBOUND_QUEUE SYSTEM. WF_PAYLOAD_T 0 days Standard background inbound queue

See: Workflow Queue APIs, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

You can define and start up as many background engines as you like to check for deferred and timed out activities.

Background engines can be restricted to handle activities associated with specific item types, and within specific cost ranges. A background engine runs until it completes all eligible activities at the time it was initiated.

Generally, you should set the background engine up to run periodically by scheduling the Background Process concurrent program to resubmit periodically.

Ensure that you have at least one background engine that can check for timed out activities, one that can process deferred activities, and one that can handle stuck processes. At a minimum, you need to set up one background engine that can handle both timed out and deferred activities as well as stuck processes. However, for performance reasons we recommend that you run three separate background engines at different intervals.

To Schedule Background Engines

You can submit the background engine procedure as a concurrent program, which lets you schedule different background engines to run at different times. Use the Submit Requests window in Oracle E-Business Suite to submit the Workflow Background Process. See: Overview of Concurrent Programs and Requests, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

Additionally, you can use the Oracle Workflow Manager component of Oracle Applications Manager to submit and manage the Workflow Background Process concurrent program. See: Background Engines.

Note: Make sure you have a least one background engine that can check for timed out activities, one that can process deferred activities, and one that can handle stuck processes. At a minimum, you need to set up one background engine that can handle both timed out and deferred activities as well as stuck processes.

Note: If you require a larger rollback segment for the Workflow Background Process than the default, you can use the Concurrent Programs window in the System Administrator responsibility to specify the rollback segment that you want. This rollback segment will be used instead of the default and will be used up until the first commit.

Query the Workflow Background Process concurrent program (FNDWFBG) in the Concurrent Programs window, and choose the Session Control button. Then in the Session Control window, enter the rollback segment you want in the Rollback Segment field, and save your work. See: Concurrent Programs Window, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

To Run a Workflow Background Process as a Concurrent Program

  1. Navigate to the Submit Requests form.

  2. Submit the Workflow Background Process concurrent program as a request. See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

  3. In the Parameters window, enter values for the following parameters:

    Variable Description
    Item Type Specify an item type to restrict this engine to activities associated with that item type. If you do not specify an item type, the engine processes any deferred activity regardless of its item type.
    Minimum Threshold Specify the minimum cost that an activity must have for this background engine to execute it, in hundredths of a second.
    Maximum Threshold Specify the maximum cost that an activity can have for this background engine to execute it, in hundredths of a second.
    By using Minimum Threshold and Maximum Threshold you can create multiple background engines to handle very specific types of activities. The default values for these arguments are null so that the background engine runs activities regardless of cost.
    Process Deferred Specify whether this background engine checks for deferred activities. Setting this parameter to 'Yes' allows the engine to check for deferred activities.
    Process Timeout Specify whether this background engine checks for activities that have timed out. Setting this parameter to 'Yes' allows the engine to check for timed out activities.
    Process Stuck Specify whether this background engine checks for stuck processes. Setting this parameter to 'Yes' allows the engine to check for stuck processes.

    Note: Make sure you have a least one background engine that can check for timed out activities, one that can process deferred activities, and one that can handle stuck processes.

  4. Choose OK to close the Parameters window.

  5. When you finish modifying the run options to define the schedule for the background engine, choose Submit to submit the request.

To Set Engine Thresholds

To set the thresholds of background engines, specify the minimum threshold and maximum threshold arguments when starting the engine. The background engine then only processes activities with costs within your specifications.

The Workflow Engine threshold is set to 50 as a default. Activities with a cost higher than 50 are deferred for background engines to process.

In some cases, you may want to force the engine to defer an activity although the activity's cost is less than fifty. You can do this by altering the Workflow Engine threshold in the PL/SQL stored procedure for a function activity.

The engine threshold is set in an externalized constant called THRESHOLD. Include the following line in your PL/SQL procedure to set the Workflow Engine threshold to a different value:

WF_ENGINE.THRESHOLD := n;

You should reset the threshold value afterwards in SQL*Plus or in the next function activity so that other activities are processed as expected.

Related Topics

Activity Cost, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide

Timeout Transitions, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide

Deferring Activities

Wait Activity, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide

Background, Oracle Workflow API Reference

Step 6: Implementing Notification Mailers

A notification mailer is a Java program that performs e-mail send and response processing for the Oracle Workflow Notification System, using the JavaMail API. You need to implement one or more notification mailers only if you want to have your workflow users receive their notifications by e-mail, as well as from the Worklist Web pages.

See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Managing Notification Mailers

The notification mailer program is defined as a service component type in the Generic Service Component Framework. This framework helps to simplify and automate the management of background Java services. For more information about managing service components, see: Service Components.

Oracle Workflow provides one seeded notification mailer service component, called Workflow Notification Mailer. Most of the configuration parameters for this mailer are set to default values. You can enter several of the remaining required parameters using AutoConfig. After installation, you then only need to enter the e-mail inbox password to complete the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer. Alternatively, if you only want to send outbound messages and do not need to receive inbound messages, you only need to disable inbound processing to complete the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer.

If the mail servers and Business Event System components used by notification mailers are set up, and the service component container to which the Workflow Notification Mailer belongs is started, the seeded notification mailer automatically starts running once its configuration is complete.

You cannot delete the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer or edit its name, assigned agents, correlation ID value, or container. However, if necessary you can optionally update other configuration parameters, schedule control events, or manually choose control commands to start, stop, suspend, resume, or refresh this notification mailer.

Note: Oracle Alert also uses the Workflow Notification Mailer to send and receive alert e-mail messages. If you use Oracle Alert, ensure that the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer meets your alert requirements. See: Setup Steps, Oracle Alert User's Guide.

You can also optionally create additional notification mailer service components. For example, you can create a notification mailer that processes only messages that belong to a particular workflow item type, or only instances of a particular message from a particular item type. You can create additional mailers that process the same types of message to increase throughput.

You can also configure any notification mailer service component to process only inbound messages, or only outbound messages. You associate inbound and outbound mailers with each other by assigning them the same mailer node name. The mailer node name indicates which inbound mailer can process incoming responses to outbound messages sent by a particular outbound mailer.

You can optionally assign the same node name to multiple mailers for load balancing purposes. However, each mailer that performs inbound processing for a node must have its own inbox.

Note: The node name for each node must be unique. However, multiple mailers can share the same node. The maximum length for a node name is eight characters, and the node name cannot include any spaces or any of the following characters: left bracket ([), right bracket (]), slash (/), or at sign (@).

Service components must be hosted by a service component container. If you create custom notification mailer service components, you can assign them to the seeded container for notification mailers.

A service component container is implemented as a Generic Service Management (GSM) service. The seeded container for notification mailers is named Workflow Mailer Service.

Based on the volume to be handled by the seeded container, you can also choose to create your own custom containers as GSM services in Oracle Applications Manager. If you create a custom GSM service in OAM, you can copy the service parameters from the seeded Workflow Mailer Service to your new service in order to specify how to run the new service.

Setting Up Notification Mailers

Currently, Oracle Workflow supports the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) for outbound messages and the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) for inbound messages. You must have an SMTP server set up in order to send Oracle Workflow notification e-mail messages, and an IMAP server set up if you want to receive e-mail notification responses. Users can receive e-mail notifications using various e-mail clients, although notifications may be displayed differently in different clients, depending on the features each client supports.

Note: Oracle Workflow supports IMAP version 4 (IMAP4) compliant mail servers. Ensure that your mail server uses this IMAP version. For more information, see the JavaMail API Design Specification: http://java.sun.com/products/javamail/JavaMail-1.2.pdf

Note: If you have certain types of software installed, you may already have the necessary mail server functionality available. For example, products such as Oracle Email, Microsoft Exchange, or Lotus Notes include IMAP services. You can use a UNIX server as an SMTP server by configuring the Sendmail program.

Additionally, you can choose to use IMAP server software that is available for download from some sources. For example, the University of Washington offers the UW IMAP Server as a public service, and Carnegie Mellon University offers the Cyrus IMAP Server. You might choose this option if your enterprise uses UNIX Sendmail e-mail accounts, for instance. For more information, see: http://www.washington.edu/imap/, http://cyrusimap.web.cmu.edu/, and http://www.imap.org/.

Note: Third party software products are mentioned as examples only. Oracle makes no recommendation or endorsement of these third party software products.

Use the Oracle Workflow Manager component of Oracle Applications Manager (OAM) to configure and run notification mailers. For more information, see: Notification Mailers.

To set up a notification mailer, you must perform the following steps.

To Set Up a Notification Mailer

  1. Set up an SMTP mail server to send outbound messages.

    You can optionally configure the SMTP server to require authentication for server connections through the Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL). The Oracle Workflow notification mailer supports the PLAIN, LOGIN, and DIGEST-MD5 authentication mechanisms. Additionally, if you have applied patch 9452181 for JavaMail version 1.4.x, then the notification mailer can also support the Microsoft NTLM authentication mechanism. If you configure your SMTP server to use one of these authentication mechanisms, set up a user name and password for the notification mailer to use in establishing an authenticated connection to the server.

    If you configure your SMTP server to support more than one authentication mechanism, then the notification mailer uses the mechanism that appears first in the server's list of supported mechanisms. Consequently, if you want the notification mailer to use a particular mechanism, ensure that that mechanism appears first in the server's list. At a minimum, you should ensure that the first authentication mechanism listed for the server is one that the notification mailer supports.

    Note: If you use the PLAIN or LOGIN authentication mechanisms, it is recommended to connect to the SMTP server through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt the user name and password that are sent to the server. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through SSL. If you use the DIGEST-MD5 or NTLM authentication mechanisms, the JavaMail API encrypts the user name and password before sending the data to the SMTP sever.

  2. Set up an IMAP4 compliant mail server with an e-mail account for the notification mailer if you want to receive inbound messages.

    The notification mailer requires three folders in this e-mail account: the inbox, a folder to store processed messages, and a folder to store discarded messages.

    If the e-mail account does not already include folders named PROCESS and DISCARD, Oracle Workflow automatically creates these two folders when you complete the basic notification mailer configuration. You can optionally specify other folders for the notification mailer using the advanced configuration wizard.

    Note: Use your e-mail client to create folders manually for the notification mailer to use. A notification mailer may not be able to access folders that were created using command line tools outside the e-mail client.

    However, note that you must not use an e-mail client to access the notification mailer's e-mail account while the notification mailer is running. Use the e-mail client only during setup.

  3. You can enter the following configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer service component during installation using AutoConfig. For more information about running AutoConfig, see Using AutoConfig to Manage System Configurations with Oracle Applications Release 12, My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 387859.1 and AutoConfig, Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts.

    • SMTP server

    • IMAP server (if you want to receive inbound messages)

    • Inbox username (if you want to receive inbound messages)

    • Reply to e-mail address (if you want to receive inbound messages)

    • HTML agent name (defaults to the value you enter for the Applications Servlet Agent parameter)

    Note: When you enter the SMTP Server and IMAP Server parameters, specify the actual host name for each server. Do not use localhost as the setting for these parameters. You can optionally specify the port number to use on each server. If you do not specify a port number, the notification mailer uses port 143 on the IMAP server and port 25 on the SMTP server by default. Specify each server in the following format:

    <server_name>[:<port_number>]

  4. Ensure that the Business Event System status is set to Enabled in the global workflow preferences, and that the JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES database initialization parameter, which is required for the Business Event System, is set to an appropriate value. The Business Event System status is set to Enabled by default, and usually you do not need to change this status. If notification processing is not being completed, however, you should check this preference value.

  5. (Recommended) You can optionally set the WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile option to the host and port of the Web server that notification mailers should use to generate the content for Oracle Application Framework regions that are embedded in notifications. If this profile option is not set, notification mailers will use the same Web agent specified in the Application Framework Agent profile option. However, if necessary for load balancing purposes, you can optionally specify a different Web agent for notification mailers to use. The WF: Workflow Mailer Framework Web Agent profile option should be set at site level. See: Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

  6. Before a service component can run, the container which manages it must first be started. The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer service component belongs to a container named Workflow Mailer Service. The seeded agent listener service components that are also required for notification mailer processing belong to a container named Workflow Agent Listener Service . You should ensure that these two containers are running, using Oracle Applications Manager. If you create your own custom containers in OAM for custom service components, ensure that those containers are running as well.

    Note: You can run a diagnostic test to verify the GSM services for Oracle Workflow. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

  7. When the Workflow Agent Listener Service or WFALSNRSVC container is running, it automatically starts seeded agent listener service components named Workflow Deferred Notification Agent Listener, Workflow Error Agent Listener, and Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener, which are required for notification mailer processing. Ensure that these agent listeners are running.

  8. Use the notification mailer configuration wizard to configure your notification mailer service component.

    Note: The Basic Configuration page lets you configure a notification mailer quickly by entering only the minimum required parameters, while the advanced configuration wizard lets you specify additional parameters to control how the notification mailer processes messages. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

    If you entered configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer in AutoConfig, you only need to enter the password for the e-mail inbox in order to complete the configuration for that mailer and begin running it.

    If you did not enter parameters for the seeded mailer during installation, then in order to complete the configuration for that mailer you need to enter only the SMTP server, IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address. All other configuration parameters for the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer are initially set to default values and do not need to be changed, although you can optionally do so if you choose.

    Note: The IMAP server, e-mail inbox username, e-mail inbox password, and reply-to e-mail address are required only if you want to receive inbound messages. Alternatively, if you only want to send outbound messages and do not need to receive inbound messages, you only need to disable inbound processing in order to complete the configuration of the Workflow Notification Mailer. To do so, deselect the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page.

  9. (Optional) By default, the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer has a Launch Summary Notifications event scheduled to send summary notifications once a day. You can optionally use the notification mailer configuration wizard to modify the start time and interval for this event's schedule, or to schedule the Launch Summary Notifications event at the interval you choose for any notification mailer service component. When this event is processed, a summary notification is sent to each role with a notification preference of SUMMARY or SUMHTML, listing all the notifications that are currently open for that role.

  10. (Optional) You can optionally configure a notification mailer to connect to the SMTP server and IMAP server through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt the data exchanged. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through SSL.

  11. (Optional) You can optionally set the internal mailer parameter named HTML_DELIMITER to specify which characters the notification mailer uses to delimit response values in response templates for HTML-formatted e-mail notifications. Valid values for the HTML_DELIMITER parameter are:

    • DEFAULT - The notification mailer uses the default delimiters, currently set as the single quote (') for both the opening and the closing delimiter. The notification mailer also uses the default delimiters if the HTML_DELIMITER parameter value is left null.

    • APOS - The notification mailer uses the single quote, or apostrophe (') , as both the opening and the closing delimiter. This setting is currently the same as the default.

    • QUOTE - The notification mailer uses the double quote (") as both the opening and the closing delimiter.

    • BRACKET - The notification mailer uses the left bracket ([) as the opening delimiter and the right bracket (]) as the closing delimiter.

    Using single quotes as the delimiters accommodates e-mail applications that cannot process double quotes in the <A HREF="mailto:"> tag for the response template link, but can accept single quotes. However, if you want users to be able to use apostrophes or single quotes in their response values without entering an escape character, you can use double quotes or brackets as the delimiters, depending on what your e-mail application supports. For example, Microsoft Outlook Express does not support using double quotes, so if you use Microsoft Outlook Express, you can set the HTML_DELIMITER parameter to DEFAULT, APOS, or BRACKET, but you should not set this parameter to QUOTE. See: To Respond to an HTML E-mail Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

    Note: If the HTML_DELIMITER parameter is set to an invalid value, the notification mailer throws an exception at startup. Any notifications created during this time are rendered with the default delimiters instead.

    By default, the HTML_DELIMITER parameter is set to the value DEFAULT. Use the afsvcpup.sql script to change the parameter value to specify the delimiters you want to use. See: To Set Internal Mailer Parameters.

    If a particular notification message has the special #WFM_HTML_DELIMITER message attribute defined, however, the notification mailer will use the #WFM_HTML_DELIMITER attribute value to determine which delimiters to use for that notification, instead of using the HTML_DELIMITER parameter value.

    Note: The HTML_DELIMITER parameter only controls the response templates for HTML-formatted notifications. This parameter does not apply to plain text notifications.

  12. (Optional) The seeded Workflow Notification Mailer uses the Automatic startup mode by default and will be started automatically when you complete its configuration. If you select the Manual startup mode for a notification mailer service component, use the Service Components page in Oracle Workflow Manager to start that notification mailer. You can also use this page to manage any notification mailer service component.

To Set Internal Mailer Parameters

Use the afsvcpup.sql script to set internal mailer parameters that do not appear in the notification mailer configuration wizard. This script is located in the $FND_TOP/sql directory.

  1. Use the following command to run the afsvcpup.sql script:

    sqlplus <user/pwd> @afsvcpup

  2. At the prompts, enter the component ID for your notification mailer service component, the parameter ID for the parameter to set, and the value to assign to that parameter. You can find the IDs to enter in the lists displayed by the script, which show first the service components defined in your installation of Oracle Workflow and then the parameters defined for the specified service component. You can also find the component ID for a notification mailer in the Define page of the configuration wizard.

Outbound Notification Mailer Processing

When the Workflow Engine determines that a notification message must be sent, it raises an event in the Business Event System called oracle.apps.wf.notification.send. Oracle Workflow provides a seeded subscription to this event, which is defined to be deferred immediately so that the workflow process that owns the notification can continue. The event is placed on the standard WF_DEFERRED agent. Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Deferred Notification Agent Listener that runs on this agent to continue notification processing. This agent listener is dedicated solely to processing deferred notification events.

When the event is dequeued from WF_DEFERRED and the subscription is processed, the subscription requires the event data for the event, causing the generate function for the event to be executed. The generate function for this event performs the following actions:

Finally, the subscription places the event message on the standard WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT agent.

A notification mailer service component polls the WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT agent for messages that must be sent by e-mail. When the notification mailer dequeues a message from this agent, it uses a Java-based notification formatter to convert the XML representation of the notification into a MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) encoded message and sends the message by the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

Outbound Notification Mailer Processing

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The e-mail notifications are based on message templates defined in Oracle Workflow Builder. Oracle Workflow provides a set of standard templates in the System: Mailer item type, which are used by default. It is not recommended to modify the standard templates. However, you can customize the message templates used to send your e-mail notifications by creating your own custom message templates in a custom item type using the Workflow Builder. Then assign these templates to a particular notification in a workflow process by defining special message attributes. In this case the templates assigned to the notification override any other templates. See: Modifying Your Message Templates and Notification Mailer Message Template Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

You can also create your own custom message templates in the System: Mailer item type using the Workflow Builder, and assign these templates to a particular notification mailer service component in the mailer configuration parameters. The templates assigned to a mailer override the default System: Mailer templates. However, if any notifications have templates specifically assigned to them through message attributes, the notification-level templates still override the templates assigned to the mailer. See: Modifying Your Message Templates.

If the notification mailer cannot deliver an e-mail notification because the recipient's e-mail address is invalid, it performs the following actions:

After correcting invalid e-mail addresses and resetting DISABLED notification preferences, you can run the Resend Failed/Error Workflow Notifications concurrent program to retry open notifications that previously could not be sent. See: Handling Mailer Errors.

Inbound Notification Mailer Processing

Notification mailers can also process e-mail responses from users, using the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP). A notification mailer uses a Java-based e-mail parser to interpret the text of each message and create an XML representation of it.

A notification mailer uses three folders in your response mail account for response processing: one to receive incoming messages, one to store processed messages, and one to store discarded messages.

A notification mailer does the following to process response messages:

The notification mailer performs the following steps for messages that belong to its node.

Finally, if there are no more unprocessed messages in the inbox, the notification mailer logs out of the e-mail account.

Oracle Workflow provides a seeded agent listener named Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener that runs on the WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agent to continue notification processing for the valid response messages placed on that agent. When an event message is dequeued from WF_NOTIFICATION_IN, Oracle Workflow executes a seeded subscription that calls the appropriate notification response function. This function verifies the response values with the definition of the notification message's response attributes in the database. If a response value is invalid, or if no response value is included, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Mail message to the recipient role, or, for an invalid response to a request for more information, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message to the recipient role. If the responses are valid, the notification response function records the response and completes the notification.

Inbound Notification Mailer Processing

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See: Workflow Warning Mail Message, Workflow Closed Mail Message, Workflow Canceled Mail Message, Workflow More Info Answered Mail Message, Workflow Invalid Mail Message, and Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) Message.

Full MIME Support

Oracle Workflow fully supports MIME (Multi-purpose Internet Mail Extensions) encoded messages. This means that notification mailers can exchange messages with workflow users containing languages with different character sets and multi-media encoded content.

Connecting to Mail Servers Through SSL

You can optionally configure a notification mailer to connect to the SMTP server and IMAP server through the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol. SSL provides encrypted connections for sending data between the notification mailer and the mail servers, for enhanced security.

To use SSL, you must have an X.509 certificate and private key issued by a certificate authority. You can use the same certificate for both the SMTP server and the IMAP server.

Note: If you will use this certificate solely for testing purposes or to secure communications within your own enterprise, you can set up your own certificate authority to issue the certificate. However, to secure communications with third parties, you must obtain a certificate from a publicly recognized certificate authority.

Additionally, to connect to the SMTP server through SSL, you must have Stunnel installed on the SMTP server. Stunnel is a program that lets you encrypt connections inside SSL. For more information, see: http://www.stunnel.org/.

To Set Up for SSL Connections to the SMTP Server

  1. Obtain an X.509 certificate and private key from a certificate authority, and load the file containing the certificate and key onto the file system of the SMTP server. For detailed instructions, please refer to the documentation for your SMTP server.

  2. Start an Stunnel process on the SMTP server, specifying the location of the certificate file in the arguments.

    For example, if the certificate file is named imapd.pem and is located in the /usr/share/ssl/certs/ directory on the SMTP server, use the following Stunnel command to redirect SSL connections from port 465 to port 25 on the SMTP server.

    stunnel -d 465 -r 25 -o /tmp/stunnel.log -p   /usr/share/ssl/certs/imapd.pem

    For more information, see the Stunnel documentation.

  3. In the notification mailer configuration wizard, select the Outbound SSL Enabled parameter to enable the notification mailer to use SSL for connections to the SMTP server. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

    Note: When you enable SSL, the notification mailer connects to the SMTP server through port 465 by default. You can optionally specify a different port number along with the SMTP server name in the Outbound E-mail Account: Server Name parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard.

  4. (Conditionally Required) If you set up your own certificate authority to issue the certificate as a self-signed certificate, then you must also load the local certificate authority's certificate (CA certificate) into a local trust store.

    • If possible, load the CA certificate into the default local trust store on the concurrent manager host (the trust store for the concurrent manager JDK) where the notification mailer resides.

    • Otherwise, load the CA certificate to an alternate trust store, and specify the location of that trust store in the internal mailer parameter named MAILER_SSL_TRUSTSTORE. You can use the keytool command line utility to create the local trust store.

      Note: Creating a local, dedicated trust store for self-signed certificates keeps the JDK trust store clean of any certificates created for testing and verification purposes.

      By default, the MAILER_SSL_TRUSTSTORE parameter is set to NONE, which causes the notification mailer to use the default Java security configuration. Use the afsvcpup.sql script to change the parameter value to the location of the alternate trust store. See: To Set Internal Mailer Parameters.

To Set Up for SSL Connections to the IMAP Server

  1. If the IMAP server is located on a different host than the SMTP server, load the file containing the X.509 certificate and private key onto the file system of the IMAP server. For detailed instructions, please refer to the documentation for your IMAP server.

  2. In the notification mailer configuration wizard, select the Inbound SSL Enabled parameter to enable the notification mailer to use SSL for connections to the IMAP server. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

    Note: When you enable SSL, the notification mailer connects to the IMAP server through port 993 by default. You can optionally specify a different port number along with the IMAP server name in the Inbound E-mail Account: Server Name parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard.

To Begin Using SSL Connections

  1. After completing the SSL setup, stop and restart the service component container named Workflow Mailer Service in Oracle Applications Manager for the changes to take effect. See: Service Components.

Notification Preferences

Oracle Workflow lets users determine how they view notifications by setting a notification preference. As a workflow administrator, you can set the default notification preference for all users in your enterprise using the Workflow Configuration page. Users can override the default by modifying their individual notification preference setting the Preferences page in Oracle E-Business Suite. See: Setting Global User Preferences and Set Preferences, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

Often, the functionality of a user's mail reader determines what the user's notification preference should be. Some mail readers can only display plain text, others can display HTML formatting, while still others can only display HTML formatting in an attachment. The following notification preferences are available:

Important: Users can always query and respond to their notifications from the Worklist Web page, even if they set their notification preference to receive e-mail or their notification preference is set to DISABLED.

You can run a diagnostic test to check that all users with a notification preference to receive e-mail have an e-mail address defined. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide, Viewing Notifications from a Web Browser, Oracle Workflow User's Guide, and Reviewing a Summary of Your Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Plain Text E-mail

If the performer of a notification has a notification preference of plain text mail (MAILTEXT), when a notification mailer processes the notification, it generates a plain text e-mail message and sends it to the performer role. The notification mailer uses the Text Body defined for the message in the Oracle Workflow Builder message property page to generate the plain text e-mail. It token replaces all attribute values referenced in the message body with plain text values. For example:

Important: Message attributes that have Attach Content checked in their Attributes property page, are attached as plain text to their parent notification. Note that this may render some attachments unreadable if the attachment includes special formatting or your plain text e-mail reader does not recognize attachments. To view these attachments, you should display your notifications in the Worklist Web page. See: Viewing Notifications from a Web Browser, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

A recipient of a plain text e-mail notification responds by manually replying to the notification and entering response values following the instructions provided in the notification. See: To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Templated Response, Oracle Workflow User's Guide and To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification Using Direct Response, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

HTML-Formatted E-mail with Attachments

If the performer of a notification has a notification preference of HTML mail with attachments (MAILHTML), when a notification mailer processes the notification, it generates an HTML-formatted e-mail notification and sends it to the performer role. The recipient should use an e-mail reader that can interpret and display HTML content within a message body.

Note: If your e-mail reader cannot interpret HTML formatting in a message body, you should set your notification preference to plain text mail with HTML Attachments (MAILATTH).

The notification mailer uses the HTML Body defined for the message in the Message Body property page to generate the HTML e-mail message. If no HTML Body is defined, it uses the Text Body to generate the HTML message. The notification mailer token replaces all message attributes referenced in the message body with HTML-formatted values. For example:

Note: For notifications that do not include embedded Oracle Application Framework regions, message attributes that have Attach Content checked in their Attributes property page, are appended as attachments to their parent message. For example:

However, if a notification includes an embedded Oracle Application Framework region, then Oracle Workflow includes the Related Applications region in the e-mail message with links to the attached URLs or PL/SQL documents, instead of appending them as separate attachments.

You can respond to your HTML-formatted notification by clicking on a link that represents the response in the HTML message body. The response link generates a plain text e-mail response that includes a response template modified with the predefined response value that you select. See: To Respond to an HTML E-mail Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

If your notification preference is MAILHTML, each HTML-formatted notification always includes at least one standard attachment. The attachment is called Notification Detail Link. When you select this attachment, your e-mail reader opens a browser window that displays your notification in the Notification Details Web page. You can alternatively respond directly to your notification from this Web page, bypassing the need to process your response through a notification mailer.

Note: Depending on your configuration, if you are not already logged in, you may be prompted to log in when you select the Notification Detail Link before you can access the Notification Details page. See: Responses through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

Note: You can use the Inline Attachment configuration parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to either inline or attachment for all attachments to notification messages, including the Notification Detail Link, Notification References containing attached URLs, and attached PL/SQL, PL/SQL CLOB, or PL/SQL BLOB documents. Note, however, that some e-mail clients may not support the Content-Disposition header, or may support it in varying ways. Consequently, the Inline Attachment setting may not always have the desired effect, depending on the e-mail clients with which users read their e-mail messages.

Note: The file name of the Notification Detail Link attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_URL_NOTIFICATION resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined. Similarly, the file name of the Notification References attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined. The default file names are "Notification Detail Link.html" and "Notification References.html", respectively. If you want to specify different file names for these attachments, you must first create a .msg source file specifying the new file names as the text values for the WF_URL_NOTIFICATION and WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource tokens. Then use the Workflow Resource Generator program to upload the new seed data from the source file to the database table WF_RESOURCES. See: To Run the Workflow Resource Generator, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

HTML-Formatted E-mail

If the performer of a notification has a notification preference of HTML mail (MAILHTM2), without standard attachments, when a notification mailer processes the notification, it generates an HTML-formatted e-mail notification and sends it to the performer role. The recipient should use an e-mail reader that can interpret and display HTML content within a message body.

Note: If your e-mail reader cannot interpret HTML formatting in a message body, you should set your notification preference to plain text mail with HTML Attachments (MAILATTH).

The notification mailer uses the HTML Body defined for the message in the Message Body property page to generate the HTML e-mail message. If no HTML Body is defined, it uses the Text Body to generate the HTML message. The notification mailer token replaces all message attributes referenced in the message body with HTML-formatted values. For example:

Note: For notifications that do not include embedded Oracle Application Framework regions, message attributes that have Attach Content checked in their Attributes property page, are usually appended as attachments to their parent message. For example:

However, if a notification includes an embedded Oracle Application Framework region, then Oracle Workflow includes the Related Applications region in the e-mail message with links to the attached URLs or PL/SQL documents, instead of appending them as separate attachments.

Note that although such message-specific attachments may be included, no standard attachments are included with the notification message if your notification preference is MAILHTM2.

You can respond to your HTML-formatted notification by clicking on a link that represents the response in the HTML message body. The response link generates a plain text e-mail response that includes a response template modified with the predefined response value that you select. See: To Respond to an HTML E-mail Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Note: You can use the Inline Attachment configuration parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to either inline or attachment for all attachments to notification messages, including Notification References containing attached URLs and attached PL/SQL, PL/SQL CLOB, or PL/SQL BLOB documents. Note, however, that some e-mail clients may not support the Content-Disposition header, or may support it in varying ways. Consequently, the Inline Attachment setting may not always have the desired effect, depending on the e-mail clients with which users read their e-mail messages.

Note: The file name of the Notification References attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined. The default file name is "Notification References.html". If you want to specify a different file name for this attachment, you must first create a .msg source file specifying the new file name as the text value for the WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource token. Then use the Workflow Resource Generator program to upload the new seed data from the source file to the database table WF_RESOURCES. See: To Run the Workflow Resource Generator, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

Plain Text E-mail with an HTML Attachment

If the performer of a notification has a notification preference of plain text mail with HTML attachments (MAILATTH), when a notification mailer processes the notification, it generates a plain text e-mail notification with HTML attachments and sends it to the performer role. The recipient should use an e-mail reader that supports HTML attachments.

The notification mailer uses the Text Body defined for the message in the Message Body property page to generate the plain text body of the e-mail. It also generates an HTML version of the notification message and sends it as an attachment called HTML Message Body to the plain text e-mail. The notification mailer generates the content of the HTML attachment from the HTML Body defined for the message. If no HTML Body is defined, it uses the Text Body to generate the HTML mail. The notification mailer token replaces all message attributes referenced in the plain text message body with plain text values and token replaces all message attributes referenced in the attached HTML message with HTML-formatted values. See: Plain Text E-mail and HTML-Formatted E-mail.

If your e-mail reader supports HTML formatting in the message body, you can optionally select the Inline Attachment configuration parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to inline for attachments. Then the HTML attachment will also appear inline in the message body. Note, however, that some e-mail clients may not support the Content-Disposition header, or may support it in varying ways. Consequently, the Inline Attachment setting may not always have the desired effect, depending on the e-mail clients with which you read your e-mail messages.

Note: For notifications that do not include Oracle Application Framework regions, message attributes that have Attach Content checked in their Attributes property page, are usually appended as attachments. For example:

However, if a notification includes an embedded Oracle Application Framework region, then Oracle Workflow includes the Related Applications region in the e-mail message with links to the attached URLs or PL/SQL documents, instead of appending them as separate attachments.

The notifications received by a user whose notification preference is 'Plain text with HTML attachments' always contain at least two standard attachments. The first attachment is HTML Message Body and the other is Notification Detail Link. When you select Notification Detail Link, your e-mail reader opens a browser window that displays your notification in the Notification Details Web page. You can respond directly to your notification from this Web page, bypassing the need to process your response through a notification mailer. See: To Respond to a Plain Text E-mail Notification with an HTML Attachment, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Note: Depending on your configuration, if you are not already logged in, you may be prompted to log in when you select the Notification Detail Link before you can access the Notification Details page. See: Responses through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

Alternatively, a recipient of this type of notification can respond in one of two other ways:

Note: You can use the Inline Attachment configuration parameter to set the Content-Disposition MIME header to either inline or attachment for all attachments to notification messages, including the Notification Detail Link, HTML Message Body, Notification References containing attached URLs, and attached PL/SQL, PL/SQL CLOB, or PL/SQL BLOB documents. Note, however, that some e-mail clients may not support the Content-Disposition header, or may support it in varying ways. Consequently, the Inline Attachment setting may not always have the desired effect, depending on the e-mail clients with which users read their e-mail messages.

Note: The file name of the HTML Message Body attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_HTML_MESSAGE resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined. Similarly, the file name of the Notification Detail Link attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_URL_NOTIFICATION resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined; and the file name of the Notification References attachment is determined by the text value for the WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource token, or by the token name if no text value is defined. The default file names are "HTML Message Body.html", "Notification Detail Link.html", and "Notification References.html", respectively. If you want to specify different file names for these attachments, you must first create a .msg source file specifying the new file names as the text values for the WF_HTML_MESSAGE, WF_URL_NOTIFICATION, and WF_URLLIST_ATTACHMENT resource tokens. Then use the Workflow Resource Generator program to upload the new seed data from the source file to the database table WF_RESOURCES. See: To Run the Workflow Resource Generator, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

E-mail Notification Security

Each individual e-mail notification message sent by a notification mailer includes a line containing a notification ID (NID), access key, and node identifier, which are used to authenticate responses to the notification.

The format of the NID line is as follows:

NID[NID/access_key@node_identifier]

Responses by E-mail

When a user responds to a notification by e-mail, the response message must include the NID line from the original notification message. A notification mailer accepts the response only if the correct NID and access key combination is included in the response. Users can ensure that the response message contains the NID and access key either by including the entire original message when replying or by using a response template that includes the NID line.

Note: Some mail clients, notably early releases of Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the NID line properly in a reply message. When responding to a notification, users should verify that the NID line is included in full and contains the prefix NID and all the details between the square brackets.

A user who receives an e-mail notification message may forward the message to another user through the e-mail application. When you configure a notification mailer, you can choose whether to allow a user to respond by e-mail to an e-mail notification that has been forwarded from another role.

Important: Note that there are limitations when you deselect the Allow Forwarded Response parameter. For example, suppose a notification is sent to a distribution list mail alias that does not have a user/role relationship in the Oracle Workflow directory service. If any user from the distribution list responds to the notification, the notification mailer will always treat their notification response as unsolicited mail, because the "From:" e-mail address, which is an individual user's e-mail address, will never match the distribution list mail alias.

Responses through the Notification Detail Link Attachment

HTML-formatted e-mail notifications with attachments and plain text e-mail notifications with HTML attachments include an attachment called Notification Detail Link. When this link is clicked, it displays the notification in the Notification Details Web page. A user who receives a notification with a Notification Detail Link attachment can use this Web page to respond directly to the notification, instead of sending an e-mail response message to be processed by a notification mailer.

You can choose whether to require users to log in before they can access the Notification Details Web page for a notification through the Notification Detail Link.

E-mail Notification Summaries

Instead of individual e-mail notifications, users can also receive e-mail summaries listing all their open notifications. Users can indicate that they want to receive e-mail summaries by choosing a notification preference of SUMMARY or SUMHTML.

To send e-mail summaries, schedule a Launch Summary Notifications event for a notification mailer. For the seeded Workflow Notification Mailer, the Launch Summary Notifications event is scheduled to send e-mail summary notifications once a day by default.

Mail Server Connections Through SSL

You can configure a notification mailer to connect to the SMTP server and IMAP server through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt the data exchanged. See: Connecting to Mail Servers Through SSL.

SMTP Authentication

You can configure the SMTP server to require authentication for server connections through the Simple Authentication and Security Layer (SASL). The Oracle Workflow notification mailer supports the PLAIN, LOGIN, and DIGEST-MD5 authentication mechanisms. Additionally, if you have applied patch 9452181 for JavaMail version 1.4.x, then the notification mailer can also support the Microsoft NTLM authentication mechanism. See: Setting Up a Notification Mailer.

Note: If you use the PLAIN or LOGIN authentication mechanisms, it is recommended to connect to the SMTP server through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to encrypt the user name and password that are sent to the server. If you use the DIGEST-MD5 or NTLM authentication mechanisms, the JavaMail API encrypts the user name and password before sending the data to the SMTP sever.

Confirming Responses with Electronic Signatures

You can require that the response to a notification be signed with either a password-based signature or a certificate-based digital signature. In this case, users cannot respond to that notification through e-mail. Instead, they must respond to the notification from the Notification Details Web page and enter the appropriate type of signature.

Users can access the Notification Details page by these methods.

Users must log in to Oracle E-Business Suite before they can access the Notification Details page from the Notification Detail Link or "Click here to respond" link.

Note: If you enable guest access to the Notification Details page, the "Click here to respond" link does not appear in the HTML-formatted message. See: Responses Through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

Use the special message attribute #WF_SIG_POLICY to specify the signature policy for a notification. See: #WF_SIG_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

You can use the Signature Evidence Store to review details about the electronic signatures requested or submitted for notifications that require signatures. You can also view some signature details in the Notification Response Details page in the Status Monitor. See: Reviewing Electronic Signature Details and Viewing Responses.

Excluding Notification Content From E-mail

If a particular notification contains sensitive information that you do not want to send in e-mail, you can choose to exclude the content of the notification from the e-mail version of the notification. In this case, users receive an e-mail message that only informs them that they must access the notification through the Notification Details Web page instead to view the content and respond. To access the Notification Details page, users can either log into Oracle E-Business Suite separately, or, if their notification preference includes HTML attachments, use the Notification Detail Link.

Use the special message attribute #WF_SECURITY_POLICY to specify the content security policy for a notification. See: #WF_SECURITY_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

CC and BCC E-mail Recipients

Oracle Workflow can send copies of a notification e-mail message to secondary (CC) and additional non-displayed (BCC) recipients in addition to the primary recipient. However, the CC and BCC recipients are not added to the recipient role of the notification in the Notification System.

Adding CC and BCC recipients is recommended only for FYI notifications. If you do add CC or BCC recipients to a response-required notification, consider whether the additional recipients should be able respond to the notification, and set up your security options accordingly.

See: Additional E-mail Recipient Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Sending Outbound E-mail Notifications Only

If you do not want to allow responses by e-mail, you can choose to send only outbound e-mail notifications. To configure your notification mailers for outbound-only processing, set the inbound thread count to 0 (zero) in the configuration wizard for each notification mailer, or deselect the Inbound Processing parameter in the Basic Configuration page for each notification mailer.

When you set up an outbound-only mailer, you should configure the mailer to use message templates for response-required notifications that do not request a response by e-mail, but instead direct recipients to respond from the Notification Details Web page. For example, you can configure the mailer to send response-required notifications using the Workflow View From UI message template, which is an alternative template provided by Oracle Workflow in the System: Mailer item type, or create your own custom message templates. The outbound-only mailer can still use the standard message templates to send outbound summary notifications or For Your Information (FYI) notifications that do not require a response.

Disabling E-mail Notifications

Ultimately, the security of e-mail notifications depends on the security of your e-mail application. If you do not want to send any workflow information by e-mail, you can choose not to run any notification mailers at all. In this case users must always log on to Oracle Workflow and access the Worklist Web page to view and respond to their notifications.

See: Overview of Notification Handling, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Handling Mailer Errors

To check the status of a particular notification or help investigate errors, you can run a script named wfmlrdbg.sql that displays debugging information. You can also obtain this information by running a diagnostic test through Oracle Diagnostics Framework. See: wfmlrdbg.sql and Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

Additionally, you can run diagnostic tests through Oracle Diagnostics Framework to check that at least one notification mailer is configured, to validate the notification mailer configuration parameters, and to check that all users with a notification preference to receive e-mail have an e-mail address defined. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

Note: You must particularly check the notification preference and e-mail address for the SYSADMIN user. This user is the default recipient for several types of notifications such as error notifications. By default, the SYSADMIN user has a notification preference to receive e-mail notifications. To enable Oracle Workflow to send e-mail to this user, navigate to the Users window in Oracle E-Business Suite and assign SYSADMIN an e-mail address that is fully qualified with a valid domain. However, if you want to access notifications only through the Oracle Workflow Worklist Web page, then you should change the notification preference for SYSADMIN to "Do not send me mail" in the Preferences page. In this case you do not need to define an e-mail address. See: System Administration Setup Tasks, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

You can also run command-line diagnostic tests for notification mailers through oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer to check mail server and Web server connectivity and check the size or number of messages in an IMAP folder. See: Running Command-Line Notification Mailer Diagnostics.

You can use the Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page to test whether Oracle Application Framework content can be generated correctly for e-mail notifications. See: Testing Mailer URL Access.

The Generic Service Component Framework lets you control how errors are handled through the component-level Max Error Count parameter and the container-level SVC_COMP_MAX_ERROR_COUNT parameter.

The total number of errors before a mailer is permanently stopped consists of the Max Error Count value multiplied by the SVC_COMP_MAX_ERROR_COUNT value. For example, using the default values, a mailer can encounter 10 * 5 = 50 errors before it becomes System Deactivated.

If a mailer encounters multiple consecutive errors, it may be advantageous to let the container restart the mailer. Restarting causes the mailer to establish new connections and instantiate new objects, which may resolve the errors. Consequently, if you want to allow more errors before you must manually intervene to restart the mailer, it is usually better to increase the SVC_COMP_MAX_ERROR_COUNT value than the Max Error Count value.

For more information about configuring service component and container parameters, see: Service Components.

Note: If the status of a notification mailer service component changes to Stopped with Error or System Deactivated, Oracle Workflow posts a system alert to the System Alerts and Metrics page in Oracle Applications Manager. See: System Alerts, Metrics, and Logs, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

In case of a large number of errored notifications, Oracle Workflow provides special scripts for mass mailer reprocessing. Do not run these scripts unless you are directed to do so by Oracle Support.

The following scripts are located in the $FND_TOP/patch/115/sql directory.

The following scripts are located in the $FND_TOP/patch/115/sql directory.

Oracle Workflow also provides concurrent programs that help enable mass reprocessing of notifications. See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

Resetting Notification Mailers After Cloning

If you clone an Oracle E-Business Suite instance, the cloned instance by default includes notification mailer data from the source instance, including notification mailer configuration parameters and information for notifications that are eligible to be sent by e-mail. Consequently, the cloned instance may send e-mail notifications as if they were from the source instance. If you do not want the cloned instance to continue sending e-mail notifications, you can run a script named wfmlpcln.sql to reset the notification mailer configurations and notification mail statuses.

The wfmlpcln.sql script performs the following actions for all notification mailers in the Oracle E-Business Suite instance where you run the script:

The wfmlpcln.sql script is located in the $FND_TOP/sql directory. Use the script as follows:

sqlplus <user/pwd> @wfmlpcln

If you later want to send e-mail notifications from the cloned instance, you can use Oracle Workflow Manager to reconfigure the notification mailers as appropriate for that instance. When you do so, Oracle Workflow automatically re-enables the seeded subscription to the oracle.apps.wf.notification.send.group event group.

See: Notification Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide and Cloning, Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts.

Running Command-Line Notification Mailer Diagnostics

Oracle Workflow provides command-line diagnostic tests for notification mailers through oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer. With these tests, you can:

These tests use the following variables:

Use the following command to test connectivity to the IMAP mail server.

$AFJVAPRG -classpath $AF_CLASSPATH -Dprotocol=imap \ 
  ( -Ddbcfile=<dbcfileLocation> | -Ddbuser -Ddbpassword -Ddburl )\ 
  -Dserver=<server_name> [-Dport=<port>] \ 
  -Daccount=<account_name> -Dpassword=<password> \ 
  [ -Dfolder=<folder_name> ] \ 
  [ -Dssl=<Y|N> ] \ 
  [ -Dtruststore=<truststore> ]\ 
  [ -Dconnect_timeout=<seconds> ] \ 
  [ -Ddebug=<Y|N> ]\ 
  [ -Dlogfile=<log_file_name> ]\ 
  oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer

Specify the following parameters.

Use the following command to test connectivity to the SMTP mail server.

$AFJVAPRG -classpath $AF_CLASSPATH -Dprotocol=smtp \ 
  ( -Ddbcfile=<dbcfileLocation> | -Ddbuser -Ddbpassword -Ddburl )\ 
  -Dserver=<server_name> [-Dport=<port>] \ 
  [ -Daccount=<account_name> ] \ 
  [ -DoutboundUser=<smtp_user_name> ] \ 
  [ -DoutboundPassword=<smtp_user_password> ] \ 
  [ -Dssl=<Y|N> ] \ 
  [ -Dtruststore=<truststore> ]\ 
  [ -Dconnect_timeout=<seconds> ] \ 
  [ -Ddebug=<Y|N> ]\ 
  [ -Dlogfile=<log_file_name> ]\ 
  oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer

Specify the following parameters.

Use the following command to test connectivity to the Web tier.

$AFJVAPRG -classpath $AF_CLASSPATH \ 
  ( -Ddbcfile=<dbcfileLocation> | -Ddbuser -Ddbpassword -Ddburl )\ 
  ( -Dnid=<notification_ID> | -Durl=<simpleURL> ) \ 
  [ -Dappuser=<EBusinessSuiteUserID> ]\ 
  [ -Dappresp=<EBusinessSuiteResponsibilityID>  ]\ 
  [ -Dappid=<EBusinessSuiteAppID> ]\ 
  [ -Dhtp=<http | https> ]\ 
  [ -Durltimeout=<seconds> ]\ 
  [ -Dlogfile=<log_file_name> ]\ 
  oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer

Specify the following parameters.

Use the following command to check the number of messages in an IMAP folder or the total size of the messages in the folder in bytes.

$AFJVAPRG -classpath $AF_CLASSPATH -Dprotocol=imap \ 
  ( -Ddbcfile=<dbcfileLocation> | -Ddbuser -Ddbpassword -Ddburl )\ 
  -Dserver=<server_name> [-Dport=<port>] \ 
  -Daccount=<account_name> -Dpassword=<password> \ 
  [ -Dssl=<Y|N> ] \ 
  [ -Dtruststore=<truststore> ]\ 
  [ -Dconnect_timeout=<seconds> ] \ 
  [ -Ddebug=<Y|N> ]\ 
  [ -Dlogfile=<log_file_name> ]\ 
  -Dfolder=<folder_name> \ 
  -Dfolder_usage=<count | size> \ 
  [ -Dcheck_age=<age_in_days> \ 
  [ -Dinclude_flag=<2 | 4 | 8 | 14> \ 
  oracle.apps.fnd.wf.mailer.Mailer

Specify the following parameters.

Note: The -Dcheck_age and -Dinclude_flag parameters do not apply if you are checking the number of messages in the folder.

Step 7: Modifying Your Message Templates

Notification mailers use message templates defined in Oracle Workflow Builder to generate e-mail notifications. Oracle Workflow provides a set of standard templates which are used by default, as well as some alternative templates for certain types of messages. These message templates are defined in the System: Mailer item type.

Although message templates are defined as messages in Oracle Workflow Builder, they are not true messages. Rather, they serve as outlines for e-mail messages sent by notification mailers. Message templates determine the basic format of an e-mail notification, including what header information to include, and whether and where to include details such as the message due date and priority. Message templates for notifications that require a response should also describe the syntax the reply should follow and list the information needed to confirm the notification.

It is not recommended to modify the standard templates. However, you can optionally customize the message templates used to send your e-mail notifications by either using the alternative templates provided in the System: Mailer item type by Oracle Workflow, or creating your own custom message templates in the System: Mailer item type using the Workflow Builder. You can implement alternative standard or custom templates in the following ways:

The templates in the System: Mailer item type have message attributes that represent every part of the notification message. Within the body of a template, the message attributes are token substituted to insert the specific information for a particular instance of a notification into the message outline.

Note: Do not modify, add new attributes to, or delete existing attributes from the standard message templates in the System: Mailer item type.

If you create new custom templates, your custom templates should contain only the high-level notification layout and general information common to all e-mail notifications. You must name the message attributes for these templates with the same standard names as the message attributes for the standard templates. Do not create any new custom message attributes in your templates with nonstandard names, and do not reference any nonstandard attribute tokens in the template message body. A notification mailer can only token substitute the attributes in the message body if you use the standard attribute names. To include additional information in a custom message template, enter that information directly into the template message body, without using tokens.

You can optionally omit some of the standard tokens from your custom templates, if you do not want to send the information they represent. However, you should not omit the tokens that represent the key information to be conveyed in the notification. For example, if you define a custom version of a template that includes the &BODY token, you must include the &BODY token in the custom template as well, in order to include the body text of the particular notification that is being sent into the template outline.

Oracle Workflow provides the following message templates.

Note: In addition to the message templates listed here, the System: Mailer item type also includes some other messages which are not currently used.

See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

Workflow Open Mail (Templated) Message

If you use the templated response method, the Notification System uses the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message as a default template for e-mail notifications that require a response. The notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond to a notification. It also includes the date that a response is due and any history of actions on the notification.

Note: The templated response method is the default response method for Oracle Workflow. Notification mailers use the templated response method unless you select the Direct Response parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually using the templated response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

The Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

Response Template for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including this response 
template with your reply.  Copy and paste from this message if 
necessary to obtain an editable copy of the template. Insert your 
response value between the quotes following each response prompt.


&RESPONSE

______________________End of Response Template_______________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> 
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P>Please click on one of the following choices to automatically 
generate an E-mail response.  Before sending the E-mail response to 
close this notification, ensure all response prompts include a 
desired response value within quotes.
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Templated) Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message as an alternative template that you can optionally use as a template for e-mail notifications that require a response if you use the templated response method. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Templated) notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond to a notification. It also includes the following information about a message: the name of the sender of the message, message priority, date that a response is due, and any comments from the sender or, if the notification is forwarded from another user, any comments from the forwarder.

Note: The templated response method is the default response method for Oracle Workflow. Notification mailers use the templated response method unless you select the Direct Response parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard .

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually using the templated response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Templated) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
From: &SENDER
&COMMENT
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

Response Template for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including this response 
template with your reply.  Copy and paste from this message if 
necessary to obtain an editable copy of the template. Insert your 
response value between the quotes following each response prompt.


&RESPONSE

______________________End of Response Template_______________________

Notification Details:
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P>
<P>From: <B>&SENDER</B>
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>&COMMENT</FONT> </B> 
<P>&BODY
<P><B>Please click on one of the following choices to automatically 
generate an E-mail response.  Before sending the E-mail response to 
close this notification, ensure all response prompts include a 
desired response value within quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO 
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow Open Mail (Direct) Message

If you select the direct response method, the Notification System uses the Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message as a default template for e-mail notifications that require a response. The notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond to a notification. It also includes the date that a response is due and any history of actions on the notification.

Note: To select the direct response method for a notification mailer, you must select the Direct Response parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply using the direct response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: Responses that are generated automatically from an HTML-formatted notification or attachment always use a response template, regardless of which response method you select.

The Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE
________________________________________________________________________

Response Instructions for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including this note 
with your reply.  The first lines of your reply must be your responses 
to the notification questions.  Instructions below detail exactly what 
should be placed on each line of your reply.

&RESPONSE

________________________________________________________________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> 
<HEAD> 
<TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE> 
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P>Please click on one of the following choices to automatically 
generate an E-mail response.  Before sending the E-mail response 
to close this notification, ensure all response prompts include 
a desired response value within quotes.
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Direct) Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message as an alternative template that you can optionally use as a template for e-mail notifications that require a response if you select the direct response method. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Direct) notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond to a notification. It also includes the following information about a message: the name of the sender of the message, message priority, date that a response is due, and any comments from the sender of the message or, if the notification is forwarded from another user, any comments from the forwarder.

Note: To select the direct response method for a notification mailer, you must select the Direct Response parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply using the direct response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: Responses that are generated automatically from an HTML-formatted notification or attachment always use a response template, regardless of which response method you select.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Direct) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
From: &SENDER
&COMMENT
________________________________________________________________________

Response Instructions for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including this note 
with your reply.  The first lines of your reply must be your responses 
to the notification questions.  Instructions below detail exactly what 
should be placed on each line of your reply.

&RESPONSE

________________________________________________________________________

Notification Details:
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P>
<P>From: <B>&SENDER</B>
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>&COMMENT</FONT> </B> 
<P>&BODY
<P><B>Please click on one of the following choices to automatically 
generate an E-mail response.  Before sending the E-mail response to 
close this notification, ensure all response prompts include a 
desired response value within quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO 
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) Message

If you use an e-mail application such as Microsoft Outlook Express as your e-mail client, you should select the standard Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message as a template for e-mail notifications that require a response, for users with a notification preference of MAILHTML, MAILHTM2, or MAILATTH. This message includes a link to the Notification Details Web page to let users respond to the notification there. This template is provided to accommodate e-mail applications that cannot process the response links included in the Workflow Open Mail (Templated) and Workflow Open Mail (Direct) templates.

Note: If you select the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message template for a notification mailer, then you should also select the Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message template for that notification mailer. See: Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) Message.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually using the templated response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH. The HTML-formatted message body includes a link called "Click here to respond" which lets users access the notification in the Notification Details Web page to respond to the notification. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: When users choose the "Click here to respond" link, it automatically attempts to establish a Web session with the Web server. Users must be able to connect to the Web server to use this link to respond to a notification. Users must log in to Oracle Workflow to access the Notification Details page, unless you enable guest access in Oracle E-Business Suite. See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide and Responses Through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

The Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE

---------- Start of Response Template ------------------------------------------

Response Template for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message including this 
response template in your reply.  Insert your response value 
between the quotes following each response prompt.


&RESPONSE

---------- End of Response Template --------------------------------------------

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P>&CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message as an alternative template that you can optionally use as a template for e-mail notifications that require a response if you use an e-mail application such as Microsoft Outlook Express as your e-mail client. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message includes the name of the sender of the message, any comments from the sender or forwarder, and a link to the Notification Details Web page to let users respond to the notification there. This template can be used to accommodate e-mail applications that cannot process the response links included in the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Templated) and Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Direct) templates.

Note: If you select the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message template for a notification mailer, then you should also select the Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message template for that notification mailer. See: Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) Message.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually using the templated response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH. The HTML-formatted message body includes a link called "Click here to respond" which lets users access the notification in the Notification Details Web page to respond to the notification. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: When users choose the "Click here to respond" link, it automatically attempts to establish a Web session with the Web server. Users must be able to connect to the Web server to use this link to respond to a notification. Users must log in to Oracle Workflow to access the Notification Details page, unless you enable guest access in Oracle E-Business Suite. See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide and Responses Through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the actual notification message definition.
MAILTO The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
From: &SENDER
&COMMENT
---------- Start of Response Template ------------------------------------------


Response Template for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message including this response 
template in your reply.  Insert your response value between the quotes 
following each response prompt.


&RESPONSE


---------- End of Response Template --------------------------------------------

Notification Details:
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P>
<P>From: <B>&SENDER</B>
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>&COMMENT</FONT> </B> 
<P>&BODY
<P>&CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE 
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow Open FYI Mail Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Open FYI Mail message as a default template for all e-mail notifications that do not require a response. The template indicates that the notification is for your information (FYI) and does not require a response. In addition to the message, the template also includes any history of actions on the notification.

The Workflow Open FYI Mail message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the text that appears in the body of the Workflow Open FYI Mail template, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent. The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification (FYI)

&TIMEZONE
________________________________________________________________________

&HEADER
&BODY

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Oracle Workflow Notification (FYI)</TITLE><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
<SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY 
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY>
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Open FYI Mail Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Open FYI Mail message as an alternative template that you can optionally use as a template for e-mail notifications that do not require a response. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Open FYI Mail message.

The Orig. Workflow Open FYI Mail template indicates that the notification is for your information (FYI) and does not require a response. In addition to the message, the template also includes the name of the sender of the message and any comments from the sender or forwarder.

The Orig. Workflow Open FYI Mail message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification (FYI)
From: &SENDER
&COMMENT
________________________________________________________________________


&BODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML><HEAD></HEAD>
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"><b>Oracle Workflow Notification (FYI)</b> 
<br>
From: <B>&SENDER</B>
<br>&COMMENT
<hr>
<P>&BODY
</BODY>
</HTML>

Workflow View From UI Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Workflow View From UI message as an alternative template that you can optionally use for open response-required notifications whose content you do not want to send in e-mail. An e-mail message generated from this template will still include the header attributes for the notification, as well as any history of actions on the notification. However, the e-mail message will exclude the message body for the notification and will not enable responses through e-mail. Users can only view and respond to such notifications through the Notification Details Web page.

The notification template informs the recipient that the notification is best viewed from the Web page and directs the recipient to access the online version of the notification.

The Workflow View From UI message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow View From UI message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE

Notification Details:
&HEADER

This notification is best viewed from the Notification Detail page.
Please access the online version of this notification.

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> 
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>This notification is best viewed from the Notification Detail page.<BR>
Please access the online version of this notification.
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow View FYI From UI Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Workflow View FYI From UI message as an alternative template that you can optionally use for open FYI notifications whose content you do not want to send in e-mail. An e-mail message generated from this template will still include the header attributes for the notification, as well as any history of actions on the notification. However, the e-mail message will exclude the message body for the notification. Users can only view such notifications through the Notification Details Web page.

The notification template informs the recipient that the notification is best viewed from the Web page and directs the recipient to access the online version of the notification.

The Workflow View FYI From UI message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the message is sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow View FYI From UI message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE

Notification Details:
&HEADER

This notification is best viewed from the Notification Detail page.
Please access the online version of this notification.

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> 
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>This notification is best viewed from the Notification Detail page.<BR>
Please access the online version of this notification.
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow URL Attachment Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow URL Attachment message as a default template to create the Notification References attachment for HTML-formatted notification messages that include URL attributes with Attach Content checked. The template includes a list with links to each URL.

Note: The Workflow URL Attachment message template is used only for notifications that do not include embedded Oracle Application Framework regions. For a notification that includes an embedded region, Oracle Workflow includes the Related Applications region in the e-mail message, instead of appending the Notification References attachment.

The Workflow URL Attachment message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
URLLIST The list of URLs to be included in the attachment.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the text that appears in the body of the Workflow URL Attachment template, where an attribute preceded by an ampersand (&) is token substituted with a runtime value when the notification is sent. The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification References </TITLE>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><h2 class="OraHeader">Notification References</h2> 

<HR WIDTH="100%">
<BR>
&URLLIST
<BR>
<HR WIDTH="100%">
<BR>&nbsp;
</BODY>
</HTML>

Workflow Canceled Mail Message

The default Workflow Canceled Mail message informs the recipient that a previously sent notification is canceled. You can set the Send E-mails for Canceled Notifications mailer parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard to determine whether or not notification mailers should send notification cancellation messages. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The Workflow Canceled Mail message has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the message definition associated with the canceled notification activity:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

&TIMEZONE

You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now canceled, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
________________________________________________________________________

&HEADER
&BODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body>
<SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now canceled, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
<hr>
&HEADER
<P>&BODY
</body></html>

Orig. Workflow Canceled Mail Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Canceled Mail message as an alternative template that you can optionally use to inform the recipient that a previously sent notification is canceled. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Canceled Mail message.

You can set the Send E-mails for Canceled Notifications mailer parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard to determine whether or not notification mailers should send notification cancellation messages. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The Orig. Workflow Canceled Mail message has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the message definition associated with the canceled notification activity:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now canceled, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
________________________________________________________________________

&BODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head></Head><body>You earlier received the notification 
shown below.  That notification is now canceled, and no longer 
requires your response.  You may simply delete it along with 
this message.
<hr>
&BODY
</body></html>

Workflow Invalid Mail Message

The Workflow Invalid Mail message is sent to a user by default when a user responds incorrectly to a notification. For example, if a response message from a user contains a valid notification ID (NID) line matching it with a notification, but does not contain any response value or contains an invalid response value, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Mail message to the user. This message describes how to respond to the notification correctly. The message attributes are as follows:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified by the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the original message definition.
MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE An error message that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response.
MAIL_ERROR_STACK An error stack of arguments that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response. This attribute is not currently used.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
MAIL_VALUE_FOUND The invalid response value found in the user's response message.
MAIL_EXP_VALUES Information about the expected valid response values.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE

Warning: Your previous response to this message was invalid 
(see error message below).  Please resubmit your response.

Important: Some mail clients, notably early releases of Microsoft 
Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' line properly in your 
response. Please verify that the 'NID' line is included in full 
and contains the prefix 'NID' and all the details between the 
square brackets when responding.

Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE

Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND

Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES

________________________________________________________________________

Response Instructions for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including this 
original with your reply.  This note contains a special 'NID' 
string that is required to process the reponse.  The first lines 
of your reply must be your responses to the notification questions.  
You should enter one line for each response required by the 
notfication; any additional lines will be ignored.  You may leave 
a line blank to accept the default value for that specific 
response.  You must supply a value or a blank line for each 
question asked.  Instructions below detail exactly what should be 
placed on each line of your reply.

&RESPONSE
________________________________________________________________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html>
<Head>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body>
<SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<p>Warning: Your previous response to this message was 
invalid (see error message below).  Please resubmit your 
response.      
<P>Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE
<BR>
<BR>Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND
<BR>
<BR>Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES
<HR>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P><B>Please click on one of the following choices to 
automatically generate an E-mail response.  Before sending the 
E-mail response to close this notification, ensure all response 
prompts include a desired response value within quotes.</B>
<P><B>Important:</B> Some mail clients, notably early releases 
of Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' line 
properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' line 
is included in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and all the 
details between the square brackets when responding. 
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Invalid Mail Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Invalid Mail message as an alternative template that you can optionally use when a user responds incorrectly to a notification. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Invalid Mail message.

The Orig. Workflow Invalid Mail message describes how to respond to the notification correctly. The message attributes are as follows:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified by the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
RESPONSE The user response section as defined by the Respond message attributes in the original message definition.
MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE An error message that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response.
MAIL_ERROR_STACK An error stack of arguments that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response. This attribute is not currently used.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is not currently used.
MAIL_VALUE_FOUND The invalid response value found in the user's response message.
MAIL_EXP_VALUES Information about the expected valid response values.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&COMMENT

Warning: Your previous response to this message was invalid 
(see error message below).  Please resubmit your response.

Important: Some mail clients, notably early releases of 
Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' line 
properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' 
line is inlcuded in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and 
all the details between the square brackets when responding.

Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE

Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND

Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES

________________________________________________________________________

Response Instructions for &NOTIFICATION

To submit your response, reply to this message, including 
this original with your reply.  This note contains a special 
'NID' string that is required to process the reponse.  The 
first lines of your reply must be your responses to the 
notification questions.  You should enter one line for each 
response required by the notfication; any additional lines 
will be ignored.  You may leave a line blank to accept the 
default value for that specific response.  You must supply 
a value or a blank line for each question asked.  
Instructions below detail exactly what should be placed on 
each line of your reply.

&RESPONSE
________________________________________________________________________

Notification Details:
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head></Head><body>Warning: Your previous response 
to this message was invalid (see error message below).  
Please resubmit your response.      
<P>Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE
<BR>
<BR>Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND
<BR>
<BR>Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES
<HR><P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>&COMMENT</FONT> </B> 
<P>&BODY
<P><B>Please click on one of the following choices to 
automatically generate an E-mail response.  Before sending 
the E-mail response to close this notification, ensure all 
response prompts include a desired response value within 
quotes.</B>
<P><B>Important:</B> Some mail clients, notably early 
releases of Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 
'NID' line properly in your response. Please verify that 
the 'NID' line is inlcuded in full and contains the prefix 
'NID' and all the details between the square brackets when 
responding. 
<P>&MAILTO
</BODY> </HTML>

Workflow Closed Mail Message

The default Workflow Closed Mail message informs the recipient that a previously sent notification is now closed. It has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the message definition associated with the closed notification activity:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

&TIMEZONE

You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now closed, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
________________________________________________________________________

&HEADER
&BODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now closed, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
<hr>
&HEADER
<P>&BODY
</body></html>

Orig. Workflow Closed Mail Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Closed Mail message as an alternative template that you can optionally use to inform the recipient that a previously sent notification is now closed. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Closed Mail message.

The Orig. Workflow Closed Mail message has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the message definition associated with the closed notification activity:

Variable Description
START_DATE The date the original message was sent.
TO The role the notification is sent to; the performer.
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
BODY The text of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
PRIORITY The priority of the notification message.
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

You earlier received the notification shown below.  That 
notification is now closed, and no longer requires your 
response.  You may simply delete it along with this message.
________________________________________________________________________

&BODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head></Head><body>You earlier received the 
notification shown below.  That notification is now 
closed, and no longer requires your response.  You 
may simply delete it along with this message.
<hr>
&BODY
</body></html>

Workflow Summary Mail (HTML) Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Summary Mail (HTML) message by default as a template to send a summary of workflow notifications to users and roles that have their notification preference set to SUMMARY or SUMHTML in the Oracle Workflow directory service. The Workflow Summary Mail (HTML) message summarizes all currently open notifications for a given user/role. The HTML-formatted message body also provides a link to the Worklist Web page as well as links to each notification in the Notification Details Web page.

The Workflow Summary Mail (HTML) message has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the message definition associated with the open notification activity:

Variable Description
SUMMARY Summary report.
USER_NAME The user/role the notification summary is sent to; the performer.
SYSDATE The current date.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The plain text message body is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of SUMMARY. The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

&TIMEZONE
&SUMMARY

The HTML-formatted message body is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of SUMHTML. The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML><HEAD>
<STYLE>
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
</STYLE>
<TITLE>Summary Notification</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&SUMMARY
</BODY>
</HTML>

Workflow Warning Mail Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Warning Mail message as a default template to send a message to a user the first time it receives unsolicited mail from that user. For example, if a message from a user does not contain a notification ID (NID) line matching it with a notification, or contains an incorrectly formatted NID line, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Warning Mail message to the user.

Note: You can optionally use the Send Warning for Unsolicited E-mail mailer parameter to prevent notification mailers from sending any warning messages. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The Workflow Warning Mail message has the following message attributes, with values that are drawn from the unsolicited mail:

Variable Description
UBODY The text of the unsolicited mail message body.
USUBJECT The text of the unsolicited mail subject line.
UFROM The address of the user that sent the unsolicited mail.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

Messages sent to this account are processed automatically 
by the Oracle Workflow Notification Mailer.  The message 
you sent did not appear to be in response to a notification.  
If you are responding to a notification, please use the 
response template that was included with your notification.  
Take care to include the 'NID' line of the template in your 
reply.  If you are not responding to a notification, please 
do not send mail to this account.

Important: Some mail clients, notably early releases of 
Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' line 
properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' line 
is included in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and all 
the details between the square brackets when responding. 

________________________________________________________________________

From: &UFROM
Subject: &USUBJECT

&UBODY

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><head>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</head><body>
<B>Messages sent to this account are processed automatically 
by the Oracle Workflow Notification Mailer.  The message you 
sent did not appear to be in response to a notification.  If 
you are responding to a notification, please use the 
auto-generated reply created when responding to the original 
message. This contains the 'NID' line which is necessary for 
identification.  If you are not responding to a notification, 
please do not send mail to this account.
<P><B>Important:</B> Some mail clients, notably early 
releases of Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' 
line properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' 
line is included in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and 
all the details between the square brackets when responding. 
<hr>
<P>From: &UFROM 
<BR>Subject: &USUBJECT

<P>&UBODY

</body></html>

Workflow Signature Required Mail Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Signature Required Mail message as a default template for e-mail notifications that require an electronic signature in the user's response. Users can only respond to such notifications through the Notification Details Web page, where they can enter either a password-based signature or a certificate-based digital signature, depending on the notification's requirements, to sign the response. The notification template informs the recipient that a signature is required and that the response cannot be submitted through e-mail. Instead, the notification template directs the recipient to access the online version of the notification to submit a reponse.

The plain text message body is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The HTML-formatted message body additionally includes a link called "Click here to respond" which lets users access the notification in the Notification Details Web page to respond. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: When users choose the "Click here to respond" link, it automatically attempts to establish a Web session with the Web server. Users must be able to connect to the Web server to use this link to respond to a notification. Users must also log in to Oracle Workflow to access the Notification Details page. See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

However, if you enable guest access for links to the Notification Details page, the "Click here to respond" link does not appear in the HTML-formatted message body. When electronic signatures are required, users must log in with their own user names and passwords to enter their signatures with their notification responses. See: Responses Through the Notification Detail Link Attachment.

The Workflow Signature Required Mail message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification. For notifications that require an electronic signature to be entered online, this notification code does not include the access key or node identifier information that would be needed for an e-mail response.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist. This attribute is not currently used.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a notification. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Signature Required Mail message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE

This notification requires a signature in your response. 
You cannot respond to this notification through e-mail. Please 
access the online version of the notification to submit your 
response.

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> <STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P><B>This notification requires a signature in your response. 
You cannot respond to this notification through e-mail. Please 
access the online version of the notification to submit your 
response.</B> 
<P>&CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

See: #WF_SIG_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Workflow Signature Warning Mail Message

The Workflow Signature Warning Mail message is sent to a user by default if that user sends an e-mail response containing the notification ID (NID) line of a notification that requires an electronic signature. A valid response to such a notification can only be submitted through the Notification Details Web page. The notification template informs the recipient that a signature is required and that the response cannot be submitted through e-mail. Instead, the notification template directs the recipient to access the online version of the notification to submit a response.

The Workflow Signature Warning Mail message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
SUBJECT The subject line of the original message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
BODY The text of the original message.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Signature Warning Mail message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE
&COMMENT

Warning: You earlier received the notification shown below. 
This notification requires a signature in your response. You 
cannot respond to this notification through e-mail. Please 
access the online version of the notification to submit your 
response.
________________________________________________________________________

&HEADER
&BODY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body><P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>Warning: You earlier received the notification shown below. 
This notification requires a signature in your response. You 
cannot respond to this notification through e-mail. Please 
access the online version of the notification to submit your 
response.
<hr>
<P><B><FONT SIZE=+1>&COMMENT</FONT> </B>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&HISTORY
<P>&BODY 
</body></html>

See: #WF_SIG_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Workflow Secure Mail Content Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Secure Mail Content message as a default template for notifications that include sensitive content that cannot be sent in e-mail for security reasons. You can mark notifications as including secure content using the special #WF_SECURITY_POLICY message attribute. Users can only view and respond to such notifications through the Notification Details Web page. The notification template informs the recipient that the notification content cannot be sent in e-mail and directs the recipient to access the online version of the notification instead.

The Workflow Secure Mail Content message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Secure Mail Content message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
________________________________________________________________________

Notification &NOTIFICATION

This notification contains secure content which cannot be sent 
through e-mail. Please access the online version of the 
notification to see the details.
________________________________________________________________________

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> 
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P>
<P>Notification: &NOTIFICATION <br><br>
<B>This notification contains secure content which cannot be 
sent through e-mail. Please access the online version of the 
notification to see the details.</B>
</BODY> 
</HTML>

See: #WF_SECURITY_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) Message

The Notification System uses the Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message as a default template to send a request for more information about a notification from one user to another user. The notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond with the requested information. It also includes the following information about a message: the name of the sender of the message, any history of actions on the notification, and the date that a response is due.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

The Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
QUESTION Details about what information is being requested.
RESPONSE The user response section.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

More Information Template for &NOTIFICATION

User &SENDER has requested more information for the notification. 
Please reply to this message, including this response template 
with your reply.  Copy and paste from this message if necessary 
to obtain an editable copy of the template. Insert your comments 
between the quotes against the prompt.

Question: &QUESTION

&RESPONSE
______________________End of Response Template______________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>

<P>
<P>Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to automatically 
generate an E-mail response for this question.  Before 
sending the E-mail response, ensure desired comments within 
quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO
<P><B>Notification Details:</B>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<BR>
Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to automatically 
generate an E-mail response for this question.  Before 
sending the E-mail response, ensure desired comments within 
quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Orig. Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) Message

Oracle Workflow provides the Orig. Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message as an alternative template that you can optionally use as a template to send a request for more information about a notification from one user to another user. This template does not include the header attributes that are displayed in the Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) notification template includes generic instructions on how to respond with the requested information. It also includes the following information about a message: the name of the sender of the message, the date that a response is due, and any history of actions on the notification.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILTEXT or MAILATTH. The response instructions in the HTML-formatted message body describe how to reply using the automatically generated response template. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

The Orig. Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
QUESTION Details about what information is being requested.
RESPONSE The user response section.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

More Information Template for &NOTIFICATION

User &SENDER has requested more information for the 
notification. Please reply to this message, including this 
response template with your reply.  Copy and paste from 
this message if necessary to obtain an editable copy of the 
template. Insert your comments between the quotes against 
the prompt.

Question: &QUESTION

&RESPONSE
______________________End of Response Template______________________

Notification Details:
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> <TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE> </HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P>
<P>User &SENDER has requested more information for the 
following notification.
<P>&BODY
<P>Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to automatically 
generate an E-mail response for this question.  Before 
sending the E-mail response, ensure desired comments within 
quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) Message

If you use an e-mail application such as Microsoft Outlook Express as your e-mail client, you should select the standard Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message as a template for requests for more information about a notification from one user to another user, for users with a notification preference of MAILHTML, MAILHTM2, or MAILATTH. This message includes a link to the Notification Details Web page to let users respond to the request there. This template is provided to accommodate e-mail applications that cannot process the response links included in the Workflow Open Mail (More Information Request) template. In particular, if you select the Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express) message template for a notification mailer, then you should also select the Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message template for that notification mailer. See: Workflow Open Mail (Outlook Express Message).

Note: You can use the Open Notification (More Information Request) parameter in the notification mailer configuration wizard to select the appropriate message template. See: Notification Mailer Configuration Wizard.

The response instructions in the plain text message body describe how to reply manually using the templated response method. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH. The HTML-formatted message body includes a link called "Click here to respond" which lets users access the notification in the Notification Details Web page to respond to the request for information. This message is used for notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILHTML or MAILHTM2, and is also attached to notifications sent to performers with a notification preference of MAILATTH.

Note: When users choose the "Click here to respond" link, it automatically attempts to establish a Web session with the Web server. Users must be able to connect to the Web server to use this link to respond to a notification. See: Reviewing Notifications via Electronic Mail, Oracle Workflow User's Guide.

The Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
QUESTION Details about what information is being requested.
RESPONSE The user response section.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
TIMEZONE The time zone of the dates and times displayed in the notification, based on the time zone of the server from which the notification was sent.
CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE The content of the HTML tag that a recipient would click on to access the Notification Details page to respond to a request for more information. This attribute is used only for HTML e-mail notifications.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow More Information Request (Outlook Express) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification
&TIMEZONE
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

More Information Template for &NOTIFICATION

User &SENDER has requested more information for the notification. 
Please reply to this message, including this response template 
with your reply.  Copy and paste from this message if necessary 
to obtain an editable copy of the template. Insert your comments 
between the quotes against the prompt.

Question: &QUESTION

&RESPONSE
______________________End of Response Template______________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<HTML> <HEAD> 
<TITLE> Oracle Workflow Notification </TITLE>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE> 
</HEAD> 
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" > 
<P><SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<P>From: &SENDER
<P>Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to respond to this 
request for more information</B>
<P>&CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE
<P><B>Notification Detail:</B>
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<BR>
Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to respond to this 
request for more information</B>
<P>&CLICK_HERE_RESPONSE
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) Message

The Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message is sent to a user by default when a user responds incorrectly to a request for more information. For example, if an answering message from a user contains a valid notification ID (NID) line matching it with a request for more information about a notification, but does not contain any response value, the notification mailer sends a Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message to the user. This message describes how to respond to the request for information correctly.

The Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
DUE_DATE The date by which a response is required, specified in the notification activity.
BODY The text of the body defined in the message.
SUBJECT The subject line defined in the message.
COMMENT Comments added by the sender or the forwarder.
SENDER The name of the sender of the message, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.
HISTORY The history of actions on the notification.
QUESTION Details about what information is being requested.
RESPONSE The user response section.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
HEADER Standard header attributes and any custom header attributes defined to hold key information for the message. See: Header Attributes, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.
MAIL_EXP_VALUES Information about the expected valid response values.
MAIL_VALUE_FOUND The invalid response value found in the user's response message.
MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE An error message that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow Invalid Open Mail (More Information Request) message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

Oracle Workflow Notification

Warning: Your previous response to this message was invalid 
(see error message below).  Please resubmit your response.

Important: Some mail clients, notably early releases of 
Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' line 
properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' 
line is included in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and 
all the details between the square brackets when responding.

Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE

Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND

Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES
______________________Start of Response Template______________________

More Information Template for &NOTIFICATION

User &SENDER has requested more information for the 
notification. Please reply to this message, including 
this response template with your reply.  Copy and paste 
from this message if necessary to obtain an editable 
copy of the template. Insert your comments between the 
quotes against the prompt.

Question: &QUESTION

&RESPONSE
______________________End of Response Template______________________

Notification Details:
&HEADER
&BODY

Due Date: &DUE_DATE

&HISTORY

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html>
<Head>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body>
<SPAN class="OraTipLabel">&TIMEZONE</SPAN>
<p>Warning: Your previous response to this message was invalid 
(see error message below).  Please resubmit your response. 
<P>Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE
<BR>
<BR>Value Found: &MAIL_VALUE_FOUND
<BR>
<BR>Remarks: &MAIL_EXP_VALUES
<HR><P>Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to automatically 
generate an E-mail response for this question.  Before 
sending the E-mail response, ensure desired comments within 
quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HEADER
<P>&BODY
<P><B>Please click on one of the following choices to 
automatically generate an E-mail response.  Before sending 
the E-mail response to close this notification, ensure all 
response prompts include a desired response value within 
quotes.</B>
<P><B>Important:</B> Some mail clients, notably early 
releases of Microsoft Outlook Express, may not copy the 'NID' 
line properly in your response. Please verify that the 'NID' 
line is included in full and contains the prefix 'NID' and 
all the details between the square brackets when responding. 
<P>Question: <B>&QUESTION</B>
<P><B>Please click on the following link to automatically 
generate an E-mail response for this question.  Before 
sending the E-mail response, ensure desired comments within 
quotes.</B>
<P>&MAILTO
<P>&HISTORY
</BODY> 
</HTML>

Workflow More Info Answered Mail Message

Oracle Workflow sends the Workflow More Info Answered Mail message to a user if the user sends another response to a request for more information that has already been answered, or if the user sends an unsolicited e-mail formatted as a more information response. The message informs the recipient that no further response is required.

The Workflow More Info Answered Mail message has the following message attributes. The values are drawn from the message definition associated with a notification activity.

Variable Description
MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE An error message that the mail program generates if an error occurs upon processing the response.
NOTIFICATION Required notification code used to identify the information in the notification.
FROM The user who sent the request for more information, as displayed in the From column in the Worklist.
QUESTION Details about what information was requested in the most recent question.

You can customize the boilerplate text that appears in the body of the Workflow More Info Answered Mail message, where attributes preceded by an ampersand (&) are token substituted with runtime values when the notification is sent.

The boilerplate text for a plain text message body is as follows:

You earlier received a more information request for notification 
mentioned below. That request is now answered, and no longer 
requires your response. You may simply delete it along with this 
message.

Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE
________________________________________________________________________

Notification Details:
Notification ID : &NOTIFICATION
Question : &QUESTION
From : &FROM

The boilerplate text for an HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html><Head><STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</Head>
<body><SPAN class="OraTipLabel"></SPAN>
<p>You earlier received a more information request for 
notification mentioned below. That request is now answered, 
and no longer requires your response. You may simply delete 
it along with this message.
<P>Error Message: &MAIL_ERROR_MESSAGE
<BR>
<P>Notification Details:
<BR>
<P>Notification ID: &NOTIFICATION
<P>Question : &QUESTION
<P>From: &FROM
<BR>
</BODY> 
</HTML>

User Notification Preference Update Report Message

Oracle Workflow sends the User Notification Preference Update Report message to the SYSADMIN user when a user's notification preference is set to DISABLED. The message informs the recipient that an e-mail notification could not be sent to one or more recipients, that the notification preference for those recipients has been set to DISABLED, and that those recipients' original notification preferences, which are listed, should be reset after the issues that caused the failures are corrected. See: Outbound Notification Mailer Processing and Handling Mailer Errors.

This message has the following message attributes:

Variable Description
NOTIFICATION_ID The identifier of the original notification for which an e-mail failure occurred.
ROLE The role to which the original notification was sent.
UPDATED_USER_REPORT A list of the recipients of the original notification to whom e-mail could not be delivered, and of those recipients' original notification preference settings before their notification preferences were set to DISABLED.
TEMPLATE_STYLE The stylesheet that determines the appearance of the HTML-formatted message body.

The boilerplate text for the plain text message body is as follows:

The notification with the ID of &NOTIFICATION_ID experienced 
problems when attempting to dispatch an email notification 
to the role &ROLE. Subsequently the notification preference 
for the following users has been set to DISABLED. Please 
correct the issue and re-enable their notification preference.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

&UPDATED_USER_REPORT

The boilerplate text for the HTML-formatted message body is as follows:

<html>
<head>
<STYLE>
<! - 
&TEMPLATE_STYLE
 - >
</STYLE>
</head>
<body>
<p>The notification with the ID of <b>&NOTIFICATION_ID</b> 
experienced problems when attempting to dispatch an email 
notification to the role <b>&ROLE</b>. Subsequently the 
notification preference for the following users has been set 
to <b>DISABLED</b>. Please correct the issue and re-enable 
their notification preference.
<p>
<hr>
<p>
<span style="font-family:monospace,courier">&UPDATED_USER_REPORT</span>
</body></html>

Notification Mailer Override Address Verification Message

Oracle Workflow sends the Notification Mailer Override Address Verification message when an administrator sets an override address where the notification mailer should send all outgoing e-mail notifications for testing purposes. The message requests the recipient to verify the override address to ensure that the address is accessible and that its use is authorized. This message must not be customized. See: Reviewing Service Component Details.

Step 8: Adding Worklist Functions to User Responsibilities

You can optionally give users access to the Advanced Worklist, Personal Worklist, Notification Search, and Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester pages from any responsibility you choose. To make a page available from a particular responsibility, add the appropriate function to the menu associated with that responsibility. Alternatively, for the Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page, you can add the menu containing its function to a top-level menu for a responsibility. After updating the menu for the responsibility, you can assign the responsibility to your users. See: Overview of Function Security, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security and Overview of Menus and Function Security, Oracle E-Business Suite Developer's Guide.

The following table shows the functions that correspond to each page.

Optional Page Functions
Function User Function Name Description
WF_WORKLIST Advanced Workflow Worklist Advanced Workflow worklist
WF_WORKLIST_CUSTOM Personal Worklist Advanced Workflow worklist with options to personalize search and display
WF_WORKLIST_SEARCH Workflow Notification Search Notification Search page that allows users to search for their own notifications and administrators to search for all users' notifications
WF_TEST_MAILER_URL Workflow Mailer URL Access Test Function Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page that lets administrators and developers test whether Oracle Application Framework content can be generated correctly for e-mail notifications

The following table shows the menu that corresponds to the Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page.

Optional Page Menu
Menu User Menu Name Description
WF_TEST_MAILER_APPLICATION Workflow Mailer URL Access Test Menu Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page that lets administrators and developers test whether Oracle Application Framework content can be generated correctly for e-mail notifications

The Advanced Worklist is seeded on the menu for the Workflow User Web Applications responsibility by default. You can also add this function to other responsibilities from which you want users to access notifications.

The Personal Worklist is an optional feature that is not seeded on any Oracle Workflow menu. If you want users to access this version of the Worklist, you must first add the Personal Worklist function to the menu for a responsibility assigned to those users.

If you add the Personal Worklist, you can use worklist flexfields to define specialized worklist views that display information specific to particular types of notifications. If you define a securing function for a view, add the securing function to the same menu as the Personal Worklist function. Your specialized worklist view will appear in the list of views only when users access the Personal Worklist from that responsibility. See: Defining Specialized Worklist Views with Worklist Flexfields.

Note: If you have Oracle Application Framework set up in Oracle JDeveloper for custom development, you can also embed the Personal Worklist as a region in an Oracle Application Framework page. In this way you can provide users access to the worklist from within your own application. See: Embedding the Personal Worklist in an Oracle Application Framework Page

The Notification Search page is seeded on the menu for the Workflow Administrator Web Applications responsibility by default. You can also add this function to other responsibilities from which you want users to be able to search for notifications. For example, if you want users with the Workflow User Web Applications responsibility to have access to the Notification Search page, you can add this function to the FND_WFUSER (Workflow User) menu with a prompt such as Notification Search.

A user must have workflow administrator privileges to access other users' notifications in the Notification Search page. If a user does not have administrator privileges, that user can only search for and access his or her own notifications. Workflow administrator privileges are assigned in the Workflow Configuration page. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

Note: Ensure that you have assigned workflow administrator privileges only to appropriate users. If the Workflow System Administrator field in the Workflow Configuration page is set to *, granting administrator privileges to all users, then any user with a responsibility that includes the Notification Search page can search for and access other users' notifications.

The Workflow Mailer URL Access Tester page is an optional feature that is not seeded on the menu for any Oracle Workflow responsibility. If you want users to access this page, you must first add either the Workflow Mailer URL Access Test Function or the Workflow Mailer URL Access Test Menu to the menu for a responsibility assigned to those users.

Related Topics

To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To View Notifications from the Personal Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Searching for Users' Notifications

Testing Mailer URL Access

Step 9: Setting the WF: Notification Reassign Mode Profile Option

You can use the WF: Notification Reassign Mode profile option to control which reassign modes are available to users. Oracle Workflow provides the following reassign modes.

You can specify which reassign modes users can select by setting the WF: Notification Reassign Mode profile option to one of the following values.

You can set the WF: Notification Reassign Mode profile option in the System Profile Values window. This profile option can be set at site, application, responsibility, and user levels. The internal name for this profile option is FND_NTF_REASSIGN_MODE.

Note: Users can access the Worklist pages from different contexts. For example, if users navigate to the Worklist pages from the Oracle E-Business Suite home page or from a Notification Detail Link attachment to an e-mail notification, no responsibility context is set. If users navigate to the Worklist pages from within another Oracle E-Business Suite product, then the context is set according to the responsibility through which the pages were accessed. Consequently, if you set the WF: Notification Reassign Mode profile option at responsibility level, that setting applies only when users access the Worklist pages through the corresponding responsibility. Check how users access the Worklist pages in your Oracle E-Business Suite installation, and ensure that you set the WF: Notification Reassign Mode profile option for all levels needed for the reassign modes you want to enforce.

Related Topics

Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance

To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To View Notifications from the Personal Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To View the Details of a Notification, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To Reassign a Notification to Another User, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Step 10: Setting the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response Profile Option

You can use the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response profile option to specify whether users can respond to a group of notifications collectively from the Worklist and Notification Search pages, without navigating to the Notification Details page for each notification individually. If you enable bulk notification response by setting this profile option to Yes, a Respond button appears on the Advanced Worklist, Personal Worklist, Personal Worklist Simple Search, Personal Worklist Advanced Search, and administrator Notification Search pages. If you set the profile option to No, the Respond button is hidden, and users must always respond to each notification individually from the Notification Details page. The default value is No.

You can set the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response profile option in the System Profile Values window. This profile option can be set at site, application, responsibility, and user levels. The internal name for this profile option is WF_BULK_RESPONSE.

Note: Users can access the Worklist pages from different contexts. For example, if users navigate to the Worklist pages from the Oracle E-Business Suite home page or from a Notification Detail Link attachment to an e-mail notification, no responsibility context is set. If users navigate to the Worklist pages from within another Oracle E-Business Suite product, then the context is set according to the responsibility through which the pages were accessed. Consequently, if you set the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response profile option at responsibility level, that setting applies only when users access the Worklist pages through the corresponding responsibility. Check how users access the Worklist pages in your Oracle E-Business Suite installation, and ensure that you set the WF: Enable Bulk Notification Response profile option for all levels needed for the type of responses you want to enable.

Related Topics

Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance

To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Viewing Notifications from the Personal Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Searching for Users' Notifications

To Respond to a Group of Notifications, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Step 11: Enabling the Notification Details Pop-up Window

You can use the WF: Notification Pop-up Enabled profile option to enable the Notification Details pop-up window in the Worklist, letting users view notification details quickly without leaving the current page. The pop-up window also provides a link to navigate to the Notification Details page, where the user can act on the notification. If you enable the pop-up window by setting this profile option to Yes, then the pop-up window appears when a user positions the cursor over a notification subject link in the Oracle E-Business Suite home page, Oracle Workflow administrator home page, Oracle Workflow self-service home page, Advanced Worklist, Personal Worklist, Personal Worklist Simple Search page, Personal Worklist Advanced Search page, or other pages that include a Worklist region. To disable the pop-up window, set the profile option to No. The default value is No.

You can set the WF: Notification Pop-up Enabled profile option in the System Profile Values window. This profile option can be set at site, application, responsibility, and user levels. The internal name for this profile option is WF_NTF_POPUP_ENABLED.

If you enable the Notification Details pop-up window, you can also use the WF: Notification Pop-up Window Size profile option to define the size of the pop-up window. Specify the size in the following format:

<width>*<height>

The default value is 700*400.

Note: If the value specified for the profile option does not follow the correct format, then Oracle Workflow uses the default size instead.

You can set the WF: Notification Pop-up Window Size profile option in the System Profile Values window. This profile option can be set at site, application, responsibility, and user levels. The internal name for this profile option is WF_NTF_POPUP_WINDOW_SIZE.

Related Topics

Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance

Accessing the Oracle Workflow Administrator Home Page

Accessing the Oracle Workflow Self-Service Home Page, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Viewing Notifications from the Personal Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Step 12: Setting Up Notification Handling Options

Vacation rules handle notifications automatically when users are not available to manage their notifications personally. These rules are defined according to the item type to which notifications belong. You can control what item types are available for vacation rules using the WF: Vacation Rule Item Types lookup type and the WF: Vacation Rules - Allow All profile option.

Additionally, one user can grant another user access to his or her worklist, so that the second user can handle notifications on behalf of the first user. Users can choose to grant access only to notifications that belong to selected item types. You can use the WF: Vacation Rule Item Types lookup type to control what item types can be specified for worklist access.

Adding Item Types for Vacation Rules and Worklist Access

By default, the list of item types a user can select when creating a vacation rule or when granting worklist access displays those item types for which the user has previously received at least one notification. You can also choose to add item types that you want to appear in the lists for all users. In this way you can allow users to create rules or grant worklist access to handle any notifications they may receive from those item types in the future.

To add an item type to the list, define the internal name of the item type as a lookup code for the WF: Vacation Rule Item Types lookup type.

  1. Navigate to the Application Object Library Lookups window in the Application Developer responsibility.

  2. Query the WF_RR_ITEM_TYPES lookup type with the meaning WF: Vacation Rule Item Types in the Application Object Library application.

  3. Define the item type you want as a new lookup code for this lookup type. Ensure that you enter the item type internal name in the Code field exactly as the name is defined in your database. See: Application Utilities Lookups and Application Object Library Lookups, Oracle E-Business Suite online help.

Allowing Vacation Rules that Apply to All Item Types

Use the WF: Vacation Rules - Allow All profile option to determine whether the list of item types for vacation rules includes the "All" option. The "All" option lets users create a generic rule that applies to notifications associated with any item type.

Set the profile option to Enabled if you want the "All" option to appear in the list of item types for vacation rules, or to Disabled if you do not want the "All" option to appear. If you choose Disabled, then users must always specify the item type to which a vacation rule applies. The WF: Vacation Rules - Allow All profile option must be set at site level. The default value is Enabled. See: Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

After changing the value of this profile option, you must stop and restart Oracle HTTP Server for the change to take effect.

Note: This profile option does not apply to worklist access options. When granting worklist access, users always have the option to grant access to notifications belonging to all item types.

Related Topics

Defining Vacation Rules for Users

Vacation Rules, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Worklist Access, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

To View Notifications from the Advanced Worklist, Oracle Workflow User's Guide

Step 13: Configuring the Oracle Workflow User List of Values

Several Oracle Workflow pages include fields that let you select a user or role as the field value from among the users and roles defined in your Oracle Workflow directory service. These fields provide a two-part list of values.

  1. A list of user and role types that correspond to the originating system partitions in the Oracle Workflow directory service. Oracle Workflow retrieves these values from the WF_DIRECTORY_PARTITIONS table.

  2. A list of the users and roles within the selected partition. Oracle Workflow retrieves these values from the WF_ROLE_LOV_VL view, which provides access to the roles stored in the WF_LOCAL_ROLES table.

By default, these lists include all partitions and all users and roles defined in the directory service. You can optionally configure the user list of values for these fields by defining grants to restrict the partitions that appear in the first list and the users and roles that appear in the second list.

The Oracle Workflow pages that contain fields with the two-part user list of values include the following:

If you define a grant that restricts the values in the Oracle Workflow user list of values, then that grant controls the values available to the grantee in all these pages and fields.

Note: As an exception, if a notification has the special #WF_REASSIGN_LOV message attribute defined to specify the roles to whom the notification can be reassigned, then the #WF_REASSIGN_LOV attribute overrides any grants for the list of users and roles. However, any grants for the list of partitions will still apply. In this case, when the recipient chooses to reassign the notification, the Reassign Notifications page or Vacation Rule: Response page displays the available partitions in the first list within the Assignee field. The second list within the Assignee field then displays the roles specified by the #WF_REASSIGN_LOV attribute value that are within the selected partition. See: #WF_REASSIGN_LOV Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

See: Setting Up a Directory Service for Oracle Workflow.

To configure the user list of values

Use the Functional Administrator responsibility to define grants that control which partitions and which users and roles appear in the Oracle Workflow user list of values. Oracle Workflow provides seeded permissions, permission sets, objects, and object instance sets that you can use to define the grants you want.

For detailed information about defining grants and related tasks, see: Defining Data Security Policies, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security, Object Instance Sets, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security, Grants, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security, and Assigning Permissions to Roles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

The following table lists the permission sets that Oracle Workflow provides for use in configuring the user list of values, as well as the permissions included in each permission set.

Permission Sets and Permissions for the User List of Values
Permission Set Permission
Workflow Directory Partition Permission Set (WF_PARTITION_PSET) Workflow Directory Partition Permission (WF_PARTITION_FN)
Workflow Role LOV Permission Set (WF_ROLE_LOV_PSET) Workflow Role LOV Permission (WF_ROLE_LOV_FN)

The following table lists the objects that Oracle Workflow provides for use in configuring the user list of values, as well as the generic object instance sets provided on those objects.

Objects and Object Instance Sets for the User List of Values
Object Object Instance Set Object Instance Set Predicate
Workflow Directory Partition (WF_PARTITION) Generic Partition Instance Set (WF_PARTITION_ISET) 
&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM IN 
(&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER1,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER2,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER3,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER4,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER5,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER6,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER7,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER8,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER9,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER10)
Workflow Role LOV (WF_ROLE_LOV) Generic Role LOV Instance Set (WF_ROLE_LOV_ISET) 
&TABLE_ALIAS.USER_NAME IN 
(SELECT USER_NAME FROM WF_USER_ROLES
WHERE ROLE_NAME IN
(&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER1,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER2,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER3,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER4,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER5,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER6,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER7,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER8,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER9,
&GRANT_ALIAS.PARAMETER10))

The Generic Partition Instance Set lets you grant access to specific originating system partitions in the Oracle Workflow directory service, up to a maximum of ten, which is the maximum number of parameters you can specify for a grant. The Generic Role LOV Instance Set lets you grant access to specific roles in the Oracle Workflow directory service, up to a maximum of ten. You can specify the partitions or roles you want in the grant parameters when you define a grant using the corresponding instance set. The partitions to which you can grant access are:

For more information about partitions, see: Setting Up a Directory Service for Oracle Workflow.

Note: The list of partitions in the two-part user list of values can also include the value All Employees and Users (VIRTUAL_ORIG_SYS). This value represents the PER, FND_USR, and PQH_ROLE originating system partitions, grouped together to make it easier to search for roles within any of these three partitions. However, you cannot use VIRTUAL_ORIG_SYS as a grant parameter to grant access to these partitions. You must grant access to each of the PER, FND_USR, and PQH_ROLE partitions directly.

If the generic instance sets do not meet your needs, you can also define your own instance sets on these objects with predicates that define the access you want to grant.

Note: When defining the security context information for your grants, ensure that you consider all the contexts in which the pages that contain the Oracle Workflow user list of values can be accessed. For example, other products might include Oracle Workflow pages in their responsibilities. Additionally, users might access the Worklist pages directly from the Oracle E-Business Suite home page by choosing the Full List button in a worklist region embedded in the home page, without selecting a responsibility. In this case no responsibility context is available, and grants defined at responsibility level will not take effect. To control the values that appear in the Oracle Workflow user list of values when no responsibility context is available, you can create a role, assign the users whose access you want to control to that role, and create a grant to that role through Oracle User Management.

Example 1

To grant access to specific originating system partitions in the Oracle Workflow directory service, create a grant using the Generic Partition Instance Set. First, specify appropriate security context information such as grantee and responsibility. Then specify the following data context information:

Example 2

To grant access to specific roles in the Oracle Workflow directory service, create a grant using the Generic Role LOV Instance Set. First, specify appropriate security context information such as grantee and responsibility. Then specify the following data context information:

Example 3

To grant a supplier user access only to other supplier users from the same supplier, first create an instance set on the Workflow Role LOV object with a predicate that defines the available users. The following excerpt shows a sample predicate.

&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM = 'FND_USR' 
AND &TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID IN
  (SELECT PV2.FND_USER_ID 
   FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV2
   WHERE  PV2.PO_VENDOR_ID = 
     (SELECT PV3.PO_VENDOR_ID 
      FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV3 
      WHERE  PV3.FND_USER_ID = FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID))

Then, create a grant with the supplier user as the grantee. In the data context information, specify the Workflow Role LOV object, the instance set you created, and the Workflow Role LOV Permission Set.

Example 4

To grant access only to Oracle E-Business Suite users who are not supplier users, first create an instance set on the Workflow Role LOV object with a predicate that defines the available users. The following excerpt shows a sample predicate.

&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM = 'FND_USR'
AND &TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID NOT IN
  (SELECT PS.FND_USER_ID
   FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PS)
AND NOT EXISTS 
  (SELECT 1 
   FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV1 
   WHERE  PV1.FND_USER_ID = FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID)

Then, create a grant with appropriate security context information, such as grantee and responsibility. In the data context information, specify the Workflow Role LOV object, the instance set you created, and the Workflow Role LOV Permission Set.

Example 5

To grant access only to users who are employees, first create an instance set on the Workflow Role LOV object with a predicate that defines the available users. The following excerpt shows a sample predicate.

&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM = 'PER'
AND &TABLE_ALIAS.PARTITION_ID = 1

Then, create a grant with appropriate security context information, such as grantee and responsibility. In the data context information, specify the Workflow Role LOV object, the instance set you created, and the Workflow Role LOV Permission Set.

Example 6

To grant access only to users who are not employees, not Oracle E-Business Suite users, and not supplier users, first create an instance set on the Workflow Role LOV object with a predicate that defines the available users. The following excerpt shows a sample predicate.

&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM <> 'FND_USR'
AND &TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM <> 'PER'

Then, create a grant with appropriate security context information, such as grantee and responsibility. In the data context information, specify the Workflow Role LOV object, the instance set you created, and the Workflow Role LOV Permission Set.

To test a custom predicate

If you plan to create a custom instance set on the Workflow Role LOV object, you can test the predicate you will use for that instance set in a tool such as Oracle SQL Developer, simulating how your logic will be executed within Oracle Workflow. In this way you can verify whether the predicate correctly filters the list of all roles to define the set of roles available to the grantee, before you define the instance set. You can also use this test for diagnostic or troubleshooting purposes if necessary.

Oracle Workflow provides two SQL templates that you can use to test a custom predicate in Oracle SQL Developer. The first SQL template lets you verify which roles your predicate makes available when the grantee chooses the "All Employees and Users" value in the first part of the two-part user list of values.

SELECT *
FROM
   (SELECT WU.NAME AS USER_NAME,
      WU.DISPLAY_NAME,
      WDP.ORIG_SYSTEM,
      WU.EMAIL_ADDRESS,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID,
      WU.PARTITION_ID
   FROM WF_ROLE_LOV_VL WU,
      WF_DIRECTORY_PARTITIONS WDP
   WHERE WU.PARTITION_ID = WDP.PARTITION_ID
   AND WU.PARTITION_ID <> 1
   UNION ALL
   SELECT WU.NAME AS USER_NAME,
      WU.DISPLAY_NAME,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM,
      WU.EMAIL_ADDRESS,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID,
      WU.PARTITION_ID
   FROM WF_ROLE_LOV_VL WU
   WHERE WU.PARTITION_ID = 1
   ) QRSLT
WHERE (ORIG_SYSTEM IN ('FND_USR', 'PQH_ROLE', 'PER')
AND (
     -- Custom predicate goes here
     )
)
ORDER BY DISPLAY_NAME;

Insert your custom predicate at the indicated place in the template, removing any occurrences of &TABLE_ALIAS. For example, suppose you want to test the following predicate from example 3.

&TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM = 'FND_USR' 
AND &TABLE_ALIAS.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID IN
  (SELECT PV2.FND_USER_ID 
   FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV2
   WHERE  PV2.PO_VENDOR_ID = 
     (SELECT PV3.PO_VENDOR_ID 
      FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV3 
      WHERE  PV3.FND_USER_ID = FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID))

For purposes of the test, you would remove the two occurrences of &TABLE_ALIAS from this predicate as follows:

ORIG_SYSTEM = 'FND_USR' 
AND ORIG_SYSTEM_ID IN
  (SELECT PV2.FND_USER_ID 
   FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV2
   WHERE  PV2.PO_VENDOR_ID = 
     (SELECT PV3.PO_VENDOR_ID 
      FROM   PO_SUPPLIER_USERS_V PV3 
      WHERE  PV3.FND_USER_ID = FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID))

Note: The predicate in this example references FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID. However, note that within Oracle SQL Developer, FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID cannot be initialized correctly. For purposes of the test, you can replace FND_GLOBAL.USER_ID with the FND user ID of the user under whose login session you want to test the list of values.

The second SQL template lets you verify which roles your predicate makes available when the grantee chooses any specific partition - that is, any value other than All Employees and Users - in the first part of the two-part user list of values.

SELECT *
FROM
   (SELECT WU.NAME AS USER_NAME,
      WU.DISPLAY_NAME,
      WDP.ORIG_SYSTEM,
      WU.EMAIL_ADDRESS,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID,
      WU.PARTITION_ID
   FROM WF_ROLE_LOV_VL WU,
      WF_DIRECTORY_PARTITIONS WDP
   WHERE WU.PARTITION_ID = WDP.PARTITION_ID
   AND WU.PARTITION_ID <> 1
   UNION ALL
   SELECT WU.NAME AS USER_NAME,
      WU.DISPLAY_NAME,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM,
      WU.EMAIL_ADDRESS,
      WU.ORIG_SYSTEM_ID,
      WU.PARTITION_ID
   FROM WF_ROLE_LOV_VL WU
   WHERE WU.PARTITION_ID = 1
   ) QRSLT
WHERE (ORIG_SYSTEM = '&PARTITION_CODE'
AND (
     -- Custom predicate goes here
     )
)
ORDER BY DISPLAY_NAME;

Insert your custom predicate at the indicated place in the template, removing any occurrences of &TABLE_ALIAS. Then run the test and, when prompted for PARTITION_CODE, enter the code for the partition you want to test. For example, to test how the predicate works when the grantee chooses Oracle Applications User in the first part of the two-part user list of values, enter FND_USR as the input for PARTITION_CODE.

You can check the roles returned by your tests with these SQL templates to verify that your custom predicate will provide the intended access for the grantee.

Step 14: Setting Up for Electronic Signatures

Notifications can require that a user's response be signed by a password-based signature or a certificate-based digital signature. Perform the following setup steps to enable users to provide these signatures.

For more information, see: #WF_SIG_POLICY Attribute, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide and Reviewing Electronic Signature Details.

Implementing Password-based Signatures with Single Sign-On

Oracle Workflow supports password-based signatures for notifications based on Oracle Application Object Library (FND) passwords. If you maintain your directory service based on Oracle Application Object Library users and passwords, no additional setup is required. However, if you have implemented single sign-on functionality for your site through Oracle Internet Directory, and you want to use password-based signatures, you must perform the following steps.

  1. Set the Applications SSO Login Types profile option to either Local or Both at user level for all users who need to enter password-based signatures.

  2. Ensure that these users have valid passwords defined in Oracle Application Object Library. See: Managing Oracle E-Business Suite Security, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

For more information, see: Oracle Single Sign-On Integration, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

Loading Certificates for Digital Signatures

If a notification requires a certificate-based digital signature, the user must sign the response with a valid X.509 certificate issued by a certificate authority. Before users can sign responses with their certificates, you must load these certificates into your Oracle E-Business Suite database using the Workflow Certificate Loader.

When you load a certificate, you must also specify the Oracle E-Business Suite user to whom that certificate is assigned. Oracle Workflow uses this information to validate that the user attempting to sign with a certain certificate is the same user to whom that certificate is assigned.

A user can have more than one certificate assigned to him or her. However, each certificate can only be assigned to one user. Additionally, after you have loaded a certificate for a user, you cannot delete it from the database or assign it to a different user. If a certificate is incorrectly assigned, the user to whom it belongs must revoke it and obtain a new certificate instead.

You can load several certificates at once by listing the information for all the certificates in a data file for the loader. You can also load a single certificate by specifying the certificate information in the command line for the loader.

Note: If your users access Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Internet Explorer, ensure that you also set the Browser Signing DLL Location global preference in the Workflow Configuration page. See: To Set Global Preferences for Oracle Workflow.

  1. For each certificate, obtain the following information:

    • The Oracle E-Business Suite user name of the user to whom the certificate belongs.

    • The personal certificate itself, in the DER encoded binary X.509 format. The certificate should be provided as a file with an extension of .cer.

    • The root certificate of the certificate authority that issued the personal certificate, as well as any intermediate certificates required for this type of personal certificate.

    • A URL for each root and intermediate certificate, specifying the location from which the corresponding Certificate Revocation List (CRL) can be downloaded.

    Note: You only need to load the root certificate for a particular certificate authority, and the intermediate certificates for a particular type of certificate, once. If you already loaded the root and intermediate certificates required for a new personal certificate, you can simply load the personal certificate without reloading the others.

  2. If you want to load several certificates at once, create a data file for the Workflow Certificate Loader that specifies the location of the certificates to be loaded and the users to whom they belong. The data file should be a text file containing one entry for each root, intermediate, or personal certificate to be loaded.

    All certificate entries in the file must appear in the order of the certification path, beginning with the root certificate for the certificate authority, followed by any intermediate certificates and then by the personal certificate. However, if the root or intermediate certificates required for a particular personal certificate were loaded previously, you do not need to reload them.

    Each certificate entry must be a single line. For a root or intermediate certificate, use the following format:

    user=CA; domain=CA; filename=<certificate_file>; crl_url=<URL>

    where <certificate_file> is the full path and file name specifying the location of the certificate file, and <URL> is the location from which the corresponding Certificate Revocation List (CRL) can be downloaded.

    For a personal certificate, use the following format:

    user=<user_name>; domain=U; filename=<certificate_file>

    where <user_name> is the Oracle E-Business Suite user name of the user to whom the certificate belongs, and <certificate_file> is the full path and file name specifying the location of the certificate file.

    You can also include comments in the data file. Start each comment line with a number sign (#).

    The following example shows a sample data file. Note that although the lines may appear to wrap in this document, each certificate entry is a single line in the data file.

    #Root certificate for certificate authority myCA
user=CA; domain=CA; filename=/certs/myCA.cer; 
crl_url=http://myCA.com/myCA.crl
#
#Personal certificate for user BLEWIS
user=BLEWIS; domain=U; filename=/certs/blewis.cer

  3. To load several certificates at once using a data file, run the Workflow Certificate Loader with the following command:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader 
[-v] <user_name> <password> <connect_string> <data_file>

    You can optionally specify the -v option to run the Workflow Certificate Loader in verbose mode, displaying additional diagnostic information in the output.

    Replace the variables with your parameters as follows:

    • <user_name> - The user name of your Oracle E-Business Suite database account.

    • <password> - The password for your Oracle E-Business Suite database account.

    • <connect_string> - The connect string for the database, including the host name, TNS port number, and database system identifier (SID) in the following format:

      <host_name>:<port_number>:<database_SID>

    • <data_file> - The full path and file name specifying the location of the data file you created in the previous step.

    For example:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader 
-v apps apps myserv:4105:mySID myCertData.txt

  4. To load a single certificate without using a data file, run the Workflow Certificate Loader specifying the certificate information in the command line. For a root or intermediate certificate, use the following command:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader 
[-v] -s <user_name> <password> <connect_string> user=CA 
domain=CA filename=<certificate_file> crl_url=<URL>

    For a personal certificate, use the following command:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader 
[-v] -s <user_name> <password> <connect_string> user=<user_name> 
domain=U filename=<certificate_file>

    You can optionally specify the -v option to run the Workflow Certificate Loader in verbose mode, displaying additional diagnostic information in the output.

    Replace the variables with your parameters as follows:

    • <user_name> - The user name of your Oracle E-Business Suite database account.

    • <password> - The password for your Oracle E-Business Suite database account.

    • <connect_string> - The connect string for the database, including the host name, TNS port number, and database system identifier (SID) in the following format:

      <host_name>:<port_number>:<database_SID>

    • <user_name> - The Oracle E-Business Suite user name of the user to whom the personal certificate belongs.

    • <certificate_file> - The full path and file name specifying the location of the certificate file.

    • <URL> - The location from which the corresponding Certificate Revocation List (CRL) for the root or intermediate certificate can be downloaded.

    For example:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader 
-s apps apps myserv:4105:mySID user=BLEWIS domain=U 
filename=/certs/blewis.cer

    Note: You can display a help message describing the usage of the Workflow Certificate Loader by specifying the -h option with the following command:

    java oracle.apps.fnd.wf.DigitalSignature.loader.CertificateLoader -h

    Troubleshooting the Workflow Certificate Loader

    The following list shows Workflow Certificate Loader error messages and suggested steps to resolve them.

    • No parent certificate found for certificate - The loader could not locate the root or intermediate certificate that should precede the current certificate in the certificate path. Ensure that either the parent certificate is already loaded to the database, or a valid entry for the parent certificate appears before the entry for the current certificate in the data file.

    • Unable to create certificate object from file - The data in the certificate file may be corrupted. Check that the certificate is valid by double-clicking the certificate file and viewing its status. Also, ensure that the certificate is stored in the DER encoded binary X.509 format.

    • FND USER does not exist - The user name specified in a certificate entry in the data file is not defined as an Oracle E-Business Suite user. Ensure that the user name is specified as either CA for a certificate authority or a valid Oracle E-Business Suite user name for an individual user.

    • Certificate already associated with another user - The certificate has already been loaded to the database and assigned to a different user. If a certificate is incorrectly assigned, the user to whom it belongs must revoke it and obtain a new certificate instead.

    • Certdatafile not in proper format - The data file for the loader does not follow the required format. Ensure that the data file contains only certificate entries and comments, each certificate entry is a single line containing the appropriate arguments, and each comment line begins with a number sign (#).

    • The Network Adapter could not establish the connection - The loader was unable to connect to the database using the specified parameters. Ensure that you specify the correct database user name, password, and connect string when you run the loader.

    • Illegal Argument Exception - The loader could not process the parameters provided in the run command. Ensure that you specify the loader parameters in the required format.

Step 15: Customizing the Logo on Oracle Workflow's Web Pages

After Oracle HTTP Server is installed and configured for your Oracle Workflow instance, you can customize the company logo that appears in the upper right corner of Oracle Workflow's Web pages.

To Customize Oracle Workflow's Web Pages

  1. Copy or rename your company logo file (in .gif format) to FNDLOGOS.gif.

  2. Move the file to the physical directory that your Web server's /OA_MEDIA/ virtual directory points to.

    Note: The mapping of /OA_MEDIA/ is completed as part of the Oracle E-Business Suite installation and setup steps. For more information, see the installation documentation for your release.

Step 16: Adding Custom Icons to Oracle Workflow

Oracle Workflow Builder looks for icons in the ICON subdirectory of the Oracle Workflow area on your PC. The ICON subdirectory is defined in the registry of Oracle Workflow Builder. The Oracle Workflow area is typically the wf subdirectory within your Oracle home.

Oracle Workflow provides a variety of icons that you can use to represent your activities and processes. You can add custom icon files to this area as long as they are Windows icon files with the .ico suffix.

If you want the custom icons that you include in your Oracle Workflow Builder process definition to appear in the Workflow Monitor when you view the process diagram, perform the following steps.

  1. Convert the custom icon files (.ico) to gif format (.gif).

  2. Copy the .gif files to the physical directory that your Web server's /OA_MEDIA/ virtual directory points to, so that the Workflow Monitor can access them.

    Note: The mapping of /OA_MEDIA/ is completed as part of the Oracle E-Business Suite installation and setup steps. For more information, see the installation documentation for your release.

Step 17: Setting Up the Business Event System

The Business Event System is an application service delivered with Oracle Workflow that uses Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ) to communicate business events between systems. You need to perform this step to use event processing. See: Overview of the Oracle Workflow Business Event System, Oracle Workflow API Reference and Managing Business Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

To set up the Business Event System and enable message propagation, perform the following steps:

  1. If you want to communicate business events between the local system and external systems, create database links to those external systems.

  2. If you want to use custom queues for propagating events, set up your queues.

  3. Check the Business Event System setup parameters.

  4. Schedule listeners for local inbound agents.

  5. Schedule propagation for local outbound agents.

  6. Synchronize event and subscription license statuses with product license statuses.

  7. Ensure that the WF_CONTROL queue is periodically cleaned up to remove inactive subscribers.

  8. You can optionally change the maximum cache size used in Business Event System subscription processing.

  9. You can optionally enable static function calls for custom PL/SQL functions.

  10. If you want to invoke business process execution language (BPEL) processes through event subscriptions, you can optionally specify the BPEL server.

You should recheck your setup whenever you make changes to your agents that affect the physical implementation required for propagation. See: Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Note: Oracle Workflow sets the status of the local system to Enabled by default. After you finish setting up the Business Event System, you can update your global workflow preferences to set the system status that you want for event processing. See: Setting Global User Preferences.

Oracle Workflow provides scripts to help diagnose Business Event System processing and retry failed events. See: Handling Business Event System Errors.

Creating Database Links

To propagate event messages between systems, you must create database links from your local system to the remote systems. You should fully qualify the database link name with the domain name.

You can either create database links manually, or use Oracle Enterprise Manager to perform this step. Oracle Enterprise Manager allows workflow administrators to quickly and easily create and administer database links, queue tables, queues, and queue propagation without requiring knowledge of the SQL DDL commands. For more information, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager online help.

You can use the following syntax to create a database link manually:

CREATE DATABASE LINK <database link name> CONNECT TO 
   <user> IDENTIFIED BY <password> USING '<connect string>';

For example:

CREATE DATABASE LINK wf10g.mycompany.com CONNECT TO 
   wfuser IDENTIFIED BY welcome 
   USING 'wf10g';

If you have multiple installations of Oracle Workflow on both the local database and the remote database, and you want to use the same username and password to access both systems, you can omit the <user> IDENTIFIED BY <password> clause. In this case, the database link uses the username and password of the user who is connected to the database.

CREATE DATABASE LINK <database link name> CONNECT TO 
   USING '<connect string>';

If you want to create a public database link available to all users, specify the parameter PUBLIC.

CREATE PUBLIC DATABASE LINK <database link name> CONNECT TO 
   <user> IDENTIFIED BY <password> 
   USING '<connect string>';

To verify the names of your database links, use the following syntax:

SELECT db_link FROM all_db_links;

See: CREATE DATABASE LINK, Oracle SQL Reference.

Setting Up Queues

The Business Event System uses Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ) to communicate event messages between systems. You must associate a queue with each agent on a Workflow-enabled system that you define in the Event Manager.

When you install Oracle Workflow, several standard queues are created automatically for the standard Workflow agents. These queues all use either the standard WF_EVENT_T structure or JMS Text messages as their payload type. See: Standard Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide, Event Message Structure, Oracle Workflow API Reference, and Mapping Between WF_EVENT_T and SYS.AQ$_JMS_TEXT_MESSAGE, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

The following table lists the standard queues.

Business Event System Queues
Queue Table Queue Name Payload Type Retention Time Description
WF_CONTROL WF_CONTROL SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 1 day Oracle Workflow internal queue, not for customer use
WF_DEFERRED WF_DEFERRED WF_EVENT_T 1 day Standard queue for deferred subscription processing in the database
WF_ERROR WF_ERROR WF_EVENT_T 0 days Standard queue for error handling in the database
WF_IN WF_IN WF_EVENT_T 7 days Default inbound queue
WF_JAVA_DEFERRED WF_JAVA_DEFERRED SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 1 day Standard queue for deferred subscription processing in the middle tier
WF_JAVA_ERROR WF_JAVA_ERROR SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 0 days Standard queue for error handling in the middle tier
WF_JMS_IN WF_JMS_IN SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 7 days Default inbound queue for JMS Text messages
WF_JMS_OUT WF_JMS_OUT SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 7 days Default outbound queue for JMS Text messages
WF_NOTIFICATION_IN WF_NOTIFICATION_IN SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 1 day Standard inbound queue for e-mail notification responses
WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 1 day Standard outbound queue for e-mail notifications
WF_OUT WF_OUT WF_EVENT_T 7 days Default outbound queue
WF_WS_JMS_IN WF_WS_JMS_IN SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 7 days Default inbound queue for Web service messages
WF_WS_JMS_OUT WF_WS_JMS_OUT SYS.AQ$_JMS_ TEXT_MESSAGE 7 days Default outbound queue for Web service messages

Note: Oracle Workflow also includes three queues named WF_REPLAY_IN, WF_REPLAY_OUT, and WF_SMTP_O_1_QUEUE, which are not currently used. Oracle XML Gateway provides additional standard queues.

Oracle Workflow includes three queues for background engine processing named WF_DEFERRED_QUEUE_M, WF_OUTBOUND_QUEUE, and WF_INBOUND_QUEUE. These queues are separate from the Business Event System queues. See: Setting Up Background Workflow Engines.

If necessary, you can change the default retention time set for consumed messages on the standard Workflow queues, using the PL/SQL procedure DBMS_AQADM.Alter_Queue. You must not change any other part of the setup of these queues.

You can also set up your own queues for event message propagation. You can either set up queues manually, or use Oracle Enterprise Manager to perform this step. Oracle Enterprise Manager allows workflow administrators to quickly and easily create and administer database links, queue tables, queues, and queue propagation without requiring knowledge of the SQL DDL commands. For more information, see the Oracle Enterprise Manager online help.

To set up a queue manually, you must create the queue table, create the queue, and start the queue. You should perform these tasks using a schema that is appropriate for the application for which you will use the queue. You must specify the schema that owns the queue as part of the queue name when you assign the queue to a Business Event System agent.

Oracle Workflow provides a sample script called wfevquc2.sql which you can modify to set up your queues, as well as a sample script called wfevqued.sql which you can modify to drop queues. These scripts are located on your server in the $FND_TOP/sql directory.

You can verify that your queues are set up properly using the Oracle Workflow Manager component of Oracle Applications Manager. See: Agents.

You can also run a diagnostic test to verify your queues. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

See: Oracle Streams AQ Administrative Interface, Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User's Guide and Reference and DBMS_AQADM, Oracle Database PL/SQL Packages and Types Reference

Checking the Business Event System Setup

Use the Oracle Workflow Manager component of Oracle Applications Manager to verify that the required parameters and components have been set up to enable message propagation for the Business Event System, including the required JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES database initialization parameter. See: Oracle Workflow Manager Overview.

You can either modify the parameter in the init.ora file and restart the database, or you can use the ALTER SYSTEM statement to dynamically modify the parameter for the duration of the instance.

The JOB_QUEUE_PROCESSES parameter defines the number of job queue processes for your instance. Oracle Workflow requires job queue processes to handle propagation of Business Event System event messages by AQ queues. You must start at least one job queue process to enable message propagation. The minimum recommended number of processes for Oracle Workflow is ten.

Note: If you want to review more detailed information about AQ processing, you can optionally use another initialization parameter, EVENT, for detailed database level tracing of issues related to AQ. Add the following line to your init.ora file:

event = "24040 trace name context forever, level 10"

Then restart your database to make this change effective. Be aware that using this parameter may generate large trace files.

See: Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User's Guide and Reference.

Scheduling Listeners for Local Inbound Agents

To communicate events between different agents, you must schedule listeners for the inbound agents on your local system. The Business Event System requires listeners to be scheduled to receive inbound event messages. Run PL/SQL agent listeners to process event subscriptions with a PL/SQL rule function in the database, and run Java agent listeners to process event subscriptions in the middle tier.

When you schedule a listener for an agent, it monitors the agent's queue, dequeuing any inbound event messages. When an event message is received, the Event Manager searches for and executes any enabled subscriptions by the local system to that event with a source type of External, and also any enabled subscriptions by the local system to the Any event with a source type of External.

The PL/SQL and Java agent listener programs are defined as service component types in the Generic Service Component Framework. This framework helps to simplify and automate the management of background Java services.

You can use Oracle Workflow Manager to submit and manage agent listener service components. You can also view the distribution of event messages on different agents, drill down to view details about individual event messages, and review queue details for the agents. Oracle Workflow Manager is available as a component of Oracle Applications Manager. See: Oracle Workflow Manager Overview.

Oracle Workflow also provides an administrative script named wfagtlst.sql that you can use to run a PL/SQL agent listener. See Wfagtlst.sql.

Oracle Workflow provides seeded PL/SQL agent listener service components for the standard WF_DEFERRED, WF_ERROR, and WF_NOTIFICATION_IN agents. These agent listeners are named Workflow Deferred Agent Listener, Workflow Deferred Notification Agent Listener, Workflow Error Agent Listener, and Workflow Inbound Notifications Agent Listener, and they support deferred subscription processing in the database, dedicated deferred subscription processing for notification messages, error handling for the Business Event System in the database, and inbound e-mail processing for notification mailers, respectively.

Oracle Workflow also provides seeded Java agent listener service components for the standard WF_JAVA_DEFERRED, WF_JAVA_ERROR, and WF_WS_JMS_IN agents. These agent listeners are named Workflow Java Deferred Agent Listener, Workflow Java Error Agent Listener, and Web Services IN Agent, and they support deferred subscription processing in the middle tier, error handling for the Business Event System in the middle tier, and inbound Web service message processing, respectively.

Additionally, Oracle XML Gateway provides two seeded PL/SQL agent listener service components for the standard ECX_INBOUND and ECX_TRANSACTION agents. These agent listeners are named ECX Inbound Agent Listener and ECX Transaction Agent Listener, respectively. For more information, see Monitor Workflow Processes, Oracle XML Gateway User's Guide.

You can also optionally create additional agent listener service components. For example, you can configure agent listeners for other inbound agents that you want to use for event message propagation, such as the standard WF_IN and WF_JMS_IN agents, or any custom agents. You can also configure an agent listener service component that only processes messages on a particular agent that are instances of a specific event.

For PL/SQL agent listeners, in addition to the parameters in the configuration wizard, you can optionally set internal agent listener parameters named LISTENER_PROCESS_EVT_COUNT and SQL_TRACE_LEVEL.

Also, for both PL/SQL and Java agent listeners, in addition to the parameters in the configuration wizard you can optionally set an internal agent listener parameter named NAVIGATION_RESET_THRESHOLD. By default, when an agent listener starts processing messages on an agent's queue, it determines the order in which it will navigate through the waiting messages based on the message priorities, and then does not check for new messages again until it has dequeued all the messages that were initially waiting on the queue. You can use the NAVIGATION_RESET_THRESHOLD parameter to periodically reset the navigation to include newly arrived messages, so that new high priority messages are processed sooner. Specify the threshold value as follows:

By default, the NAVIGATION_RESET_THRESHOLD parameter is set to the value 0. Use the afsvcpup.sql script to change the parameter value to the maximum number of messages the agent listener should dequeue before resetting its navigation. See: To Set Internal Agent Listener Parameters.

Note: The NAVIGATION_RESET_THRESHOLD parameter does not apply for queues that are enabled for transactional grouping.

For more information about queue navigation options, see: Navigation of Messages in Dequeuing, Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User’s Guide.

Service components must be hosted by a service component container. If you create custom agent listener service components, you can assign them to the seeded container for agent listeners.

A service component container is implemented as a Generic Service Management (GSM) service. The seeded container for agent listeners is named Workflow Agent Listener Service.

Based on the volume to be handled by the seeded container, you can also choose to create your own custom containers as GSM services in Oracle Applications Manager. If you create a custom GSM service in OAM, you can copy the service parameters from the seeded Workflow Agent Listener Service to your new service in order to specify how to run the new service.

Before agent listener service components can run, the container which manages them must first be started. In order to run the seeded agent listeners, you should ensure that the Workflow Agent Listener Service container is running using Oracle Applications Manager. If you create your own custom containers in OAM for custom service components, ensure that those containers are running as well.

Note: You can run a diagnostic test to verify the GSM services for Oracle Workflow. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

Additionally, if the status of an agent listener service component changes to Stopped with Error or System Deactivated, Oracle Workflow posts a system alert to the System Alerts and Metrics page in Oracle Applications Manager. See: System Alerts, Metrics, and Logs, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

See: Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide and Listen, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

To Set Internal Agent Listener Parameters

Use the afsvcpup.sql script to set internal agent listener parameters that do not appear in the agent listener configuration wizard. This script is located in the $FND_TOP/sql directory.

  1. Use the following command to run the afsvcpup.sql script:

    sqlplus <user/pwd> @afsvcpup

  2. At the prompts, enter the component ID for your agent listener service component, the parameter ID for the parameter to set, and the value to assign to that parameter. You can find the IDs to enter in the lists displayed by the script, which show first the service components defined in your installation of Oracle Workflow and then the parameters defined for the specified service component. You can also find the component ID for an agent listener in the Define page of the configuration wizard.

Exception Handling for Inbound Queues

Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing (AQ) transfers event messages from an agent's normal queue to the associated exception queue in the following cases:

You can run the Move Messages from Exception to Normal Queue of Workflow Agent concurrent program (FNDWF_MOVE_MSGS_EXCEP2NORMAL) to transfer such messages back to the agent's normal queue. This program helps enable mass reprocessing in case of a large number of errors. Use Standard Request Submission to run the program, specifying the inbound agent for which you want to transfer messages back to the normal queue. After the program completes, run the appropriate agent listener to reattempt normal processing for these event messages. See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide and Exception Handling, Oracle Streams Advanced Queuing User's Guide and Reference.

Scheduling Propagation for Local Outbound Agents

To communicate events between different agents, you must schedule propagation for the outbound agents on your local system. The Business Event System requires propagation to be scheduled to send outbound event messages.

When you send an event message to an agent, the Event Manager places the message on the queue associated with the outbound agent. The message is then asynchronously delivered to the inbound agent by propagation.

You can schedule AQ propagation for agents that use the SQLNET protocol by the following methods:

If you want to use the standard WF_OUT and WF_JMS_OUT agents or custom agents for event message propagation, ensure that you schedule propagation for those agents. You do not need to schedule propagation for the WF_CONTROL, WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT, or WF_WS_JMS_OUT agents, however. The middle tier processes that use WF_CONTROL dequeue messages directly from its queue, and notification mailers send messages placed on the WF_NOTIFICATION_OUT queue. For WF_WS_JMS_OUT, you can optionally start a Web services outbound component named Web Services OUT Agent, provided by Oracle Workflow.

For agents that use protocols other than the SQLNET protocol, you must provide external propagation logic. See: Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

You can use Oracle Workflow Manager to review the propagation schedules for your local outbound agents. You can also view the distribution of event messages on different agents, drill down to view details about individual event messages, and review queue details for the agents. Oracle Workflow Manager is available as a component of Oracle Applications Manager. See: Oracle Workflow Manager Overview.

See: Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Synchronizing License Statuses

Some Oracle E-Business Suite products provide seeded events and subscriptions. In these cases, Oracle Workflow executes subscriptions only if the triggering event and the subscription are both owned by products that you have licensed with a status of Installed or Shared.

You can use the License Manager utility to review which products you currently have licensed. See: License Manager, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

To ensure that the license status of the seeded events and subscriptions in the Business Event System is updated according to the status of the products you currently have licensed, you can run the Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License concurrent program. Use the Submit Requests form in Oracle E-Business Suite to submit this concurrent program.

If you upgrade from an Oracle E-Business Suite release earlier than Release 11.5.9, you should run the Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License concurrent program once after the upgrade to update the license status of the existing events and subscriptions in your Event Manager. Otherwise, subscriptions may not be correctly processed after the upgrade. Subsequently, when you license a product, Oracle Workflow automatically updates the license status for all the events and subscriptions owned by that product.

Note: Any events and subscriptions that you define with a customization level of User are always treated as being licensed.

See: Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide and Event Subscriptions, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

To submit the Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License concurrent program

  1. Navigate to the Submit Requests form in Oracle E-Business Suite to submit the Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License concurrent program. When you install and set up Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Workflow, your system administrator needs to add this concurrent program to a request security group for the responsibility that you want to run this program from. The executable name for this concurrent program is "Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License" and its short name is FNDWFLIC. See: Overview of Concurrent Programs and Requests, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

  2. Select the Synchronize Product License and Workflow BES License concurrent program as the request to run. This program does not require any parameters. See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

  3. When you finish modifying the print and run options to define the schedule for this request, choose Submit to submit the request.

Cleaning Up the Workflow Control Queue

Oracle Workflow contains a standard Business Event System agent named WF_CONTROL, which is associated with a standard queue that is also named WF_CONTROL. This queue has a payload type of JMS Text message. The WF_CONTROL agent is used for internal processing only, and is not meant for customer use. You should not place custom event messages on this queue.

The Generic Service Component Framework uses WF_CONTROL to handle control events for containers and service components, such as notification mailer or agent listener service components. WF_CONTROL is also used for other Oracle E-Business Suite internal processing.

You do not need to schedule propagation for the WF_CONTROL agent, because the middle tier processes that use WF_CONTROL dequeue messages directly from its queue.

However, the subscribers to the WF_CONTROL queue need to be cleaned up periodically. A concurrent program named Workflow Control Queue Cleanup is automatically scheduled to perform this cleanup for you

When a middle tier process for Oracle E-Business Suite starts up, it creates a JMS subscriber to the queue. Then, when an event message is placed on the queue, a copy of the event message is created for each subscriber to the queue. If a middle tier process dies, however, the corresponding subscriber remains in the database. For more efficient processing, you should ensure that WF_CONTROL is periodically cleaned up by removing the subscribers for any middle tier processes that are no longer active.

The WF_BES_CLEANUP.Cleanup_Subscribers() procedure sends an event named oracle.apps.wf.bes.control.ping to check the status of each subscriber to the WF_CONTROL queue. If the corresponding middle tier process is still alive, it sends back a response. The next time the cleanup procedure runs, it checks whether responses have been received for each ping event sent during the previous run. If no response was received from a particular subscriber, that subscriber is removed. See: Cleanup_Subscribers, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

The recommended frequency for performing cleanup is every twelve hours. In order to allow enough time for subscribers to respond to the ping event, the minimum wait time between two cleanup runs is thirty minutes. If you run the procedure again less than thirty minutes after the previous run, it will not perform any processing.

Control Queue Cleanup

Oracle Workflow provides a concurrent program named Workflow Control Queue Cleanup, which uses the WF_BES_CLEANUP.Cleanup_Subscribers() API to perform the necessary cleanup. This concurrent program is scheduled to run every twelve hours by default, which is the recommended frequency for performing cleanup. You can optionally run this program with a different schedule if you want to perform cleanup at a different frequency.

To submit the Workflow Control Queue Cleanup concurrent program

  1. Navigate to the Submit Requests form in Oracle E-Business Suite to submit the Workflow Control Queue Cleanup concurrent program. When you install and set up Oracle E-Business Suite and Oracle Workflow, your system administrator needs to add this concurrent program to a request security group for the responsibility that you want to run this program from. The executable name for this concurrent program is "Workflow Control Queue Cleanup" and its short name is FNDWFBES_CONTROL_QUEUE_CLEANUP. See: Overview of Concurrent Programs and Requests, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

  2. Select the Workflow Control Queue Cleanup concurrent program as the request to run. This program does not require any parameters. See: Running Reports and Programs, Oracle E-Business Suite User's Guide.

  3. When you finish modifying the print and run options to define the schedule for this request, choose Submit to submit the request.

You can run a diagnostic test to check that the Workflow control queue is properly accessible. See: Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

See: Business Event System Control Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide, Standard Agents, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide, and Business Event System Cleanup API, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

Changing the Maximum Cache Size for the Business Event System

The Business Event System caches event, subscription, and agent definitions to enhance performance during subscription processing. The default maximum size of the cache is 50 records. You can optionally increase the maximum cache size to reduce the database queries performed by the Business Event System, or decrease the maximum cache size to reduce the amount of memory used by the cache.

The maximum cache size is determined by the value for the WFBES_MAX_CACHE_SIZE resource token. To change this value, you must first create a .msg source file specifying the new size as the value for the WFBES_MAX_CACHE_SIZE resource token. Then use the Workflow Resource Generator program to upload the new seed data from the source file to the database table WF_RESOURCES. See: To Run the Workflow Resource Generator, Oracle Workflow API Reference.

Enabling Static Function Calls for Custom PL/SQL Functions

If you use custom PL/SQL functions within the Business Event System, including event data generate functions, event subscription rule functions, and queue handler enqueue and dequeue APIs, Oracle Workflow calls those functions using dynamic SQL by default. However, you can enable Oracle Workflow to call your custom functions statically to enhance performance.

Oracle Workflow provides two PL/SQL packages with procedures that contain lists of static function calls. The Business Event System internally calls these procedures during subscription processing to check whether static function calls are available for the procedures being executed.

The initial seeded versions of these packages include static function calls only for seeded Oracle Workflow functions, such as the rule function WF_RULE.Default_Rule and the queue handler APIs WF_EVENT_QH.Enqueue and WF_EVENT_QH.Dequeue. You can use the wfbesfngen.sql script to add functions from other Oracle E-Business Suite products or your own custom functions to these packages.

  1. Run the wfbesfngen.sql script as follows:

    sqlplus <user/pwd> @wfbesfngen <type> <name>

    Replace the variables with your parameters as follows:

    • <type> - The type of functions you want to add.

      • EVENTS - Add generate functions and rule functions to the WF_BES_DYN_FUNCS package body.

      • AGENTS - Add queue handler enqueue and dequeue APIs to the WF_AGT_DYN_FUNCS package body.

    • <name> - Specify the names of the events or agents with which the functions you want to add are associated. You can specify one or more object names separated by commas. Do not include any spaces in the name string. For the EVENTS type, you can either specify a full event name for an individual event, or specify a correlation ID consisting of a partial event name with the wildcard character (%) to include functions associated with any event whose name begins with the specified value.

      Note: The script's output is not cumulative; it creates a separate new package body each time you run it. If you rerun the script, ensure that you specify the event or agent names for all functions that you want to include, repeating any names specified in previous runs that are still applicable, as well as adding any new names.

    For example:

    sqlplus apps/apps @wfbesfngen EVENTS oracle.apps.ap%,oracle.apps.ar%

    or:

    sqlplus apps/apps @wfbesfngen AGENTS WF_IN,WF_OUT,WF_CONTROL

  2. The script generates a file containing a new package body in the directory specified in the UTL_FILE_DIR database initialization parameter.

    • For the EVENTS type, the script generates a new package body for the WF_BES_DYN_FUNCS package in a file named WFBESDFNB<timestamp>.pls.

    • For the AGENTS type, the script generates a new package body for the WF_AGT_DYN_FUNCS package in a file named WFAGTDFNB<timestamp>.pls.

    Review the file to verify that the package body was generated successfully. The header of the file lists the object names for whose associated functions the package body contains static function calls. Ensure that you keep backup copies of the files containing your customized package bodies.

  3. Compile the new package body in your database. You should perform this step during a patching window or maintenance downtime when there is no Business Event System activity and no agent listeners are running.

    If the new package body does not compile successfully, you can edit the generated file manually to correct the package body. Alternatively, if the generated package body does not compile, you can revert back to the corresponding original package body provided by Oracle Workflow in the following files:

    • $FND_TOP/patch/115/sql/WFBESDFNB.pls - Contains the seeded WF_BES_DYN_FUNCS package body.

    • $FND_TOP/patch/115/sql/WFAGTDFNB.pls - Contains the seeded WF_AGT_DYN_FUNCS package body.

If you drop a custom function from your database, you should edit the file containing the corresponding customized package body to comment out the static function call for that function, and then recompile the package body.

Note: If additional standard functions become available in the future, Oracle Workflow may ship updated versions of the seeded package bodies. In this case, you may need to restore the static function calls for your custom functions. For example, you can rerun the wfbesfngen.sql script to add your custom functions to the updated seeded package bodies, or recompile your customized package bodies from your backup files. Check the installation instructions when applying Oracle Workflow patches to determine whether you need to take steps to re-enable the static function calls for your custom functions.

Specifying the BPEL Server

If you define event subscriptions that invoke business process execution language (BPEL) processes, you can optionally set the WF: BPEL Server profile option to specify the host name and port of the BPEL server. When this profile option is set, you can use relative URLs rather than absolute URLs in the subscription parameters to specify the location of the Web Services Description Language (WSDL) descriptions for the BPEL processes.

At runtime, Oracle Workflow replaces the bpel:// prefix in the relative URLs with the host name and port for the BPEL server specified in the WF: BPEL Server profile option. In this way, the profile option lets you quickly change the BPEL server setup for all subscriptions that invoke BPEL processes, such as if you move these subscription definitions from a test instance to a production instance. See: Invoking a Web Service, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

Set the WF: BPEL Server profile option to the host name and port of the BPEL server using the following format:

http://<host_name>:<port>/

Note: The profile option value must end with a slash (/) in order to form the final WSDL description URL correctly.

This profile option must be set at site level. See: Overview of Setting User Profiles, Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Maintenance.

Handling Business Event System Errors

To check the status of a particular event or help investigate errors, you can run a script named wfbesdbg.sql that displays debugging information. You can also obtain this information by running a diagnostic test through Oracle Diagnostics Framework. See: wfbesdbg.sql and Oracle Workflow Diagnostic Tests.

In case of a large number of errored events, Oracle Workflow provides special scripts for mass event reprocessing. Do not run these scripts unless you are directed to do so by Oracle Support.

The following scripts are located in the $FND_TOP/sql directory.