The following APIs can be called by an application program or a workflow function in the runtime phase to retrieve information about existing users and roles, as well as create and manage new ad hoc users and roles in the directory service. These APIs are defined in a PL/SQL package called WF_DIRECTORY.
Important: If you implement Oracle Directory Services integration, you must maintain your users only through Oracle Directory Services. You must not create ad hoc users in the WF_LOCAL_ROLES table, because you risk discrepancies in your user information and unpredictable results if you use any tool other than Oracle Directory Services to maintain users after integrating with Oracle Directory Services. Consequently, if you implement Oracle Directory Services integration, you must not use the CreateAdHocUser(), SetAdHocUserStatus(), SetAdHocUserExpiration(), or SetAdHocUserAttr() APIs in the WF_DIRECTORY package.
You can still use ad hoc roles, however, since Workflow roles are not maintained through Oracle Directory Services.
Oracle Directory Services refers to both Oracle Internet Directory (OID) and Oracle Unified Directory. Procedures documented for implementing Oracle Directory Services apply to both these directories.
Some directory service APIs use PL/SQL table composite datatypes defined in the WF_DIRECTORY package. The following table shows the column datatype definition for each PL/SQL table type.
PL/SQL Table Types in WF_DIRECTORY
| PL/SQL Table Type | Column Datatype Definition |
|---|---|
| UserTable | varchar2(320) |
| RoleTable | varchar2(320) |