Skip Headers

21 Customization and Sandboxes

This chapter contains the following:

Customizing Pages Using Oracle Composer: Highlights

You can customize dashboards and some work areas, where available, for all or some users based on a selected customization layer, for example only for users in a specific country or with a specific job role. When you select to customize a page from the Administration menu in the global area, you invoke Oracle Composer, which enables the customization. The Administration menu is only available if you have appropriate roles.

From the same menu, you can also access the Customization Manager, which displays a list of components in the current page and details about the layers in which each component is customized. You can also access sandboxes from the Administration menu, to make customizations to a runtime use session before deploying your changes to the mainline.

Customizing pages using Oracle Composer, the Customization Manager, and sandboxes are described in the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide.

Editing Pages

Customizations that you can make to existing pages include adding content and changing layout.
See: Editing a Page in Oracle Composer
You can also update display and other options for specific components within the page.
See: Editing Component Properties in Oracle Composer

Customization Manager

Use Customization Manager to analyze and diagnose customization metadata, and to perform customization related tasks that cannot be done in the user interface, for example to revert customizations to a previous version. You can also do direct customization by manipulating the metadata and uploading it back.
See: Using Customization Manager to Manage Runtime Customizations

Sandboxes

Create or select an appropriate sandbox, and set it as active to capture your customizations using Oracle Composer. When you are ready, you publish the sandbox to make your changes available to users.
See: Using the Sandbox Manager

Sandboxes: Highlights

Use a sandbox to commit customizations to a runtime use session for validation before deploying changes to the mainline. Administrators create and manage sandboxes. An active sandbox isolates changes from the mainline and other users.

Sandboxes can contain the following types of customization changes.

Metadata, such as non-flexfield UI page customizations
Data security
Generated flexfields business components

Metadata changes are captured in a metadata sandbox. Data security changes are additionally captured in a data security enabled sandbox. Changes to a flexfield are captured in a flexfield that is deployed as a single flexfield sandbox. Once you are ready to make sandbox changes available in the mainline, you either publish the metadata or data security sandbox, or deploy the flexfield. Only metadata and data security sandboxes can be downloaded as a sandbox file for import to another Oracle Fusion Applications instance.

The following table lists the differences among the types of sandboxes.

Type of Changes	Type of Sandbox	Method for Making Changes Available in Mainline	Downloadable?
Metadata	Sandbox	Publish sandbox	Yes
Data security	Sandbox enabled for data security changes	Publish sandbox	Yes
Flexfield	Flexfield deployed as a flexfield-enabled sandbox	Deploy flexfield	No

Only one sandbox can be active at a time. Changes made while a sandbox is active are captured in that sandbox.

For more information on using the Sandbox Manager, and customizing and securing pages, business objects, data, and custom objects in a sandbox, see the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide.

Managing a Page Customization Sandbox

You can make metadata (MDS) type changes in a sandbox, including menu customizations, changes to the personalization menu, implicit ADF customizations, or changes made with Oracle Composer or CRM Application Composer.

If you are entitled to do so, manage sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
See: Using the Sandbox Manager

Implement customizations on an existing page to change the metadata of a sandbox before deploying the changes to the mainline.
See: Customizing Existing Pages
Using CRM Application Composer, customize business objects in a sandbox before deploying the changes to the mainline.
See: Customizing Objects

Managing a Data Security Sandbox

You can create a sandbox for data security testing, or designate an existing sandbox to become enabled for data security testing.

If you are entitled to do so, manage data security-enabled sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
See: Using the Sandbox Manager

If you customize business objects in CRM Application Composer, you may need to define data security policies to make them accessible to users.
See: Defining Security Policies for Business Objects
If you create new business objects, you need to secure them.
See: Customizing Security for Custom Business Objects

Managing a Flexfield Sandbox

You create a flexfield-enabled sandbox by deploying one flexfield to a sandbox using the Manage Flexfield task flow. The flexfield sandbox gets its name from the flexfield you deploy. You cannot test two flexfields in the same sandbox. Once you deploy a flexfield as a sandbox, you must sign out and back in to view how the sandbox runtime reflects the flexfield changes, such as new segments. You can redeploy the same flexfield to the same sandbox repeatedly as you make incremental changes to the flexfield setup.

Since a flexfield sandbox cannot be published, any page customizations or data security in the flexfield sandbox cannot reach the mainline when the flexfield is deployed to the mainline. If you have entitlement to do so, see Deploying a Flexfield to a Sandbox: Points to Consider.
If you are entitled to do so, manage flexfield-enabled sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
See: Using the Sandbox Manager