Oracle® Fusion Applications Customer Data Management Implementation Guide 11g Release 7 (11.1.7) Part Number E20433-07

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31 Define Extensions for Customer Data Management

This chapter contains the following:

Define Custom Enterprise Scheduler Jobs

Customization and Sandboxes

FAQs for Define Extensions for Customer Data Management

Define Custom Enterprise Scheduler Jobs

Managing Job Definitions: Highlights

Oracle Enterprise Scheduler jobs are run in Oracle Fusion Applications to process data and, in some cases, to provide report output. A job definition contains the metadata that determines what the job does and what options are available to users who run the job. You can create and maintain job definitions for use in Oracle Fusion Applications.

Managing job definitions is fully described in the Oracle Fusion Applications Administrator's Guide. As you read content from that guide, note that the guide describes managing Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, including job definitions, from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Applications Control. You can also access job definitions by starting in the Setup and Maintenance Overview page and searching for the Enterprise Scheduler job tasks for your applications.

Selecting the Appropriate Implementation Task

Each Enterprise Scheduler job definition task uses one Java EE application, which is referenced in the task name. You must use the right task because, to access the product job definition that you want to view or work on, the view objects must be contained in the application. If you do not select the right task, then the job definition will not be displayed properly or function correctly. The application name is usually the same as the product that the job definition belongs to, but not always.

• For example, the Oracle Fusion Payables Java EE application contains the Oracle Fusion Expenses product view objects. To create or maintain a job definition for use in Expenses, you select the Manage Custom Enterprise Scheduler Jobs for Payables and Related Applications task.
• In another example, the Oracle Fusion Payments product view objects are contained in both Oracle Fusion Payables and Oracle Fusion Receivables Java EE applications. You need to select the task appropriate to the job definition for Payments. Use the Manage Custom Enterprise Scheduler Jobs for Receivables and Related Applications task if the job is for receivables functionality, or the Manage Custom Enterprise Scheduler Jobs for Payables and Related Applications task if the job is for payables functionality.
• Use the task description to see the products that correspond to the Java EE application specified in the task name. For example, the description for the Payables task lists Oracle Fusion Payables, Assets, Expenses, and Payments.
• You can view task descriptions in the help window for the task, if any, or in the generated setup task lists and tasks report from the Getting Started page.
• If you have access to the Manage Task Lists and Tasks page, you can also open the details for specific tasks to see the description.
• For general information about product and Java EE application relationships, use Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Applications Control (Fusion Applications Control).
  See: Topology Section

Viewing and Creating Job Definitions

• You can access predefined and custom job definitions.
  See: Viewing Job Definitions
• You can create jobs based on Java, PL/SQL, or any other supported technology.
  See: Creating a Job Definition
• If you are using the Setup and Maintenance work area, then the Enable submission from Enterprise Manager check box is available for the job definition.
• If you do not select this check box, then the job cannot be run from Enterprise Manager.
• If you select this check box, then you can define parameters for this job definition only in Enterprise Manager. Save the rest of your work on the job definition, and then go to Enterprise Manager if you need to define parameters.

Managing List of Values Sources: Highlights

A list of values source for Oracle Enterprise Scheduler job definitions determines where a list of values comes from and what the specific values are. These lists of values are used in parameters and user properties of job definitions. For example, you can use a source of country values for a Country job parameter.

Managing list of values sources is fully described in the Oracle Fusion Applications Administrator's Guide. As you read content from that guide, note that the guide describes managing Oracle Enterprise Scheduler, including list of values sources, from Oracle Enterprise Manager Fusion Applications Control. You can also access list of values sources by starting in the Setup and Maintenance Overview page and searching for Enterprise Scheduler job tasks.

Registering and Searching for List of Values Sources

• Create list of values sources to register them for use in job definitions.
  See: Registering Sources for Lists of Values
• Search for list of values sources to edit or delete, or to make sure a particular source does not already exist before you create it.
  See: Searching for List of Value Sources

Customization and Sandboxes

Customizing Pages Using Page Composer: Highlights

You can customize dashboards and some work areas, where available, for all or some users based on a selected customization layer, for example only for users in a specific country or with a specific job role. When you select to customize a page from the Administration menu in the global area, you invoke Page Composer, which enables the customization. The Administration menu is only available if you have appropriate roles.

From the same menu, you can also:

• Customize the global area.

• Manage customizations by accessing a list of components in the current page and details about the layers in which each component is customized.

• Access sandboxes to make customizations to a runtime use session before deploying your changes to the mainline.

Customizing pages using Page Composer, managing customizations, and using sandboxes are described in the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide. For more information on customization layers, see assets with the Customization Layer type in Oracle Enterprise Repository for Oracle Fusion Applications (http://fusionappsoer.oracle.com).

Editing Pages

• Customizations that you can make to existing pages include adding content and changing layout.
  See: Editing a Page in Page Composer
• You can also update display and other options for specific components within the page.
  See: Editing Component Properties in Page Composer

Global Page Template

• Customize the global area at the site layer.
  See: Editing the UI Shell Template Used by All Pages

Managing Customizations

• Use the Manage Customizations dialog box to analyze and diagnose customization metadata, and to perform customization related tasks that cannot be done in the user interface, for example to revert customizations to a previous version. You can also do direct customization by manipulating the metadata and uploading it back.
  See: Viewing and Diagnosing Runtime Customizations

Sandboxes

• Create or select an appropriate sandbox, and set it as active to capture your customizations using Page Composer. When you are ready, you publish the sandbox to make your changes available to users.
  See: Using the Sandbox Manager

Customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Pages Using Page Composer: Explained

Page Composer is a page editor that lets you easily edit the user interface composition at run time. In Oracle Fusion CRM, Page Composer is intended for simple user interface editing functions, such as showing and hiding regions, fields, and tables, changing the order of regions, or changing a dashboard page layout. You can also use it for adding or removing predefined content from the Resource Library. All changes are done and stored in the UI layer. Oracle Fusion CRM transactional pages and dashboards are enabled for runtime customization using Page Composer. These pages and regions are delivered already enabled for page editing. Administration and setup pages are not Page Composer-enabled.

The following figure shows how Page Composer affects only the UI layer.

Page Composer Customization Modes

Page Composer supports two editing modes: Design View and Source View. In Design View mode, editing is done by direct manipulation of the target components and their properties. In the Source View mode, editing can be done from the programmatic code of the target component. In Oracle Fusion CRM, Page Composer is launched in Design View mode by default. Customizations can be done only in Design View mode. The only exception is the Partner Relationship Management's Partner Portal UI Shell customization, which is done in Source View mode.

The Page Composer Design View mode has two selection submodes. Design mode is launched by default when opening a page with Page Composer. You can also select this mode by clicking the Design tab on the top left corner of a page in Page Composer mode. Direct Selection mode is activated when you click the Select tab that is next to the Design tab.

The following figure shows a Page Composer-enabled dashboard in Design View mode and Design Selection mode.

The Direct Selection mode is mainly used to select and edit UI components, such as form fields and table columns. In Direct Selection mode, the enabled UI components become apparent when you move the cursor over the component. Enabled UI components get focus on hovering and are highlighted by a light blue border for editing. When you click the highlighted component, the border changes to dark blue and an Edit popup window appears.

The popup window allows you to select whether to edit the selected component or the parent component. Examples of parent components include tables that hold columns and forms that hold fields.

Accessing Page Composer

You access Page Composer from the Administration global menu. Access to the Administration menu is controlled through the Administration Link View Duty. The following table lists examples of duty and job roles that must be assigned to you so that you can access the Page Composer editor.

Contact your security administrator for additional details on these security privileges.

Sandbox support is also available through Page Composer. The sandbox provides temporary storage for your customization changes until you are ready to commit them to the back end. Before working with sandboxes, review the guidelines and recommendations on using sandboxes, available in related help topics.

To launch Page Composer:

1. Navigate to the Page Composer-enabled page.

2. Before making changes using Page Composer, confirm that you are working in the desired sandbox. If not, create a sandbox before making your changes.

3. Select the Administration global menu.

4. On the Customize <page name> Pages popup dialog, select the MDS layer that you want to customize.

5. Click OK.

6. Click Customize <page name>.

7. Select Customize Work Areas for dashboard customization.

   Page Composer is now launched.

8. Customize the page.

9. When you are done, click the Close button in the header to leave the Page Composer editor.

Available Customization Options

In Oracle Fusion CRM, you can use the following customization options:

• Transactional, landing, and dashboard page customizations. Only administrators can do these customizations.

• Partner Portal UI shell and branding customizations. Only Partner Portal administrators can do these customizations.

• User-level page personalization for limited personalization tasks, such as hiding or adding content. Personalization changes are only visible to the user who is doing them.

Additionally, you can do Page Composer customizations in any of these MDS customization layers:

• Site: Your customizations are visible to all site users.

• Job Role: Your customizations are visible to users who have the selected job role.

• External or Internal: Depending on your selection, your customizations are visible to either external or internal users. External users could be your partners or anonymous users. Internal users could be your employees.

When Page Composer is launched, the Customize <page name> Pages dialog opens, where you can select the MDS layer to customize. The layer that is selected in the Edit column is the layer that you want to edit. The layers that are selected in the Include column inherit any changes you make to the layer you edit.

By default, changes made at higher levels (Site) are propagated to lower level layers (External or Internal and Job Role), unless you uncheck these layers in the Include column.

The following figure shows selecting the MDS layer for customization.

Available Customization Tasks

Design and Direct Selection modes support different sets of customization tasks (although in some instances a task can be performed in either mode). The Design mode is intended for overall UI composition customizations, such as adding content, changing the dashboard layout, and changing region properties. The Direct Selection mode is intended for customizations at the component rather than the region level, mainly for fields, forms, tables, and tree nodes customizations.

All Oracle Fusion CRM dashboard pages support the design mode of the Page Composer-enabled regions. External facing landing and transactional pages that are expected to need customizations also support the design mode for Page Composer-enabled regions:

• Partner Snapshot

• Edit Partner Profile

• Edit Partner Public Profile

• Edit Personal Profile

• Partner Landing

• Partner Registration Landing

• Partner Registration: Partner Information

• Partner Registration: Review and Accept Terms

• Partner Registration Information

In general, the following customizations are meant to be done using Direct Selection mode:

• Fields (input text fields, output fields, list of values fields):

  • Show or hide component

  • Make read-only

  • Make required

  • Edit label

• UI Containers (forms, tables and trees):

  • Show or hide child components (for example, fields in the form)

  • Reorder child components (for example, reorder fields in a form)

The following table lists the customization tasks available through Page Composer and the modes in which they are supported.

Customizing the Oracle Fusion CRM Welcome Dashboard

Also known as the Oracle Fusion CRM Home page, the Welcome dashboard is the application suite's default starting page. It is composed of a collection of tabs that are visible based on the roles assigned to users. The Welcome dashboard provides a collection of high-level data summaries meant for quick monitoring and navigation to key business objects. You can customize this page.

To customize the Welcome dashboard:

1. Navigate to the dashboard.

2. Click the Administration global menu.

3. Select the Customize Workarea Pages... menu item.

The Welcome dashboard consists of a local area only. The supported customization tasks, which you do in Design mode, are:

• Change local area layout.

• Add or remove panel boxes.

• Add seeded content to dashboard panel boxes.

• Edit dashboard panel box properties: show or hide a box, reorder child regions, change display options and style.

• Add, edit, and remove ADF components to or from dashboards, such as regions, hyperlinks, images, text boxes, movable boxes, and Web pages.

Oracle Fusion Common CRM Objects: Explained

You can customize a variety of pages and regions throughout Oracle Fusion CRM using the Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer. The Application Composer lets you create custom fields and objects for a specific CRM application, which you then add for display at run time. Objects can be standard or custom, and are attached to a specific application container, such as Oracle Fusion Marketing or Oracle Fusion Sales. Oracle Fusion Common CRM objects, however, are unique in that the customizations you make to these objects can be displayed in a variety of CRM applications, and in a variety of pages and regions, at run time. This topic provides an overview of each Common CRM object that is part of the Trading Community Foundation. (This topic does not address the common component objects which are also listed within the Common CRM application container: the interaction, note, and task objects.)

The Trading Community Foundation Common CRM standard objects that you can extend are:

• Trading Community Address

• Trading Community Customer Contact Profile

• Trading Community Group Profile

• Trading Community Organization Profile

• Trading Community Person Profile

• Trading Community Relationship

• Trading Community Resource Profile

Trading Community Address

The Trading Community Address object is an intersection object that stores a reference to a physical location/address, as well as a reference to a trading community organization, person, or group. Any extensions to this object are available for display in customer, contact, partner, and resource address user interfaces within Oracle Fusion CRM applications.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Address object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Address object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Customer Contact Profile

The Trading Community Customer Contact Profile object stores all intrinsic information for all customer contact persons, in the context of the contact's relationship with a customer. For extensions specific to a customer contact relationship, use this object. By contrast, a standalone contact in Oracle Fusion CRM is a contact not tied to any customer and cannot be extended using this object. Instead, for extensions that apply to all person parties, use the Trading Community Person Profile object.

Any extensions to this object are available for display in various pages within Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Generic person extensions are also visible from the Oracle Fusion Customer Hub application in the Person work area.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Customer Contact Profile object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Customer Contact Profile object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Group Profile

The Trading Community Group Profile object stores all intrinsic information for all groups within the trading community of the deploying company. In Oracle Fusion CRM, groups could be customers of the deploying company. The Trading Community Group Profile object is a generic profile that is applicable to all types of groups in the system. The Sales Account object is applicable only to those groups that are sales accounts. The Group Profile object is a date effective entity, which means that every change or update that happens to any attribute of the object causes a new record to be created in the object with effective start and end dates. This maintains the profile history information for the object.

In Oracle Fusion CRM, groups are available as customers, so any extensions to this object are available for display in the Customer pages. Generic group extensions are also visible from the Oracle Fusion Customer Hub application in the Groups work area. Extensions are not available for display in Customer Center.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Group Profile object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Group Profile object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Organization Profile

The Trading Community Organization Profile object stores all intrinsic information for all organizations within the trading community of the deploying company. Examples of organizations from a CRM perspective are customers (including sales prospects and external legal entities), competitors, and partners. To specifically extend customer or partner objects, use the Sales Account object (under the Customer Center application container) or the Partner object (under the Sales application container). (The Trading Community Organization Profile object is a generic profile that is applicable to all types of organizations in the system. The Sales Account object is applicable only to those organizations that are sales accounts.) Since Prospect and Legal Entity customers don't have separate profiles, you can extend these customers only by using the Trading Community Organization Profile object. The Organization Profile object is a date effective entity, which means that every change or update that happens to any attribute of the object causes a new record to be created in the object with effective start and end dates. This maintains the profile history information for the object.

Any extensions to this object are available for display in various pages within Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Generic organization extensions are also visible from the Oracle Fusion Customer Hub application in the Organization work area.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Organization Profile object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Organization Profile object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Person Profile

The Trading Community Person Profile object stores all intrinsic information for all persons within the trading community of the deploying company. Examples of persons from a CRM perspective are customers (also called consumers), contacts, internal employee resources, and partner members. To extend the customer contact relationship, use the Trading Community Customer Contact Profile object. To extend internal resources, use the Trading Community Resource Profile object. To extend person customers (also called consumers), use the Sales Account object (under the Customer Center application container). (The Trading Community Person Profile object is a generic profile that is applicable to all types of persons in the system. The Sales Account object is applicable only to those persons who are sales accounts.) The Person Profile object is a date effective entity, which means that every change or update that happens to any attribute of the object causes a new record to be created in the object with effective start and end dates. This maintains the profile history information for the object.

Any extensions to this object are available for display in various pages within Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Generic person extensions are also visible from the Oracle Fusion Customer Hub application in the Person work area.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Person Profile object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Person Profile object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Relationship

The Trading Community Relationship object stores all intrinsic relationship information for all kinds of relationships between parties. Use this object to add attributes specific to a relationship between any two parties.

Relationship Profile pages are regions that are visible in the Customer Hub. Accordingly, any extensions to this object are available for display in various pages within Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Generic person extensions are also visible from the Oracle Fusion Customer Hub application in the Person work area.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Relationship object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Relationship object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Trading Community Resource Profile

The Trading Community Resource Profile object defines users of the Oracle Fusion CRM application. They are either internal employee and contractor resources, or partner member resources. Use this object when specific extensions are required for persons in the system that are resources.

To display your extensions, such as custom fields, first create your custom fields using the Application Composer. Next, use the Application Composer's configuration pages to add those custom fields to the pages and regions listed below. You access the configuration pages in the Application Composer from the Pages node under the Trading Community Resource object.

This table indicates, for the Trading Community Resource object, which Application Composer configuration page lets you populate which page or region with your application customizations.

Customizing CRM Applications Using the Application Composer: Explained

The Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer provides a series of task flows which let you customize and extend an Oracle Fusion CRM application according to the needs of your users. For example, you can create fields for an existing standard object, and expose those new fields on the object's work area. Or, create a brand new custom object and related fields, then create a work area where that object and its fields are exposed to users. The task flows available to you are dependent upon the CRM application that you are customizing.

Available Customization Task Flows

Different sets of customization task flows are available to you, depending on the CRM application that you are customizing. See Customizing Oracle Fusion CRM Applications Using Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer (Doc ID 1516151.1) on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com. This document provides a list of which task flows are available for use in these CRM applications:

• Oracle Fusion Common CRM

  This includes Master Data Management (MDM) and Common Party User Interface (CPUI) objects.

• Oracle Fusion Customer Center

• Oracle Fusion Marketing

• Oracle Fusion Sales

• Oracle Fusion Sales Catalog

You can also refer to the product-specific implementation guides to learn more about how a particular application works with the Application Composer.

Sandboxes: Highlights

Use a sandbox to commit customizations to a runtime use session for validation before deploying changes to the mainline. Administrators create and manage sandboxes. An active sandbox isolates changes from the mainline and other users.

Sandboxes can contain the following types of customization changes.

• Metadata, such as non-flexfield UI page customizations

• Data security

• Generated flexfields business components

Metadata changes are captured in a metadata sandbox. Data security changes are additionally captured in a data security enabled sandbox. Changes to a flexfield are captured in a flexfield that is deployed as a single flexfield sandbox. Once you are ready to make sandbox changes available in the mainline, you either publish the metadata or data security sandbox, or deploy the flexfield. Only metadata and data security sandboxes can be downloaded as a sandbox file for import to another Oracle Fusion Applications instance.

The following table lists the differences among the types of sandboxes.

Only one sandbox can be active at a time. Changes made while a sandbox is active are captured in that sandbox.

For more information on using the Sandbox Manager, and customizing and securing pages, business objects, data, and custom objects in a sandbox, see the Oracle Fusion Applications Extensibility Guide.

Managing a Page Customization Sandbox

You can make metadata (MDS) type changes in a sandbox, including menu customizations, changes to the personalization menu, implicit ADF customizations, or changes made with Oracle Composer or CRM Application Composer.

• If you are entitled to do so, manage sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
  See: Using the Sandbox Manager
• Implement customizations on an existing page to change the metadata of a sandbox before deploying the changes to the mainline.
  See: Customizing Existing Pages
• Using CRM Application Composer, customize business objects in a sandbox before deploying the changes to the mainline.
  See: Customizing Objects

Managing a Data Security Sandbox

You can create a sandbox for data security testing, or designate an existing sandbox to become enabled for data security testing.

• If you are entitled to do so, manage data security-enabled sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
  See: Using the Sandbox Manager
• If you customize business objects in CRM Application Composer, you may need to define data security policies to make them accessible to users.
  See: Defining Security Policies for Business Objects
• If you create new business objects, you need to secure them.
  See: Customizing Security for Custom Business Objects

Managing a Flexfield Sandbox

You create a flexfield-enabled sandbox by deploying one flexfield to a sandbox using the Manage Flexfield task flow. The flexfield sandbox gets its name from the flexfield you deploy. You cannot test two flexfields in the same sandbox. Once you deploy a flexfield as a sandbox, you must sign out and back in to view how the sandbox runtime reflects the flexfield changes, such as new segments. You can redeploy the same flexfield to the same sandbox repeatedly as you make incremental changes to the flexfield setup.

• Since a flexfield sandbox cannot be published, any page customizations or data security in the flexfield sandbox cannot reach the mainline when the flexfield is deployed to the mainline. If you have entitlement to do so, see Deploying a Flexfield to a Sandbox: Points to Consider.
• If you are entitled to do so, manage flexfield-enabled sandboxes in the Sandbox Manager.
  See: Using the Sandbox Manager

FAQs for Define Extensions for Customer Data Management

What's the difference between Page Composer and Application Composer?

Page Composer is an Oracle Fusion tool you can use to modify Oracle Fusion user interface (UI) pages and components for all products designated for use with Page Composer. Page Composer uses two different modes of Design View. The first mode, Design View: Standard mode, is selected by default in all CRM pages when opening a page with Page Composer with the Design button selected. The second mode, Design View: Direct Selection mode, is activated when you click the Select tab for the UI page you want to customize. In CRM, Direct Selection mode is available when you customize pages, but not when you personalize a dashboard page. With the Design View: Direct Selection mode, you can select and edit UI elements such as form fields and table columns. In Direct Selection mode, selectable UI components become apparent when you move your cursor over the UI component. Selectable UI components are highlighted and can be edited.

This table describes how you can use each mode of Page Composer to customize dashboard pages and other select pages (such as the Partner Public Profile page, Partner Landing page, Partner Registration, Customer Snapshot, and Customer Overview - Analysis tab), and customize transactional pages (all other non-dashboard pages):

The Oracle Fusion CRM Application Composer also lets you make UI changes at run time. However, the types of UI changes that you can make using the Application Composer are quite different. Specifically, your primary focus when using the Application Composer is to make actual object model changes. For example, you can create a new business object and related fields, and then create new application pages where that object and its fields are exposed to users. The ability to make these types of object model extensions is available only in Oracle Fusion CRM applications. Also, using the Application Composer, you cannot access the Resource Catalog to add new content to a page. With Application Composer, administrators can make customizations at the site level only.

This table describes some of the primary differences between Page Composer and the Application Composer:

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