Oracle Configurator Articles

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Configurator Extensions

About this white paper

This paper will talk about extending Oracle Configurator functionality by using extensions/programs written using JAVA language. This makes it mandatory for a developer to have knowledge of CORE Java. Before reading this white paper, make sure you have read through articles 1-3 on Oracle Configurator on this website.

We will be discussing about writing these java extensions and using them in Configurator Extension Rules. Using Configurator extensions we can perform additional validations, defaulting of certain values etc. This white paper will talk about things which are generally required in Oracle Configurator Development and not the complicated stuff which is given in Oracle Configurator Guides as it keeps developers away thinking that extensions too difficult to understand.

Overview of Configurator Extensions

Configurator Extensions extend your runtime Oracle Configurator by attaching custom code through established interfaces. These extensions are written using JAVA Language.

The term Configurator Extension includes the following:

A Configurator Extension class is the Java class containing the methods that implement desired behavior
A Configurator Extension instance is the event-driven execution (the Java object) of the Java class at runtime
A Configurator Extension Rule is the set of arrangements that you Oracle Configurator Developer to associate the CX class to a Model

Installation Requirements for Developing Configurator Extensions

The latest version of Oracle JDeveloper
The latest patch release of JDK 1.4.2 for your platform

The Configuration Interface Object

Before writing Configurator extensions it is important to understand Configuration Interface Object .The Configuration Interface Object (CIO) is an API (application programming interface) that provides programs access to the Model used by a runtime Oracle Configurator,

The CIO is a top-level configuration server. The CIO is responsible for creating, saving and destroying objects representing configurations, which themselves contain objects representing Models, Components, Features, Options, Totals and Resources.

The Oracle Configuration Interface Object is written in Java, and implemented as the Java package oracle.apps.cz.cio. To use the functionality of the CIO you must import classes from this package. All Configurator objects are represented as java class e.g

Object Name	Java Class
Component	oracle.apps.cz.cio.Component
TextFeature	oracle.apps.cz.cio.TextFeature
OptionFeature	oracle.apps.cz.cio.OptionFeature
Option	oracle.apps.cz.cio.Option
BooleanFeature	oracle.apps.cz.cio.BooleanFeature
Totals	oracle.apps.cz.cio.Total
Resource	oracle.apps.cz.cio.Resource

To use this CIO objects we need to have package oracle.apps.cz.cio in classpath. You can copy the $JAVA_TOP/oracle/cz directory to desktop local directory C:\Prasad\CZ_Extension\oracle\cz and add C:\Prasad\CZ_Extension in Local JDeveloper Class Path. The java code should import these classes before using it as shown below:

package xxcz.oracle.apps.cz.extension;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.Component;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.TextFeature;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.OptionFeature;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.BooleanFeature;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.Total;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.Resource;

public class SampleExtension {

public SampleExtension() {

}

public void setDefaultTextValue(TextFeature CustomerItem){

try {

CustomerItem.setTextValue("Hello");

} catch (Exception e){

}

Using SQL in Configurator Extensions

With Configurator extension code, we can connect to Oracle E-Business Suite Database and perform DML actions. This is done by using java.sql package. To achieve this the import section of java extension should be as follows:

import java.sql.PreparedStatement;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.*;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.CIO;

import oracle.apps.cz.cio.IRuntimeNode;

import java.sql.Connection;

import java.sql.SQLException;

import java.sql.ResultSet;

import java.sql.Statement;

Within Java Configurator Runtime there is no need to write statements to connect to Oracle using JDBC as we can get handle to Connection Object as follows:

SQL Statements

public void queryData (TextFeature CustomerItem){

try {

String sql = "Select SEGMENT1 from MTL_SYSTEM_ITEMS_B ";

Connection conn = ((IRuntimeNode)CustomerItem).getConfiguration().getContext().getJDBCConnection();

Statement stmt = conn.createStatement(ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE,ResultSet.CONCUR_READ_ONLY);

ResultSet rset = stmt.executeQuery(sql);

while(rset.next()) {

}

}catch(Exception e){

}

Reading value for Configurator objects

public void readObjectData(TextFeature textItem,
OptionFeature optionItem,
BooleanFeature booleanItem
){
try {
String textItemData = textItem.getTextValue();
String optionItemData = ((Option)optionItem.getSelectedOption()).getName();
double booleanItemData = booleanItem.getValue();
if (booleanItemData >= 1.0){
//True
}else{
//false
}
}catch(Exception e){
}

Displaying Information OR Error Messages related to Validation

<<Import Section>>
import oracle.apps.cz.cio.*;

<<Code Section>>

public void showMessage(OptionFeature sampleFeature)
{
String msg1 = "This is Sample Log Message";
InformationalMessage imsg1 = new InformationalMessage(msg1,frame);
sampleFeature.getConfiguration().addInformationalMessage(imsg1);
}

Selecting/De-Selecting Option Feature

public void SetOptionValues (OptionFeature currentFeature,String currentValue)
{
//Set selected options within the model
try{
((Option)currentFeature.getChildByName(currentValue)).select();
}catch( Exception e) {
}
}

public void deSelectField (OptionFeature currentField){
if (currentField.getSelectedOption() != null){
try {
currentField.getSelectedOption().deselect();
} catch (Exception e){
}
}
}

Capturing Additional Information (Non-BOM Information) in Configurator

We can capture additional information for a given configuration by defining Configurator Descriptive Flexfield. This data is stored in CZ_CONFIG_ATTRIBUTES table. You can refer to Oracle Configurator Methodologies Guide to get the code of WriteAttributes.java and Attributes.java and use it as a part of your project. These java classes are used to write captured data in CZ_CONFIG_ATTRIBUTES table.

Setting Up Configuration Extension Rules

Build the java classes you have developed and create a zip file with complete class directory.
Please note this zip file (e.g. xxcz.zip should have the complete directory structure i.e. xxcz/oracle/apps/cz/ext.
Create a Configuration ExtensionArchive in Oracle Configurator Developer

Specify the JAVA Class Jar/Zip file

Assign this newly created Configurator Extension Archive to your MODEL

After Selecting the necessary archive the General Tab for given Model will look like

Create Configurator Extension Rules

Creating Configurator Extension Rule is a multi-step process viz.

Create Rule
Choose Model Node
Choose Java Class
Create Binding-Binding is assigning methods in selected to java class to specific configurator events. Events are similar to triggers in forms. There events which are used frequently are as follows:
- OnCommand- Creates a Push Button in User Interface and java method gets executed after clicking the button
- postValueChange- Similar to when validate item in forms i.e. whenever value of selected object changes this event will fire
- postConfigSave- This event will get fire after saving the configuration. e.g. writeattributes.class is attached whenever we need to save Configurator DFF information
- OnInstanceLoad- Initialize variables

While creating binding you will see only those Model Nodes which as having same type as java method arguments/parameters. e.g. if java method has OptionFeature as parameter then Oracle Configurator Developer will allow only OptionFeature type of nodes to be selected in binding.

EventScope can be Global,Base Node or Base Node Subtree. This is similar to form level, block level and item level triggers in Oracle Forms. e.g. postValue Change event is selected for

If Eventscope is Global then any object is Configurator instance changes, this event will fire.
If its Eventscope is Base Node then any item with Base Model Node of Rule changes then a given event will fire.
If Base Node Subtree event scope is selected then event will fire only for selected node and its sub-nodes.

Some more important points:

Every time an event fire, configurator runtime creates a new instance of Java class and calls individual methods. So we cannot use global/class level variables.
We can use Static variables which are bit dangerous as one value shared/modified by various instances of java class.

Conclusion:

I hope this article would have given you a breif idea about how to write configurator extension in Java. We can use these to for validation e.g by using postValueChange Event etc. With this we can plug-in any business logic to validate the configuration.

Prasad Bhogle

Comments

+1 #1 Sam Daniel 2008-06-15 06:27

Hello Prasad,

The article is a really good one. i need one information on Configurator Extensions and rules migrations. If i have about 1000 Rules, what is the easilest method to import the CX's and Rules and avoid creating manually. Kindly let me know if there is any process.

Regar ds,
Sam.

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