• Description and Purpose
• Identifying the Need for an End User Preference
• Work Area Structure
• End User Preferences for the Anonymous User

End user preferences are a subset of profile options, LDAP values, or application-specific values that are exposed to the end user. These settings affect application functionality and data, rather than the page layout or look and feel. End user preferences are of two types:

• General preferences: Settings that apply to the entire Oracle Fusion Applications suite, such as accessibility, language, password, and so on.
• Product specific: Settings that apply to a product family or product (some containing numerous dashboards and work areas supporting several roles), such as Oracle Fusion Procurement.

Launching Preferences

The Preferences work area is launched from the Personalization menu in the global area (select Personalization, Set Preferences…).

Figure 1. Launching the Preferences work area

If there are unsaved changes in the current work area, users will be prompted to save those changes before the Preferences work area appears.

Design your application to be smart so that users ideally do not have to modify anything. Each preference comes with costs to users and to development. Lots of choices make it hard for users to understand what they need to do to make the application work. If your product is highly flexible, then provide a specific getting started experience, enabling users to set necessary preferences before they begin work.

Answer these questions and follow these guidelines when determining whether a preference is required:

• Can you derive the setting from the user's role, product, locale, or other context? If yes, then have the code do that work, not the user.
• Will the user understand the implications of the setting? If not, then do not make it a preference.
• The preferences page for a given category should not scroll. This means that you should keep the number of preferences below about 20 per product. Avoid confusing users with too many choices.
• Make sure that your product is designed to do a specific process, and that it is designed well for that process. Do the default values apply to 80 percent or more of users? The goal is for users to be able to start fast with their applications. Do not expect users to look for a preference.
• Does any other enterprise application have this feature or preference? If no one else is supporting something, make sure it is really needed in your product.

If you get a request from a customer, partner, or consultant for a preference, use these points to determine if a preference is required:

• Find out what is really causing the problem. Is the user interface (UI) poorly designed? Does the flow not match the customer's business process? Has the UI been correctly implemented? Do not use a preference to fix a user experience problem or functionality that does not work.
• What is the significance of the problem? A one-time annoyance? A repeated inefficiency? How often is it performed? How long does it take to change the selection again? How much time would a user save if the selection is a preference? 14 seconds, 17 minutes, or 21 hours over the year? Does the time saved validate the need to have the selection as a preference?
• Should the user changeable setting be persistent across sessions? Does the frequency in which it is changed warrant a special preference? Is the preference present in only one page or is it shared by many pages?

When Is An End User Preference a General Preference?

An end user preference is a general preference when it applies across the Oracle Fusion Applications suite. General preferences include Language, Accessibility, Regional, Password.

The Preferences work area is organized into a Master Detail pattern relationship between the master Tasks pane in the regional area and the detail page in the local area.

• Preferences categories are in the Tasks pane in the regional area.
• Preferences pages are in the local area.

Figure 2. Preferences work area

Regional Area

The Tasks pane has two sections, divided by a horizontal separator:

• The first section contains a list of general preferences categories in this order: Regional, Language, Accessibility, Password, Watchlist.
• The second section contains a hierarchical list of product family preferences categories. The top-level structure of this section is required to mirror the organization of the top-level structure in the Navigator. However, subcategories within the top levels may be structured differently than what is in the Navigator.
  • Home Page is the first link in the product preferences section.

Figure 3. Preferences work area task pane

Designing a Product Family Category

• Product-specific preferences should match the structure of the Navigator. The subcategories below this top-level structure do not have to mirror the Navigator hierarchy and in many cases should not.
• When defining subcategories that will be preferences pages, gather all preferences first and then group them by related functionality. Avoid application- and feature-centric groupings.
• You may use a Common Settings page to apply consistent settings across a product family. Common Settings should be the first entry in a product family category list. This entry is followed by other relevant groupings. If your groupings match the Navigator categories, list them in the order in which they appear in the Navigator.
• Each product family should have no more than about four product pages, including Common Settings.

Local Area

The local area displays the corresponding detail page for the selected regional area Tasks pane category.

Required Elements

Every detail page must have:

• A page header that matches the selected link in the Tasks pane.
  
  Note: The links in the task pane do not retain focus or selection once the cursor moves to the local area. These links return to their default enabled state.

Figure 4. Titles for general preferences

• Page headers for product family preferences should match the category names and follow this syntax: <product family>: <preferences subcategory>.

Figure 5. Titles and syntax for product family and product preferences

• Save and Reset buttons. There are no Cancel or Save and Close buttons because Preferences is a work area. Users navigate away from the work area in the same way they navigate from any other work area: by making a selection from the Navigator, or by other global region action.
  • The Save button saves the changes and keeps users on the same page. The Last Saved task stamp appears in the page header.
  • The Reset button undoes any changes made by users since the last save and keeps users on the same page.
• In the body of the local area, show one or more sections (headers) of preferences.
  • Forms should follow the one column layout. See the Form Layout Usage Guideline .
  • Prioritize the order of subheaders and display the most frequently used first.
  • Prioritize the order of preferences within subheaders; display the most frequently used preferences first.

Restrictions

• A detail page should display no more than 20 preference settings.
• Subcategory pages must not scroll.

An anonymous user is one who is signed in to the applications session only, not into the backend LDAP store as a specific named user.