Selecting some part of a text by using substr, instr

To take characters beginning from 3.:
select substr('This is a test', 3) from dual :"is is a test"

To take 2 characters beginning from 3.:
select substr('This is a test', 3, 2) from dual :"is"

To count characters till a character:
select instr('This is a test', 's') from dual : "4"

Of course using the combination of substr and instr is possible; To take characters beginning from a character;
select substr('This is a test', (select instr('This is a test', 's') from dual)) from dual : "s is a test"

AME: Approval Management Engine

To change approval workflows AME (Approval Management Engine) can be used. It provides variable options to change workflows without dealing with coding. Some seeded workflows are designed to work with AME though some are not and custom workflows can be designed compatible too. I think this is an essential property for new workflows to be manageable.

"The purpose of Oracle Approvals Management (AME) is to define approval rules that determine the approval processes for Oracle applications.
An approval rule is a business rule that helps determine a transaction's approval process. Rules are constructed from conditions and actions. For example an approval rule can be as follows:
If the transaction's total cost is less than 1,000 USD, and the transaction is for travel 1-2 Oracle Approvals Management Implementation Guide expenses, then get approvals from the immediate supervisor of the person submitting the transaction.



The approval rule's if part consists of zero or more conditions, and its then part consists of one or more actions. A condition consists of a business variable (in AME, an attribute) and a set of attribute values, any one of which makes the condition true. An action tells AME to modify a transaction's approval process in some fashion. The conditions in the sample rule in the graphic refer to two attributes: the transaction's total cost, and the transaction's purpose. The sample rule's action tells AME to add the requestor's supervisor to the transaction's approver list.
AME enables you to define rules that express a wide variety of approval rules. For example, rules that:
• Require subject-matter-expert approval
• Require managerial approval
• Create exceptions for rules requiring managerial approval
• Substitute one approver for another in special cases
• Revoke a manager's signing authority in special cases
• Grant a manager extra signing authority in special cases
• Generate a production that assigns a value to a variable name such as the value
digital certificate to the variable name eSignature."

"AME responsibilities in 11i.AME.A are assigned directly to the users. However, In R12 or 11i.AME.B and higher, AME responsibilities are assigned indirectly to users through roles. The roles are assigned to the users by the SYSADMIN user using the User Management responsibility. Once the roles are assigned, the AME responsibilities are automatically available to the users without specifically assigning the AME responsibilities to the users." (User Guide) That means responsibilities should not be added to users manually!
AME grants are given by using Functional Administrator responsibility> Grant screen.

EBS responsibility to create AME conditions and rules: Approval Management Business Analyst.

Workflows can work with or without AME, for example in Purchasing module this can be done via setting Approval Transaction Type in Document Types screen.

Approvals Management Implementation Guide should be seen for more information.

Application Developer

Application Developer responsibility can be used for some useful transactions, information;

Registering application, form, function can be done; Application>Register, base path of applications can be seen (PO_TOP etc)
Info about tables can be seen: Application>Database>Table
Lookups can be searched from some modules though they do show all. To search in all lookups Application>Lookups>Application Object Library

Oracle Applications Manager

Some useful transactions, information are possible with System Administrator>Oracle Applications Manager

Notification Mailers, background engines, agent listeners can be started.
Licensing is done via License Manager (Compiling forms, applying pathes requires Applications to be Licensed).
Applied patches can be seen via Oracle Applications Manager>Patching and Utilities
Applications on the database and their platform infos can be seen (to apply patches, to open Service Request etc.) via Oracle Applications Manager>Hosts
Purging logs etc can be done.
Can be used to search for concurrents.

Budget control

When an organization uses budget control, in exceptional cases overriding the budget control is required. For this need "Budgetary Control Group" profile can be assigned to responsibility or user. Authorithy provided this profile can be modified via general ledger>budgets>define>control.
GL>Setup>Accounts>Summary and Value Set>Rollup Group should also be used when budget control need is hierarchical.

How to learn application address via database? and vice versa

When you are connected to a database, you can see the applications running on it.

"select host, domain from FND_NODES" and take port number from your tnsnames.ora. To see which nodes are active support_cp, support_forms, support_web, support_admin columns can be checked.

Here is your application address:
http://host.domain:"8000+(portnumber-1521)"

When you are connected to application and have system administrator responsibility you can see the database connection info;

system administrator>Oracle Applications Manager>Dashboard

here your tns info:

"nameyouwant"=
(DESCRIPTION=
(ADDRESS=
(PROTOCOL=TCP)
(HOST="host.domain")
(PORT="(x-8000)+1521")
)
(CONNECT_DATA=
(SID="Applications System:")
)
)

x: Application address no
Note: Remove the " signs

Access violation error for Toad

Using 10g client is required if you are connecting to 10g database; Toad gives "Access violation..." error when your computers anvironment is not using it. Required steps are: My computer> properties>advanced>enviroment variables and changing the path as your path of 10g client (Ex: C:\oracle\product\10.2.0\client_1)

Registering Table - Column

Flexfields (tables validated value set ) , alerts and audit search for registered tables so if custom tables are wanted to be used they and their columns should be registered. Registration is done by using AD_DD package, details are in EBS Developer's Guide> Table Registration API

Basic AIM tasks

List of mostly used AIM tasks:

BP.080 Develop Future Process Model
BR.100 Define Applications Setup
MD.050 Create Application extensions functional design
MD.070 Create Application extensions technical design
DO.070 Publish user guide
DO.080 Publish technical reference manual
TE.010 Define testing requirements and strategy

Opening multi user accounts via Explorer

Especially when testing some cases logining to application with more than one user is required. Opening more than one explorer were enough but new versions of Explorer detects the newly opened page and updates the old one's login information. By properties> writing "-no merge" to the end disables that property and gives the chance of logging in with more than one user.

Forms vs OAF

I wonder in which cases Forms should be used in which cases OAF should be used? After a research i see that forms work on a client and OAF (Oracle Application Framework) is claimed to have less coding effort (mostly because of reusable codes), low cost. On the other hand there is a R11 - R12 reusability subject of these developments; Jdeveloper (OAF) for R11 is not supporting R12 and Jdeveloper (OAF) for R12 is not supporting R11 either. Though Forms Builder6 for R11 is not supporting R12 but Forms Builder10 for R12 supports R11.
One more face of the subject is user friendliness; OAF pages does not require anything but a browser though Forms requires specific Java version installed. Therefore if too many users will use the screen or users will access to the screen from uncontrollable computers then using OAF seems to be a better solution.

Indeed i learnt that new question is OAF versus ADF (Oracle Application Development Framework). ADF is a part of next generation Fusion Middleware but Fusion Applications is still in darkness. ADF can be used for EBS also but not officially supported and does not carry the advantages of OAF for R11 and R12. As a result OAF is suggested for new developments for being html based and being expected to be easily transformable to use in Fusion Applications.

How to modify data selected in notifications

First thing to do is finding workflows name:wf_item_type; standard workflows writes wf_item_key and wf_item_type to the standard tables or from application purchasing>document types>w_item_type can be seen for workflows. Then via workflow builder>wf_item_type>notifications>messages>body related variable can be seen. Another way is directly searching in related package by finding activity and procedure names in workflow status monitor.

Reaching database over EBS

Reaching database over EBS with apps user though you do not have the password! It certainly creates high level of security risk. I will get more detail about it if i can; how to do and how to prevent? While database passwords are controlled strictly this is not easy to decipher. After required establishment all you need to do is (any button combinations developer defines, in the case: ctrl+shift+F7 + ctrl+shift+F8) in the right form..