This appendix covers the following topics:
This appendix describes the customization support for the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications. This appendix is intended for system integrators and implementation consultants who want to develop custom extensions for these applications.
The Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications provide rich functionality built into the standard product. In addition, you can customize the application to suit your business process.
The following are the means by which you can customize the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications:
Flexfield support for additional data fields.
Label modification.
Attachment support.
New custom screen creation in the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications to enable new features or extend additional features.
Depending on your business needs, you may need to use one or more of the above means of customization.
What is not supported is modification to existing screens (adding/removing/hiding fields) or changing the navigation between the standard screens.
Flexfield support is available in both Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Laptop and Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Pocket PC. Descriptive flexfields can be used to display and capture additional information. Users can also use context-sensitive flexfields when the information stored by the application depends on other values users enter in other parts of the screen. Table-validated flexfields are not supported by the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications.
The following table describes the types of flexfields you can find in the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications:
| Flexfield | Laptop | Pocket PC |
|---|---|---|
| Service request | read/write | read/write |
| Task | read/write | read/write |
| Debrief header | read/write | read/write |
| Debrief line | read/write | read/write |
| Parts requirement | NA | read/write |
| Item | read | read |
| Product | read | read |
| Customer | read | read |
Complete the following steps to set up the descriptive flexfields in Oracle Applications that are specific to an Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward application:
Log in to Oracle Applications as a system administrator and select the System Administrator responsibility.
Navigate to Application > Flexfield > Descriptive > Segments
Click the Application field and search for Oracle Service.
Click the Title field and search for the component for which the flexfield(s) should be created.
The Freeze Flexfield Definition check box indicates whether or not flexfields can be defined or updated. Make sure it is deselected so new flexfields can be defined.
Click Segments to display the Segments Summary form.
Click New to create a new flexfield definition or click Open to open an existing flexfield definition.
Enter the segment name in the Name field.
Click the button next to the Column field and select an attribute column from the Column list of values.
Enter a description in the Description field and a number in the Number field.
Click the search button in the Value Sets field and select a value set (this is the data type of the flexfield) from the list of values. The Description field will be automatically populated.
You can also select a default type from the Default Type list of values to indicate a default value in the Default Value field. Select or deselect the Required check box to specify whether a value is required or not.
Specify the flexfield size information in the Sizes section of the form.
Optionally, specify prompt information in the Prompts section of the form.
For example, prompts could be used when displaying a window that requests data input for the flexfield.
Optionally, click ValueSet to open the form where you can define new value sets or update existing value sets.
Click Save to save the new flexfield definition and close the Segments form.
Review the Segments Summary form shown and then close it.
If no more updates are needed, select the Freeze Flexfield Definition check box.
Click Compile.
The flexfields are downloaded and displayed in the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward application after synchronization.
Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Laptop displays the flexfields for an entity on the same page that describes the entity. For example, task flexfields are accessed from the Task Details page.
Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Pocket PC has a separate icon, that opens a new screen with the flexfields.
Both Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Laptop and Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Pocket PC support label changes. Newly defined labels are visible to the end user.
For Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Pocket PC, all labels are stored in the FND_ NEW_MESSAGES table. Use the application developer responsibility to change labels.
Steps
Complete the following steps to customize the labels and messages seeded in FND_NEW_MESSAGES:
Log on to the enterprise system.
Select the Application Developer responsibility
Select Application > Messages Function.
Search for messages starting with the CSMW prefix.
Message text can then be replaced for corresponding message.
For Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward - Laptop, all labels are stored in AK Data. Use the application developer responsibility to change labels.
Attachments can be used for a variety of purposes, such as maps, driving directions, and product reference images.
The Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward applications support the download and display of attachments at a particular entity level.
The following entities have attachment-download. Multiple attachments are allowed on each entity.
Service Request
Task
The CSM: Maximum Attachment Size profile controls the maximum amount of attachment data to be downloaded.
The maximum attachment size in mega bytes is specified by the profile value.
If a single file exceeds the profile value, it will not be downloaded. For multiple files, the first n files, which are altogether less than the profile value, will be downloaded.
Steps
Complete the following steps to download the attachment:
In the enterprise system, create an attachment on a service request or task.
Run JTM Concurrent Program: Lookup.
Synchronize.
Run the lookup program each time an attachment is added or changed. The new attachment will come down if attached after the last run of the lookup program.
There is an attachment button on the service request and task screens for attachments.
Each attachment link points to a JSP page in order to return the data read from the attachments table.
Since the application is running in Internet Explorer, this browser renders the contents of the file.
There is a button on the service request and task screens that opens a list of attachments.
Click the attachment link to retrieve the data from the attachments table and to save it on the file system with the appropriate file name and extension. Clicking this link will also open the file in Internet Explorer.
This section summarizes how to customize the application. The details are provided in My Oracle Support.
You can develop new screens based on new and existing features. You can also download additional data in some cases. You can also download additional attachments.
You can implement such features in custom screens:
Maps and driving directions.
Custom invoicing support.
Knowledge base through attachments.
To write custom screens for an Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward application, you first need to do the following:
Identify what you want to build and from which screen on the laptop computer or the Pocket PC from which you want the custom screen to flow.
Data replication support:
Identify additional data to be downloaded.
Design the data model for a custom module and then identify the Oracle dummy application table(s) that should be replicated.
Place all additional data into the seven custom dummy tables, which are packaged into apps_custom.odb.
Synchronize data to the mobile computer device.
Identify additional screens to be designed and then develop the custom module of the mobile application.
For the laptop computer, this is a set of JSPs.
For the Pocket PC, this is a C++ executable.
All additional screens are packaged into <custom>.app.
Create the wrappers on the server side to process upward sync data.
Test the application package and then deploy it.
The custom data and application are packaged separately from the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward application. This arrangement enables the Oracle Mobile Field Service Store and Forward application to be transparent to upgrades.