51 Implement Application User Sessions

Configuring your user interface project for an application user session is a requirement whenever you want to secure data and interact with Oracle Fusion Data Security. Additionally, before you can run and test your application from a task flow or web page, you should configure your user interface project to use an application user session.

The application user session is used to store user and application context from the time the user logs in until log out. When the application user session is implemented, the Oracle Fusion application can easily reconnect to the same user session for each request, maintaining the user context over the duration of the user's session without the overhead of having to obtain and initiate a database connection each time. The actual connection used is not guaranteed to be the same between requests. Application user session roles can be enabled for a user, which can dictate what data is available to the user based strictly on existing data security policies.

The application user session stores common information used in Oracle Fusion Applications as session attributes and includes basic information about user identity and language preferences, as well as context important to particular applications. Specifically, session information includes the session ID, current user information, current language, date and number formatting, and other similar properties. Session attributes can also be used to track application specific information such as, the current user's shopping cart, the country selection, or the currently selected operating unit.

Application user session namespaces are where attributes on the session are stored. These attributes are then available over multiple requests whenever the session is attached.

Oracle Fusion Applications maintains its own namespaces - one for tracking security information, and another that developers can use to store attributes that they need to track over the life of a session.

Additionally, developers can create their own namespaces for any product specific attributes that they need to track over the life of a session. For example, when a large number of attributes exists, developers may want to create their own namespaces to group the attributes together more cleanly.

Oracle Fusion Middleware Extensions for Applications provides covers on top of the routines for getting attributes. To access the attributes of the application context, APIs exist in both PL/SQL and Java, as described in Accessing Properties of the Applications Context.

When you create a user interface project to test or run a task flow (anything that contains a .jspx file) you need to enable application user sessions for any JSPX pages or task flows that you have created in your user interface project.

If the user interface project provides task flows that are only called from a page in another project, then there is no need to configure your project to use sessions.

...
<filter-mapping>
   <filter-name>ApplSessionFilter</filter-name>
   <servlet-name>Faces Servlet</servlet-name>
   <dispatcher>FORWARD</dispatcher>
   <dispatcher>REQUEST</dispatcher>
</filter-mapping>
...

The applications context is a set of properties relevant to applications that is stored on the application user session as a series of name-value pairs. You can access the core application security context in one of two ways:

• Through the ApplSession.java class in the oracle.apps.fnd.applcore.common package

• Through the FND_GLOBAL package in PLSQL

The list of context attributes includes information such as current user name and the current language. The core attributes that are now supported were derived from the following:

• Customization layer hierarchy.

• Central context attributes.

• National Language Support (NLS) properties.

The following is the list of context attributes that are automatically captured and maintained in the ApplSession context. The values listed are the exact names of the attributes as they are defined in the session context. Note that developers can add their own custom attributes as well.

Security and Customization attributes:

• USER_GUID - The unique GUID that identifies the currently logged in user.

• USER_NAME - The name of the currently logged in user.

• PRODUCT_FAMILY - The current active product family.

• PRODUCT - The current active product.

• INDUSTRY - The current active industry.

• TERRITORY - The current active territory.

• SITE - Returns the constant value SITE.

• GLOBAL - Returns the constant value GLOBAL.

• ADDTL_CUSTOM_LEVEL - Additional customization level is a context property that can be customized by developers.

• INDUSTRY_IN_TERRITORY - The current active industry in a particular territory.

• ROLES - A list of roles (both enterprise roles and OPSS application roles) that are currently active. (Assigned to the currently logged in user). If the application session changes, then the roles associated with the new application will be appended onto the session list.

Language attributes:

• LANGUAGE - The language tag representing the current language.

• NLS_LANG - The two-letter database language code. Derived from the language.

• NLS_LANGUAGE - The database language. Derived from the language.

• NLS_SORT - String sorting logic in database. This is from linguistic sorting support project.

• TERRITORY - Listed above as part of the customization context.

• DATE_FORMAT - Format mask pattern for date parsing and formatting.

• TIME_FORMAT - Format mask pattern for time parsing and formatting. This includes time zone formatting.

• GROUPING_SEPARATOR - Grouping separator for number formatting.

• DECIMAL_SEPARATOR - Decimal separator for number formatting.

• TIME_ZONE - User's preferred time zone in Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) R12.

• CURRENCY - The current currency code.

• CLIENT_ENCODING - Client native encoding used for file uploading, downloading, export, and attachment.

Miscellaneous attributes:

• TRACE_LEVEL - The current tracing level when tracing is turned on.

• MODULE - Stores the current module for tracing purposes.

• ACTION - Stores the current action, such as page, being taken for tracing.

• ACCESSIBILITY_MODE - The current accessibility mode.

The stored name-value pairs are partitioned into separate namespaces. Oracle Fusion Applications creates namespaces to store the context attributes.

Developers can access the attribute-storage namespaces through the standard APIs that are detailed below.

Developers may also choose to define their own namespaces, especially if they have several attributes they wish to store on the session. Developer may currently choose among the following APIs for initializing namespaces:

• Java: ApplSession.initializeNamespace(String namespaceName)

• PL/SQL: fnd_global.initialize_namespace (namespace_name IN VARCHAR2);

The Java and PL/SQL initializeNamespace routines are identical, just invoked from different layers—these will dynamically create a new namespace associated with the currently attached session, which you can then access and retrieve session attributes from for the duration of that session.

@BeforeClass
  public static void setUpBeforeClass()
    throws exception
  {
    //
    // Create a session for the OPERATIONS user
    //
    List<String> roleGuids = new ArrayList<String>(1);
    List<String> roleNames = new ArrayList<String>(1);
    roleGuids.add("1807EDD02DBB11DDBFDC91643D402C34");
    roleNames.add("operationsRole");
    ApplSession session = 
      ApplSessionUtil,initializeSession("43B84790D5F011DCAF4F5FFD8462C8E7",
                                        "OPERATIONS", roleGuids, roleNames, null);
  }

@AfterClass
  public static void tearDownAfterClass()
    throws exception
  {
    //
    // note that if a connection to the 'initializeSession' call had been passed
    // in, it would would have to be freed here. Since null is passed in, the 
    // connection that was obtained in that call will be freed automatically.
    //
    ApplSessionUtil.terminateSession();
  }

ApplSession session = ApplSessionUtil.getSession();
String guid1 = session.getUserGuid();

String guid2 = ApplSessionUtil.getUserGuid();

String attr1 = ApplSessionUtil.getSessionAttribute("ATTRIBUTE1");

String attr1 = ApplSessionUtil,getNamespaceAttribute("MY$NAMESPACE", "ATTRIBUTE1");

ApplSession session = ApplSessionUtil.getSession();
  if (session != null)
  {
    session.setProductFamily("FND");
    session.setSessionAttribute("ATTRIBUTE1", "VALUE1");
    session.setNamespaceAttribute("MY$NAMESPACE", "ATTRIBUTE1", "VALUE1");
  }

Connection conn = null;
ApplSession session = ApplSessionUtil.getSession();
if (session != null)
{
   try
   {
      conn = session.getConnection();
      ...
   }
   finally
   {
      if (conn != null)
      {
         session.releaseConnection(conn);
      }
   }
}

public String getUserName()
{
  return ApplSessionUtil.getUserName();
}

public String getSysAdminInfo()
{
  String productName = ApplSessionUtil.getProduct();
  if ("FND".equals(productName))
  {
    return (String) getAttributeInternal(SYSADMININFO);
  }
  else
  {
    return null;
  }
}

DECLARE
  1_roleguids FND_TABLE_OF_VARCHAR2_4000 := FND_TABLE_OF_VARCHAR2_4000();
  1_rolenames FND_TABLE_OF_VARCHAR2_4000 := FND_TABLE_OF_VARCHAR2_4000();
BEGIN
  1_roleguids.extend(1);
  1_rolenames.extend(1);
  1_roleguids(1) := '1807EDD02DBB11DDBFDC91643D402C34';
  1_rolenames(1) := 'operationsRole';
  fnd_global.initialize_session('43B84790D5F011DCAF4F5FFD8462C8E7','OPERATIONS', 1_roleguids, 1_rolenames);
  <your code here>
  fnd_global.terminate_session;
END;
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