Sten Vesterli
Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service RevealedRapid Application Development for Web and Mobile
Sten Vesterli
Vaerloese, Denmark
ISBN 978-1-4842-4928-4e-ISBN 978-1-4842-4929-1
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-4929-1
© Sten Vesterli 2019
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While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein.
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For my wife Lotte and our children Michael and Maria and others like them who work to make the world a better place through word, code, and deed.

Introduction

This book introduces you to Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS), which allows you to build and deploy an attractive, user-friendly web or mobile application in one day or less.

In today’s fast-paced world, the ability to rapidly deliver running code is the most crucial and sought-after skill a developer can have. Oracle has brought together their enterprise experience, advanced usability, and cloud engineering to produce this innovative platform giving developers unprecedented productivity.

With the visual and browser-based approach of VBCS, developers of all expertise levels can quickly solve simple business problems. For more sophisticated applications, experienced developers can dive into the code and add Groovy and JavaScript business logic. Most VBCS applications run in the Oracle Cloud to get the full benefit of the VBCS tool, but it is possible to build VBCS web applications and deploy them to other clouds or on-premise.

To get started with this book, you need to sign up for an Oracle Cloud account at https://cloud.oracle.com . Oracle offers free trials with several hundred dollars’ worth of cloud credits. Unfortunately, the free trial is limited to 30 days, so you should make sure you will have enough time available to evaluate the product when you start the trial.

Chapter 1 introduces you to the tool and shows how to build a simple application. Chapter 2 explains how to create business objects to store your data inside Visual Builder Cloud Service, and Chapter 3 shows how to create service connections to data sources outside VBCS.

Chapter 4 describes the features for building great-looking and user-friendly applications, including the powerful visualization components. Chapter 5 discusses how to handle data in your application, and Chapters 6 and 7 explain how to add custom business logic to the business layer and the user interface layer of your VBCS application. Chapter 8 shows the exciting Visual Builder Add-in for Excel, which allows an end user to work with VBCS data directly from an Excel spreadsheet. Chapter 9 shows how to use VBCS to build mobile applications for Android and iOS and as progressive web applications.

Chapter 10 explains the security features in VBCS, and Chapter 11 describes how to manage whole VBCS applications. Chapter 12 provides a detailed look at how to use VBCS in an enterprise setting, including how to integrate with Oracle Developer Cloud Service and use Git version control, how to automate building VBCS applications, and how to deploy them outside VBCS. Finally, Chapter 13 explains how to integrate VBCS with Oracle Process Cloud Service.

I’m happy you have picked up this book and believe Visual Builder Cloud Service will be a great addition to your skillset.

Acknowledgments

From Oracle, I want to thank Brian Fry, Duncan Mills, Jules Lane, Shay Shmeltzer, and Steve Morton for making Visual Builder Cloud Service demo environments available, for their blog posts detailing important points, and for answering my questions.

From Apress, I thank Jonathan Gennick for believing in a Visual Builder Cloud Service book and Jill Balzano for shepherding the project to completion.

I also want to thank my technical reviewers, Andrejus Baranovskis and Florin Marcus, for their comments and suggestions.

Finally, I want to express my love and gratitude for my wonderful wife, who has been unfailingly supportive when I mark yet another batch of weekends “book chapter deadline” in our calendar.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1:​ Building Your First Web Application 1
Visual Builder Cloud Service Architecture 1
The Front End 2
The Back End 3
The Use Case 4
Creating a VBCS Instance 4
Creating a Quick Start Instance 6
Creating a Stack Template Instance 9
Building the Application 12
Getting to the Home Page 12
Creating the Application 15
Creating the Business Object 17
Creating the Web Page 20
Staging and Deploying the Application 25
Releasing to Test 25
Fixing Bugs 26
Releasing to Production 27
Conclusion 27
Chapter 2:​ Building Business Objects 29
Creating Business Objects 29
Creating from Navigator 30
Creating from Business Object Diagrammer 32
Creating Relationships 34
Creating from Business Object 34
Creating from Business Object Diagrammer 36
Business Object Fields 37
Data Types 39
Value Calculation 41
Importing Business Objects 44
Uploading the File 45
Defining Business Objects 46
Defining Fields 47
Performing the Import 48
Importing Related Business Objects 49
Conclusion 52
Chapter 3:​ Working with Service Connections 53
About Service Connections 53
Creating from a Service Specification 55
Swagger 57
ADF Describe 60
Creating from an Endpoint 61
Using Service Connections 65
Pagination, Filtering, and Sorting 67
Using the Service Catalog 69
Setting Up the Service Catalog for the Instance 70
Setting Up the Service Catalog for the Application 70
Working with the Service Catalog 71
Conclusion 74
Chapter 4:​ Building Web Application 75
Creating a Web Application 75
Working with Pages 77
The Page Designer 77
Page Canvas 78
Collection Components 78
Adding a Data Source for a Table 79
Adding a Data Source for a List View 81
Creating Standard Pages 83
Adding a Create Page 83
Adding an Edit Page 85
Adding a Detail Page 86
Adding a Delete Action 87
Layout Components 87
Static Components 90
Field Components 92
Action Components 93
Visualization Components 93
Charts 94
Gauges 101
The Component Exchange 103
Conclusion 105
Chapter 5:​ Working with Data 107
Creating Individual Records 107
Exporting Data 108
Importing Data 109
Moving Data Between Environments 110
Accessing Business Objects with REST 112
Business Object Endpoints 113
Example of Accessing a Business Object Externally 117
Conclusion 119
Chapter 6:​ Logic in the Business Layer 121
Field Validators 122
Object Validators 125
Field Triggers 126
Object Triggers 127
Visual Trigger Designer 129
Always Execute 130
Execute Conditionally 130
Custom Code 132
Adding Actions to Triggers 132
Using Email Actions 134
Converting to Custom Code 136
Object Functions 138
Logging Business Logic 138
Conclusion 139
Chapter 7:​ Logic in the User Interface 141
How VBCS Really Works 141
Examples from the Quick Starts 142
UI Components 146
Lifecycle Events 149
Variables and Types 149
Variable Types 151
Action Chains 153
Adding JavaScript 155
Conclusion 158
Chapter 8:​ Using the Visual Builder Add-in for Excel 159
Installing the Visual Builder Add-in for Excel 159
Connecting an Excel Spreadsheet 162
Working with Data 164
Limiting Data 166
Resetting Excel 166
Publishing a VBCS Excel Workbook 167
Troubleshooting the VBCS Excel Add-in 167
Conclusion 168
Chapter 9:​ Building Mobile Applications 169
Creating a Mobile Application 169
Working with Pages 171
The Mobile Page Designer 172
Selecting the Mobile View 172
Mobile Page Canvas 175
Collection Components 175
Creating Standard Pages 177
Adding a Create Page 177
Adding an Edit Page 178
Adding a Detail Page 180
Adding Delete Functionality 180
Layout Components 182
Static Components 183
Field Components 183
Action Components 183
Visualization Components 184
Gauges 184
Charts 185
Building Apps 187
Setting Up 187
Building for iOS 190
Building for Android 194
Building Progressive Web Apps 197
Conclusion 199
Chapter 10:​ VBCS Security 201
Users and Roles 201
Anonymous and Authenticated Users 201
Other User Roles 202
Testing Role-Based Security 203
Web Application Security 204
Application Embedding 205
Changing Security Settings 206
Mobile Application Security 206
Business Object Security 207
General Business Object Security Settings 207
Role-Based Security for Business Objects 209
Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) 211
Service Connection Authentication 212
Security-Related Programming 215
Removing Unauthorized Functionality 215
Adding Login and Logout Functionality 216
Conclusion 219
Chapter 11:​ Managing Applications 221
Application Overview 221
Creating Applications 223
Exporting and Importing Applications 225
Exporting a VBCS Application 226
Importing a VBCS Application 227
Importing a VBCS Classic Application 228
Staging and Publishing 229
Staging an Application 229
Publishing an Application 231
Locking an Application 232
Deleting an Application 233
Application Settings 233
Vanity URL 234
Other Settings 235
Conclusion 235
Chapter 12:​ Enterprise Development with VBCS 237
Team Work 237
Setting Up Developer Cloud Service 238
Creating a DevCS Project 240
Getting the Connection Information 242
Connecting VBCS to DevCS 243
Working with Git in VBCS 245
Saving Changes 246
Checking Status 247
Comparing Code 247
Getting Changes 248
Dropping All Changes 249
Working with Git in DevCS 249
Enterprise Development Workflow 251
Setting Up an Enterprise Project 251
Working on Features 252
Reviewing and Integrating Features 254
Handling Data 262
Customizing the Build Process 263
Building in Developer Cloud Service 265
Saving the Build Output 267
Building Locally 267
Deploying to Another Server 267
Conclusion 269
Chapter 13:​ Integrating with Process Cloud Service 271
About Process Cloud Service 272
Connecting VBCS to PCS 273
Starting a Process from VBCS 276
Starting from User Interface 276
Starting from Business Component 281
Working with PCS Tasks 284
Building a Task List 284
Working with Task Actions 285
Showing Process Instances 287
Conclusion 289
Index 291

About the Author and About the Technical Reviewers

About the Author

Sten Vesterli
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is one of the world’s leading experts on Oracle technology and has worked almost every development tool produced by Oracle in the last several decades, including ADF, APEX, JET, VBCS, Forms, Reports, Designer, Oracle Portal, Oracle WebDB, Oracle BPEL, Oracle Collaboration Suite, and even Oracle Power Objects.

He is a frequent speaker at Oracle conferences around the world and has given hundreds of presentations at Oracle OpenWorld and at ODTUG KScope, IOUG Collaborate, UKOUG, DOAG, and many other user group conferences. His presentations are highly rated by the participants, and he has received the ODTUG best speaker award twice.

Known for his ability to explain technology clearly, Sten writes the popular Oracle Watch newsletter and articles for Oracle Profit , Oracle Scene , and other publications. He has previously written five books on Oracle technologies and is excited to present this first book on Oracle Visual Builder Cloud Service.

Sten was a member of Oracle’s elite Oracle ACE Director program for a decade until his penchant for telling the unvarnished truth got him excommunicated. An independent consultant based in Denmark, Sten works with customers worldwide, helping them get the most from their investment in Oracle software.

He holds a private pilot license for single-engine aircraft, and his personal projects have included an Ironman and an ultramarathon in Denmark, climbing Mont Blanc in France, a 2-week hike in Greenland, skydiving in Denmark, a 3-week trek around Annapurna in Nepal, paragliding in the Alps, rock climbing in Sweden, glacier walking in Norway, and scuba diving in Thailand.

You can find Sten online at www.vesterli.com , on LinkedIn, and on twitter @stenvesterli.

 

About the Technical Reviewers

Andrejus Baranovskis
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Oracle Groundbreaker Ambassador/Oracle ACE Director Andrejus Baranovskis is a technical expert (full stack developer) in and founder of Red Samurai Consulting, based in Lithuania. His technical expertise is based on 15 years of continuous work developing enterprise IT systems across the globe (the USA, Canada, Germany, the UK, Denmark, Portugal, South Africa, Hong Kong, etc.). He is primarily focused on Oracle products – Oracle Fusion Middleware, Development Tools, and Oracle Cloud. He is involved in legacy systems modernization to Oracle JET (JavaScript) and Oracle ADF (Java). His typical tasks include technical architecture implementation, development framework setup, team training, and performance tuning for Oracle ADF and Oracle JET. He is the founder of the Katana ML product ( http://katanaml.io/ ); this product helps to apply Machine Learning in the enterprise domain by extracting rules and patterns from data and converting these rules into Machine Learning models. Andrejus is a prolific technical blogger; he shares his knowledge on his blog ( www.andrejusb.blogspot.com ) and sample code on GitHub ( https://github.com/abaranovskis-redsamurai ). He is a writer for the online publication Towards Data Science ( https://towardsdatascience.com/@andrejusb ).

 
Florin Marcus
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Solutions Architect with over 15 years of experience with a focus on Oracle and Java EE technologies, working as Team Leader, Senior Developer positions, Florin Marcus provides specializes in performance tuning and development best practices of large enterprise systems. He is often invited as a speaker on various Oracle conferences.

 
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