1. Extending Redwood Applications for HCM and SCM Using Visual Builder Studio
  2. Overview of Redwood Application Extension

Overview of Redwood Application Extension

Redwood applications provide a comprehensive set of features designed to meet a wide range of business requirements. But you can still make changes to your application to best fit your specific business needs.

The primary objectives of this guide are to:

  • Help you understand how effectively you can leverage Oracle Visual Builder Studio (VB Studio) functionalities within the Redwood application, thereby streamlining your experience.
  • Guide you on how to identify the extensible elements of a page and the corresponding tools to use.

Refer to VB Studio documentation for detailed instructions on using specific VB Studio features.

Terminology

Here are some terms to familiarize yourself with before you start extending your pages:

Common

These terms are common across Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Supply Chain & Manufacturing (SCM).

  • Advanced Mode: An advanced interface in VB Studio where more technical users are presented with all features to tailor Oracle Cloud Applications.
  • Autocomplete: Generic term to designate the functionality to default and validate field values. It’s product agnostic.
  • Built-in Rule: An Oracle-delivered rule, including localization rules, available for a page.
  • Business Rules: A feature of Express Mode in VB Studio used to personalize Redwood pages including defaulting and validating field values. Business Rules is page-based.
  • Customization and Extension: Changes made by a functional administrator at design time that apply at the site level.
  • Dynamic Container: A predefined area in a page used to display various types of content. A container can be extended to rearrange the existing content, and to add new content.
  • Express Mode: A simple-to-use interface in VB Studio where functional administrators are presented with only the capabilities they need to tailor Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications pages.
  • Extension Rule: A rule created within your extension. It corresponds to custom rules in Transaction Design Studio.
  • Initial Field Values and Field Values
    • Initial Field Value is stored in the database. The initial field value doesn't change for a transaction.
      • Note that the initial field values are page and region-specific. For example, in HCM in the Change and Correct Employment Details processes, the initial field values are available for the assignment attributes but not for salary attributes.
    • Field value is the value cached in a page, which may already have been modified by a rule or user.
    • Initial field values and field values can be used in conditions and rule logic.
    • For example, an HR Specialist reduces an employee's working hours from 40h to 20h. In this case,
      • Initial field value is 40
      • Field value is 20
  • Page Property: A property value used to control application page behavior. A functional administrator can modify the property value at design time in VB Studio. Each page propery has a designated name, description, and type established by Oracle, which can be a number, string, boolean, or array.
  • Personalization: Changes made by end users to pages at runtime that apply only to themselves and persist for that user each time they sign in to the application. Personalization includes changes based on user behavior (such as changing the width of a column in a table), changes the user chooses to save, such as search parameters, or composer-based personalization, where an end user can redesign aspects of a page.
  • UI Element: An action button, tab, filter, sort by, table, or any other element of a Redwood page that can be extended depending on the use of the page property. Refer to the page property label and description to understand the role of a page property on a page and the possible values it can take.
  • VB Studio: VB Studio is a robust application development platform designed to effectively plan and manage work throughout all stages of the application development lifecycle.

HCM

These terms are specific to HCM.

  • Autocomplete Rules: A feature of HCM Experience Design Studio used to default and validate field values in responsive pages. Autocomplete Rules is based on business object.
  • Built-in Rule: An Oracle-delivered rule, including localization rules, available for a page. It corresponds to delivered rules in Transaction Design Studio.
  • Business Rules: A feature of VB Studio used to control the display of regions and fields on a page. It's the Redwood equivalent of Transaction Design Studio for responsive pages.
  • HCM Experience Design Studio: The HCM Application extensibility tool to extend responsive pages, which includes Transaction Design Studio and Autocomplete Rules.
  • Transaction Design Studio: A feature of HCM Experience Design Studio used to control the display of responsive pages.

Types of Changes

The types of change you can make depend on the pages you’re changing.

  • Configuration: For most of the Redwood pages, the configuration is done in the setup tasks under the Setup and Maintenance work area. For example, you can enable a descriptive flexfield (DFF) on the Manage Descriptive Flexfields page.
  • Application Extension: These changes are made using VB Studio. For example, you want to show a new descriptive flexfield on a specific page only for a specific country.

What’s Extensible in Redwood Pages

The types of modifications you can make to a Redwood page in VB Studio depends on the page you're modifying. The changes listed in this guide may not be universally available for all Redwood pages.

Note: All setup tasks to configure pages that aren't in Redwood, whether global or specific to a product such as Manage Common Lookups and Manage Descriptive Flexfields, remain unchanged unless otherwise specified.

Considerations for Extending HCM Redwood Pages

  • Extensibility is disabled for any dynamic components used in HCM Redwood pages. You must remove any changes made to the layout prior to release 23D.
  • The existing validation rules with error from Autocompletes Rules will work in HCM Redwood pages for Change Assignment and Correct Employment Details processes. This won't require modification in existing rules.
    • All rules for all other pages built on the underlying business objects for this page must be disabled when you enable the Redwood page. Note that disabling rules on a business object will disable Autocomplete for both the Redwood and Responsive pages.

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