2
The Sample Application

This chapter describes the sample application, "Employee Benefit Application", used in this guide.

Contents of this chapter:

• Section 2.1, "Requirements for the Sample Application"

• Section 2.2, "Screenshots of the Sample Application"

• Section 2.3, "Database Schema"

2.1 Requirements for the Sample Application

The Employee Benefit application enables users to view employee information (such as first name, last name, email, and phone number), and add and remove benefits. A typical user of the application is an employee who manages benefits for other employees in a company.

The functional requirements for the sample application are:

• Display data from the employees, employee_benefit_items, and benefits tables on the Info page (Figure 2-1). The database schema for these tables is listed in Section 2-4, "Database schema".

• Enable the user to add benefits.

• Enable the user to remove benefits.

Miscellaneous:

• Application must be able to run within a portal.

Clients for the application:

• Web browsers

• Wireless clients (mobile phones and PDAs)

2.2 Screenshots of the Sample Application

When the user invokes the application, the first page prompts the user to enter an employee ID (Figure 2-1).

When the user clicks the Query Employee button, the application queries the database for the specified employee ID. If found, the application displays information for that employee, including which benefits the employee has currently elected (Figure 2-1).

If the employee ID does not match an employee, the application displays an error page (Figure 2-3).

On the Info page, the user can add or remove benefits by selecting the Add or Remove Benefit link. The application then displays the Add or Remove Benefits page (Figure 2-2). The user selects which benefits to add or remove, and clicks the Add Selected Benefits or Remove Selected Benefits button. If successful, the application displays the Success page, and the user can click the "Query the Same Employee" link to see the updated benefits.

For screen shots of the application running on a wireless device, see Chapter 7, "Supporting Wireless Clients".

Figure 2-1 ID page and Info page

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Figure 2-2 Add Benefits Page, Remove Benefits Page, and Success Page

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Figure 2-3 Error page

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2.3 Database Schema

The Employee Benefit sample application uses the common hr schema that comes with Oracle9i database and Oracle9iAS Metadata Repository. The application uses the hr.employees table, plus two additional tables (benefits and employee_benefit_items) that you install. You install these tables in the default tablespace of the hr schema.

Table 2-1 Tables in the hr schema

Table name	Description
employees	Contains fields such as: employee_id, first_name, last_name, phone, email, and department.
benefits	Contains fields such as benefit_id, benefit_name, and benefit_description.
employee_benefit_items	Maps employees with benefits. The table has fields such as employee_id, employee_id, and election_date. An employee can have multiple benefits. This is the table that the application updates when employees update their benefit elections.

The application retrieves data from all three tables, but updates only the employee_benefit_items table.

Figure 2-4 Database schema

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