Oracle E-Business Suite applications and custom applications that integrate with Oracle E-Business Suite rely on having their components arranged in a predictable structure. This includes particular directory structures where you place reports, forms, programs and other objects, as well as environment variables and application names that allow Oracle Application Object Library to find your application components.
Note: The online patching feature in Release 12.2. uses a dual file system. In certain circumstances you can use a single file system. For more information, refer to the Oracle E-Business Suite Maintenance Guide. Note that deployment of a single file system is not supported for production environments.
Here are some commonly-used terms.
An application, such as Oracle General Ledger or Oracle Inventory, is a functional grouping of forms, programs, menus, libraries, reports, and other objects. Custom applications group together site-specific components such as custom menus, forms, or concurrent programs.
The application short name is an abbreviated form of your application name used to identify your application in directory and file names and in application code such as PL/SQL routines.
Database username used by applications to access the database. Also known as Oracle ID (includes password) or Oracle user.
An operating system variable that describes an aspect of the environment in which your application runs. For example, you can define an environment variable to specify a directory path.
$APPL_TOP: An environment variable that denotes the installation directory for Oracle Application Object Library and your other Oracle applications. $APPL_TOP is usually one directory level above each of the product directories (which are often referred to as $PROD_TOP or $PRODUCT_TOP or $<prod>_TOP).
Note that environment variables may be documented with or without the $ sign. For Windows NT environments, most environment variables correspond to Registry settings (without the $ sign), although some variables may be located in .cmd files instead of in the Registry.
An environment variable that denotes the directory path to your application-level subdirectories. You include your application basepath in your application environment files and register it with Oracle Application Object Library when you register your application name. Corresponds to the $PRODUCT_TOP directory.
When you develop your application components, you must place them in the appropriate directories on the appropriate machines so that Oracle Application Object Library can find them. For example, reports written using Oracle Reports are typically placed in a subdirectory called reports on the concurrent processing server machine, while forms belong in separate subdirectories, depending on their territory and language (such as US for American English, D for German, and so on), on the forms server machine.
The directory structure you use for your application depends on the computer and operating system platform you are using, as well as the configuration of Oracle E-Business Suite at your site. For example, you may be using a configuration that includes a Unix database server a separate Unix concurrent processing server, a Microsoft Windows NT forms server, and Web browsers on PCs, or you may be using a configuration that has the database and forms server on the same UNIX machine with Web browsers on PCs. These configurations would have different directory setups. See your Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts manual for directory setup information for your particular platforms and configuration. For a description of the contents and purpose of each of the subdirectories, see your Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts manual.
Note: For additional information on specifying and managing custom directories, refer to documentation on the AutoConfig-managed custom.conf configuration file. See: Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide and Latest Guidance for Managing Configuration of Oracle HTTP Server and Oacore, Oafm, Forms and Forms-c4ws Applications in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2, My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 1905593.1.
Note: For information on defining a directory to use as a database directory for PL/SQL file I/O, refer to My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 2525754.1, Using UTL_FILE_DIR or Database Directories for PL/SQL File I/O in Oracle E-Business Suite Releases 12.1 and 12.2.
You must register your application using adsplice. See: AD Splicer, Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide and My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 1577707.1, Creating a Custom Application in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.
This identification with your custom application allows Oracle E-Business Suite to preserve your application objects and customizations during upgrades. When you register your application, your application receives a unique application ID number that is included in Oracle Application Object Library tables that contain application objects such as responsibilities. This application ID number is not visible in any Oracle E-Business Suite form fields.
To reduce the risk that your custom application short name could conflict with a future Oracle E-Business Suite short name, we recommend that your custom application short name begins with "XX". Such a conflict will not affect application data that is stored using the application ID number (which would never conflict with application IDs used by Oracle E-Business Suite products). However, a short name conflict may affect your application code where you use your application short name to identify objects such as messages and concurrent programs (you include the application short name in the code instead of the application ID).
You must add your application basepath variable to the appropriate Oracle E-Business Suite environment files (or Windows NT Registry). The format and location of these files depends on your operating system and Oracle E-Business Suite configuration. See your Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts manual for information about your environment files.
When you build custom forms based on custom tables, typically you place your tables in a custom Oracle schema in the database. You must register your custom schema with Oracle Application Object Library. See: My Oracle Support Knowledge Document 1577707.1, Creating a Custom Application in Oracle E-Business Suite Release 12.2.
To integrate your application tables with Oracle E-Business Suite, you must create the appropriate grants and synonyms in the APPS schema. See Integrating Custom Objects and Schemas.
Oracle E-Business Suite products are installed as part of the Standard data group. If you are building a custom application, you should add your application to the Standard data group. Note that if you have integrated your application tables with the APPS schema, then you would specify APPS as the Oracle ID in the application-Oracle ID pair (instead of the name of your custom schema). Refer to the Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide.
Note: Do not use a custom data group.
If your site does not already have a concurrent manager setup appropriate to support your custom application, you may need to have your system administrator set up additional concurrent managers. Refer to the Oracle E-Business Suite Setup Guide.