1 Application Composer: Introduction

This chapter contains the following:

Extending CRM Applications: Top Tasks

Extending CRM Applications: How It Works

Extending CRM Applications Using Sandboxes: Highlights

Extending CRM Applications Across Application Boundaries: Explained

Extending CRM Applications: Top Tasks

The Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer is but one tool that lets you customize and extend your Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Before you start to extend and customize any application within Oracle Fusion CRM, refer first to the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide to learn more about all the extensibility options and tools that are available to you.

The Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide walks you through the customization process for all Oracle Fusion applications, not just within Oracle Fusion CRM. After reviewing that guide, you can then review the Oracle Fusion CRM Extensibility Guide to understand in more detail how to use the Application Composer to extend and customize an application within Oracle Fusion CRM.

Getting Started: Review the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide

Refer to the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide to learn which tools are available to you to change an application. You will also learn about the customization development life cycle, including how to use the Sandbox Manager and Customization Manager.
See: Introduction to Customizing and Extending Oracle Fusion Applications
The Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide also includes sections on important customization tasks, such as customizing pages, objects, reports, and security.
See: Business User Customizations and Extensions
After reviewing the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide, you can then review the Oracle Fusion CRM Extensibility Guide, which provides detailed information about using the Application Composer.

Extending CRM Applications: How It Works

The Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer is a browser-based configuration tool that enables business analysts and administrators, not just application developers, to customize and extend an Oracle Fusion CRM application. Make the type of data model changes which, for non-CRM applications, can only be made by application developers. For example, easily create a new object and related fields, then create new Enterprise pages where that object and its fields are exposed to users. The Application Composer is a design time at runtime tool, which means that you can navigate to the Application Composer directly from a CRM application, make your changes, and see most changes take immediate effect in real time, without having to sign back in to the application. Data model changes, such as the creation of custom fields, do require that you reauthenticate before you can see those changes.

Pattern-Based Application Design

The Application Composer hides the complexity of customization from business analysts by leveraging a set of standard design patterns and wizards. You focus on the application changes that your business requires (object model extensions and layout changes, for example), and the Application Composer creates the underlying object artifacts for you.

Access the Application Composer from any CRM application at runtime by using the Navigator menu, and selecting Application Composer under the Tools category. The first view of the Application Composer is the main Overview page, which is the entry point into all your customization options.

This is a screenshot of the main Overview
page in the Oracle Fusion Application Composer.

From the Application Composer's Overview page, you can make application changes such as:

Customize objects by adding new fields, or create entirely new objects.
Create foreign key-based relationships between two objects.
Customize Enterprise pages by exposing your newly created fields for an object, or create an entirely new work area for your newly created objects.
Expose object relationships on Enterprise pages in the form of subtabs or tree nodes.
Write application logic, such as triggers, validation rules, and workflows, for an object or for use across multiple objects.
Implement functional and data-level security for custom objects.
Enable objects for custom reporting.

Getting Started: The Application Composer's Overview Page

To access the Application Composer, log in with the Customer Relationship Management Administrator job role. Then, select Application Composer under the Tools category in the Navigator menu to navigate to the main Overview page.

From the main Overview page, select the application you want to customize using the Application choice list. Then:

Use the object tree to select the object you want to customize, or click the New icon to create a new object.
Use the links in main Overview page, also known as the local area, to select a customization task.
Or, use the links in the Common Setup pane.

Change the selected application in the Application choice list at any time to customize another CRM application.

Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility

The Application Composer is but one tool that lets you customize and extend your Oracle Fusion CRM applications. To learn more about extensibility options that are available to you across all Oracle Fusion applications, see the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide.

Extending CRM Applications Using Sandboxes: Highlights

When you customize and extend your Oracle Fusion CRM applications, you should always do so using sandboxes. Sandboxes let users make changes isolated from the mainline application, as well as from other sandboxes. (The mainline is the source of data and definitions used at the time of creating a new sandbox.) Business analysts can implement and test application customizations and, once satisfied, can publish them back to the mainline. When publishing a sandbox, the application customizations that you made in that sandbox overwrite the mainline application's existing configuration.

Before you start to extend and customize any application within Oracle Fusion CRM, refer first to the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide to learn more about all the extensibility options and tools that are available to you, including sandboxes. After reviewing that guide, you can then review Customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Applications Using Sandboxes (1487832.1) on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.

Note

Whenever possible, always make your application customizations in sandboxes first, and then publish your changes back to the mainline application. In general, you should not make software changes directly in the mainline unless sandboxes are not available for your particular customization.

Understanding Sandboxes

Refer to the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide to learn which tools are available to you to change an application. You will also learn about the customization development life cycle, including how to use the Sandbox Manager and Customization Manager.
See: Introduction to Customizing and Extending Oracle Fusion Applications
Refer to Customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Applications Using Sandboxes to learn more about special considerations for using sandboxes when customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Applications. For example, you typically create custom fields for an object in a sandbox. However, you can create custom subject areas for business intelligence reporting only in the mainline application. Therefore, to create a report that includes your custom fields, you must first publish the sandbox in which your custom fields were created. Only then can you create a custom subject area (in the mainline application) to later use as the basis for any report. See: Customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Applications Using Sandboxes (1487832.1) on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.

Extending CRM Applications Across Application Boundaries: Explained

When you customize and extend your Oracle Fusion CRM applications, you always do so within the context of a Web application, such as Oracle Fusion Sales or Oracle Fusion Marketing. This is a critical selection that you must remember, because the customizations that you make reside within that application only. For example, to create a new custom object, you first select an application on the main Overview page of the Application Composer. The new custom object will belong only to the application that you select.

Note

When you first open the Application Composer, the default application is always Common. If you previously made customizations in another application, such as Sales, then you must manually change the application using the Application choice list to Sales, before you can review and update those customizations.

Web applications are also referred to as application containers.

This is a screenshot of the Application
choice list, where you can select which application you want to extend.

The types of changes that you can make in the Application Composer can be categorized into three areas:

User interface extensions
Object model extensions
Scripting extensions

Understanding Web Application Constraints

The concept of application containers directly impacts what you can do when making the above types of changes using the Application Composer.

User interface extensions
For example, can I add a subtab to an opportunity's page that displays sales lead records?
Object model extensions

For example, can I create relationships between objects that exist in different Web applications?
Scripting extensions

For example, for the opportunity object, can I create a trigger whose underlying expression references an object in Oracle Fusion HCM?

The special considerations that you must be aware of when extending and customizing across Web application containers are described in Oracle Fusion Applications CRM Extensibility: Special Considerations (1490074.1) on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.