Oracle Application Framework (OAF) Tutorial

OAF Tutorials Overview

Welcome to the free tutorials of Oracle Application Framework. The objective of these tutorials is to understand and enhance your skills in OAF. In these tutorials you will learn basic concepts of OAF including architecture, installation of process developer, creating, editing and managing pages. In addition to OAF tutorials, we will cover OAF interview questions, and issues of OAF.

Enjoy the ride!!

Index

• Calling OAF Pages Using Update and Detail Image Icons
• OAF Interview Questions & Answers
• Personalization in OAF
• EO Extension in OAF
• CO Extension in OAF
• AM Extension in OAF
• Extensions in OAF
• Creating Function, Menu, and Responsibility in Apps for OAF Pages
• Import Script in OAF
• Moving OAF Project Files Into Apps Server
• Dynamic Changes in OAF pages
• Creating First OAF Page In Project
• MD-50 of Sample Project in OAF
• Search Pages in OAF
• SPEL In OAF
• Data Entry Page in OAF
• How to display User Name, User Id and Responsibility id
• Advantages & Disadvantages of OAF
• Structure of OAF
• Difference Between OAF and Oracle Forms
• What is OAF
• Developing I18N Applications in JSF

About Oracle Application Framework

Oracle Application Framework (OAF) is an architecture for creating web based front end pages and J2EE type of applications within the Oracle EBS ERP platform.Oracle Application Framework is the development and deployment platform developed by Oracle to develop the Oracle E-Business Suite “Self-Service” or HTML based Applications.

OA Framework, is based on the industry-standard Model-View-Controller(MVC) design pattern and can be used to develop extensions to existing E-Business Suite functionality. Oracle Application (OA) enables you to personalize the layout of the user interface and the content it displays to suit your business needs. Oracle’s JDeveloper tool with an Oracle Applications extension is used for development for the Oracle Applications Framework and uses Java & XML languages for the same.

Oracle Application Framework (OA Framework or OAF) is a framework developed by Oracle Corporation for application development within the Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS)

Oracle Application Framework (OAF) provides visual and declarative approaches to Java EE development. The OA framework is also available to customers for personalization’s, customizations and custom-application development.

The OA Framework helps to create self Service pages in Oracle EBS.

The OA Framework helps in controlling the flow of the application.

OA Framework works on the basic Java EE principles.

To Learn OAF you must know the Basics of Java like Core Java.

User Interface is Very Interactive in OAF

OA Framework contains inbuilt security

We can view OA Framework pages in mobile phones too which contains Internet browsing feature

OA Framework is J2EE based but it also supports various standards like HTML, XML, SQL, JSP.

OA Framework is based on J2EE technology called BC4J (Business Components for Java) The OA Framework is a Model-view-controller (MVC) framework built using J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition) technologies.

Oracle Application Framework Components

The MVC architecture is a component-based design pattern with clean interfaces between the Model, View, and Controller.

The Model is where the application implements its business logic. All the BC4J components in OAF comes under Model like AM (Application Module), VO (View Object), EO (Entity Object), VL (View Link) & AO (Association Object).

- EO(Entity Objects) Entity Object is based on database table or other data source.Entity Object contains attributes which represent database columns.All insert/update/delete (DML Operations) transactions go through EO to database.

- VO View Objects are based on EO or SQL Query which is again based on EO Objects Two types 1. SQL based 2. EO based Basically VO is synonymous to views used in PLSQL Programming they are used for joining tables, filtering based on conditions and sorting the data. Entity Objects can be based on any number of EO and provide access to EO.

- Application Module Its a container for VO. Once you create a Application Module you need to associate the corresponding VO to the Application Modules. Access to the VO is always provided through the Application Module. Every Page in OAF Framework need to be associated with a AM.

The View is where the application implements its user interface. View means the UI (User Interface) that is visible to the Users.

The Controller is where the application handles user interaction and directs business flow. Controller is a simple java class file that contains methods for initial page request and post back request.

When user clicks a button, or performs certain action what responses should be triggered is coded in the Controller. All the responses to User actions, Application Flow is coded into the Controller. m Model objects like EO and VO can't be accessed directly from the Controller Class, except AM.

Some common methods that controller has

1. ProcessRequest: Fires when OAF page loads for the first time

2. ProcessFormRequest: Fires when user submits the page.

Oracle Application Framework Uses

The necessary to use OAF in Oracle applications is Integration, Security, and Customization.

Integration:  Registration of Forms is easy.

Security: Flexibility reasons if we are using third party we don’t know when it is going to fail.

Customization: If we are integrating with third party customization is tough where as using OAF customization is little bit easier when comparing to Other Third party customization.

OAF Advantages & Disadvantages

The advantages of OAF are:

1) End user Productivity

2) Enterprise Grade Performance and Scalability

3) Highly extensible Architecture

4) Browser Look and Feel of all the pages in application.

5) Open Standards such as XML, HTML, Java, JSP, SQL, and Web Services.

6) Application Customizability.

7) Developer Productivity.

The disadvantages of OAF are:

1) Cannot see the layout at design time.

2) OAF Pages are integrated / compatible only with the Oracle Apps.

3) Drag and Drop options are not available.

4)  More R&D is required to design a form layout which is time consuming.