Introduction:
With the rapid evolution of the Oracle Redwood User Experience (UX), classic page personalization tools—such as Page Composer, Sandboxes, and Design Studio—are transitioning to a new standard. To modify, extend, or personalize modern Redwood pages in Oracle Fusion Cloud, implementation teams must transition to Oracle Visual Builder Studio (VBS).
VBS gives consultants the exact low-code and visual development framework used by Oracle's internal product engineers to build the core cloud application rows. This blog provides a step-by-step introduction to the fundamentals of VBS, outlining the baseline architecture and guiding you through your very first UI extension layout.
- VB Studio (VBS) is included as part of the Oracle SaaS license and built into Oracle Fusion SaaS environments such as HCM or ERP.
- VB Studio is the recommended option for extending Fusion user interface.
- All new modules in Fusion Apps (the Redwood modules) are built using Visual Builder, and VBS is the tool used for both Oracle’s own development and customer customizations.
- Fusion VB Studio comes enabled in both the dev/test instances.
Oracle Cloud – Overview:
- Visual Builder is available out of the box for your Fusion environments.
- Visual Builder can be used to personalize Redwood pages and can be used to migrate technical objects.
- VBS is GIT online.
- VBS can be connected to a "Source".
Oracle Cloud – Security Consideration:
There are delivered roles that are required to provide access to VBS
Developer role: ORA_FND_APPLICATION_DEVELOPER_JOB
Admin role: ORA_FND_APPLICATION_ADMINISTRATOR_JOB
You can define who is on the team for a project once you create the project (see more info below).
VBS Life Cycle:
Functional Activities:
Design:
- Confirm Redwood changes
- Confirm source & target instances
- Identity key workflows and conditional rules
Build:
- Extend Redwood pages (Required, Hidden, Read Only, Value, Conditional rules, etc)
- Publish code to feature branch/source instance (ie: cwk_employee)
Test:
- Login to target to validate the changes
- Verify redwood page updates (fields, rules and visibility)
- Test features and functionality
Technical Activities:
Design:
- Configure VBS (Project, workspace, report)
- Plan version control strategy and branching model
Build:
- Any advanced features (java script/json updates)
- Approve changes & deploy to main branch
Test:
- Perform regression testing on impacted components
- Verify deployment success and error logs
Other Activities:
- Build upstream (ie: UAT, PROD) pipeline
- Monitor pipeline health and resolve build failures quickly
- Manage post-refresh deployment activities
VBS Components:
- Project
- Workspace
- Git
- Builds
- Environments
Initial Setup – Create Project:
- Create a Project as an empty project.
- Add the team when creating the project (can be adjusted later).
- This must happen at the beginning of the project.
Workspace:
- Workspaces are where most of a user’s work occurs.
- Workspaces are unique to a user identity.
- Workspace lets you operate on a local copy of the Extension source, which is a clone of the copy that's in the central VBS repository.
- Changes made are stored in the git repository and ultimately get synced back to the project repository.
- Also associates an environment for deploying packaged code.
Initial Setup – Create Repository
- Navigate to GIT and select 'Create Repository'.
- Create a New Branch per pillars (Recruiting, Core-HR, Benefits).
- Enable Branch Protection on the Main branch
- Never make direct updates to the Main branch (see recommended branch structure)
Branches
- When you open a workspace and make personalization's, the changes are initially stored in a branch, separate from other code.
- A branch isolates the changes you're working on, allowing you to develop without affecting the Master code.
- Once changes are finalized, they can be merged into the main(production) branch, which holds the Master set of code changes.
Environments:
Use Environments to define the target Oracle Cloud Applications where you want to deploy code changes.
Environments Page
- Create and delete environments.
- Add/remove instances tied to an environment.
- View the health status, account names, and service ID’s for each environment
- Review the deployments for extensions.
- Use the extension lifecycle button to manage deployed extensions across environments.
Now that we have covered what Visual Builder Studio is, how to set up your project, and how to manage repositories, you are ready for the next step. In my next blog, I will share key best practices, migration tips, and critical factors to watch out for.
Top comments (2)
I was particularly interested in the section on VBS Life Cycle, specifically the distinction between functional and technical activities. The emphasis on confirming Redwood changes and identifying key workflows and conditional rules during the design phase resonates with my experience in implementing similar extensions. One aspect I'd like to explore further is the version control strategy and branching model - have you found any best practices for managing multiple feature branches and ensuring seamless integration with the main branch?
Hi Luis,
I will also need to explore managing multiple feature branches.
Please review the link below. It includes a PDF attachment that explains the branching strategy, which may be helpful.
community.oracle.com/customerconne...