Working Effectively

with
Oracles Public APIs
Finding, Understanding, Using, Tuning, and
Extending

Presented by Rob Lepanto, API

About the Presenter, Rob

Lepanto

17 years working with Oracle Apps/EBS

Project manager and techno-functional consultant
President of the NYC-OAUG (geo group)
API Guru at API Wizard
www.linkedin.com/in/RobLepanto

Presentation Overview

Whats an API and how are they used

How to identify available APIs
Working with APIs
When APIs fail
Improving API performance
Extensions and private APIs

Presentation Goal
By the end of this presentation, you should have a
better understanding of how you can find and use
public APIs to improve business processing at your
organization

Whats an API?
API stands for 'Application Programming Interface'
A software program which serves as an
intermediary or interface between two other
software programs or between a software
program and data
APIs are used in a very wide array of contexts with
todays technology and often mean slightly
different things in each.

Oracle EBS: Public API vs Private

API
Public APIs have been created by Oracle for
customer use.
Supported / safe
Documented
Relatively simple to use

Private/internal APIs are created by Oracle for its

internal processing
Not supported
Use at your own risk

How are public APIs used?

Usage

Example

Interface two
systems

Synch customers with third-party

application such as salesforce.com

Custom applications

A custom set of forms to more easily

manage service contracts.

Load or update bulk

data

Update inventory items across

dozens of orgs

API Wizard

To streamline data entry

Why is it important to use Public

APIs?
Along with open interfaces, public APIs represent
the only safe, supported way to enter data in Oracle
EBS aside from Oracle forms.
"(Public) APIs are guaranteed to maintain the integrity
of the database Invalid data cannot be entered into
the system and existing data is protected from
incorrect alterations."
Oracle Implementation Guide

Great mysteries
The Voynich Manuscript
The Beale Ciphers
Who built Stonehenge and why?
Where do I find a list of Public APIs?
No single, complete source of API information
You have to employ a variety of approaches to find the public
APIs that you are looking for

Hard to find but there are a lot of them:

Over 1,500 in R11, over 2,500 in R12

Some processes have both public APIs and Open Interfaces

Some processes have one or the other
A few processes have neither

How to find Public APIs?

Place to look

Description

Oracle Integration
Repository

Either online at irep.oracle.com or

using Integration Repository
Responsibility (R12 only)

Oracle Documentation

docs.oracle.com

Web Search

Search terms:
Oracle API and what youre looking
for. For example, 'Oracle API
Receipts'

My Oracle Support

Knowledge Base, Forum, raise an

SR

Your services provider

Should have knowledge or way to

get information

API Wizard

Has a knowledge base which it

shares

Query DBA Objects

A powerful do-it-yourself option,

described in detail on next slide.

Querying DBA Objects

Use standard naming conventions and some ingenuity to find
public APIs
SELECT
FROM
WHERE
AND
AND
AND

distinct object_name pkg, procedure$ proc

dba_objects obj, sys.argument$ args
obj.object_id = args.obj#
obj.object_type = 'PACKAGE'
obj.owner = 'APPS'
(
obj.object_name LIKE '%API%'
OR obj.object_name LIKE '%PUB%'
)
AND
args.procedure$ LIKE '%ITEM%'
AND
args.argument LIKE '%LEAD_TIME_LOT_SIZE%'
ORDER BY object_name, procedure$
Results:

The public APIs generally

have the term 'API' or 'PUB'
in them, so this is a good
way to narrow down your
search
This is part of the
procedure name, generally
somewhat descriptive to
the task at hand. In this
case, I want to update item
info, so Ill use 'ITEM' in my
search to reduce the
resultset
This is the name of a
parameter in the API.
Youre probably guessing
here but oftentimes API
parameters are similar to
the name of the field in the
table where the data is
stored. You can also look
in the forms using
Help > Examine

De-Facto Public API

Standards
Standard

Description

Package.proced
ure

Most public APIs are package.procedures (rather than standalone procedures). There are some package.functions.

Standard input
parameters

These input parameters are included in the majority of

public APIs:
p_api_version
p_init_msg_list
p_commit

Standard
output
parameters

These output parameters are included in the majority of

public APIs:
p_return_status / x_return_status
p_msg_count / x_msg_count
p_msg_data / x_msg_data

Initializations

User, Responsibility, Application, Organization,

MO_Global

Flexfield
Support

Ability to process flexfields

Internal
identifiers

Internal Oracle IDs rather than common values (i.e. party_id

rather than party_name)

Owned by
'apps'

Unlike other objects like tables, which are owned by

individual module schemas, all of the APIs are owned by the

No quite standards but fairly

common
Standard

Description

p_object_versio
n_number

Required by several public APIs. For example, required

when updating parties/customers and employees.

No status
parameter

Some public APIs dont provide a status parameter, so how

do you know if they were processed successfully?

No messages
parameter

They write out to fnd_msg or another utility rather than

have an output messages parameter

Special
messages

User, Responsibility, Application, Organization,

MO_Global

Error message handling

Messages
Number of messages controls how you retrieve them
for most APIs. As a general rule, most APIs have a
p_msg_count or x_msg_count parameter that gives
you the message count
Single message
Generally go to output parameter p_msg_data (or
x_msg_data)

Multiple messages
Generally written to fnd message buffer,
Must retrieve with fnd_msg_pub.get

Public API Failures

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."
- Thomas Edison
Types of API Failures
Failure Type

Description

How to address

Failure to
make valid API
Call

API not executed

because call is
invalid, typical error
is:

1. Check data-types of values passed

and data-types of parameters.

ORA-0650 Wrong
number of types of
arguments
Validation
failure

Data does not pass

validation and does
not create or update
data

2. If thats not it, then look at

documentation or look at the API code
(TOAD and SQL*Developer make this
easy) to find required parameters
(those that do not have default
values).
1. Check the error messages, some are
fairly explicit.
2. If error message is not meaningful, try
to eliminate non-required parameters
and then add back one at a time until
error occurs.
3. Check the documentation
4. Search
5. Raise an SR

Public API Performance

"Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em,
'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it."
- Theodore Roosevelt

You cant improve API performance can you?

Performance techniques
Traces and indexes
Parallel execution
Coordinating activity
Data preparation
Commit frequency
Use internal IDs
Pre-validate
Pinning
Patches

Extending functionality with

Wrappers
Wrappers
Program which provides a programming shell
within which one or more APIs, validations,
and output translations can occur.
Why use wrappers?
Often takes multiple APIs to complete a
business process
Allows addition of logic, validations, and
workflows
Requires programming effort but process
efficiency usually makes it a good investment

Private APIs
"Risk comes from not knowing what you're
doing."
-Warren Buffett
When do private APIs come into play?
When there are business process you need to perform outside
of the forms and theres no public API but youve found a
private API. Should you use it? What are the risks?
Risks
Use of private APIs is not supported by Oracle
May not work as you expect

Benefits
Significantly better than direct table writes
Not really that difficult to fully vet and test

Do Oracle customers use private APIs?

Yes. In my experience working with many (50+) organizations that
make use of public APIs, approximately half also use private APIs.

Conclusion
Oracle has invested heavily in exposing APIs to its
customers, which is evident by the big increase in public
APIs between R11 (1,500) and R12 (2,500)
Public APIs provide a safe and effective way to perform
Oracle EBS transactions much faster and more efficiently
than standard forms or custom programs
While it isnt always easy to find them, there are public
APIs for nearly every business process. With some
ingenuity and elbow grease you can find them and learn
how to use them
You can put them in wrappers for a more complete
business process and you can improve their performance
when needed
This is the 'right' (i.e. safe and supported) way to work
with your Oracle EBS data

For more information

To see white paper that was the source of data for
this presentation, please go to:
www.api-wizard.com/oaug_api_paper.html

To email Rob Lepanto