Incorporation Custom Programs

Incorporation Custom Program

Oracle Applications comes seeded with many concurrent reports and programs. However, we will most likely need to extend Oracle Applications by creating custom reports for any Oracle Applications installation. Oracle Suggests we create our custom application before incorporating custom programs.

Identifying an Executable to Oracle Applications
To incorporate a custom program, we must first create an executable, which is the operating system file for the concurrent program. For Oracle Report, for example the executable file is the .RDF executable file. To define executable, we follow the navigation path Concurrent/Program/Executable
First, enter the required fields, including the executable name, the executable short name, and the application. The executable name is the user name that associates the executable to a concurrent program. The application determines the top directory/base path for the operating system file. For example, if we select Oracle General Ledger as the application, the program file will be found in the GL_TOP directory. We can also enter an optional description. Next select an execution method, which determines what type of program we are registering and what subdirectory name sql and SQL*Loader or C executables will be in the subdirectory name bin.
Once we have entered the execution method, enter the required execution filename, which is the operating system filename. If the execution method is Immediate or Spawned, enter the subroutine name in the Subroutine name field. If the execution method is Request Set Stage function, click on the stage function parameters button to enter parameters.

Valid Execution Methods
Host- Operating System File
Immediate- Concurrent manager program library subroutine.
Oracle Reports- Oracle Reports reports
PL/SQL Stored Procedure- Database stored procedure
Request Set Stage Function -Database stored function that calculates the completion statues of request set stages.
Spawned - C or Pro C program
SQL *Loader - SQL *Loader control file.
SQL Plus - SQL *Plus or PL/SQL Program files.

Define Concurrent Program
Once we have defined the executable, we can now define a concurrent program. Follow the navigation path Concurrent/Program/Define First, enter the concurrent program name, which will appear to the user in the Submit Request and the view my Request forms. Check the enabled checkbox to enable the concurrent program. Next enter a unique short name and the application name. The application name identifies the location of the output and log files as well as which Oracle Database user ID to use at execution time. Enter an optional description.

In the Executable region, select the defined executable. If the execution method is Oracle Reports and the report is in bitmapped mode, we must enter VERSION=2.0b in the option field. We can also pass ORIENTATION and PAGESIGE parameters to bitmapped reports, and assign a priority to the concurrent program. If no priority is defined, the priority will be based on the profile option Concurrent/Profile Value.

In the Request region, we can assign a request type to the concurrent program, if we wish, we can also identify whether the concurrent program can be user in SRS, whether disabled values are allowed as parameters, whether the concurrent program must be run alone, whether a trace should be enabled for the concurrent program, whether the concurrent program should restart after system failure, and whether the concurrent program is NLS (National Language Support) compliant.

In the Output region, select valid format type HGML, PostScript, PDF, Text. Then decide whether we want to save and or print the output file. We can also enter the minimum column and row length, for the output file. We can also enter the minimum column and row length for the output file. If we enter minimum column and row length, some print styles may be eliminated. Key in the print style for the program. If we check the style required checkbox, the print style will be locked for the concurrent program and application users will not be able to override it. We can also limit the concurrent program to print to a dedicated printer.

Click on the Incompatibilities button to identify concurrent programs that should not be running along with this particular program. To enter incompatible programs, enter the application and program name. Next, identify whether the scope of incompatibility is a set, or just the individual program alone. One common usage of incompatible programs is to make a program incompatible with itself.

Specifying Concurrent Program Parameter Information
Click on the parameters button to specify parameters for the concurrent programs. For each parameter, enter a sequence number, a parameter name, a description, and whether we want to enable the parameter.

In the validation region, enter a value set govern valid values of the parameters, we also enter a default type and default value . Default types can be Constant, Current Date, Current Time, Profile , SQL Statement, of Segment. A default value may be defined for a default type of Constant, Profile, SQL Statement, of Segments. For Constant , the default value will be the literal value entered in the default value field. For profile , enter the profile option name in the default value field; at execution time, the default value of the parameter will be set to the value of the profile option. For SQL statement enter a SQL statement in the Default Value field. For segments, the default value will be the segment name.

We can determine whether the parameter is required, and we can decide whether we want to enable security for the parameter. If we wish we can enter Low and High or Pair as the range. If we enter low in one parameter, we must enter High for another parameter;otherwise, when the application user submits the program it will produce an error. The low and the high ranges are used to govern two parameters that identify a range. For example the low can be a start date and the high can be an end date. Oracle Applications ensure that the end date is after the start date. For pair we must identify two parameters as a pair and again, Oracle Applications will make sure that both parameters identified as Pair are entered.

Check the display checkbox if we want parameters to be displayed. At last enter the display size, the description size, the concatenated description size, and the prompt. If the concurrent program is of execution method Oracle Reports, we will need to enter a token equal to the parameter name defined in Oracle Reports.
Once we have defined concurrent program and its incompatible programs and parameters, we may click on the copy to button to copy the concurrent program definition to create new program.