Oracle Process Cloud Service - Web Form Design Approaches

Oracle Process Cloud Service uses a standards-based technology called "Web Forms" for defining the user interface in business processes. It's based on standards such as XHTML, CSS and JavaScript and allows business analysts and developers to create an end-user interface by just using the browser.

There are three approaches that can be employed when designing web forms:

Form-First: You can follow a "Form-First" approach where you create the form first before any data elements are defined and you let PCS by just drag and dropping components from the component palette to the page.

Oracle PCS will automatically generate the schema that defines the data required by the web form.

The schema that is automatically generated by Oracle PCS is based on the web form controls added to the web form and can be located under "Business Types" section.

When you assign the web form to a human task activity, the schema generated by Oracle PCS will automatically be used to define the human task data structure.

Data-First: A data-first approach implies a bottom-up approach where you create a web form based on data sources or business objects by just drag and dropping the objects on the form to create controls.

In the "Business Types" section you can import your XML schema definition files (XSDs) which you can then use in your web form. 

During the import process Oracle PCS will validate your XML schema and will only allow you to import your XSD if it's valid.

Select the element on which you want to create a business object, give your business object name and optionally create a new parent module (used for grouping business objects).

You will see your new business object  created under "Business Types".

Your new business object is ready for use. You can either use it on an existing web form or create a new one.

However, to make your new business object available for use to a web form, you need to open the  "Form Business Objects" and assign it to your web form (by shuffling it from the selected pane to the selected pane).

You business object should be available now under the "Data Sources" section of your web form.

You can either add individual business object attributes or add the entire business object by clicking on the green plus button. Oracle PCS will automatically translate the business object attributes to Web Form components (which of course you can customize).

Hybrid (Data-First and Form-First): The third and last approach that you can follow uses a combination of the above two approaches, that is a hybrid data-first and form-first approach.

You can create soma parts of a web form from scratch while other sections can be based on existing data sources and data objects.