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Oracle EBS – ADF Integration

Integrate ADF Applications with e-Business Suite

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ABSTRACT:
Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF) provides a Java framework for building enterprise
applications. It provides visual and declarative approaches to Java EE development. It supports rapid
application development based on ready-to-use design patterns, metadata-driven and visual tools.

Oracle e-Business Suit is collection of ERP and it uses OAF as the technology for web based pages. OAF (Oracle
Application Framework) is a MVC architecture based J2EE framework customized for use in Oracle
Applications development. It is tailor made for use in the development, customization of Oracle Apps pages
and any custom application development to be hosted, integrated in Oracle Apps. It has the inbuilt support for
features like session management, AOL/J security, connection pooling etc.

This article provides you with the details to integrate Oracle ADF applicationswithin e-Business Suits (using
OAF) to leverage the in-built security features of the e-Business suit and provide ADF rich user interface (ADF
Faces)experience to the EBS users.

BACKGROUND:
As part of HR and Payroll implementation, there is a business requirement to build custom applications to fulfil
the Agency’s unique business requirements.
There is business requirement to build various custom applications and keeping in consideration of rich user
experience features available in ADF Faces and future Fusion movement easiness, it was decided to build
custom applications using ADF embedding within OAF.
Development phase was challenging due to the fact that using ADF to build integrated extensions to the E-Biz
Suite is an untested combination and there is lack of experienced help to take this path.

SOLUTION DETAILS:
There are multiple ways that ADF external applications can be integrated with Oracle E-Business Suite and the following
are two best practices followed across implementations.
1."Back-end-only integration" to Oracle E-Business Suite data and services. For example, this may include using the Oracle
apps database as the back end, with Oracle Application Development Framework 11g (ADF 11g) on the front end. There is
no user interface integration at all (that is, a user cannot go back and forth between the ADF UI and the Oracle E-Business
Suite OA Framework UI). This type of integration typically uses the AppsDataSource feature but no other parts of the
Oracle E-Business Suite Software Development Kit for Java.

2."Full user interface and back-end integration" allows users to move back and forth between the ADF user interface and
the Oracle E-Business Suite user interface. For example, a user could go to an ADF page from an OA Framework page and
back again, or ADF components could be embedded into an OAF page. This requires some session context being shared
between OAF and ADF, as well as session management between the two systems.

After business requirement analysis we have choose 1st and 3rd options for various developments based on to manage
user sessionsand data sources.

How the integration does Works:

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  Data Source is defined in Web-Logic console to access the EBS database. The apps user, password and oracle
instance TNS information is provided for creating the data source.
 Custom ADF Applications are developed using jDeveloper 11g in integrated Web-Logic servers. Application
uses the data source defined in Web-Logic console to access the EBS database.
 ADF Application uses the same login session that was created for EBS login for session management. ADF
application always checks the validity of the EBS session in its phase listeners, if the EBS session got invalid
the same is reflected in the ADF page.
 Session time out at Web-Logic should be higher than that of EBS to ensure the best availability of the
application.
 ADF page is registered as form function in EBS with the function type External ADF Application.
 OAF Page is developed and deployed in EBS OC4J server. The OAF page will have a Rich Text Container to
embed the ADF page. The Rich Text Container will have parameters to pass session details to the ADF Page.
 ADF application can use EBS apps initialization API to use most of the EBS database features.
 FND_EXTERNAL_ADF_URL profile option at EBS is used to define the ADF application base URL.
 EBS user will access the OAF page via form function, menu and responsibility.
 ADF page is rendered within OAF page and all action user actions are handled by ADF Application.

Below section provides a demo custom development solution integrated between Oracle EBS and ADF integration.

Agency Contract Management:

Agency Contract Management is a complex and widely used custom application across departments to manage
their staff contracts.

This custom solutionis developed using EBS-OAF and ADF framework and enables Section Heads (Supervisors) to
initiate contract extension process for their eligible staff members. Once the request is submitted, Oracle
Workflow triggers and AME engine will evaluate the approver based on the roles of the initiator and the staff
member for whom the request is initiated. Once all approval completed, one more workflow process will be
triggered for Staff Acceptance of the contract.

Architecture details:

 User Interface: Oracle Application Development Framework (ADF), Oracle Application Framework(OAF)
 Data Management: Oracle 11g Database
 Integration: Oracle apps R12 (Version 12.1.3), Oracle WebLogic Server (Version 10.3.5.0)
 Application Development: jDeveloper 10g with OA Extension (Version 10.1.3.3.0.3)
 Security: Oracle SSO login
 Business Process : Oracle Workflow
 Reporting: Oracle BI Publisher

This custom application has following features:

o Contract details are stored in person EIT (Extra Information Type).
o Supervisors use the ADF page to access the EIT data and initiate the transaction after providing their input.
o Custom table in EBS database stores the details of the transaction.
o Custom workflow process developed using Oracle Workflow triggers and it uses Oracle AME (Approval
Management Engine) to derive approvers of the transaction.
o Approvers and Initiator can print the contract any point of time using the Print Button. The Print button uses
the ADF and XML Publisher integration to generate the Printable PDF.
o After all approval done the MTHR can run a Web-ADI to for mass update of contracts in the system.
o Completion of Mass-Approval triggers a Staff Workflow Process for acceptance of the contract.

Below image shows the Contract Summary ADF page imbedded within OAF page and is accessible from menu
functions. The OAF page passes the session id to the ADF pages and the ADF page maintains the session.

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 Image below shows the contract details page. On click of submit button it hit a custom table and initiates Oracle
Workflow process.
Print button generates printable PDF using ADF and XML Publisher integration.

Business Benefits:

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  More than 7500 transactions made using these integrations.
 More than 2500 contract extensions provided to the staff.
 No separate login to access the ADF Application is required.
 No hassle to migrate these pages to Fusion Middleware when client decided to go for Fusion.
 More than 20 ADF applications are integrated to EBS using this mechanism.
 Rich look and feel of ADF Faces is being accessible to EBS User.
 ADF applications show great flexibility during design and development including choice of technology.
 ADF application can be integrated with other system easily due to the fact that it supports numbers of
technology for each of its model, view and controller components.

Conclusion:
ADF unlike OAF, it is not a vendor or technology specific framework. In fact it supports a number of technologies for each
of its Model, View and Controller components and hence has received a good appreciation from the developer, architect
community. It has gained popularity as the choice of framework for generic J2EE based applications development.

This integration has become a great success for various clients. Currently there are more than 20 ADF applications
integrated to EBS and working good and shown great stability and availability. Position Management, Contract
Management, LPP (List of Positions and People), Generic AME rules, Organization Setting, HRMS Calculator,
Payroll Calculators are some of the custom ADF applications that are integrated in EBS for the Agency.

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About the Author:

Mr. Ganga Ram Dhungana has over 11 years of experience in implementing, supporting and upgrading Oracle
ERP.He is working as a Technical Specialist in a leading software firm, having Oracle Apps with OAF as key
technical skill and currently working as a Sr. Technical Specialist having rich experience in Oracle ADF. He is a
technical consultant having experience in major Oracle Apps technologies including OAF, Workflow, AME, XML
Publisher and Oracle ADF.

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