Navigating Through Oracle Integration Repository

This chapter covers the following topics:

Oracle Integration Repository Overview

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway is the intrinsic part of Oracle E-Business Suite for service enablement. It provides the capability of invoking Web services and allowing Web service clients to make use of the services provided from Oracle E-Business Suite.

To accomplish this goal, there must be a centralized location where all service related business interfaces can be stored, and at the same time all application users can browse through these business interfaces knowing what type of services are available for service consumption. Oracle Integration Repository, an integral part of Oracle E-Business Suite, is the repository to serve this purpose.

Oracle Integration Repository contains numerous interface endpoints exposed by applications throughout the entire Oracle E-Business Suite. It is not only an essential component within Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway, but also provides a complete catalog of integration interfaces within Oracle E-Business Suite. You can use this tool to easily discover and search on interfaces, regardless of custom or Oracle seeded ones.

Integration Interface Types Within Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle Integration Repository supports the following integration interface types which can be categorized as follows:

Detailed information on each interface type, see Interface Types.

Major Features

Getting Started

Accessing Oracle Integration Repository

You can access the repository like any other Oracle E-Business Suite application, provided that you are logged in as a user with sufficient permissions. From the Navigator menu, select the Integrated SOA Gateway responsibility, then click the Integration Repository link. Oracle Integration Repository appears.

Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway allows the following three roles to access the Integration Repository user interfaces and perform necessary tasks:

Users who have different roles can perform various tasks as described in the following table:

Privileges System Integration Analyst System Integration Developer Integration Repository Administrator
View Public Interfaces Yes Yes Yes
View Private/Internal Interfaces No Yes Yes
Generate/Regenerate SOAP Web Services No Yes Yes
Deploy/Undeploy SOAP Web Services No No Yes
Deploy/Undeploy REST Web Services No No Yes
Subscribe to Business Events No No Yes
Create Grants No No Yes
View Grants No Yes Yes
Download Composite Service No
(Configurable)
Yes Yes

Note: Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway leverages the concepts of permissions and permission sets to grant data access privileges or permissions to users through roles. For example, multiple privileges related to administrative functions can be grouped into an administrative permission set and then granted to a user through the Integration Repository Administrator role. That user becomes an integration repository administrator and has privileges to perform administrative tasks.

System integration analysts by default do not have the privilege to download composite services unless they are granted the download privilege through a permission set. For more information on how to manage security through roles, see Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) Security, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide.

For information on SOAP and REST Web services and how to perform additional administrative tasks, see Common Information on SOAP Web Services and Common Information on REST Web Services.

For information on how to manage security grants, see Managing Grants.

Accessing the Administration Link to Perform Additional Administrative Tasks

After logging in to Oracle E-Business Suite with the Integrated SOA Gateway responsibility, users who have the Integration Repository Administrator role can find the Administration link in addition to the Integration Repository link from the Navigator menu. This Administration link is specifically for the administrator to perform additional administrative tasks outside the Integration Repository user interface. Expand the Administration link to display:

For detailed information on each task performed by the Integration Repository Administrator role, see Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide. For tasks related to the System Integration Developer role, see Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Developer's Guide.

Using Oracle Integration Repository

Oracle Integration Repository has two main user interfaces: The Browse interface (the default) and the Search interface.

Following are links to some of the commonly requested information about using Oracle Integration Repository:

Discovering and Reviewing Interfaces

Browsing the Integration Interfaces

The Browse interface appears by default when you invoke Oracle Integration Repository. You can also access it by clicking the Browse button on the search page or any interface information page.

You can browse directly to an appropriate list of interfaces if you know which product family and product you want to integrate with, plus one of the following:

If you don't have this information, you'll find it more effective to conduct a search.

Oracle Integration Repository Browse Page

the picture is described in the document text

You browse the interfaces by selecting one of the following views from the View By list:

Expand the navigation tree in one of these views to see a list of the available interfaces. To save the list of interfaces in a CSV file, click Export.

To review the details of an interface, click the interface name on the list.

Browsing by Product Family

The Product Family view is organized as follows: Product Family > Product > Business Entity.

For example, Financials > Payables > Payables Invoice.

Select a business entity to view the interfaces that comprise it. Note that a business entity can include multiple interfaces of different types owned by different products. For example, the business entity "Payables Invoice" includes the following:

Browsing by Interface Type

The Interface Type view is organized as follows: Interface Type > Product Family > Product.

For example, Web Service > Financials > Cash Management.

Use this view to see all of the interfaces available for a particular product that use a particular interface type.

Browsing by Standard

The Standard view is organized as follows: Standard and Version > Product Family > Product.

For example, OAG7.2 > Financials > Payables > Process Invoice.

Use this view to browse for a product's XML Gateway maps and web services belonging to the specified standard, for example W3C or OAG 7.2.

Searching for an Integration Interface

Click the Search button anywhere in Oracle Integration Repository to access the main Search page.

Oracle Integration Repository Search Page

the picture is described in the document text

You can search for interfaces with any combination of the following criteria:

Note: Before entering search criteria in the Search page, you will find the default value 'All' automatically displayed in the Product Family, Product, Interface Source, and Interface Type fields. This allows a search to be executed appropriately if you do not make further selections from the drop-down lists.

Additionally, the same default value 'All' can also be found in the Category, Status, Web Service Status, Standard, and Scope fields while clicking the Show More Search Options link.

Click Show More Search Options to include any of the following additional criteria in your search:

After selecting your criteria, click Go to launch the search and see a list of the available interfaces that meet the criteria. To save the list of interfaces to a CSV file, click Export.

To review the details of an interface, click the interface name on the list.

Interface Types

Business interfaces are organized into interface types according to the integration technologies on which they're based.

Based on the natural way of how services are formed or established, Oracle Integration Repository supports the following interface types:

Note: Oracle Integration Repository supports custom integration interfaces that are created and annotated based on Integration Repository annotation standards. After appropriate validation, these annotated source files can be uploaded and displayed along with Oracle interfaces through the Integration Repository browser tree based on the interface types they belong to.

To easily differentiate them from Oracle interfaces, all custom integration interfaces are categorized with interface source 'Custom' while Oracle interfaces are marked with interface source 'Oracle'. For more information about custom integration interfaces and services, see Working With Custom Integration Interfaces and Services.

Business Events

A business event is an occurrence in an internet application that might be significant to other objects in a system or to external agents. An example of a business event can be the creation of a new sales order or changes to an existing order.

Oracle Workflow uses the Business Event System that leverages the Oracle Advanced Queuing (AQ) infrastructure to communicate and manage business events between systems. The Business Event System consists of an Event Manager and workflow process event activities. The Event Manager lets you register subscriptions to significant events; event activities representing business events within workflow processes let you model complex business flows or logics within workflow processes.

When a local event occurs, the subscribing code is executed in the same transaction as the code that raised the event. Subscription processing can include executing custom code on the event information, sending event information to a workflow process, and sending event information to other queues or systems.

Additional Information: Users with Integration Repository Administrator role can have the privilege to subscribe to a business event in the Business Event Details page. See Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Implementation Guide for details.

For more business event information, see Events, Oracle Workflow Developer's Guide.

XML Gateway Message Maps

Oracle XML Gateway comprises a set of services that allows easy integration with Oracle E-Business Suite to support XML messaging. The Oracle E-Business Suite utilizes the Oracle Workflow Business Event System to support event-based XML message creation and consumption.

Oracle XML Gateway consumes events raised by the Oracle E-Business Suite and subscribes to inbound events for processing. XML Gateway uses the message propagation feature of Oracle Advanced Queuing to integrate with Oracle Transport Agent to deliver messages to and receive messages from business partners. XML Gateway supports both Business-to-Business (B2B) and Application-to-Application (A2A) initiatives. XML Gateway message maps (or just XML Gateway maps) can be used directly, or they can be exposed as Web services.

Additional Information: The message map is a file of type .xgm and is created using the XML Gateway Message Designer. Message maps define the data source and data target, any hierarchies between the source and the target, and actions for data transformation and process control.

For the Integration Repository information provided about XML Gateway maps, see XML Gateway Map Information.

For more information about XML Gateway, see the Oracle XML Gateway User's Guide.

PL/SQL Procedures and Functions

A business interface can be based on a PL/SQL package from which you invoke procedures and functions appropriate to a narrowly defined integration goal.

For the Integration Repository information provided about PL/SQL, see PL/SQL Information.

Concurrent Programs

In Oracle E-Business Suite, concurrent processing simultaneously executes programs running in the background with online operations to fully utilize your hardware capacity. A concurrent program runs as a concurrent process and is executed by the Concurrent Manager. Functions performed by concurrent programs are typically data-intensive and long-running, such as posting a journal, populating an interface table, and generating an EDI flat file.

For the Integration Repository information provided about Concurrent programs, see Concurrent Program Information. For more information about concurrent programs, refer to the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

Open Interface Tables

An open interface consists of the interface tables to store data from external sources and concurrent programs, to validate and apply this data into the Oracle E-Business Suite base tables. All open interfaces are implemented using concurrent programs.

For the Integration Repository information provided about open interface tables, see Open Interface Information.

Interface Views

Interface views are database objects that make data from Oracle E-Business Suite products available for selection and use by destination applications.

For the Integration Repository information provided about interface views, see Interface View Information.

EDI Message Transactions

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is one form of electronic commerce. Interface data files are electronically exchanged between trading partners as messages in a standard format to minimize manual effort, speed data processing, and ensure accuracy. EDI message transactions are supported by Oracle e-Commerce Gateway.

Oracle e-Commerce Gateway provides users the ability to conduct business electronically between trading partners based on Electronic Commerce standards and methodology. It is designed with an open and flexible architecture for easy integration with trading partners or EDI translators. When used for EDI solutions, e-Commerce Gateway integrates with EDI translators to provide specific EDI standard formats and versions. Oracle e-Commerce Gateway is a file-based integration layer between Oracle E-Business Suite and any other external application.

For the Integration Repository information provided about EDI messages, see EDI Message Information.

For more information about Oracle e-Commerce Gateway, see Oracle e-Commerce Gateway User's Guide.

Java

A business interface can be based on a Java class from which you invoke methods that are appropriate to an integration.

Java Bean Services

Java Bean Services are a subtype of Java interface. This type of Java APIs whose methods must use parameters of either serializable Java Beans or simple data types such as String, Int, and so forth can be categorized as Java Bean Services. Such Java APIs can be exposed as REST services only.

Similar to the PL/SQL REST services, Java Bean Services have simplified development life cycle - Deploy and Undeploy - and are implemented with the same security mechanism. Java Bean Services can be deployed as REST service operations with the POST and GET HTTP methods in this release.

For annotation guidelines on Java Bean Services, see Annotations for Java Bean Services, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Developer's Guide.

Java APIs for Forms Web services are desupported in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2. Refer to My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 966982.1 for the suggested alternatives to the existing Java APIs for Forms services.

Application Module Services

Application Module Implementation class is a Java class that provides access to business logic governing the OA Framework-based components and pages. Such Java classes are called Application Module Services and are categorized as a subtype of Java interface.

Similar to Java Bean Services, Application Module Services can be exposed as REST services only.

For annotation guidelines on Application Module Services, see Annotations for Application Module Services, Oracle E-Business Suite Integrated SOA Gateway Developer's Guide.

Security Services

Security services, built on Java, are a set of predefined and predeployed REST services from Oracle Application Object Library. These services including Authentication and Authorization services are developed for mobile applications.

Please note that security services will not require any REST service life cycle activities such as Deploy or Undeploy. Additionally, they are available to all users.

For the Integration Repository information provided about Java, see Java Information.

Business Service Objects

A business service object, formerly known as Service Bean, is a high-level service component that allows OA Framework or BC4J components to be deployed as Web services.

It is the tool by which Oracle E-Business Suite employs service oriented architecture (SOA) and Web services to facilitate integration with each other and with third party trading partners.

Business service object interfaces provide access to SOA services to facilitate integration between Oracle E-Business Suite and trading partners. They often employ service data objects as parameters to pass complex data.

Note: A service data object is not actually an interface type; rather, it is an object used by one or more business service objects or other service data objects to pass data. Oracle Integration Repository includes it on lists of interface types, so you can browse or search for business service object interface based on the service data objects that they use.

Composite Services

A composite service consists of a collection of native packaged public interfaces or called native services that belong to a specific product or product family and are available in the Integration Repository.

Composite services use the native service as building blocks to construct the sequence of business flows. Basically, this interface type orchestrates the invocation sequence of discrete Web services into a meaningful end-to-end business process through a Web service composition language BPEL (business process execution language). For example, use Oracle BPEL Process Manager (BPEL PM) to integrate the Order-to-Receipt business process that contains sales order entry, item availability check, pack and ship, and invoice to Accounts Receivable sub processes handled by various applications. This approach effectively tightens up the control of each individual process and makes the entire business flow more efficiently.

Additional Information: Since composite services can be designed and created in Oracle JDeveloper and Oracle Eclipse, based on the different creation methods, composite services can have various composite types such as BPEL, ESB (enterprise service bus), or SCA (service component architecture) types. BPEL and ESB are the typical composite interface types designed using Oracle JDeveloper. However, composite service - BPEL is the only composite service type supported in this release.

For more information about composite services, see Working with Composite Services.

Integration Standards

Each Web service interface conforms to an integration standard, for example OAGIS or RosettaNet. The fully qualified standard includes the name, version, and specification. For example: OAG 7.2 CONFIRMBOD_004. The following standards are observed in Oracle Integration Repository: