7 Learn About Oracle APEX

After you create an APEX service and create a workspace and workspace administrator account, you can start exploring Oracle APEX.

The first time you click Launch APEX, the Administration Services Sign In page appears. Once you sign in, a wizard walks you through creating a workspace and Workspace administrator account as described in Set Up a New APEX Service. In subsequent sessions, clicking Launch APEX displays the Oracle APEX Sign In page. From here you can continue to set up your workspace and create additional workspaces, user accounts, or configure other administration options.

Topics:

• Understand Oracle APEX Administration

• Create More Workspaces

• Create APEX Accounts

• Edit an Existing APEX Account

• Sign In and Explore Your Workspace

• About Oracle APEX Upgrades

• Find Oracle APEX Resources

See Also:

Restrictions and Limitations for Oracle APEX

Understand Oracle APEX Administration

Access Oracle APEX Administration Services (Administration Services) to perform administration tasks such as managing user accounts, creating workspaces, monitoring workspace activity, and viewing log files.

Tip:

To learn more about Oracle APEX administration, see Oracle APEX Administration Services in Oracle APEX Administration Guide.

About Instances and Workspaces

Creating an APEX Service creates an Oracle APEX instance which can contain multiple workspaces.

In an Oracle APEX development environment, users users sign in to a shared work area called a workspace. A workspace enables multiple users to work within the same Oracle APEX instance while keeping their objects, data and applications private. This flexible architecture enables a single database instance to manage hundreds of applications.

About APEX User Accounts

You sign in to a workspace using an APEX user account.

Creating a workspace also creates a workspace administrator account. You can create additional APEX users in Administration Services. APEX users are divided into the following roles.

• End users do not have access to development or administrative capabilities. End cannot sign into a workspace and create applications. End users can only run existing applications.

• Developers are users who create and edit applications, monitor workspace activity, and view dashboards. Only user accounts with Developer rights can sign into a workspace.

• Workspace administrators are users who perform administrator tasks specific to a workspace. A workspace administrator account is created for you when you create a workspace. Workspace administrators have both workspace administrator and developer privileges.

• Instance administrators are users who perform administration tasks over the entire APEX instance, such as workspace creation, monitoring activity and viewing log files. The Instance administrator account ADMIN is created for you when you create an APEX Service instance. Use the ADMIN administrator account to sign into Administration Services.

Create More Workspaces

Create additional workspaces in Administration Services on the Manage Workspaces page.

To create additional workspaces in Administration Services:

1. Sign in to Administration Services as described in Sign In To Administration Services.
2. On the Administration Services home page, click Manage Workspaces.
3. Under Workspace Actions, click Create Workspace.
   The Create Workspace Wizard appears.
4. On the Create Workspace:
   1. Specify how to create your workspace. If you are just getting started, choose New Schema.

      Options include:

      • New Schema - Create a new database schema for your workspace:
        • Workspace Name - Enter a name for the workspace. A workspace is a shared work area where multiple developers can build applications.
        • Workspace Username - Enter the username of the workspace administrator.
        • Workspace Password - Enter a password for the workspace administrator. See Help for details about default password complexity rules.
        • Advanced - Optionally expand the Advanced region and edit the following:
          • Advanced , Database Password - Enter a password for the workspace database user. See Help for details about default password complexity rules.
          • Advanced , Workspace ID - Leave Workspace ID blank to have the new Workspace ID automatically generated. A Workspace ID must be a positive integer greater than 100000.
      • Existing Schema - Associate your workspace with an existing database schema:
        • Database User - Select the existing database user for the workspace. Applications will be created against database objects from this schema
        • Workspace Name - Enter a name for the workspace. A workspace is a shared work area where multiple developers can build applications.
        • Workspace Username - Enter the username of the workspace administrator.
        • Workspace Password - Enter a password for the workspace administrator. See Help for details about default password complexity rules.
        • Advanced - Optionally expand the Advanced region and edit the following:
          • Workspace ID - Leave Workspace ID blank to have the new Workspace ID automatically generated. A Workspace ID must be a positive integer greater than 100000.

      Note:

      Make a note of the Workspace Name, Workspace Username, and Workspace Password. You will use these credentials to sign into your workspace.
   2. Click Create Workspace.

   Administration Services appears.

See Also:

Managing Existing Workspaces in Oracle APEX Administration Guide

Create APEX Accounts

To sign in to your workspace and start building application, you must have an APEX account with either Developer or Workspace Administrator privileges.

When you create a workspace, a workspace administrator account is created for you. The following task describes how to create additional user accounts in Administration Services.

To create new APEX account:

1. Sign in to Administration Services as described in Sign In To Administration Services.
2. Click Manage Workspaces.
3. Under Workspace Actions, click Manage Developers and Users.
   The Manage Developers and Users page appears.
4. Click Create User.
   The Create / Edit User page appears.
5. Under User Attributes:
   1. Username - Enter the username used to sign in to the system.
   2. Email Address - Enter a valid e-mail address.
      The remaining attributes are optional. To learn more about an attribute, see field-level Help.
6. Under Account Privileges:
   1. Workspace - Select the workspace in which to create the user.
   2. Default Schema - Select the default schema for this user.
   3. Accessible Schemas (null for all) - Enter a colon-delimited list of schemas for which this developer has permissions when using the SQL Workshop. The list of schemas you enter here restricts the user to a subset of the full set of schemas provisioned for the workspace and determines what schema names the user sees in SQL Workshop.
   4. To specify workspace administrator privileges:

      • User is an administrator- Select Yes.

        Administrator accounts automatically have all developer privileges enabled.

   5. To specify developer privileges:

      • User is an administrator- Select No.

      • User is a developer - Select Yes.

      • App Builder Access - Determines whether a developer has access to App Builder. Use App Builder to create and manage applications and application pages. Select Yes or No.

      • SQL Workshop Access - Determines whether a developer has access to the SQL Workshop. SQL Workshop provides tools that enable you to view and manage database objects. Select Yes or No

      • Team Development Access - Determines whether a user has access to the Team Development. Use Team Development to track and manage issues in a conversational fashion. Select Yes or No.

   6. Account Availability - Select Locked to prevent the account from being used. Select Unlocked to allow the account to be used.

   Tip:

   To create an End User account, for User is an administrator and User is a developer, select No. End users can only run existing applications.
7. Under Password:
   1. Password - Enter a case-sensitive password.
   2. Confirm Password - Enter the password again.
8. Click Create User or Create and Create Another.

Tip:

Workspace administrators can also create and edit accounts in Workspace Administration. See Managing Users in a Workspace in Oracle APEX Administration Guide.

Edit an Existing APEX Account

Update user attributes, edit account privileges, or change the user account password on the Create/Edit Users page in Administration Services.

To edit an APEX user account:

1. Sign in to Administration Services as described in Sign In To Administration Services.
2. Click Manage Workspaces.
3. Under Workspace Actions, click Manage Developers and Users.
4. On Manage Developers and Users page, select a user.
   The Create/Edit User page appears.
5. Edit the appropriate User Attributes and Account Privileges.
   To learn more about an attribute, see field-level Help.
6. To reset the account password:
   1. Password - Enter the password.
   2. Confirm Password - Enter the password again.
7. Click Apply Changes.

Sign In and Explore Your Workspace

Once you have created workspaces and APEX user accounts, you can sign in to your workspace and start exploring Oracle APEX.

To sign in and explore your workspace:

1. Sign in to your workspace as described in Sign In To a Workspace.
   The Workspace home appears.
2. Explore the Workspace home page.

   The center of the Workspace home page features the following large icons:

   • App Builder - Create an application, composed of a set of HTML pages, based on database objects.

   • SQL Workshop - Access tools for viewing and managing database objects.

   • Team Development - Track and manage issues in a conversational fashion. You can create templates to provide users with starter text for issues and comments. You can apply labels and label groups, assign issue owners, and set milestones.

   • Gallery - The Gallery enables you to access to Starter Apps, Sample Apps, and Custom Apps.

     Starter Apps are functional apps that provide stand-alone point-solutions, designed to meet simple requirements that do not require a large and unnecessarily complex solution. You can use these apps "out of the box" or extend them with your own custom functionality. Sample Apps highlight specific functionality and are intended to serve as a developer guide on how to make use of a particular feature. Custom Apps are custom applications that can be installed on your workspace if made available by your Instance Administrator.

   
   Description of the illustration gsadd_workspace_home.png
3. Review the menu bar at the top of the page.

   A menu bar displays at the top of the page. This menu bar displays on most App Builder pages. Click a menu to access an alternate navigation path to different components or functions within App Builder, SQL Workshop, Team Development, or Gallery. The illustration that follows shows the App Builder menu.

   
   Description of the illustration gsadd_bldr_home_menus.png

To learn more about the controls on the Workspace home page, see Quick Start in Oracle APEX App Builder User’s Guide.

About Oracle APEX Upgrades

APEX Service upgrades work the same as with other Autonomous Database products.

Once an upgrade becomes available, there is a 45-day window during which you can apply the upgrade at a day and time you choose. If you take no action, Oracle applies the upgrade automatically. For paid service instances, you can elect to get a longer 90-day time window instead of 45 days.

To learn more about deferring or applying Oracle APEX upgrades, see Control Oracle APEX Upgrades in Using Oracle Autonomous Database Serverless.

Find Oracle APEX Resources

To learn more about developing applications with Oracle APEX, see the following resources:

• Oracle APEX Release Notes - Contains important information not included in the Oracle APEX documentation.

• Oracle APEX App Builder User’s Guide - Functions as a comprehensive, task-based reference on using the Oracle APEX development environment to build applications.

• Oracle APEX Administration Guide - Describes how to perform administration tasks such as managing workspaces and user accounts as well perform other workspace, application, and instance configuration tasks.

• Oracle APEX SQL Workshop Guide - Describes how to use SQL Workshop and other utilities to view and manage database objects, load and unload data from an Oracle database, generate DDL, view object reports, and restore dropped database objects.

• Oracle APEX End User’s Guide - Explains common Oracle APEX end user tasks.

• Oracle APEX API Reference - Describes the Application Programming Interfaces, referred to as APIs, available when programming in the Oracle APEX environment.

• Oracle APEX JavaScript API Reference - Describes the JavaScript APIs available to Oracle APEX applications. You can use these functions to provide client-side functionality, such as showing and hiding page elements, or making Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) requests.

• apex.world- Visit an online forum to post a question and collaborate with experts in the area of Oracle APEX.

To view all Oracle APEX publications, see the Oracle APEX Release 23.2 books page. To view all resources, see Oracle APEX Release 23.2.