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Oracle Application Server Adapter for Oracle Applications User's Guide
10g (10.1.3.1.0)

Part Number B28351-03
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Oracle Application Server Adapter for Oracle Applications User's Guide
10g (10.1.3.1.0)
Part Number B28351-03
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Contents
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Introduction to OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

Oracle Applications is a set of integrated business applications that runs entirely on the Internet. Oracle Applications offers you the following:

The applications in Oracle Applications are built on a unified information architecture that consolidates data from Oracle and non-Oracle applications and enables a consistent definition of customers, suppliers, partners, and employees across the entire enterprise. This results in a suite of applications that can give you information, such as current performance metrics, financial ratios, profit and loss summaries. To connect Oracle Applications to non-Oracle applications, you use OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications.

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications provides comprehensive, bidirectional, multimodal, synchronous, and asynchronous connectivity to Oracle Applications. The adapter supports all modules of Oracle Applications for versions 11.5.1 to11.5.10. In addition, OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications provides real-time and bidirectional connectivity to Oracle Applications.

Note: This overview includes details about features and capabilities that are new in the current release of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications. For more information, see New Features in This Release.

Features

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications includes the following features:

Architecture

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is based on J2CA 1.0 standards and deployed as a resource adapter in the same Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE (OC4J) container as BPEL Process Manager. The architecture of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is similar to the architecture of technology adapters.

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications Architecture

the picture is described in the document text

Integration Interface Types

OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications acts as a highly flexible integration interface for Oracle Applications. The adapter supports the following interface types for integrating with Oracle Applications:

New Features in This Release

This section describes the new features that have been added in OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications 10g (10.1.3.1.0).

Support for Oracle Integration Repository

Oracle Integration Repository, an integral part of Oracle E-Business Suite, is a prebuilt catalog of information about the numerous public integration interfaces delivered with Oracle applications, known as business interfaces. It provides a comprehensive view of the interface mechanisms available for Oracle E-Business Suite's business interfaces. These interfaces are exposed because their definitions were annotated at design-time as required by Oracle Integration Repository.

Oracle Integration Repository can only provide information about an integration interface that has been specifically annotated by the developer to make it public. OracleAS Adapter takes advantage of the annotations that have already been created to make the following business interface types visible in the Oracle Applications Module Browser:

These business interfaces are exposed as Web services, and are available for process orchestration through the Oracle BPEL Process Manager.

Note: This view of business interfaces is provided from the static XML data file of Oracle Integration Repository for look-up into the integration interfaces for selection during design-time in the wizard.

For more information, see Oracle Integration Repository User's Guide.This guide is a part of the Oracle Applications documentation library. Oracle Applications documentation can be accessed with the following link:

http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/applications.html

Additional Integration Interface Types

OracleAS Adapter now provides new or enhanced support for several integration interface types, which are exposed by the Oracle Applications Module Browser:

Note: These interface types are not exposed by Oracle Integration Repository.

The integration interfaces are exposed as Web services, and are available for process orchestration through the Oracle BPEL Process Manager.

Meaningful Parameter Names

In the past, concurrent program parameters were listed generically by the Oracle BPEL Process Manager according to their positions in the input, for example: parm1, parm2, parm3, with no indication of their purpose or data type. Starting in the current release, the parameters will be displayed with meaningful names taken from the concurrent program definition. For example, for the concurrent program named OE Order Import (OEOIMP), the parameters would be:

Business Event Schema Selection Page

OracleAS Adapter now allows you to select the schema used for business event payload in the following three options:

When you select either the 'No Schema' or 'Any Schema' option, there is no need to further specify the schema information for your business event service. The associated WSDL file corresponding to your specified business event service will be generated. If you select the 'Specify Schema' option, then you must specify the location of schema file and then select the schema element that defines the payload of outbound business event.

Understanding Applications Context

Applications context is required for secured transaction processing into and out of Oracle Applications.

Applications context is a combination of Organization ID, Username and Responsibility. To establish applications context, the Organization ID is implicitly derived from the Oracle Applications setup data.

To understand applications context, you need to understand first how Organization ID and multiple organizations are related.

You can define multiple organizations and the relationships between them in a single installation of Oracle Applications. These organizations can be sets of books, business groups, legal entities, operating units, or inventory organizations.

You can define multilevel organization hierarchies, with a business group at the top of each hierarchy. When you define new organizations, they are automatically assigned to the business group associated with your current session. Each organization is part of a business group. The business group is usually the top box on an enterprise organization chart.

Business Group Hierarchy

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Example of a Multi-Organization Setup

Using the accounting, distribution, and materials management functions in Oracle Applications, you define the relationships among inventory organizations, operating units, legal entities, and sets of books to create a multilevel company structure, as shown in the following diagram.

A Multi-Organization Transaction

the picture is described in the document text

Consider two different organizations in your company: One is a French sales office and the other is a German warehouse. There is a sales order transaction with the customer, and this illustrates how the entire Order-to-Deliver process would work:

  1. The customer places a sales order with the French sales office.

  2. The German warehouse delivers the product shipment to the customer.

  3. The German warehouse issues an inter-company invoice to the French sales office.

  4. The French sales office makes the inter-company payment to the German warehouse.

  5. The French sales office sends the customer invoice to the customer.

  6. The customer makes payment to the French sales office.

The database architecture is the same for a Multi-Org and non-Multi-Org installation, and uses the standard install tools feature that automatically creates synonyms in the APPS schema for each base product table and defines these synonyms with the same name as the base product tables. For example, the PO Oracle schema has a table named PO_HEADERS_ALL and the APPS schema has a corresponding synonym of the same name, PO_HEADERS_ALL. The PO_HEADERS_ALL synonym can be used to access unpartitioned data.

Schema Synonyms

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Now let's see how Oracle Applications ties Username, Responsibility with Organization ID. While setting up the System Profile Values, the username, responsibility is tied up with the Organization with Username, Responsibility.

Multi-Organization System Profile

the picture is described in the document text

The following diagram illustrates how Oracle Applications use the profile options.

Building Applications Context

the picture is described in the document text

  1. When the system integrator runs, the process achieves the integration with Oracle Applications using PL/SQL APIs.

  2. The Apps.Initialize process takes the parameters of Username and Responsibility.

  3. With these parameters, a lookup on the System Profile Values is done to determine the Operating Unit.

  4. The Operating Unit is modeled as Organization ID in the System Profile Values.

  5. The data is read and written into the Oracle Applications with the parameters of Username, Responsibility and Organization ID.

Installing OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications

The installation of the Oracle Application Server Adapter happens out-of-the-box with the Oracle BPEL Process Manager (PM) product. OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications is deployed using the Oracle BPEL PM in Oracle JDeveloper.

Note: Refer to Oracle Application Server Integration Business Activity Monitoring User's Guide for more details about installing Oracle BPEL Process Manager. Refer to the section "Notes on Installing Oracle BPEL Process Manager."

Using the Oracle Applications Module Browser

In addition to the interfaces that are made available through Oracle Integration Repository, OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications enables you to use business events, customized PL/SQL APIs, customized XML Gateway maps, and selected concurrent programs, all of which you can explore using the Oracle Applications Module Browser.

Oracle Applications Module Browser

the picture is described in the document text

The Oracle Applications Module Browser is a key component of OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications. You use the Module Browser to select the interface needed to define a partner link. The Module Browser combines interface data from Oracle Integration Repository with information about the additional interfaces supported by OracleAS Adapter, organized in a tree hierarchy as follows:

ProductFamilies
 |-[product_family]
 |  |-[product]
 |     |-[business_entity]
 |        |-XML Gateway ([n])
 |        |-EDI ([n])
 |        |-PLSQL ([n])
 |        |  |-[package_name]
 |        |-OpenInterfaces ([n])
 |           |-[OpenInterface_name]
 |              |-Tables ([n])
 |              |-Views ([n])
 |              |-ConcurrentPrograms ([n])
 |-Other Interfaces
    |-Business Events
    |-Custom Objects
       |-PLSQL APIs
       |  |-[package_name]
       |-XMLGateway Maps
          |-Inbound
          |-Outbound

Note: The items under Other Interfaces, as well as certain PL/SQL APIs and concurrent programs under the [product family] hierarchy, are available through OracleAS Adapter for Oracle Applications, but not through Oracle Integration Repository.

The Oracle Integration Repository interface data populates the [product_family] sections, grouped according to the products and business entities to which they belong. Each interface type heading is followed by a number [n] indicating how many of that type are listed in that section.

Business events appear under Other Interfaces. Customized XML Gateway maps appear under Other Interfaces > Custom Objects, categorized as either inbound or outbound.

Customized PL/SQL APIs appear in two places:

General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes the following issues and workarounds: