Use this window only if you are creating a custom application to isolate custom code and/or data from shipped Oracle E-Business Suite applications.
When you define a custom application, you supply several pieces of information to Oracle E-Business Suite. You must register your application name, application short name, application basepath, and application description with Oracle Application Object Library. Oracle Application Object Library uses this information to identify application objects such as responsibilities and forms as belonging to your application. This identification with your custom application allows Oracle E-Business Suite to preserve your application objects and customizations during upgrades. The application basepath tells Oracle Application Object Library where to find the files associated with your custom application.
You can use your custom application to name your custom menus, concurrent programs, custom responsibilities, and many other custom components. For some objects, the application part of the name only ensures uniqueness across Oracle E-Business Suite. For other components, the application you choose has an effect on the functionality of your custom object.
If you are creating a custom application: Define an environment variable that translates to your application's basepath (see Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts for your operating system).
If you are creating a custom application: Set up a directory structure for your application (see Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts for your operating system)
If you are using this window with Oracle Alert: If your application resides in a database other than the database where Oracle Alert resides, you must create a database link.
When you register a custom application, you provide the information Oracle uses to identify it whenever you reference it. Although you can change the application short name of an application, doing so may cause a change in the application code where you hardcode your application short name. For example, if you pass program arguments through the menu that have application name hardcoded, you will also have to update them.
Attention: You should not change the name of any application that you did not develop, as you cannot be sure of the consequences. You should never change the name of any Oracle E-Business Suite application, because these applications may contain hardcoded references to the application name.
This user-friendly name appears in lists seen by application users.
Oracle E-Business Suite uses the application short name as an internal key; for example, when identifying forms, menus, concurrent programs and other application components. The short name is stored in hidden fields while the name displays for users.
Your short name should not include spaces. You use an application short name when you request a concurrent process from a form, and when you invoke a subroutine from a menu.
Suggestion: Although your short name can be up to 50 characters, we recommend that you use only four or five characters for ease in maintaining your application and in calling routines that use your short name. To reduce the risk that your custom application short name could conflict with a future Oracle E-Business Suite short name, we recommend that your custom application short name begins with "XX".
Enter the name of an environment variable that represents the top directory of your application's directory tree. Oracle E-Business Suite searches specific directories beneath the basepath for your application's files and scripts.
In general, your application's basepath should be unique so that separate applications do not write to the same directories.
However, you may define custom applications that will be used only for naming your custom responsibilities, menus and other data components. In this case, you can use the basepath of the Oracle application that uses the same forms as your application. For example, if you are defining a Custom_GL application, you could use the GL_TOP basepath for your custom application. In this case, however, you should not create custom components in the directory structure, such as custom forms and reports, because they will be difficult to isolate for maintenance and upgrading.
See: Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts