13.6 Extra Fusion Apps, ORDS, OData Features

When related REST APIs follow common conventions for data filtering, sorting, attribute selection, object modification, and error reporting, Oracle APEX can provide powerful additional low-code functionality to your apps.

In addition to the Simple HTTP REST Data Source type, APEX offers native support for the following convention-based REST API types:

• Oracle Cloud Applications (SaaS) – Most existing Fusion Applications APIs
• Oracle Cloud Applications (BOSS) – Emerging /api/boss Fusion Applications APIs
• Oracle REST Data Services – Auto-REST enabled tables/views and collection query APIs
• OData – Used by Microsoft Graph API, Dynamics 365, SAP, and others

Their goal is to make integrating remote data as easy as working with a local database table. When you create a REST Data Source using one of these types, the wizard automatically discovers all supported operations and Data Profile columns based on understanding their extended custom metadata. At runtime, when a region uses one of these REST Data Sources, the APEX engine dynamically adds any necessary request parameters and builds request body payloads. No need to define any of the common parameters or worry about maintaining request body templates.

APEX also automatically delegates filtering and sorting to the backend system when using these types of REST Data Sources. This is important for optimized application performance because it leverages backend indexes to quickly return only relevant rows to the APEX application. By default, Simple HTTP data sources must retrieve all rows to the APEX engine database to then perform filtering and sorting there instead.

In addition, Oracle Cloud Applications REST Data Sources automatically:

• Request only the attributes used by the current region, reducing payload sizes,
• Report business object validation errors as APEX error messages, and
• Support bulk API DML functionality, useful for Interactive Grid use cases.

Tip:

To download a complete catalog of Fusion Apps REST APIs for use in your apps, visit https://github.com/oracle/apex/tree/rest-source-catalogs/fusion