Oracle Workflow Training Topics

Following is the list of topics that should be covered in Oracle Workflow Training. The topics are exhaustive and have been divided to fit into two days (approx 7-8hrs per day). 

Day 1

• Talk about business process – P2P,  O2C
• Why a workflow helps in streamlining a business process.
• BPEL, workflow of future
• Workflow Server and Workflow Builder. How the development works. WFT file is created, when stored in database the definition goes to tables, specifically WF_ITEM_TYPES.
• WF_ENGINE is made up of PL/SQL packages.
• Case Study – Vacation approval system.
• Attributes, Message / Notification, Performers, Function, Process, Events.
• Overview of Workflow Builder. WFSTD and WFERROR processes.
• Bottom Up approach and Top down approach.
• Add WFSTD and WFERROR item to the new workflow that you define.
• Research on “Preferences SSWA” responsibility and the functionalities that it provides.
• Various functions available in the “Workflow Administrator” responsibility.
• Use “Developer Studio” function to run the workflow that you have developed. It should show the “Run” column.
• Link between WF_USER and FND_USER. Tables WF_USERS, WF_ROLES and WF_USER_ROLES.
• Notifications can be sent through email or to the worklist.

Day 2

• Hands-on – Continue working on modifying the Vacation approval example. Add a timeout activity. Add a Loop counter. Add a update function to update table.

• Workflow background process. Different parameters passed to this programs.

• Deferred activities.

• URL attribute, Form Attribute.

• Workflow Roles

• Send and Respond attributes.

• Calling one process from another. Parent and Child process.

• Business Event system – When workflow wants to communicate with external systems. 

Also on this site Core Java Training topics
http://tenthsense.blogspot.in/2013/02/core-java-course-contents.html

Drop a comment if you have any workflow training requirement

Search and Replace in Oracle Forms

In Oracle Forms, many times there is a need to search and replace text, for example change the name of some database objects. If there are few forms, the search-replace exercise can be done using Oracle Forms Builder. But if it needs to be done for large number of forms an automated approach, which can be easily applied to the batch needs to be devised. 

Following is some research related to the same:

1) Oracle forms can be converted to text and vice versa (i.e. FMB to FMT and FMT to FMB). However, in the text file all the PL/SQL code gets converted to a cryptic text. This file therefore cannot be used for search & replace.

2) Oracle also provides another option to convert the form to XML format and vice versa (i.e. FMB to XML and XML to FMB). The PL/SQL code in the XML format doesn’t is in readable format and hence we can search and replace text. I was able to change the code in sample form and convert it back to FMB successfully. However, I noticed that there the color of the Canvas changed to a different color. There could be some other hidden after effects as well mainly in the UI.

3) Oracle provides a third option, which is to programmatically modify the form files. This was originally a C language API which was complex to use. But recently Oracle has also provided a Java API for this. As this is programmatic, I hope this to be much cleaner than the XML option. Also, more suited for developing a tool. This needs to be researched further.

Notes from research:

1) To convert FMB to text format (FMT) and vice-versa

Open the form in Form Builder. Go to menu File -> Convert.

2)      Command to convert FMB to XML 

frmf2xml.bat OVERWRITE=YES XXARCUST_2.fmb

3) Command to convert XML to FMB

frmxml2f OVERWRITE=YES USERID=<usr>/<pass>@<db> XXARCUST_2_fmb.xml

4) Useful links

http://oracle.ittoolbox.com/groups/technical-functional/oracle-forms-l/convert-oracle-forms-fmb-to-xml-and-vice-versa-5347307

https://oracleformsinfo.wordpress.com/2011/12/16/batch-script-for-fmb-to-xml-and-xml-to-fmb/

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E14373_01/migrate.32/e13368/appmgr_forms.htm#CHDEIIHC

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/forms/overview/technical-overview-130127.pdf