Oracle Apps How to Customize a WebADI Template Layout

After you have mastered using the standard WebADI layouts, you may find the seeded templates don’t quite fit your business process.  There may be fields you don’t use or fields you wish to add.  Oracle does apply you to customize a template’s layout.  Changes that you can make to a template layout are:

1.      Adding fields

2.      Removing fields

3.      Changing a field’s placement (context, header, or line)

4.      Re-ordering fields

5.      Hiding fields

6.      Making a fields display only

7.      Making a field required

8.      Defaulting a value

Before we get into an example of customizing a layout, let’s talk about the different sections of a template and how Oracle determines where to place the fields on the spreadsheet.

Sections of a WebADI Template

There are three placement areas on a template:  context, header, and line.  The context area is at the top of the spreadsheet and it provides the user information about the template and the instance it was created in.  The second area is the header.  The header fields are copied to all the lines when the spreadsheet is uploaded into Oracle.  By placing fields in the header area, you can reduce the need to enter these values for each line.  The last area is the line are.  The line area contains information about the specific record you are uploading to Oracle. 

WebADI Layout Pages

So, how does Oracle first determine if it should display a particular field and second where should it display it (context, header, line).  On the “Oracle WebADI: Define Layout” web page, you will see a check box for displaying your optional fields (required fields must be on the layout, but you can hide them) and a drop down menu for the placement.  The required fields and optional fields are determined by the Integrator definition.  If you want to add fields to this list, you will need to define a custom Integrator.

After you have selected your fields, you can change the defaults for the fields.  A default can be a constant, an environment variable, a parameter, a value based on a SQL query, or an Excel formula (a value based on another field in the spreadsheet).

After you have determine which fields you are including, their placement, and their defaults, you will click the next button to go to the page that allows you to further refine your layout.  In this page you will see four regions:  create layout, context, header, and line.

In the “Create Layout” section, you can determine how the spreadsheet will behave when loaded into Excel.  Do you want the spreadsheet protected?  Use a style sheet? Or, apply filters?  In the “Context” section, you can re-order or hide the fields.  In the “Header” section, you can re-order, make the fields read-only, or hide the fields.

Web ADI Read Only and Hide

In the “Line” section, you can set how many rows will appear when you load the spreadsheet, re-order the fields, change their width, or apply a frozen pane to the spreadsheet.  The frozen pane is an Excel feature that allows you to keep certain columns in view while you scroll.

Steps for Creating a Custom Web ADI Layout:

1.      Select the Oracle WebADI responsibility

2.      Select the Layout menu

3.      Select an Integrator

4.      Copy the layout you wish to modify

5.      Enter your new layout name

6.      Modify the field layout attributes

7.      Change the field order and visibility attributes

8.      Optionally, create a menu function to access this new layout

9.      Optionally, add your new menu function to a menu

I think the best way to explain these steps is in an example.  For this example, I want to improve the “Transaction Import” template for the Projects module.  I selected this template because it has a security function that prevents you from opening the template from the Oracle Web ADI responsibility.

My new layout will be a copy of the “Costed Transactions” layout, I will modify fields in the context section, header section, and line section.  I will also re-order and hide some fields.  It’s a good idea to create the spreadsheet you wish to modify so you can have a better visual of the current layout.  Here’s my starting spreadsheet (before my changes).

Step 1:  Open the Oracle WebADI responsibility

This responsibility contains the menus required to create / modify a layout.

Step 2:  Click the Layout Menu

This menu will open the Layout web page

Step 3:  Select an Integrator

This integrator will be the one associated with the template you wish to modify.  It is listed in the “Document Creation Review” page when you are creating the document.  In my example, I will select the “Projects Transaction Import” integrator.

Step 4:  Copy the layout you wish to modify

The layout name is also listed in the “Document Creation Review” page

Step 5:  Enter your new layout name

This will be the layout name used in your new template.  I have found it works best if you use all capitals with no spaces.

Step 6: Modify the field layout attributes

Here’s where we start modifying the fields.  First I will move  fields from the header to the lines.  Second, I’ll remove a couple unnecessary fields from the lines section.  Next, I’ll add some fields to the header and line sections.  Lastly, I will add defaults to some of my fields.

Step 7:  Change the field order, display attribute, and number of default rows in Excel.Step 8:  Optionally, create a menu function to access this new layout

Since this integrator using function security, I’ll need to create a custom function.  I will first query an existing function and copy the values to my new function.  In the parameters field, I’ll need to change the layout name.

Step 9:  Optionally, add your new menu function to a menuAfter I have my new function, I can add it to the Project Super User menu.  Now I’m ready to use my new layout.