How Oracle Workflow Acquires Information About a Role

In Oracle Workflow a role is a user or a group of users. Oracle Workflow gets information about a role from the following three views:
·             WF_USERS
·             WF_ROLES
·             WF_USER_ROLES
WF_USERS
The WF_USERS view contains information about every user who can receive notifications and responses in Oracle Workflow. The below table shows all of the columns in the WF_USERS view.

Column
Description
Name
The internal name of the user. This column must be all uppercase and contain no spaces. This is the column that the Workflow Engine will refer to for the user name.
Display_name
The display name of the user.
Description
The description of the user.
Notification_preference
This is the column that identifies the notification preference of the user. Valid values are MAILTEXT, MAILHTML, QUERY, or SUMMARY. When the value is set to MAILTEXT, the user receives notifications and responses by email. When the value is set to MAILHTML, the user receives notifications and responses through HTML email attachments. When the value is set to QUERY, the user receives notifications and responses from the Notifications Web page or Notification Viewer form. The Notification Viewer form is only available to Oracle Applications users. When the value is set to SUMMARY, the user receives emails that contain summaries of all notifications.
Language
The language to use for notification features that are language dependent.
Territory
The territory to determine the date formatting and numeric formatting.
E-mail_address
The email address of the user.
Fax
The fax number of the user.
Orig_system
This column identifies the original system where the user resides.
Orig_system_ID
This column identifies the unique identifier for the user in the original system where the user resides.
Status
The status of the user. Valid statuses are ACTIVE for active users, EXTLEAVE for extended leave, INACTIVE for inactive users, and TMPLEAVE for temporary leave.

WF_ROLES
The WF_ROLES view contains information about every role in Oracle Workflow that can receive notifications and responses.
Each user in WF_USERS must be a role in WF_ROLES. If the attributes of the role are different than the attributes of the users within the role, the attributes of the role will override the attributes of the user. The below table shows all of the columns in WF_ROLES.

Column
Description
Name
The internal name of the role. This column must be all uppercase and contain no spaces. This is the column that the Workflow Engine will refer to for the role name.
Display_name
The display name of the role.
Description
The description of the role.
Notification_preference
This is the column that identifies the notification preference of this role. Valid values are MAILTEXT, MAILHTML, QUERY, or SUMMARY. When the value is set to MAILTEXT, the user receives notifications and responses by email. When the value is set to MAILHTML, the user receives notifications and responses through HTML email attachments. When the value is set to QUERY, the user receives notifications and responses from the Notifications Web page or Notification Viewer form. The Notification Viewer form is only available to Oracle Applications users. When the value is set to SUMMARY, the user receives emails that contain summaries of all notifications.
Language
The language to use for notification features that are language dependent.
Territory
The territory determines the formatting of dates and numbers.
E-mail_address
The email address of the role, most likely a mail distribution list. You use the email address of the role if you choose not to expand the role into its users.
Fax
The fax number of the role.
Orig_system
This column identifies the original system where the role resides.
Orig_system_ID
This column identifies the unique identifier for the role in the original system where the role resides.

WF_USER_ROLES
In Oracle Workflow, WF_USER_ROLES is the view that resolves the many-to-many relationship between users and roles. One role can contain many users, and one user can belong to many roles. The below table shows all of the columns in the WF_USER_ROLES view.

Column
Description
User_name
The internal name of the user.
User_orig_system
The original system where the user resides. Use this and User_orig_sytem_ID to join to WF_USERS.
User_orig_system_ID
The unique identifier for the user in the original system where the user resides. Use this and the User_orig_system to join to WF_USERS.
Role_name
The internal name of the role.
Role_orig_system
The original system where the role resides. Use this and the ROLE_ORIG_SYSTEM_ID to join to WF_ROLES.
Role_orig_system_ID
The unique identifier for the role in the original system where the role resides. Use this and the ROLE_ORIG_SYSTEM_ID to join to WF_ROLES.

Review Questions
1.      When is the WF_USERS view used?
2.      When is the WF_ROLES view used?
3.      When is the WF_USER_ROLES view used?
4.      How many notification preferences do you have and what is the purpose of each one?