A profile is a set of changeable options that affect the way your application looks and behaves. As System Administrator, you control how Oracle E-Business Suite applications operate by setting user profile options to the values you want. You can set user profile options at different levels: site, application, responsibility, user, server, and organization, depending on how the profile options are defined.
A profile option can be set at one or more levels, depending on its hierarchy type. Most profile options use the Security hierarchy type, meaning that they can potentially be set at the four levels: Site (lowest level) , Application, Responsibility, and User (highest level).
Note: A higher-level option value overrides a lower-level value.
Hierarchy types enable system administrators to group and set profile options according to their business needs or the needs of the installation.
There are several hierarchy types: Security, Organization, Server, and Server+Responsibility.
Security is the default hierarchy type. Profiles that use this hierarchy type follow the hierarchy: Site - Application - Responsibility - User.
Note: Most profile options that existed before hierarchy type was introduced use Security.
Organization refers to operating unit. For example, clerks in different organizations may need to have different values for a given profile option, depending on their organization, but clerks in the same organization would use the same value. The Organization hierarchy type allows system administrators to set a profile option at the organization level, so that all users within that organization will use the profile option value set once at the organization level. Profiles using this hierarchy type follow the hierarchy Site - Organization - User.
The Server hierarchy type is used when the system needs to determine the middle-tier server on which the user's session is running. For example, the profile "Applications Web Agent" can be defined using the Server type. The setting of this profile option can differ for an internal server versus an external one. Cookie validation, can then be done against the value of this profile option. Profiles using this hierarchy type follow the hierarchy Site - Server - User.
The Server+Responsibility hierarchy type allows you to set distinct profile values for specific combinations of server and responsibility. When evaluating profile values to use, the value found with the most specific match across all levels is chosen. At any level, a special default value can be chosen in case no other specific match at that level is found.
Either or both of the responsibility or server may have specific values, or may be the default value. For purposes of evaluating default matches, the server is considered to be at a lower level and less specific than the responsibility.
When evaluating profile values at this Server+Responsibility level, the system first looks for a specific match for both the responsibility and server level values. If no such match is found, it looks for a row matching responsibility and default for the server level. If no such match is found, it will next look for a row matching the server with default for the responsibility level. If no such match is found, it will continue up the hierarchy to the Site level.
The following table describes how the values of a profile using this hierarchy could be set up ("-" indicates default):
| Level | Responsibility | Server | Profile Value |
|---|---|---|---|
| Site | A | ||
| Server+Responsibility | System Administrator | External | B |
| Server+Responsibility | - | External | C |
| Server+Responsibility | - | Internal | D |
| Server+Responsibility | System Administrator | - | E |
| Server+Responsibility | General Ledger Superuser | - | F |
| User | Joe Smith | - | G |
The following table lists the values of the profile that would be used in the given contexts:
| Server | Responsibility | User | Profile Value | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| External | System Administrator | Joe Smith | G | User matches. |
| External | System Administrator | Yali Xu | B | Responsibility plus Server match. |
| External | Human Resources Manager | Yali Xu | C | Server matches. |
| Internal | System Administrator | Yali Xu | E | Responsibility matches. |
| Custom | Human Resources Manager | Yali Xu | A | No match. Use Site level value. |