An application that integrates with Oracle E-Business Suite consists of many pieces, including but not limited to forms, concurrent programs and reports, database tables and objects, messages, menus, responsibilities, flexfield definitions, online help, and so on.

Building an application also requires that you consider many overall design issues, such as what platforms and languages your application will run on, what other applications you will integrate with, maintenance issues, and so on.

Overall Design Issues to Consider

When designing your application, you should keep in mind that many Oracle E-Business Suite features affect various facets of your application including database objects, forms, concurrent programs, and so on, and including these features should be considered from the beginning of your application design process. These features include but are not limited to:

• Flexfields

• User profiles

• Multiple organizations

• Oracle Workflow integration

• Multiple platform support

• National language support

• Flexible date formats

• Multiple currency support

• Year 2000 support

• CUSTOM library support

• Object naming standards

Overview of Application Development Steps

This is the general process of creating an application that integrates with Oracle E-Business Suite.

1. Register your application. See the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

2. Set up your application directory structures. See: Overview of Setting Up Your Application Framework.

3. Modify the appropriate environment files. See: Oracle E-Business Suite Concepts.

4. Register your custom Oracle schema. See: Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

5. Include your custom application and Oracle schema in data groups. See: Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Configuration.

6. Create your application tables and views. See: Tables. See: Views.

7. Integrate your tables and views with the Oracle E-Business Suite APPS schema. See: Integrating Custom Objects and Schemas.

8. Register your flexfields tables. See: Table Registration API.

9. Build your application libraries and forms. See: Overview of Form Development Steps.

10. Build your application functions and menus. See: Overview of Menus and Function Security.

11. Build your application responsibilities. See the Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

12. Build concurrent programs and reports. See: Overview of Concurrent Processing.

13. Customize Oracle E-Business Suite forms if necessary using the CUSTOM library. See: Customizing Oracle E-Business Suite with the CUSTOM Library.

Overview of Form Development Steps

This is the general process of building a form that integrates with Oracle E-Business Suite.

1. Copy the form TEMPLATE and rename it. See: Overview of the TEMPLATE Form.

2. Attach any necessary libraries to your copy of TEMPLATE. TEMPLATE comes with several libraries already attached. See: Overview of the TEMPLATE Form.

3. Create your form blocks, items, LOVs, and other objects and apply appropriate property classes. See: Setting the Properties of Container Objects. See: Setting the Properties of Widget Objects.

4. Create your window layout in adherence with the Oracle E-Business Suite User Interface Standards for Forms-Based Products.

5. Add table handler logic. See: Coding Table Handlers.

6. Code logic for window and alternative region control. See: Controlling Window Behavior.

7. Add Find windows and/or Row-LOVs and enable Query Find. See: Overview of Query Find.

8. Code logic for item relations such as dependent fields. See: Item Relations.

9. Code any messages to use Message Dictionary. See: Overview of Message Dictionary.

10. Add flexfields logic if necessary. See: Overview of Flexfields.

11. Add choices to the Special menu and add logic to modify the default menu and toolbar behavior if necessary.

12. Code any other appropriate logic.

13. Test your form by itself.

14. Register your form with Oracle Application Object Library. See: Forms Window.

15. Create a form function for your form and register any subfunctions. See: Overview of Menus and Function Security.

16. Add your form function to a menu, or create a custom menu. See: Overview of Menus and Function Security.

17. Assign your menu to a responsibility and assign your responsibility to a user. See: Oracle E-Business Suite System Administrator's Guide - Security.

18. Test your form from within Oracle E-Business Suite (especially if it uses features such as user profiles or function security).