67 Implement Oracle Social Network Integration

1. In JDeveloper's Navigator pane, find the application module that contains the view object to be made available for Oracle Social Network integration.
2. Right-click the application module and select the Add OSN View Instances menu item. This will start the OSN Enabled View Instances wizard, shown in Figure 67-1.

   Figure 67-1 OSN Enabled View Instances Wizard

   
3. At the top of the wizard is a dropdown list called Module. Choose the module that best represents the line of business for the current project.
4. Just beneath the Modules, there is a list of available view objects and a data model list. Find the view objects that are to be made available for Oracle Social Network integration from the list of available view objects and shuttle them into the data model. This signifies that the view object will be available for Oracle Social Network integration.
5. Click the view object in the data model pane to show the list of attributes for that view object in the Attributes tab.
6. Select the Enable check box next to any attribute that is to be available within that view object for Oracle Social Network integration. Only attributes that are enabled will be allowed to be sent to Oracle Social Network.
7. Click OK to finish the wizard.

The view object and its attributes are displayed to the functional administrator and end users in the "Manage Social Network Objects" page and also within Oracle Social Network, so these strings must be translated. A functional administrator can use the "Manage Social Network Objects" taskflow to enable Oracle Social Network integration by selecting view objects and attributes. When Oracle Social Network displays a view object Social Object, the data is displayed as name-value pairs. The Oracle Social Network integration re-uses the standard view object process for defining prompts for the translations that are sent to Oracle Social Network. This is done using the UI Hints properties that are already defined upon the business objects.

These UI Hint properties are used from the view object for translations:

• Display Name - used to show when a label is required for the view object.

• Display Name (Plural) - used to show when a plural label is required for the view object.

• Description - used for showing the description in the "Manage Social Network Objects" page.

These UI Hint properties are used from the view object's attributes as Oracle Social Network field label translations:

• Label - used to show when a label is required for the attribute.

• Display Name (Plural) - used to show when a plural label is required for the attribute.

What happens when translated Oracle Social Network labels are provided

The view object definition XML file will be modified with these custom properties set:

• View Object Property node names:

  • LABEL - Display Name

  • LABEL_PLURAL - Display Name (Plural)

  • TOOLTIP - Description

• Attribute Property node names:

  • LABEL - Label

  • LABEL_PLURAL - Display Name (Plural)

  The values provided in the Edit property window will be seeded into the translation bundle and the key will be stored as the ResId attribute of the relevant property node in the view object definition file. These are sample changes to the view object definition file:

  <ViewObject Name="SndDemoDeptVO">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <LABEL ResId="DEMO_DEPARTMENT"/>
   <LABEL_PLURAL ResId="DEMO_DEPARTMENTS"/>
   <TOOLTIP ResId="DEMONSTRATION_DEPARTMENT_FOR_S"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
   <ViewAttribute Name="DeptName">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <LABEL ResId="DEPARTMENT_NAME"/>
   <LABEL_PLURAL ResId="DEPARTMENT_NAMES"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
   </ViewAttribute>
  </ViewObject>
  

Oracle Social Network integration is restricted to sending data using a limited number of data types. The view object attributes can be configured to provide some contextual information about how the attribute value will be shown as a field value in Oracle Social Network. For example, a string representing a URL will be kept in the attribute as a String but can be configured to show in Oracle Social Network to display as a clickable link rather than as a static String.

The supported data types, explanations, and their usage are listed in Table 67-2.

Note: A Gadget Type is a type definition for data sent to Oracle Social Network that allows the Oracle Social Network server to provide additional functionality when rendering the value in the UI. For example, a Percent gadget type can be displayed with a %symbol after it and must be a value between 0.0 and 100.0.

If the OSN_GADGET_TYPE is not provided (default state for the property), then the Oracle Social Network integration code will use the Java Type to Gadget Type mapping shown in Table 67-3for sending the data to Oracle Social Network.

To configure the attributes for the Oracle Social Network field gadget types (non-Currency):

• Open the view object.

• Open the Attributes tab and click an Attribute.

• In the Property Inspector, open the Applications - Oracle Social Network section.

• Change the value in the Oracle Social Network Gadget Type to the required type.

• Click Save to keep the changes.

For setting an attribute to the Currency gadget type, an additional step must be followed to add the currency code for the currency value. By setting the Currency Code attribute property for the attribute, when the Social Object is sent to Oracle Social Network, the currency code value also will be sent with the currency value so that Oracle Social Network can display both values when it displays the currency value. Note that the currency code attribute does not need to be available to Oracle Social Network integration for its value to be used when sending the currency so long as the attribute for the Currency is available to Oracle Social Network integration. These are the steps to set up an attribute for currency:

• Open the view object.

• Open the Attributes tab and click an attribute that is to have the gadget type of Currency.

• In the Property Inspector, open the Applications - Oracle Social Network section.

• Change the Oracle Social Network Gadget Type to Currency.

• In the Currency Code attribute property, enter the name of the attribute whose value will contain the currency code value.

• Click Save to keep the changes.

An Oracle Fusion Applications developer can choose attributes from a view object that can be sent to Oracle Social Network. However, in some circumstances, the value that is retrieved may not be the value that is required to be sent. In these cases, a converter is required to take the attribute value from the view object row and change it into the value required. The converter is defined against the view object's attribute definition and executed automatically by the Oracle Social Network integration code. The converters:

• Allow being able to send to Oracle Social Network a modified version of the value stored in Oracle Fusion Applications.

• Provide the ability for lookup values (such as LOV values) to be looked up without having to add additional transient attributes to the original view object.

• Ensure the modification tracking of updates will work correctly as the modification is made to the "code" value in a lookup, not the "display" value. Previous to this enhancement, the "display" value would be required to be Oracle Social Network-enabled rather than the "code".

For example, Oracle Fusion Applications developers configure the view objects and attributes for the Oracle Social Network integration. However, restrictions on the Oracle Social Network server, and product team requirements mean that the value stored in the database table for a record cannot be sent to Oracle Social Network as-is. In these cases, a converter is required to be assigned to the attribute definition to take the stored value and convert it into the required format or value required by Oracle Social Network without any additional effect on the send to Oracle Social Network process.

There are four out-of-the-box converters ready to be used. A single converter can be added to the Attribute by using the values in the OSN Converter property in the property inspector. The OSN Converter property has a dropdown list containing these out-of-the-box converters. If the converter requires additional values to be supplied before the conversion can occur, then these can be set in the OSN Converter Parameters property that resides immediately below the OSN Converter property. The list of additional converter parameters to fill in can be seen by choosing the Edit... option from the property menu. The four out-of-the-box converters are:

• Boolean Converter

  Provides the ability to convert the object passed in into a boolean type based upon a customizable list of accepted (whitelist/true) or rejected (blacklist/false) values. If the object passed into convertBoolean is of type java.lang.Boolean, then this will be returned immediately. Otherwise, toString will be called on the object and the resultant String will be compared using a case-insensitive comparison to the trueValues or falseValues using the following algorithm:

  • trueValues and falseValues provided, then use trueValues and ignore falseValues.

  • trueValues=null and falseValues=null, default trueValues to be "y,t,1,yes,true".

  • trueValues supplied, then split the trueValues CSV and see if the passed-in value matches one of the values. If so, return true, otherwise false.

  • falseValues supplied and trueValues=null, then split the falseValues CSV and see if the passed-in value matches one of those values. If so, return false, otherwise true.

  The CSV parameters will conform to a standard CSV encoding to ensure the parameters do not become corrupt during persistence. Double quotes will be escaped by a second double quote (for example, " becomes "") and each entry in the CSV can be quoted.

  Note: This converter is strictly meant for converting "code values" into boolean values. Looked-up translated values are not supported with the OsnBooleanConverter. If a translated value is required to be sent to Oracle Social Network, either the translation can be sent as a string (using the LovConverter or LookupConverter) or a custom converter will need to be written. When mentioning the default trueValues whitelist, the values of yes/true are constant code values, not translatable versions of yes/true.

  OSN Converter: BooleanConv

  Parameters:

  • trueValues - (optional) - the CSV string list of values that when matched will return true from the converter.

  • falseValues - (optional) - the CSV string list of values that when matched will return false from the converter.

  Validates For: If attribute value to convert is null.

  Upon Validation Failure Return: null

  Can Convert Null: No

  Example:

  ColBoolean field in Oracle Social Network will be true if the attribute value is either "y" or "yes" (case-insensitive). All other values will return false.

  <ViewAttribute
   Name="ColBoolean"
   PrecisionRule="true"
   EntityAttrName="ColBoolean"
   EntityUsage="FndDemoOsnFieldsEO"
   AliasName="COL_BOOLEAN">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR
   Value="true"/>
   <fnd:OSN_GADGET_TYPE
   Value="boolean"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER
   Value="BooleanConv"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER_PARAM
   Value="trueValues=y,yes"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
   </ViewAttribute>
  

• Percentage Converter - 0.0-1.0 range converted to 0.0-100.0 range

  Converts the value between 0.0 and 1.0 that is provided and returns the matching percentage value between 0.0 and 100.0 required by Oracle Social Network for the percent Gadget Type. The convertPercentage method takes the value supplied, ensures that it meets the exception statement, converts it to a double value, and multiplies it by 100.0.

  OSN Converter: ZeroToOnePercentConv

  Parameters: None

  Validates For: A null, a non-numeric value, or a value not between 0.0 and 1.0 is passed in.

  Upon Validation Failure Return: null

  Can Convert Null: No

  Example:

  <ViewAttribute
   Name="ColPercent"
   PrecisionRule="true"
   EntityAttrName="ColPercent"
   EntityUsage="FndDemoOsnFieldsEO"
   AliasName="COL_PERCENT">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR
   Value="true"/>
   <fnd:OSN_GADGET_TYPE
   Value="percent"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER
   Value="ZeroToOnePercentConv"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
   </ViewAttribute>
  

• Attribute Lookup Converter

  The converter will look up another attribute value from the same view object row and substitute it for the actual attribute value.

  OSN Converter: OsnFieldValueConverter

  Parameters:

  displayAttributeName - mandatory - the name of another attribute in the view object to return the value of.

  Validates For: A null or a non-existent display attribute name supplied.

  Upon Validation Failure Return: null

  Can Convert Null: No

  Example:

  The value assigned to the ColString attribute will be sent to Oracle Social Network as the value for the ColLookupString Oracle Social Network field.

  <ViewAttribute
   Name="ColLookupString"
   PrecisionRule="true"
   EntityAttrName="ColLookupString"
   EntityUsage="FndDemoOsnFieldsEO"
   AliasName="COL_LOOKUP_STRING">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR
   Value="true"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER
   Value="LookupConv"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER_PARAM
   Value="displayAttributeName=ColString"/>
   <LABEL
   ResId="LOOKUP_CONVERTED"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  </ViewAttribute>
  <ViewAttribute
   Name="ColString"
   PrecisionRule="true"
   EntityAttrName="ColString"
   EntityUsage="FndDemoOsnFieldsEO"
   AliasName="COL_STRING">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR
   Value="true"/>
   <fnd:OSN_GADGET_TYPE
   Value="string"/>
   <DISPLAYWIDTH
   Value="80"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  </ViewAttribute>
  

• LOV Converter

  If an attribute has an LOV associated with it, then the LOV converter will use the definition of the attribute and look up the LOV associated with the attribute. It can then look up the display value from the LOV that is associated with the attribute value and send the LOV display value to Oracle Social Network.

  OSN Converter: OsnAttributeLookupLovConverter

  Parameters: None

  Validates For: An LOV List Binding must be defined for the attribute.

  Upon Validation Failure Return: null

  Can Convert Null: No

  Example:

  In this example the display value from the LOV_ColStatus LOV will be sent that matches the value of this attribute.

  <ViewAttribute
   Name="ColStatus"
   PrecisionRule="true"
   EntityAttrName="ColStatus"
   EntityUsage="FndDemoOsnFieldsEO"
   AliasName="COL_STATUS"
   LOVName="LOV_ColStatus">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <CONTROLTYPE
   Value="choice"/>
   <fnd:OSN_CONVERTER
   Value="LovConv"/>
   <LABEL
   ResId="LOV_CONVERTED"/>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR
   Value="true"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  </ViewAttribute>
  

When a view object row is sent to Oracle Social Network as a Social Object, it will be displayed in the Oracle Social Network UI as a record with a title and a collection of name-value pairs. The value that is shown as the title of the Social Object can be configured on the view object. The following steps describe how to set the title for the Social Object:

• Open the view object in JDeveloper and click the Attributes tab.

• Determine that the attribute is to be used as the Social Object title value. If this is a pre-existing attribute value, skip the next three optional steps.

• [Optional-generated title] Define a new transient attribute that has a type of String.

• [Optional-generated title] Implement the title generation in the transient attribute as a Groovy expression or as a Java override of the getter attribute of the transient attribute in the RowImpl class for the view object.

• [Optional-generated title] In the Dependencies page of the attribute wizard, make the String transient attribute dependent upon the custom value type attribute.

• Select the attribute (transient or actual).

• Access the Property Inspector in the Applications - Oracle Social Network section and set the Oracle Social Network User Key to be "true".

• Click Save to keep the changes.

fnd:OSN_USER_KEY - The Oracle Social Network User Key custom attribute.

<ViewAttribute Name="DeptName">
 <Properties>
 <SchemaBasedProperties>
 <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR Value="true"/>
 <fnd:OSN_USER_KEY Value="true"/>
 </SchemaBasedProperties>
 </Properties>
</ViewAttribute>

When a view object row is sent to Oracle Social Network, the Social Object will be assigned an internal unique identifier that will represent the Social Object during any interactions with Oracle Social Network. To perform subsequent updates to the Social Object from the view object, the Social Object also retains an external key based upon a single attribute value that must be sent to Oracle Social Network with every call. Without any additional configuration, the Oracle Social Network integration will build a concatenated value based upon the values of the attributes marked as the primary key that should suffice in most scenarios. If this concatenated value is longer than 256 characters, or the developer has a better key to use to uniquely identify the row, the Oracle Social Network integration provides the ability to override the automatically-generated value with a value of a custom property called OSN Object Key. For example, if a child object in a parent-child relationship is being sent to Oracle Social Network, then its primary key may be comprised of the parent object's primary key plus a unique value for the child. If the child value is unique within the child table, then the parent primary key is not required for the Social Object to uniquely identify with the view object row. So by marking the child unique value as the Oracle Social Network Object Key, there will be a slight performance gain as the external key for the Social Object does not need to be calculated.

To set up the Oracle Social Network Object Key:

• Open the view object in JDeveloper and click the Attributes tab.

• Determine that attribute is to be used as the Social Object external key value. If this is a pre-existing attribute value then skip the next three optional steps.

• [Optional-generated key] Define a new transient attribute that has a type of String.

• [Optional-generated key] Implement the key generation in the transient attribute as a Groovy expression or as a Java override of the getter attribute of the transient attribute in the RowImpl class for the view object.

• [Optional-generated key] In the Dependencies page of the attribute wizard, make the String transient attribute dependent upon the custom value type attribute.

• Select the attribute (transient or actual).

• Access the Property Inspector in the Applications - Oracle Social Network section and set the Object Key to be "true."

• Click Save to keep the changes.

  What happens when you define the Oracle Social Network Social Object Key

  The Attribute definition within the view object definition XML file will be modified with the following custom property:

  fnd:OSN_OBJECT_KEY - The Object Key attribute.
  

  The following is an example of the modification in the view object Attribute definition XML.

  <ViewAttribute Name="DeptNum">
   <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR Value="true"/>
   <fnd:OSN_OBJECT_KEY Value="true"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  </ViewAttribute>
  

  Note:

  • Single attribute primary key view objects do not need to set this value because no concatenations need to occur to get the primary key value to use.

  • There should only one attribute with the Oracle Social Network Object Key custom property value set to "true". If there are multiple attributes with the custom property set, then the first one that is found during processing will be used and all others will be ignored.

  • If no attributes are provided with this custom property set, then the concatenated values of the attributes that comprise the view object primary key will be used.

Use the information in this section to navigate from the Oracle Social Network Social Object into the Oracle Fusion Applicationsuser interface.

After a view object row is sent to Oracle Social Network as a Social Object there may be a need for the user to modify the original values for that row. The mechanism that allows navigating from the Social Object back into the record in Oracle Fusion Applicationsuses a "View Details" URL that is shown when viewing the Social Object details. To be able to generate a URL that can navigate into Oracle Fusion Applications, there must be a taskflow to be called that can accept parameters to load the row in the product application page as well as configuration on the view object that provides the information allowing the Oracle Social Network integration to build the URL. The configuration on the view object is performed by setting the following properties:

• Nav Web Application (fnd:OSN_FA_WEBAPP) - This is a mandatory field. It is the identifier for a registered web application that is to be called back into. The value provided here must be seeded into Topology Manager as a deployed application.

  It is used in the Oracle Social Network integration to determine the web applications that will be called back into when the View Details link is clicked. This web application will be used to look up the base URL for the callback URL. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_WEBAPP
   Value="ApplcoreCRMDemo"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  

• Nav View Id (fnd:OSN_FA_VIEW_ID) -This is a mandatory field. This is the identifier for the view that will be displayed upon callback.

  It is used in the Oracle Social Network integration to determine what view is to be loaded when the callback is made from the View Details link. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_VIEW_ID
   Value="MyPage"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties> 
  

• Nav Page Params List (fnd:OSN_FA_PAGE_PARAMS_LIST) - This is a semicolon separated list of name-value pairs to be passed to the Oracle Fusion application's page as page level parameters when the callback is made from the View Details link. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_PAGE_PARAMS_LIST
   Value="key1=value1;key2=value2"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties> 
  

• Nav Taskflow Id (fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASKFLOW_ID) - This is a mandatory field. This is an Id to a bound task flow available in the page. This task flow will be called and passed parameters from OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_PARAMS_LIST when the callback is made from the View Details link. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASKFLOW_ID
   Value="/WEB-INF/StartupDefaultMainTaskFlow.xml#StartupDefaultMainTaskFlow"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties> 
  

• Nav Task Key List (fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_KEY_LIST) - This is a semicolon separated list of name-value pairs to be passed to the page containing the task flow. These parameters are used to distinguish one instance of the task flow from any others that are also running. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_KEY_LIST
   Value="key1=value1;key2=value2"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties> 
  

• Nav Task Params List (fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_PARAMS_LIST) - This is a semicolon separated list of name-value pairs to be passed to the called bound task flow in the Oracle Fusion application's page. These will be specific to the task flow and need to be defined as input parameters on the task flow. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_PARAMS_LIST
   Value="key1=value1;key2=value2"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  

• Task Label (fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL) - This is the label to be shown on the tab displayed that contains the bound task flow. This label will be a key into the appropriate translated bundle. An example is shown here:

  <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL
   Value="SearchFlatTableVO1_OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
   </Properties>
  xlf bundle ....
  <trans-unit id="SearchFlatTableVO1_OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL">
   <source>Flat Table</source>
   <target/>
   </trans-unit> 
  

• Task Label Attribute (fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL_ATTR) - This is the name of an attribute in the view object that contains the label to be shown on the tab displayed that contains the bound task flow. An example is shown here:

  <Properties>
   <SchemaBasedProperties>
   <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL_ATTR
   Value="TaskLabelAttribute"/>
   </SchemaBasedProperties>
  </Properties>
  

  Note:

  • This should not be used if the Task Label property is set. If both are set, then this one will take precedence and the Task Label will be ignored.

  • The attribute to which this property refers can be a transient or actual attribute.

The values supplied for Nav Page Params List, Nav Task Key List, Nav Task Params List and Task Label can contain attribute name tokens that will be resolved when the View Details URL is being generated before it is sent to Oracle Social Network. The token is made up of an attribute name contained within curly brackets {}.

For example, if the Nav Task Params List is defined as "deptNumParam={DeptNum}" then the value of the view object row Attribute called "DeptNum" will replace the {DeptNum} token.

To set up the view object for the View Details URL:

• Open the view object in JDeveloper and click the General tab.

• In the Property Inspector, go to the Applications - Oracle Social Network section.

• Fill in the following custom properties:

  Nav Web Application

  Nav View Id

  Nav Page Params List

  Nav Taskflow Id

  Nav Task Key List

  Nav Task Params List

  Task Label

  Task Label Attribute

• Click Save to keep the changes.

<ViewObject Name="SndDemoDeptVO">
 <Properties>
 <SchemaBasedProperties>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_WEBAPP Value="SocialNetworkDemo"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_VIEW_ID Value="SocialNetworkDemo"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASKFLOW_ID Value="/WEB-INF/DemoDepartmentTF.xml#DemoDepartmentTF"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_PARAMS_LIST Value="deptNumParam={DeptNum}"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_PAGE_PARAMS_LIST Value="deptNumPageParam={DeptNum}"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_KEY_LIST Value="deptNumKeyParam={DeptNum}"/>
 <fnd:OSN_FA_NAV_TASK_LABEL ResId="NAVIGATE_DEPT_DEPTNUM"/>
 </SchemaBasedProperties>
 </Properties>
</ViewObject>

When a view object is registered with Oracle Social Network as a Social Object definition, the definition must have a unique name assigned to it that will be used to identify the definition. Without any additional configuration, the registration name will be the concatenation of the application module Id and the fully qualified view object Name. For example, if the application module Id was FND and the view object was oracle.apps.fnd.applcore.demo.FndDemoDeptVO, then the registration definition would be FND.oracle.apps.fnd.applcore.demo.FndDemoDeptVO. In addition to the registration name for the view object, the Social Object Field Names are based upon the names of the attributes in the view object.

The Oracle Social Network integration provides a way to override the view object Social Object registration name and the Social Object Field Names. This can be done for the continued support of the existing Oracle Social Network registrations (such as for CRM/HCM) or to ensure that the length of the names does not exceed the 256 character limit.

To set the overrides of the Social Object definition registration names:

• Open the view object in JDeveloper and click the General tab.

• In the Property Inspector go to the Applications - Oracle Social Network section.

• Set the following custom property to override the view object's Social Object registration definition name:

  fnd:OSN_DEFINITION_NAME - This must be in the format <module id>.<name>. For example: FND.FndDempDept.

• Click the Attributes tab and select the attribute that is to have its Social Object Field Name overridden.

• Set the following custom property:

  fnd:OSN_DEFINITION_NAME - The Social Object Field name the attribute will be referred to as.

• Click Save to keep the changes.

<ViewObject Name="FndDemoOsnFieldsVO">
<Properties>
 <SchemaBasedProperties>
 <fnd:OSN_DEFINITION_NAME Value="fnd.FndDemoOsnFieldsVO"/>
 </SchemaBasedProperties>
</Properties>
<ViewAttribute Name="OsnTestRecordId">
 <Properties>
 <SchemaBasedProperties>
 <fnd:OSN_ENABLED_ATTR Value="true"/>
 <fnd:OSN_ATTR_DEFINITION_NAME Value="TestId"/>
 </SchemaBasedProperties>
 </Properties>
</ViewAttribute>

The Oracle Social Network integration can support view objects that are comprised of multiple updatable entity objects.

A multi-updatable entity object view object is:

• A view object that has multiple entity objects selected to be within it.

• The Join Type must be an inner join.

• The entity objects that are participating in the update must have an association defined between them that creates an accessor in the Primary entity object that returns an instance of an OAEntityImpl (or one of its sub-classes) objects that is the instance of the Secondary entity object.

There are several cases in Oracle Fusion Applicationswhere an Oracle Social Network integration available view object is tied to multiple updatable entity objects. For example, several Oracle Fusion applicationsuse TCA (HZ_PARTIES) to manage key attributes about a person or company. Many teams, such as Procurement and CRM, extend the TCA schema with their own tables and columns to meet the information gathering requirements for their product. Procurement owns an entity called Supplier that extends the TCA Party schema to maintain information about a company from which you would like to purchase goods and services. The Supplier view object would therefore have updateable attributes from both the Supplier entity object and the TCA Party entity object. ATG business event registration for Oracle Social Network integration typically only references the primary entity object. In the TCA case, a customer can go to the Maintain Supplier UI and update a single attribute, such as Supplier Name. The Supplier Name is maintained in the TCA Party entity object that, in this case, is not the primary entity object. We must publish these cases to Oracle Social Network as update events but we do not want to place the Oracle Social Network integration events on multiple entity objects to avoid mass duplication of events.

The solution for this use case is to register the Primary entity object (Supplier entity object) as a post transaction listener for the Secondary entity object (Party entity object). Whenever an update occurs in the Secondary entity object, the primary entity object will also be notified and its post transaction processing will send the view object data from both entity objects to Oracle Social Network.

These implementation steps are required to enable Oracle Social Network for multi-entity entity objects. This assumes the pre-condition of the accessor being as described at the beginning of this section.

• In Jdeveloper, open the definition of the Primary entity object class.

• Access the Java tab and click the Edit icon.

• Click Generate Entity Collection Class.

• Click OK to generate the EOCollImpl class for the entity object.

• Open the EOCollImpl class for the entity object in the source editor.

• Add the following code:

  @Override
  protected EntityImpl add(EntityImpl srow)
  { 
  OAEntityImpl eo =(OAEntityImpl) super.add(srow); 
  byte state =srow.getPostState();
   if(EntityImpl.STATUS_UNMODIFIED ==state ||
  EntityImpl.STATUS_MODIFIED ==state)
   {
  eo.registerOsnExternalListener("SecondaryEOAccessor"); 
  }
  return eo;
  }
  

• Change the SecondaryEOAccessor to be the name of the accessor attribute in the Primary entity object that returns the OAEntityImpl (or sub-class) for the Secondary entity object.

<ViewObject
 xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/bc4j"
 Name="MeoDeptAttachNonReferenceVO"
 xmlns:fnd="http://xmlns.oracle.com/apps/entityview">
 <Properties>
 <SchemaBasedProperties>
 <fnd:OSN_PRIMARY_EO Value="MeoFndDemoDeptEO"/>
 </SchemaBasedProperties>
 </Properties>
 <EntityUsage
 Name="MeoFndDemoDeptEO"
 Entity="oracle.apps.fnd.applcore.socialnetwork.model.test.setup.multieo.attach.MeoFndDemoDeptEO"/>
</ViewObject>

A common scenario in Fusion Applicationsis to have two different UI pages for a single Business Object:

• A summary page that outlines the information in a logical read-only way and may include other information that is logical to show with that object.

• An edit page where the information about that object can be modified.

To achieve this in Fusion Applications, two different view objects are required (one per page) that refer to the same business object (such as Opportunity). Therefore, a logical business requirement would be to have both view objects update and view the exact same Social Object on the Oracle Social Network server. This would require Oracle Social Network to enable both view objects individually, because they need to be able to access the Oracle Social Network server independently of each other. The following instructions demonstrate how to share the same Social Object when there are two different view objects that can provide the attribute definitions, translations, and so on.

Under certain circumstances, there is a requirement to send data to Oracle Social Network without having an entity object that is based upon a database table. For example, a team could be using an Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job to update data that does use an entity object but still want that data sent to Oracle Social Network. The way to do this would be to use a Transient entity object and Transient view object.

Sending to Oracle Social Network from a Transient view object or entity object is possible with Oracle Social Network integration, however, the solution does have some restrictions. Performing a send to Oracle Social Network that creates a record is relatively straightforward. The entity object and view object were created using the wizard in JDeveloper and all attributes manually entered. The view object was then added to an application module that will control the transaction in which this will occur. A transaction is required for this functionality because the send to Oracle Social Network happens upon the commit of the transaction. The configuration of the Oracle Social Network properties and setup UI is identical to a regular view object, except there must be a minor fix to the VOImpl to change its default of looking at database tables, to directly looking at the entity cache so that the Oracle Social Network integration can find the row upon commit. This is done using the following code:

@Override
protected void create()
{
 super.create();
 setQueryMode(QUERY_MODE_SCAN_ENTITY_ROWS |QUERY_MODE_SCAN_UNPOSTED_ENTITY_ROWS |QUERY_MODE_SCAN_VIEW_ROWS);
}

This section discusses situations that are not covered elsewhere.

• Date Effective Entity Objects

  A date effective entity object is one in which an update on an existing entity object row puts an end date on it and creates or inserts a new row with the updated details. In Oracle Social Network, this should only submit the details of the update and not the insert of the new row. Only the last chronological date effective row data will be sent to Oracle Social Network. This is the date effective row where the Effective End Date is 31-Dec-4712. Data from any other date effective row that does not contain that end date will not be sent to Oracle Social Network.

  It is possible for the last chronological date effective row to be effective from a future date. To communicate this to the viewer, a new attribute "As Of" automatically will be included for a date effective object when it is enabled for Oracle Social Network. The value of this attribute will come from the attribute that contains the start date of the date effective range.

• Parent-Child View Objects

  You can send view object rows for both the parent and child rows individually, but you cannot send both Social Objects together as a Master - Detail since Oracle Social Network does not support this relationship. There are ways to view the parent from the details rows using the parent id and tie them together through URLs in the Oracle Social Network UI.

• Descriptive Flexfields

  The Oracle Social Network integration supports descriptive flexfields which have been deployed for an Oracle Social Network-enabled view object. An Oracle Fusion applications developer does not need to configure any properties at design time to enable the descriptive flexfield integration. When the Functional Administrator uses the "Manage Social Network Objects" UI to add attributes to send to Oracle Social Network, the descriptive flexfields attributes will also be shown in the list in a tree structure organized by value set.

1. Select the view object in the Business Objects tree that is to have attributes Oracle Social Network enabled. This should show the list of Oracle Social Network enabled attributes in the table at the bottom of the page.
2. Click New. This will display a dialog showing all of the attributes that the developer marked as Oracle Social Network integration available.
3. Check or uncheck the check boxes next to each attribute to add and remove attributes. Attributes that are selected are Oracle Social Network enabled.
4. Click OK.