Considerations using the Oracle-Business Suite adapter with SharePoint

Article
07/07/2021

This topic contains information about the issues you might encounter while using the Microsoft BizTalk Adapter for Oracle E-Business Suite with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, along with resolutions. The issues are divided into two categories:

General issues
Issues involving custom Web Parts

General Issues

This section contains issues that have no resolution.

Issue 1: The simple type data returned by the WCF service is not displayed

Explanation: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server expects the data returned by the WCF service to be of DataSet or Collection type only. If the data returned by the WCF service is of simple type, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server does not display the data.

Resolution: No resolution. It is a known limitation with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Issue 2: An error message is displayed if the data returned by the WCF service is NULL

Explanation: If the data returned by the WCF service is a NULL value, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server displays an error message. For example, suppose you are using the Business Data List Web Part for the Finder method instance, and are searching for customers in Oracle E-Business Suite based on a search expression. The search expression that you specified fetches a NULL value. In this case, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server will display an error message.

Resolution: No resolution. It is a known limitation with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

Issue 3: An array of simple type returned by the WCF service is not displayed

Explanation: If the data returned by the WCF service is an array of simple type, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server does not display the data. Moreover, when you execute a method instance in Business Data Catalog Definition Editor that returns an array of simple type, the following error message is displayed: “Backend system adapter returned a structure incompatible with the corresponding metadata (MethodInstance, Parameter or TypeDescriptor).”

Resolution: No resolution. It is a known limitation with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server and Business Data Catalog Definition Editor.

Issue 4: Cannot import an application definition file that contains a complex type parameter having more than 300 fields

Explanation: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server cannot import an application definition file that has more than 300 fields in the complex type parameter returned by the WCF service, and displays an error message if you try to do so. This is due to the limitation of Microsoft Office SharePoint Server of not being able to display more than 300 fields of a complex type parameter.

Resolution: Use the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor to limit the number of fields of the complex type parameter to less than or equal to 300. Depending on your requirement, you can delete the fields of the complex type parameter in the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor that you do not require to be displayed in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server. Alternatively, you can also export the application definition file from Business Data Catalog Definition Editor with all the fields, and then modify the application definition file in a notepad or any XML authoring application to delete the fields that are not required in order to limit the number of fields to 300.

Issues Involving Custom Web Parts

This section contains issues that require the use of custom Web Part for a resolution. For detailed information about using a custom Web Part to resolve issues that might come up while working with Oracle E-Business adapter and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, see How to use a custom web part with Oracle E-Business Suite.

Issue 1: Limitation with displaying a single record in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server based on multiple values

Explanation: If you want to display a single record in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server based on multiple values (input parameters) from Oracle E-Business Suite, you cannot use any of the three Web Parts (Business Data List, Business Data Item, and Business Data Related List) specified in Step 3: Create a SharePoint Application to Retrieve Data from Oracle E-Business Suite in Tutorial: Present data from Oracle E-Business Suite on a SharePoint Site.

Resolution: You must use a custom Web Part to do this. For information about using a custom Web Part, see How to use a custom web part with Oracle E-Business Suite. In “Step 1: Create a Custom Web Part” of that topic, you can use the following code sample in step 5. The following code sample takes BankCountry and BankKey as the input parameters, and then displays them as a single record in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.

namespace CustomWebPart  
{  
    public class CustomWebPart : WebPart  
    {  
        private string displayText = "Hello World!";  
  
        [WebBrowsable(true), Personalizable(true)]  
        public string DisplayText  
        {  
            get { return displayText; }  
            set { displayText = value; }  
        }  
        protected override void Render(System.Web.UI.HtmlTextWriter writer)  
        {  
            string BankCountry = "US";  
            string BankKey = "134329042";  
  
/***Step 1: Get the required entity and method.***/  
  
            LobSystem newSystem = ApplicationRegistry.GetLobSystems()["BAPI_BANK_GETDETAIL"]; // Name specified in application definition file  
            LobSystemInstance newSystemInstance = newSystem.GetLobSystemInstances()["BAPI_BANK_GETDETAIL_Instance"]; // Name specified in application definition file  
            Entity CategoryEntity = newSystem.GetEntities()["Entity"]; // Name specified in application definition file  
            Method newMethod = CategoryEntity.GetMethods()["BAPI_BANK_GETDETAIL"]; // Name specified in application definition file  
            MethodInstance methodInstance = newMethod.GetMethodInstances()["MethodInstance"]; // Name specified in application definition file  
  
/***Step 2: Get the list of input parameters.***/  
  
            Object[] args = methodInstance.GetMethod().CreateDefaultParameterInstances(methodInstance); //Get the default values of the input parameters.  
            Object[] ArgsInput = new Object[args.Length];  
  
/***Step 3: Assign them required values.***/  
  
            Type t = null;  
            char[] myString = BankCountry.ToCharArray();  
            String s = new String(myString);  
            t = s.GetType();  
            ArgsInput[0] = Activator.CreateInstance(t, myString);  
  
            myString = BankKey.ToCharArray();  
            s = new String(myString);  
            t = s.GetType();  
            ArgsInput[1] = Activator.CreateInstance(t, myString);  
  
/***Step 4: Execute the particular method instance using the required value.***/  
  
            IEntityInstance IE = (IEntityInstance)CategoryEntity.Execute(methodInstance, newSystemInstance, ref ArgsInput); //Method instance of type Specific Finder is being used here.  
  
/***Step 5: Display the output on the custom Web Part in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.***/  
  
            writer.Write("<table>");  
            writer.Write("<tr>");  
            foreach (Field f in CategoryEntity.GetFinderView().Fields)  
            {  
                writer.Write("<td>");  
                writer.Write(IE[f]);  
                writer.Write("</td>");  
            }  
            writer.Write("</tr>");  
            writer.Write("</table>");  
        }  
    }

Note

The application definition file must contain the Specific Finder method instance. A Specific Finder method finds a specific record based on an identifier. For information about creating a Specific Finder method instance, see “Requirement 2: Retrieve Details for a Specific Customer from the List of Customers” in Step 2: Create an application definition file for the Oracle E-Business Suite artifacts in Tutorial: Present data from Oracle E-Business Suite on a SharePoint Site.

Issue 2: Cannot specify values to array elements

Explanation: If the input parameter of the WCF service is an array, you cannot specify values to the array elements using filters that are defined in the application definition file created using the Business Data Catalog Definition Editor. It implies that you cannot use the Business Data List or Business Data Item Web Part in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server to specify values for these input parameters (elements of array) to the WCF service. This is because of the way arrays are defined in the application definition file.

Resolution: Use a custom Web Part to assign values to array elements. For information about using a custom Web Part, see How to use a custom web part with Oracle E-Business Suite. For example, you can use the following code sample in step 3 in “Issue 1: Limitation with displaying a single record in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server based on multiple values” to assign values to array elements.

/***Assign required values to parameters of type array.***/   
/***Assumption is that the ith parameter of Method is of type Array and all the simple type elements in the array are of string type.***/  
  
            Type t = asm.GetType(args[i].GetType().ToString()); // Get type of the parameter  
            Type TElement = t.GetElementType(); // Getting type of element of array  
            int index = 5; //Size of Array  
            Array ElementArray = Array.CreateInstance(TElement, index); //Creating an array of length: index  
  
            for (int ind = 0; ind < index; ind++)  
            {  
                //Creating an instance of an element of array  
                object ElementType = Activator.CreateInstance(TElement);  
                FieldInfo[] FI = ElementType.GetType().GetFields();  
                for (int f = 0; f \< FI.Length; f++)  
                {  
                    ElementType.GetType().GetFields()[f].SetValue(ElementType, (Object)"ElementValue");  
                }  
                ElementArray.SetValue(ElementType, ind);  
            }  
  
            ArgsInput[i] = (object)ElementArray; // As shown in sample, ArgsInput is fed as input while executing Method Instance

Issue 3: Limitation with specifying NULL values to complex type parameters

Explanation: If you do not specify any value for a complex type parameter from a Web Part in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, NULL should be passed on as the value for the complex type parameter to the WCF service. However, a non-NULL value is passed for the complex type parameter, and NULL is passed for its children elements (of simple type). This causes a mismatch between the expected message schema and the message schema that is passed on to the WCF service. As a result, the Oracle E-Business adapter might display an error message.