Oracle EBS Personalization, Extension, Customization

In Oracle E-Business Suite development terms Personalization, Customizations, Extensions & localization are often used interchangeably. It often creates confusion among developers regarding the meaning of these terms. These terms are critically important terms that developers must understand and use properly. Let’s describe briefly.

What is Personalization?

Personalization/Configuration is the process of making changes to the User Interface (UI) from within an Oracle E-Business Suite Form/Page. It is possible to make personalization to both Form-based and OA Framework based pages.

What is Extension?

Extension is the process of making changes to the programmatic (i.e. PL/SQL or Java) elements of an E-Business Suite form/page, reports etc. It is possible to extend both Forms based and OA Framework-based pages.

What is Customization?

Customization is the process of creating new forms/pages. While Oracle does provide tools to do this (i.e., Oracle Forms and JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension), this is the least supported option.

WHO columns in Oracle EBS

It is best practice if you keep history of record in any application. Oracle implemented the feature of tracking data. The tracking of data stored WHO columns.

Below are the WHO columns exists in almost all tables of Oracle Apps.

• created_by          – Keeps track of user who inserted/created the record.
• creation_date      – Stores the record insertion/creation date.
• last_update_by    – Keeps track of last user who updated the record.
• last_update_date – Stores the record changed/updated date.
• last_update_login – Login Session ID of the user.

Column Name      How data is populated? 
created_by            TO_NUMBER(FND_PROFILE.VALUE(‘USER_ID’))
creation_date         SYSDATE
last_updated_by    TO_NUMBER(FND_PROFILE.VALUE(‘USER_ID’))
last_update_date   SYSDATE
last_update_login  TO_NUMBER(FND_PROFILE.VALUE(‘LOGIN_ID’))

Techno-Functional Consultants Roles & Responsibilities

1.       Requirement gathering, study in details.

2.       Preparation of RD020 document – List of Discovery questions.

3.       Mapping the requirements to Application process / Business Process Mapping.

4.       GAP fit Analysis.

5.      Level-3 Process design (Flow charts).

6.       Application configuration/setup for Oracle Applications (HRMS, Inventory, Purchasing, GL, AP, AR
Modules etc) and custom extensions in the various instances of the release life Cycle.

7.       Setup document management (version Control & Incremental setup) – Business requirement (BR 100) setup for each application.

8.       Functional specification (MD.50) for customizations / Data Flow Diagram.

9.       Development of customization requirements.

10.   Testing of Customizations (Forms, Interfaces and Reports).

11.   Resolution of issues rose during CRP/SIT/UAT sessions by Managers, key users, end users and regression testing team.

12.   Raising Technical Assist Request (TARs) with oracle for different issues and following up till resolution. 

13. Coordination with client managers/Key users and other teams for issue resolutions and getting sign-off for release to be moved to production.

Oracle Apps RICE Components

The RICE stands for Reports, Interfaces, Conversions & Extensions/ Enhancements. Oracle apps technical consultant use to work on RICE components to satisfy functional requirements & for achieving the desired functionality.  

Now I will define each of above component.

Reports:

Oracle apps technical consultant has to develop/ create the report which is not available in the oracle apps module. The reports can be develop/ create using pl/sql and reports builder.

Interfaces:

The interface and conversions are similar, only difference is conversion is once and interfaces is ongoing process.

There are two types of interface

1. Inbound Interface
2. Outbound Interface

Inbound Interface: Transferring the data from the legacy system (E.g.: Excel Sheet) into the Oracle apps base tables.
Outbound Interface: Transferring the data from the Oracle apps base tables into the legacy system (E.g: SAP, Peoplesoft etc).

Conversion:

Oracle apps technical consultant writes the code using sql loader to load data from legacy system into oracle apps tables.

Extensions:

Extensions/ Enhancements are also called form personalization; if we wish to enhance the functionality to any required form oracle apps technical consultant will enhance the form using oracle forms developer.