Karen Van Hellemont Jan Huyzentruyt Your Oracle Solutions Partner

Use the Power of APEX Dictionary Views to Increase the Quality of Your APEX Applications

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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Who is iAdvise? O

ur C

ompa

ny iA

dvis

e Located in Belgium

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Who is iAdvise?

•  Started in 2004 •  Member of The Cronos Group •  Oracle-based solutions •  50 Oracle specialists today •  Turnover of € 4.500.000 (± $ 7.000.000) •  End 2007 – O2U in The Netherlands

Now 15 consultants

Our

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pany

iAdv

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Cronos is

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How do we work? •  Stress on people

–  Mix of young potentials and experienced “coaches” –  Maximum training, close follow-up –  Knowledge sharing!

•  Finding the equilibrium between solutions and technology

•  Initiatives to stay ahead –  Certified consultants –  Competence centers with “core” teams –  Fusion Regional Director –  Seminars and sessions at Oracle events –  Oracle Blog

Our

Com

pany

iAdv

ise

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Our

Com

pany

iAdv

ise

How do we work?

RAD Race 2007-2008

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Competence Centers

Oracle Platform

Classic Development • SQL, PL/SQL • Designer • Forms • Reports

New Technology • APEX development • Java - J2EE, OC4J, frameworks

• SOA, BPEL, BAM • WebCenter

Infrastructure • Oracle AS Admin • Monitoring, Tuning • Hosting

Datawarehouse & BI • Architecture and design • ETL – OWB, ODI • BI Suite (Dashboard, Answers)

Additional Services • Oracle Portal Development

• High Level Consultancy • Oracle Licenties

Our

Com

pany

iAdv

ise

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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•  Reason 1: –  Every company is looking for a custom project and

development approach –  Main Objective is:

“Reach the desired result in the fastest and best possible way without exceeding the budget and with an acceptable quality level” A

pex

Dev

elop

men

t App

roac

h Apex Development Approach

Why?

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•  Reason 2: –  The entrance level for learning Apex is very low –  A lot of our junior developers get their first project

experience in an Apex context

“There is a need for supervision and guidance”

Apex Development Approach

Why?

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Apex Core Team

•  With Apex as development tool you can realize projects –  At a good price –  Within an aggressive time frame

•  Apex Core team: young people –  Talented –  Motivated –  Enthusiast –  Full of energy

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Apex Core Team

•  But they need guidance + supervision

•  One tries to equip project team members with tools & techniques

•  Create a development workplace to efficiently pilot and control the development process

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Looking for a standard way of working based on:

Project Methodology

Project Workplace

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A typical project workplace looks like a workbench where all necessary materials are available

Project Workplace A

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Pan-Ora-Mix

•  Started an internal project •  Code-name “Pan-Ora-Mix”

“Brings together all kinds of Oracle knowledge spanning several years of Apex project experiences and blend it together to a magic potion…”

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Pan-Ora-Mix

•  Sample apex applications –  Packaged applications that can be downloaded from http://

apex.oracle.com –  Applications already built by iAdvise

•  Add-ons and toolsets –  pGen4O (PL/SQL Generator) –  IAF (reusable components for Apex) –  xTra4o (Xliff Translator): http://www.iadvise.be/xtra4o –  BiP4Apex (Application document generator via BiP) –  Qa4o (QA Check)

•  Tips, guidelines, standards, best practices

Ingredients of that magic potion are:

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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•  At the beginning of a new Apex-project some development standards are needed, like –  Coding style conventions –  Naming conventions

•  Originally we used a standard form, but –  How can you check that these standards are

followed? •  A more automated approach is needed

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Apex Conventions

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Convention Checklist

Example of a Convention Checklist

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DEMONSTRATION

Manually checking development standards using the convention checklist

Convention Checklist A

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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Apex stores all the metadata of the application in a repository within the database, owned by the FLOWS_xyz schema. Tables in the FLOWS-schema are not public and are not quite “readable”.

Since Apex 2.2 Oracle implemented a more accessible layer: the so-called Apex repository views. They are recognizable by the prefix ‘APEX_’ and are all made public.

With the release of Apex 3.0, the views are also documented within the tool (see Home> Utilities> Apex Views). Th

e B

asic

Idea

The Apex Repository

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The

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The Apex Repository

Apex Dictionary Tree View

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•  Apex dictionary views can be grouped in different areas •  Everything a developer “programs” can be queried

via those APEX_APPLICATION_xxx views

= Basic foundation to set-up a Quality Assurance System for controlling whether the development standards are

respected The

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The Apex Repository

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•  Step 1: We write queries on the Apex dictionary views which contain development standards

•  Example 1: –  We want to find regions that are not based on the

template “Reports Region” –  Therefore we query the view

APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_REGIONS and look at the template column

The

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Step 1: Writing Queries

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The

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Step 1: Writing Queries SELECT xapg.page_id, xapr.page_name,

xapr.region_name,

xapr.source_type,

xapr.template as wrong_value,

xapp.application_id as apex_app_id

FROM apex_application_page_regions xapr

JOIN apex_application_pages xapg ON

(xapg.page_id = xapr.page_id AND

xapg.application_id = xapr.application_id)

JOIN apex_applications xapp ON xapp.application_id =

xapg.application_id

WHERE xapg.page_id <> 0 -- exclude page zero

AND xapr.source_type IN ('Report', 'Tabular Form', 'PL/SQL')

AND xapr.template NOT LIKE 'Reports Region'

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•  Example 2: –  We want to find regions where the pagination

scheme is different from “Row Ranges 1-15 16-30 in select list (with pagination)”

–  Therefore we query the same view APEX_APPLICATION_PAGE_REGIONS and look at the pagination_scheme column

The

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Step 1: Writing Queries

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The

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Step 1: Writing Queries SELECT xapg.page_id, xapr.page_name,

xapr.region_name,

xapr.source_type,

xapr.pagination_scheme as wrong_value,

xapp.application_id as apex_app_id

FROM apex_application_page_regions xapr

JOIN apex_application_pages xapg ON

(xapg.page_id = xapr.page_id AND

xapg.application_id = xapr.application_id)

JOIN apex_applications xapp ON xapp.application_id =

xapg.application_id

WHERE xapg.page_id <> 0 -- exclude page zero

AND xapr.source_type IN ('Report', 'Tabular Form', 'PL/SQL')

AND xapr.pagination_scheme <> 'Row Ranges 1-15 16-30 in select list (with pagination)'

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•  Step 2: –  We assemble all quality check queries –  We “UNION” them in our own QA-views

•  Example: –  We want one view that checks the correct template

and pagination scheme

The

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ea Step 2: Creating own QA-Views

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The

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CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_REGIONS AS SELECT …

FROM apex_application_page_regions xapr

JOIN …

WHERE …

AND xapr.template NOT LIKE 'Reports Region'

UNION

SELECT …

FROM apex_application_page_regions xapr

JOIN …

WHERE …

AND xapr.pagination_scheme <> 'Row Ranges 1-15 16-30 in select list (with pagination)'

Step 2: Creating own QA-Views

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•  Step 3: –  We place different checks in different groups –  For each group we build a view, consisting of

different UNION’ed select statements –  Within each group we define checks, corresponding

with a specific select against the apex repository

The

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Step 3: Grouping Checks

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The

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Step 3: Grouping Checks

Shortname Group QA View Name APR Application Page Regions QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_REGIONS APRC Application Page Rep

Columns QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_RPT_COLS

API Application Page Items QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_ITEMS APP Application Page

Processes QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_PROC

APV Application Page Validations

QA_APEX_APP_PAGE_VAL

Check Groups with Corresponding QA-Views

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The

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Step 3: Grouping Checks

Check Points within each Check Group Group Identif. Code Quality Check APR APR-001 Wrong Reports Region Template APR APR-002 Wrong no_data_found_message APR APR-003 Wrong maximum_rows_to_query APR APR-004 Wrong pagination_scheme APR APR-005 Wrong enable_csv_output APR APR-006 Wrong report_null_value_as APR APR-007 No ORDER BY - No Default sort sequence APRC APRC-001 Wrong date format APRC APRC-002 Wrong Heading Alignment API API-001 Wrong date format in Date Picker API API-002 Date column NOT based on Date Picker APP APP-001 Verify (Length) PL SQL Source APP APP-002 No Process Error Message APV APV-001 Wrong error_display_location ... ... ...

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•  Step 4: –  We can now run our custom defined QA-views –  The output shows the standards that aren’t

respected –  Example: SELECT * FROM qa_apex_app_page_items

The

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Step 4: Running Queries

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Step 4: Running Queries

Example: SELECT * FROM qa_apex_app_page_items

SQL Developer Output

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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•  Time to give the queries to developers and code reviewers

•  Choose an integrated user interface: Apex

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Visualize Checks via QA Appl.

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DEMONSTRATION

Checking development standards using our own QA-viewer

Convention Checklist C

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QA

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•  Two problems needed to be solved –  If someone invents a new check we don’t want to

replace one of the views (DDL) –  Different projects means different conventions, but

for new projects we don’t want to replace the views (DDL)

•  Solution: we create our own small metabase

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The QA Metamodel

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•  This metabase stores the driving data for the QA-application

•  No DDL, but DML now Cus

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The QA Metamodel

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•  We added to our QA-Viewer an ADMIN tab where the driving metadata tables can be maintained –  Check Groups –  Check Points –  Parameters

The metamodel in our QA-Viewer C

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Maintain Check Groups C

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Maintain Check Groups

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Maintain Check Points C

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Maintain Check Points

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Maintain Parameters C

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Maintain Default Parameters

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•  Different standards can exist for different apex-applications for the same customer

•  Possible to store a different standard-value for a specific application (via APPLIED_PARAMETERS)

Cus

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Cus

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Maintain Application Specific Parameters

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DEMONSTRATION

Working with Check Groups, Check Points, Default Parameters and Application

Parameters

Convention Checklist C

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QA

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Agenda

•  Our Company iAdvise •  Apex Development Approach •  Increasing the Quality of Apex Applications

–  Apex Development Standards –  The Basic Idea –  From Basic Idea to Custom Apex QA System

•  Conclusion

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Conclusion

•  Apex is the ideal tool to realize projects –  with junior developers –  at a good price –  within an aggressive time frame –  with an acceptable quality level

•  You can increase the quality of your applications by the power of the dictionary views

•  iAdvise has built his own QA-Viewer

Con

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Questions and Answers Q

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Thank you

•  Hand in evaluation form •  More information:

–  Whitepaper: vanhelle.doc –  Website: http://www.iadvise.be –  Blog: http://iadvise.blogspot.com –  Xliff Translator (free): http://www.iadvise.be/xtra4o –  Email: karen.vanhellemont@iadvise.be

jan.huyzentruyt@iadvise.be •  General Apex information

–  http://apex.oracle.com Than

k yo

u