07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.4 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.1 Oracle Workflow Notifications John Peters JRPJR, Inc.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.4 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.2 How many of you have worked with Oracle Workflow? How many of you have modified Workflow Notifications? How many of you have a minimal understanding of PL/SQL

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.4 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.3 How does Oracle Workflow build a Notification Some tips for setting up the Workflow Notification mailer Some simple customizations you can perform on Workflow Notifications What you should learn from this presentation:

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.4 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.4 All of my examples are Workflow This is the version shipped with Versions Being Shown

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.5 Primary emphasis of this presentation will be the changes to workflow notifications that are necessary for them to be sent outside of a company. The topics covered will be applicable even within a company if you want to personalize the notification messaging Presentation Emphasis

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.6 Notifications are comprised of: -A Notification Activity -A Message -A Message Template -Optional Message Item Attribute(s) Notification Components

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.7 Notification Activity Think of this as a container to hold and call the message from. This is what you will place on your workflow diagram. When inserting a Notification Activity on a workflow diagram remember to provide a value for the Performer. If you don’t you will get a workflow runtime error about a NULL Performer.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.8 Notification Expand Roles If you are sending the Notification to a Role (everyone with the System Administrator Responsibility) the Expand Roles is very important Checked, this will create a separate Notification to each person in the Role. If an action is expected every person has an opportunity to act on the Notification Unchecked, this will create a single Notification which is led to each person in the Role. The first person to act on the notification completes (or closes) it.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.9 Message This is what contains the text you are going to send. You can format messages at Text or HTML Message Bodies can include Attributes (variables)

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.10 Resulting Message This is the result of the HTML message body Notice the extra line ‘Oracle Workflow Notification (FYI)’. This came from the message template.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.11 Message Templates Oracle comes seeded with Message Templates in the System: Mailer Item Type. In the PC Client Workflow Builder –Open the System: Mailer Item Type from the database –The Internal Name is WFMAIL

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.12 Open FYI Mail Template Here is where that extra text comes from.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.13 You Can Customize Templates Do not modify the Oracle Supplied Message Templates You can create custom Message Templates in the System: Mailer Item Type You can also create custom Message Templates in any Item Type, including the one you are customizing. Details are in: Oracle Workflow Administrator’s Guide, RELEASE 2.6.3, Part No. B10283–01

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.14 My Customized Template

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.15 How to Reference Customized Templates Workflow Mailer Configuration using OAM

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.16 How to Reference Customized Templates Workflow Message Attributes Right mouse button on the Message Name Select New Attribute … This Attribute must have an internal name of #WFM_OPEN_MAIL_FYI

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.17 How to Reference Customized Templates The value must be of the format: :

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.18 Here is the result Notice other possibly objectionable message components if the message is going external

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.19 Message Attachments Message Attachments are controlled by the User Preferences To suppress the Attachments choose ‘HTML mail’ This can be done at the User level

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.20 Message Attributes Message Attributes allow you to modify features of a Workflow Notification, without having to create separate Workflow Mailers. There are dozens of Special Message Attributes. I am only showing two here. #WFM_FROM – Changes the From address #WFM_REPLYTO – Changes the Reply To See the following document for more information on Message Attributes: Oracle Workflow Developer’s Guide, Release Part No. B10284–01

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.21 Using #WFM_FROM This message attribute will change the From Address in the Notification.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.22 Document Message Attributes Document Attributes allow you to build a Message Body From a Query Document Type Attributes reference PL/SQL procedures to build a text stream Datatypes supported are: VARCHAR2 – 32KB Size Limitation CLOB – 4GB (possible limitations due to workflow engine limitation) BLOB – 4GB (possible limitations due to workflow engine limitation)

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.23 Create a Document Attribute This will be a holder for a reference to the PL/SQL procedure and any required parameters Right mouse on Attributes Select New Attribute …

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.24 Create a Function This Workflow function will set the Document Attribute values when the Workflow is run. Right mouse on Function Select New Function …

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.25 Create Workflow Process I am going to build a new demo Workflow Process Right mouse on Process Select New Process …

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.26 Build the Workflow Process Drag Functions in to Process Set Document Attribute, then Send Notification

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.27 PL/SQL Code I have removed exception handling and other constructs to make the code easy to read. The first procedure sets the Document Attribute The second procedure builds the Document text stream.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.28 Procedure to Set the Document Attribute Document Attributes Values plsql: / procedure = PL/SQL Procedure document_identifier = usually a concatenation of ITEM_TYPE:ITEM_KEY This is the only way to pass parameters specific to the Workflow Instance.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.29 PL/SQL Code – Set Attribute -- Portion of the Package ZZZZ_DEMO_WF_NOTIFICATIONS PROCEDURE SET_NOTIF_ATTRIBUTES (p_itemtype in varchar2, p_itemkey in varchar2, p_actid in number, p_funcmode in varchar2, p_resultout out varchar2) IS BEGIN wf_engine.SetItemAttrText(p_itemtype, p_itemkey, 'EMP_TABLE', PLSQL:ZZZZ_DEMO_WF_NOTIFICATIONS.EMP_TABLE/‘ || p_itemtype || '|‘ || p_itemkey); END SET_NOTIF_ATTRIBUTES;

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.30 PL/SQL Code – Build Document (1) -- Portion of the Package ZZZZ_DEMO_WF_NOTIFICATIONS -- Procedure Call and Misc. Setup PROCEDURE EMP_TABLE (p_document_id invarchar2, p_display_type invarchar2, p_document in outvarchar2, p_document_typein outvarchar2) IS v_itemtype varchar2(200); v_itemkey varchar2(200); NL VARCHAR2(1) := fnd_global.newline; BEGIN v_itemtype := substr(p_document_id, 1, instr(p_document_id, '|') - 1); v_itemkey := substr(p_document_id, instr(p_document_id, '|') + 1, length(p_document_id) - 2);

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.31 PL/SQL Code – Build Document (2) -- Portion of the Package ZZZZ_DEMO_WF_NOTIFICATIONS -- Procedure Create HTML Table Header if (p_display_type = 'text/html') then p_document := NL || ' '; p_document := p_document || 'Employee Table'; p_document := p_document || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || NL; p_document := p_document || ' ' || 'EMPNO' || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || 'ENAME' || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || 'JOB' || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || NL;

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.32 PL/SQL Code – Build Document (3) -- Portion of the Package ZZZZ_DEMO_WF_NOTIFICATIONS -- Procedure Create HTML Table Rows, Handle Text Document for arec in (select EMPNO, ENAME, JOB from scott.emp order by 2) loop p_document := p_document || ' ' || ' ' || nvl(to_char(arec.EMPNO), '&nbsp') || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || nvl(arec.ENAME, '&nbsp') || ' '; p_document := p_document || ' ' || nvl(arec.JOB, '&nbsp') || ' || ' ' || NL; end loop; p_document := p_document || ' '; else p_document := 'Text Document Not Implemented'; end if; END EMP_TABLE;

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.33 Resulting Message This is the same with the message body showing the contents of the table scott.emp.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.34 Warnings about Message Modification Workflow Messages are not versioned Notifications are versioned Adding new Attributes to a Message will affect all Workflows currently running immediately. If those Attributes are not derived you will get an error. You should make a copy of a Workflow Message if you will be adding Attributes to it.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.35 Workflow Versioning Workflow 1 starts with Version 1 Workflow 2 starts with Version 1 If a message change is made in Version 2 it will affect both Workflows 1 & 2

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.36 Workflow Notification Testing Modify the Workflow Mailer Configuration using OAM Enter an address for the Test Address This should be a common mail account or box that required users can view. User can then view this “test” box to find notifications from the test instance. Don’t create an distribution list and assign the required users to it. This causes confusion since s show up in your box and you have to read them carefully to know if they are from PROD or not.

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.37 Additional Reference Material Here are other papers I have written on Oracle Workflow. They are available for download from my web site: –Customizing Workflow: A technical perspective –Oracle Alert and Workflow Comparison –Oracle Workflow Tips and Tricks –Requisition Approval Workflow Customizations

07/19/04 NorCal OAUG Training Day, Paper 2.3 John Peters, JRPJR, Inc.38 My contact information: John Peters Additional reference papers can be found at: