Menu in Oracle Apps

Menu is nothing but a logical or hierarchical listing of functions (forms) so that the user can
easily navigate through the forms once he is in a responsibility.
Every responsibility will be assigned only one main menu. Under that main menu, you can have
either have other sub menus or functions.
Functions are nothing but the forms which ultimately the users would like to work on.
One menu can be assigned to multiple responsibilities.
The below screenshot clearly identifies what Responsibility, Main Menu, Sub menu and
Function are:

Heirarchical representation of Menus:

If you log in to System Administrator responsibility, you will see a whole lot of menus. To get to
Users form, you will have to traverse to Security > Users > Define. To get to the Responsibility
form, you need to traverse to Security > Responsibility > Define. Say the user wants to create a
new menu called erpSchools Access Menu that will only have Users and Responsibility form
directly instead of traversing through multiple sub menus and functions.
Now lets see the steps to build custom menu:
1. First identify the function name of Users Form.
Navigate to System Administrator > Security > Responsibility > Define

Query for System Administrator

The value that you see in the Menu field is the Main Menu attached to this responsibility. Copy
that.

Navigate to System Administrator > Application > Menu

Query for User Menu Name as Navigator Menu System Administrator GUI (the one copied
from Menu field value in responsibility screen).
Description of the important fields:
Menu: Short Name of the Menu
User Menu Name: User defined name of the Menu
Menu Type: Choose Standard
Description: Description of the Menu.
Seq:The available menu items appear in the sequence specified.
Prompt:For each menu item, specify a prompt for the menu.
Submenu/Function: This will indicate whether the menu entry is a submenu or function under the
man one.The sub-menu should have been already defined as a menu before using in this menu.
View Tree button: Will display the the menu and its entries in graphical format.

We are looking for the exact Function name of Users form. If you remember, Users form is under
Security sub menu. So now go to Security. If you observe Function field is empty instead you see
a value under Sub Menu. This means Security is another sub menu and not a form/function by

itself. Copy the Sub Menu value.

In the same Menus form, now query for Security Menu System Administrator GUI as User
Menu Name. Since we know our Users forms is under Security > Users, look for User Sub menu

and make a note of its Sub menu name (Users has another sub menu)

In the same Menus form, now query for User Menu System Administrator GUI as User
Menu Name. You will see Users under Function field which means that node is the last one.
There are no more sub menus. And that is the one we are interested in. Make a note of the

function name Users.

2.Identify the function name for Responsibility form:

By following the same drill as above, we will know that function name for Responsibility form is
Responsibilities.
3.Lets create a new menu
Navigate to System Administrator > Application > Menu
Enter the below details:
Menu: ERPSCHOOLS_ACCESS_MENU (Short name for your menu for internal use)
User Menu Name: erpSchools Access Menu (Menu Name users see for this menu)
Menu Type: Enter Standard here
Possible Values for Menu type:
Standard for menus that would be used in the Navigator form
Tab for menus used in self service applications tabs
Security for menus that are used to aggregate functions for data security or specific function
security purposes, but would not be used in the Navigator form
Description: Meaningful description for this menu
Now enter the menu entries, here we want Users and Responsibilities functions under our menu.
Seq: 1 (the sequence in which you wish to see the menu entries)
Prompt: Users Define (Users will see this name under the menu)
Function: Users (Function name which we have identifies in step 1)

Similarly make an entry for Responsibilities function

Seq: 2 (the sequence in which you wish to see the menu entries)
Prompt: Responsibilities Define (Users will see this name under the menu)
Function: Responsibilities (Function name which we have identifies in step 2)
Save the work.

With this we have created a new menu which will have Users and Responsibilities forms.
4. We have to assign this menu to some responsibility to be able to access this menu. We will
cover that in the next article Responsibilities in Oracle Apps.
Technical Details of the Menu
A menu details are stored in the following tables:
FND_MENUS: This table contains Menu Header information.
FND_MENU_ENTRIES: This table contains detail of all the entries in the menu. It contains
columns Entry Sequence, Sub-Menu ID and Function ID.

Create New Responsibility

1. Create a custom menu that will only have the forms Users and Responsibility.
Refer to the article Menu in Oracle Apps
2. Create a new responsibility called erpSchools Access Resp and assign the custom menu that
has been created in Step 1.

Navigation: System Administrator > Security > Responsibility > Define

Enter the below details and save.

Responsibility Name: Meaningful name for the new responsibility. Users will see this name in
the responsibilities list.
Application: Since this is a custom responsibility, give in the custom application name.
Responsibility Key: Short name for this responsibility for internal use.
Description: Meaningful description that conveys the need for this responsibility.
Effective Dates: The date range during which the user can access this responsibility.
Available From: From what Oracle Application system, this responsibility can be accessed from.
Menu: The menu you want to see under the responsibility.
Request Group: What reports or concurrent requests the user can run from this responsibility.
Data Group: The data group defines the pairing of application and ORACLE username. Select
the application whose ORACLE username forms connect to when you choose this responsibility
to access the underneath database tables.

3.Lets assign this responsibility to a user

Navigation: System Administrator > Security > User> Define

4. Log in as the above user and get into the responsibility erpSchools Access Resp.

You will see only two forms under the custom responsibility Users and Responsibility.

Menu Exclusion:
Say you want to exclude Responsibilities form from our custom responsibility, you can do so by
navigating to
System Administrator > Security > Responsibility > Define
Query the custom responsibility erpSchools Access Resp

Under Menu Exclusions tab, give in the form details and save.
Type: Choose Menu if you want to exclude a menu. Choose Function to exclude a form.
Name: Type in the Menu name / function name you want to exclude.

Login to responsibility. You will only see Users form as Responsibilities form has been excluded
from the responsibility.

Technical details:
Responsibility details are stored in the following tables:
FND_RESPONSIBILITY
FND_RESPONSIBILITY_TL

Views:
FND_RESPONSIBILITY_VL: is available which a join between FND_RESPONSIBILITY and
FND_RESPONSIBILITY_TL table. This view can be used to get responsibility name and
description based on responsibility ID.
FND_USER_RESP_GROUPS_ALL: can be used to find out the association of the user with the
responsibility. This view contains user id and responsibility id. This view can be joined with
FND_USER and FND_RESPONSIBILITY_TL table to select all the responsibilities assigned to
an user.