OA Personalization Framework supports end-users as well as localization and customization teams in their efforts to tailor OA Framework-based applications to different users. OA Personalization Framework accomplishes this by allowing you to make personalizations at distinct levels so that you may target those personalizations to specific audiences.
There are different personalization levels available from the system administrative standpoint: Function, Industry, Localization, Site, Organization, Responsibility, and Admin-Seeded User. When you make personalizations at any of these levels, the personalizations are available only to the audience defined by that level. Since personalizations should only be made at these levels by a system administrator, these are collectively referred to as administrative-level (or admin-level) personalizations. Admin-level personalizations can be performed on any component in a page, including shared (extended) regions. Except for the Admin-Seeded User level, you can only have one set of personalizations per region per admin-level.
User-level or portlet-level personalizations, on the other hand, can be made only to certain tables in query regions or portlets. User or portlet-level personalizations can be made directly by an end-user and are visible only to that end-user, hence they are collectively referred to as end user-level personalizations.
All personalization levels are described in the following sections.
A function in the Oracle E-Business Suite is a token that is registered under a unique name for the purpose of assigning it to, or excluding it from, a responsibility. The OA Personalization Framework leverages the same infrastructure to drive the Personalization context at a feature or flow level. You can create personalizations for a region at the Function level, such that the personalizations are visible only when you display the region while the specific function is in context. For example, suppose you have an updatable region and you want that region to be updatable when accessed from FunctionA in the menu, but to be read-only when accessed from FunctionB in the menu. To accomplish this, you create a Function level personalization that makes all the fields read-only for FunctionB.
You can have only one set of personalizations per region per function; however, you can have as many functions as personalizations are needed, provided that these functions can be brought into context at runtime, such as by linking them to menus or passing them as parameters on the URL.
With the Industry personalization level, the OA Personalization Framework provides a way to tailor an application's user interface to suit a particular industry segment.
The Industry level includes a predefined list of vertical market categories, such as Healthcare - Provider and Utilities - Electricity. For each category, you can personalize the application interface to incorporate a unique combination of industry-specific terminology. For example, where one type of business might use the term "business unit," another might use the term "store," and another might use "location" or "franchise."
Suppose you need to distribute your applications to a particular locale of users, where certain fields or buttons are hidden and labels need to be changed to accommodate that locale. You can do that by creating Localization level personalizations in the relevant regions before delivering your applications. All end-users for the specific locale will see the applied localization personalizations. For example, Oracle's localization teams would make country-specific localization-level personalizations in HR applications before delivering the applications to customers in a given country.
A site refers to an installation of Oracle Framework-based applications. Personalizations that you make at the site level affect all users of the current installation. For example, as a system administrator, you might want to make a site level personalization where you change the table column labels to match your corporate standards.
An Org is an Organization or a business unit. Depending on the context, an Org can be a plant, a warehouse, a department, a division within a company or even a complete company. Personalizations that you make at the Org level affect all users of that Org. For example, you might make a personalization at the Org level to hide certain fields because they are not pertinent to the context of a particular Org.
A responsibility represents a specific level of authority within an application. Each responsibility lets you access specific functions or a set of product pages, menus, reports and data to fulfill your role in an application. When you make personalizations at the responsibility level, the changes are effective only for the users of a given responsibility. For example, you can personalize the Open Requisitions Line page for the "Office Supplies Purchasing Manager" responsibility to display only open requisition lines from a particular supplier.
As an administrator you may want to create some personalizations that are available to all your users and allow your users to choose whether they want to use those personalizations. You can accomplish this by creating an "admin-seeded user-level" personalization, also known as an "admin-seeded" end user saved search. For example, you can create two personalized saved searches of the Oracle Workflow Worklist. One saved search shows open workflow notifications and the other shows FYI notifications. Each user can have access to both of these saved searches.
You can only create "admin-seeded user-level" personalizations on tables (including hierarchy tables) in a Query region. You can also secure "admin-seeded user-level" to a specific function so that is is published only to a specific group of users. These personalizations then get seeded into the appropriate users' Personal Table Saved Searches page, so that individual users can choose which saved searches to display. You can have more than one "admin-seeded user-level" personalization per region.
Note: Although both "admin-seeded user-level" personalizations and site-level personalizations are propagated to all users, the two personalization levels are different. An "admin-seeded user-level" personalization is saved as a personalized saved search that a user can choose to display from the Personal Table Saved Searches page, whereas a site-level personalization is a change that is made across the entire site that all users see automatically.
Both Oracle-internal developers and customers are able to create seeded user-level customizations. To distinguish between seeded user-level personalizations that are shipped by Oracle and those that are defined by administrators at a customer site, the two types of personalizations are referred to as "Oracle-seeded user-level" personalizations (seeded by Oracle) and "admin-seeded user-level" personalizations (seeded by administrators at the customer site), respectively.
Note: An "Oracle-seeded user-level" personalization cannot be updated or deleted at the customer site; however, an administrator at a customer site who creates an "admin-seeded user-level" personalization can edit or delete that personalization.
Note: You can mark a seeded user-level personalization as a default saved search. End-user personalized saved searches take highest precedence, followed by "admin-seeded user-level" personalizations, then "Oracle-seeded user-level" personalizations.
Portal applications provide users with corporate and customized personal home pages accessible via web browsers. These home pages may contain corporate announcements, stock tickers, news headlines, and links to other web-based services. A portal application such as Oracle WebCenter Portal or Oracle Portal may also connect to partner applications that share their user authorization and session management models with it. Oracle E-Business Suite is a partner application to Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle Portal. Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle Portal users can add links to their home pages to access Oracle E-Business Suite modules, and can display Oracle E-Business Suite information, such as Oracle Workflow notifications, directly to their home pages. These links are called portlets. You can personalize these portlets just as you can personalize the tables of a query region in an application. Any personalizations you make at the portlet level affect only the portlet used to display the region. You can have only one set of personalizations per region per portlet.
As an end-user, you can personalize certain tables in query regions and the personalizations would affect no one else. For example you can personalize the Requisitions History page to display only requisitions prepared by you. Each user can save multiple sets of personalizations per page region. A saved set of personalizations is also known as a personalized "view" and can be selected and applied from the "View Personalizations" list.