Introduction to

Form Personalization

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 Objectives

After completing this module, you should be able to do

the following:
Invoke the personalization form
Understand the basic structures : Rules, Context,
and Actions
Make simple changes like changing prompts and
hiding objects
Select objects by their current on-screen text
Get the current value for properties
Apply changes immediately to test their effect
Disable personalization

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 Related Course Material

If you are not familiar with the basic construct of an

Oracle Developer form, including terms such as
block, record, item, trigger, property and builtin, you
should consider a course such as Oracle
Developer: Forms Fundamentals, offered by Oracle
University.
The viewlet Oracle Applications Form
Personalization Demonstration shows many of the
concepts included in this module.

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 Agenda

Overview of Form Personalization

Rules and Conditions
Context
Actions
Working with Strings
Getting it right
Putting it all Together
Limitations
Relationship to CUSTOM library
Summary

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 All customers wish to:
Remove fields, buttons, tabs, etc. from the screen
because they never use them
Re-label fields, buttons, tips to match their terminology
Change the default value of fields
Allow easy access from one form to another, passing
context
Do any of the above for only a particular user or
responsibility
Do any of the above only if certain conditions are true.
Do all of the above without writing code, and without
violating Support agreements

Your wish is granted!

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 Overview of Form Personalization
• Allows you to make declarative changes to a
form.
• Changes get applied at runtime when the
proper trigger event occurs.
• Changes can get applied based on who you are
and other conditions
• You can:
• Change object properties
• Execute certain Forms builtins
• Display messages
• Activate menu entries

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 WARNING!
Form personalization allows you to
fundamentally alter the behavior of the
product that Oracle ships, and access any and
all data. Therefore,
This feature should only be made available to
trusted users.
Avoid building personalization on a production
system.
– Form personalization should first be entered
and thoroughly QA’ed on a test system
before they are loaded to a production
system

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 Invoking the Personalization screen

Run the form that you want to modify

Select Help > Diagnostics > CustomCode >
Personalize from the pulldown menu
– Profiles ‘Utilities: Diagnostics’ and ‘Hide Diagnostics
menu entry’ control access to this entry
The personalization screen will now run
– It will automatically query any rules if they exist for that
function

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 Rules and Conditions

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 Rules and Conditions, continued
Rules govern when personalization get evaluated:
Function Name: the name of the function that you ran.
personalization are made for a function, not a form.
Seq: an ordering from 1 (first) to 100 (last)
Description: allows you to record why you are making the
change
Enabled: used to temporarily disable a rule
Trigger Event: the event within the form that causes
invocation of the rule
Trigger object: the context for the trigger event, such as a
particular block or item
Condition: an optional SQL fragment that, when it evaluates
to TRUE, allows the rule to execute. An Advanced class
describes Conditions.
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 Context

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 Context , continued
Context controls who personalization apply to:
Level: Site, Responsibility, Industry, or User
Value: The specific value when level is
Responsibility, Industry, or User
At runtime, if the user’s context matches any
context of a rule, that rule is executed.

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 Actions , continued
Actions determine what the personalization does:
Seq: an ordering from 1 (first) to 100 (last)
Type: Property, Message, Builtin, or Special
– Depending on the Type, the panel will change
to show additional fields
Description: allows you to record why you are
making the change
Language: a list of installed languages, and ‘ALL’
– An action associated with a specific language
will only be executed in the context of that
language
Enabled: used to temporarily disable an action

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 Actions: Property

Used to set a property of an item

Select By Text…: choose an object by it’s onscreen text
Object Type and Target Object: internal identifier of the object
Property Name: the property to change
Value: the new value
Get Value: extract the current property value into the Value field

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 Actions: Property Example

This action:

Changes this screen: To this:

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 Actions: Message

Used to display a popup message

Message Type: Error, Warning, Hint, Question, Debug
Message Text: the text of the message

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 Actions: Message Example

This action:

Causes this dialog

to appear:

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 Actions: Builtin

Used to perform processing by calling Forms and AOL

functions
Builtin Type:
– GO_ITEM and GO_BLOCK
– DO_KEY
– RAISE FORM_TRIGGER_FAILURE,
– FORMS_DDL
– FND_UTILITIES.OPEN_URL
– FND_FUNCTION.EXECUTE
Arguments vary based on the Type

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 Actions: Builtin Example

This action:

Opens the
Responsibilities
form (if the user
has permission):

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 Actions: Special

Used to activate up to 45 pre-seeded menu entries

Menu Entry: SPECIAL1 through SPECIAL45
Menu Label: the text for the menu entry
Render Line before menu: will draw a line above the menu entry
Enabled In Block(s): the blocks for which the menu entry should be
enabled.
– Leave blank for all blocks.
Icon Name: the name of a .ico file

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 Actions: Special Example

This action:

Activates the Tools

menu and creates
the menu entry, for
all blocks of the
form:

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 Working with Strings
Every property that takes a string can work one of
two ways
If the string you type does not start with ‘=’,
then it be used exactly as you typed it
If the string you type starts with ‘=’, then it will
be evaluated at runtime. You can refer to:
– bind variables, like :block.field
– SQL operators, such as ||, TO_CHAR(), DECODE(),
and NVL()
– Server-side functions that do not have OUT
parameters

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 Working with Strings Example

This action:

Causes this dialog

to appear
(when run on 25-AUG-04):

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 Getting it right
Various features and functions are available to assist you:
Trigger and Target Objects are validated
‘Add <object>’ buttons: allow you to select objects
within the form using lists
‘Apply Now’: applies the current action immediately so
you can see it’s effect
‘Validate’: for fields that support string evaluation,
processes it immediately:
– ‘Condition’ will return True, False, or an Error
– ‘Value’ will return the resulting string, or an Error
Add messages of Type ‘Debug’
– They will only display when ‘Show Debug Messages’ is
checked

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 Getting it right, continued
It is possible that a change you make completely breaks a
form, to the point that it will not even run! Here’s how to
recover:
On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics >
Custom Code > Off
– This will disable all callouts to Forms Personalization
Run the form of interest
– It should run now, because your changes were skipped
Invoke the Personalization screen and correct the
problem
On the pulldown menu, choose Help > Diagnostics >
Custom Code > Normal to re-enable processing of
personalization

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 Putting it all Together
This is a step-by-step example of changing a prompt. In
this case, we will modify the 'Users' form, and change
the prompt ‘User Name’ to ‘Clerk Name’:
1. Open the Users form
2. Select Help > Diagnostics > Custom Code >
Personalize from the pulldown menu.
3. Create a rule with the following values:
Seq: 1
Description: Change prompt of User Name
Accept the defaults for all other values of the Rule and
Context

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 Putting it all Together, continued
4. Select the Actions Tab and enter the following values:
• Seq: 1
• Press the ‘Select By Text’ button and choose the ‘User
Name’ row from the LOV
• Property Name: PROMPT_TEXT
• Value: Clerk Name
Accept the defaults for all other values of the Actions
5. Save
6. Activate the Users form, then close it.
7. Re-open the Users form. You should see that the
prompt is now ‘Clerk Name’.
8. To disable this Rule, set Enabled to unchecked (at
either the Rule or Action level), or just delete the Rule,
then Save.

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 Limitations
Although it is faster than a speeding bullet, it is not able to
leap over tall buildings:
You can only change what Forms allows at runtime:
– Cannot create new items
– Cannot move items between canvases
– Cannot display an item which is not on a canvas
– Cannot set certain properties
– Cannot change frames, graphics, boilerplate
You can only respond to certain Trigger Events:
– WHEN-NEW-FORM-INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-BLOCK-
INSTANCE, WHEN-NEW-RECORD-INSTANCE, WHEN-
NEW-ITEM-INSTANCE
– WHEN-VALIDATE-RECORD (not in all forms)
– Product-specific events

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 Limitations, continued

May interfere with, or be overridden by, base

product code
Expected user is an Admin/Developer
– Knowledge of Oracle Developer is extremely
desirable
– Knowledge of PL/SQL, Coding Standards and/or
APIs required in some cases
Normal rules for customizations apply
– Extensive testing in a Test environment
is required!

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 Relationship to CUSTOM library

CUSTOM is a stub library Oracle ships that

receives Trigger Events. Customers are free to
add any code they like to it.
CUSTOM and Form Personalization drive off
the same Trigger Events
– Form Personalization are processed first, then the
event is sent to CUSTOM
CUSTOM can do more because it has
complete access to all PL/SQL and SQL
But for most changes, Form Personalization is
adequate and is significantly simpler.

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 Summary
In this module, you should have learned how to:
Invoke the Personalization form
Build a Rule and Action
Select objects by their current on-screen text
Make simple changes like changing prompts and hiding
objects
Get the current value for properties
Apply changes immediately to test their effect
Disable personalization

1-31 Copyright © 2004, Oracle. All rights reserved.