The technology of OA Framework consists of several components. In OA Framework 11.5.56 and earlier, one of those components was AK, an interface and repository that captures and stores the meta data that defines the HTML pages of the Oracle E-Business Suite. Specifically, the AK repository consists of the following tables: AK_REGIONS, AK_REGION_ITEMS, AK_ATTRIBUTES and AK_REGION_LOV_RELATIONS. When you make personalizations to these pages, the personalization meta data is stored in separate shadow tables called AK_CUSTOMIZATIONS, AK_CUSTOM_REGIONS, and AK_CUSTOM_REGION_ITEMS.
Starting with OA Framework 11.5.57, all the meta data stored previously in AK was rehosted in Oracle JDeveloper OA Extension. In OA Extension, the application meta data is stored either in XML files, in a format defined by MDS (Meta Data Services) Schemas, or in the MDS repository tables.
When you upgrade OA Framework from Release 11i to Release 12, if you still have pages stored in AK, the Automated Release Update (ARU) migrates the OA Framework-based pages from the AK repository to the MDS repository. The upgrade also migrates and loads any "Oracle-seeded user-level" personalizations from AK to the MDS repository. If you or your users have created personalizations in the past and your AK repository and MDS repository are in the same database instance, the upgrade also migrates your "customer personalizations" for you. You need only run the Personalization Migration tool to migrate customer personalizations if your AK and MDS repositories are in different database instances. To summarize:
When you upgrade to OA Framework Release 12, the upgrade automatically migrates customer personalizations from AK to MDS, if AK and MDS are both in the same database instance.
The OA Framework upgrade does not migrate customer personalizations if the AK and MDS repositories are in separate database instances. You need to run the Personalization Migration tool manually to migrate your customer personalizations in this case.
The Personalization Migration tool requires JDK version 1.5, although it can also run with JDK version 1.3. Before running the Personalization Migration tool, your classpath, path and environment should be set up similar to the environment required for applying the upgrade.