Oracle ADF 12c Observations

We have recently migrated our Oracle ADF BPM Application developed in 11.1.1.7 to 12.2.1.

Here with I would mentioned some of the findings during the 12c migration

First of all I would mention some of the components which are deprecated and had to fix immediately.

Oracle Adaptive Case Management ACM

Oracle Adaptive Case management feature is a very good extension of Oracle BPM which suits for the adaptive process model.

Below blogs talk more about the out of box and custom approaches to implement Oracle ACM

Oracle BPM : Case Management API's

https://blogs.oracle.com/VenugopalMangipudi/entry/obpm_case_management_api_s


https://blogs.oracle.com/VenugopalMangipudi/entry/obpm_case_management_api_s1

Adaptive Case Management 12c and ADF Human Tasks

http://andrejusb.blogspot.gr/2014/12/adaptive-case-management-12c-and-adf.html

How to solve oracle.jbo.ConfigException: JBO-33001: Configuration file /model/common/bc4j.xcfg is not found in the classpath.

I am seeing this error when trying to run the application module of my model project in the local environment. It used to work fine sometime back and suddenly started seeing the below exception.

(oracle.jbo.ConfigException) JBO-33001: Configuration file /tester.xcfg is not found in the classpath.
----- Level 1: Detail 0 -----
(oracle.adf.share.ADFShareException) Error encountered while creating the MDS Session. Application state will be reset. Please logout and log back in if problem persists.




As there is parallel development going on with in the team, lot of additions are done to the project files.
This error is due to the addition of MDS capability.

In order to solve this error, disable MDS in adf-config.xml. Comment out content and run the application module

ADF Application Deployment Issue : ConverterELTag ClassNotFoundException

Here is an exception I was getting while deploying an ADF Application to local standalone weblogic server.



Weblogic Server Exception: weblogic.application.ModuleException: Failed to load webapp: 'emrp'
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.faces.webapp.ConverterELTag


Solution:

After sometime of debugging, I found that the Model Project with in the ADF Application has got an invalid library reference to ADF Faces Databinding Runtime Library which is not supposed to be present in Model Project. Instead ADF Faces is something related to ADF View Project.

I just removed that reference and redeployed the application to the standalone weblogic server in my local machine.

Remove ADF Faces Databinding Runtime Library from ADF Model Project : Issue is resolved.

Deploying Oracle ACM Case Data Project

Are you trying to deploy the out of box Oracle ADF UI/Forms project generated using Oracle Case Data ? Then this is for you.

Today, while working on Oracle Adaptive Case Management auto generated forms based on case data, I faced below issues and here are the resolutions. 

Environment : Using BPM version 11.1.1.7.0 and installed the pre-requisite patch 18609527
 
1) ClassNotFound Exception CaseFormServlet

After embedding the Case Data UI Project's WAR file into an Application EAR Profile - Tried to deploy the EAR into Standalone SOA/BPM Server.

Below error is seen

java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: oracle.bpm.casemgmt.client.forms.servlet.CaseFormServlet

which implies that the CaseFormServlet class file is missing. 

Add below jar files to the Case UI Project to resolve the Class Not Found Exception.
Find the jar files either in JDEV_HOME/jdeveloper/soa/modules/ or extract the above patch to find.

oracle.bpm.casemgmt.implementation.jar oracle.bpm.casemgmt.interface.jar

 2) Again, if we try to deploy the EAR file now we see a different error saying " pre loading CaseFormServlet" failed. This is more of a weblogic server specific issue.

To resolve

Open web.xml -> Servlets -> CaseFormServlet --> Make sure you have Load Servlet on First Request instead of Application Start.

Environment : Using BPM version 11.1.1.7.0 and installed the pre-requisite patch 18609527

After resolving the above issues, I am able to successfully deploy the generated UI to Standalone Server.

MDS-01330: unable to load MDS configuration document

Following deployment error is seen in some cases when MDS configuration is incorrect

Error: oracle.fabric.common.FabricException: oracle.mds.config.MDSConfigurationException: MDS-01330: unable to load MDS configuration document   
MDS-01329: unable to load element "persistence-config"
MDS-01370: MetadataStore configuration for metadata-store-usage is invalid.   
MDS-01259: The metadata store "oracle.mds.persistence.stores.db.DBMetadataStore" cannot be instantiated.   
MDS-00003: error connecting to the database   
Exception occurred while getting connection: oracle.ucp.UniversalConnectionPoolException: Cannot get Connection from Datasource: java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

: MDS-01330: unable to load MDS configuration document   
MDS-01329: unable to load element "persistence-config"
MDS-01370: MetadataStore configuration for metadata-store-usage  is invalid.   
MDS-01259: The metadata store "oracle.mds.persistence.stores.db.DBMetadataStore" cannot be instantiated.   
MDS-00003: error connecting to the database   
Exception occurred while getting connection: oracle.ucp.UniversalConnectionPoolException: Cannot get Connection from Datasource: java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

Validate adf-config.xml if the MDS entries are proper and try to deploy again.

Oracle SOA MDS Account Locked

Today, when tried to deploy a composite to standalone SOA Server from JDeveloper, I ran into the below issue.

JDeveloper stopped listing my SOA Server in the deploy wizard. Reason is SOA_MDS Schema password is expired. To find this out, I validated the data source connection in Weblogic Console.

I followed below steps to bring up the SOA Server and deploy my composite successfully.

The DBMS driver exception was: ORA-28000: the account is locked 

Change Password and Unlock the MDS account
ALTER USER username IDENTIFIED BY new-password;
ALTER USER username ACCOUNT UNLOCK;

Validate if data source connection works fine in Weblogic Console and then restart SOA Server.

Mockups in Oracle ADF

Every UI designer will be familiar with the word MockUps. This is the first cut to the customer while proposing a application which can be a Stand alone or Web or Mobile Application.

Below are different ways to develop mockups.

• Place holder Data Control - Static Data

             Oracle ADF provides an in built approach using Placeholder Data Control to support Mockups.
             Below are easy references to the mockup development using place holder data control            
             https://blogs.oracle.com/jdeveloperpm/entry/options_for_creating_poc_mockups_in_adf

             Note that the placeholder data control is meant to help you design the page visually - not 

             to actually achieve functionality in the page.
             For that you'll need to actually build the application.

• URL Service Data Control - Data from XML There is an interesting alternative to the Placeholder Data Controls. It is illustrated in this article: Creating an ADF URL Service DataControl for binding a File or Servlet/JSP service and using it in an ADF Faces Web Application. It illustrates the creation of a URL based Data Control on a CSV file that is part of the application itself. That approach too allows for the creation of an ADF application running against an off line Data Control – no database required. I am not sure whether we can create master detail relationships that way though.
  
  http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/developer-tools/jdev/ccset10-all-091120.html
    

•  Microsoft Visio Stencils provided by Oracle

             You may also develop the mockups using Microsoft Visio Stencils provided by Oracle 

              out of JDeveloper as pointed out below pretty quickly

              Download ADF_Faces_Stencils_for_Visio.zip from below link
              http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/samplecode/jdeveloper-adf-sample-522118.html


              Below links explain how to develop mockups using Stencils provided by Oracle
              http://lucbors.blogspot.com/2011/03/adf-11g-ui-designer-meets-adf-developer.html

             https://blogs.oracle.com/jdeveloperpm/entry/adf_faces_stencils_for_visio_available_on_samplecode
 

Oracle ADF Table FeaturesOff Property

Oracle ADF Table comes with lot of out of box features which can be hidden using featuresoff property of Oracle adf table.

Almost all the combinations are explained in detail here

https://blogs.oracle.com/aramamoo/entry/what_does_featureoff_attribute_do

Oracle Alta UI

Oracle's Alta UI is a one stop solution for Rich UI. This UI is built for Oracle's latest Cloud Applications, Fusion Applications, Mobile (Oracle MAF)

Oracle documentation about Oracle Alta UI
http://www.oracle.com/webfolder/ux/middleware/alta/index.html


Demo to play around the rich components
http://jdevadf.oracle.com/adf-richclient-demo/faces/index.jspx

Work Better Demo Application from Oracle
http://jdevadf.oracle.com/workbetter/faces/index.jsf