{"id":12455,"date":"2019-05-08T23:17:36","date_gmt":"2019-05-08T21:17:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/"},"modified":"2019-05-08T23:17:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-08T21:17:36","slug":"apex-connect-2019-day-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/","title":{"rendered":"APEX Connect 2019 – Day 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

The day first started with a 5K fun run.<\/p>\n

After the Keynote about \u201cAPEX: Where we have come from and where we\u2019re heading: Personal insights on Application Express from the Development Team\u201d by John Snyders, Anthony Rayner and Carsten Czarski explaining their work on APEX and some upcoming features, I decided to attend presentations on following topics:
\n\u2013 Know your Browser Dev Tools!
\n\u2013 APEX Devops with Database tooling
\n\u2013 Klick, Klick, Test – Automated Testing for APEX
\n\u2013 Sponsored Session Pitss: Migration from Oracle Forms to APEX – Approaches compared
\n\u2013 APEX-Actions<\/p>\n

Potential upcoming features in APEX 19.2:
\n– APEX_EXEC enabled Interactive Grids
\n– Enhanced LOV
\n– New popup LOV
\n– Filter reports<\/p>\n

Know your Browser Dev Tools!<\/h3>\n

Every web browser has it’s own set of developer tools but all of them mainly allow following functionalities:
\n– Manipulate HTML in DOM tree
\n– Execute JavaScript
\n– Apply CSS
\n– Client side debugging and logging
\n– Analyze network activity
\n– Simulate screensize
\nThe most popular and complet set of tools is provided by Google Chrome with:
\n– Elements
\n– Console
\n– Sources
\n– Network
\n– Performance
\n– Memory
\n– Application
\n– Security
\n– Audits
\nNote that if you want to see console output as well as details of Dynamic Actions from APEX, you need to activate debug mode in your application.<\/p>\n

APEX Devops with Database tooling<\/h3>\n

One of the goal of DevOps is to bring Development and Operations to work closer together and make deployment of application smoother.
\nIn order to achieve that 100% automation of follwing tasks is helping a lot:
\n– Build
\n– Test
\n– Release
\n– Deploy
\nThis is mainly supported by RESTful services within Oracle, ORDS being the corner stone.
\nBeside that Jenkins has been replaced by GitLab with better web services support.
\nDatabase changes are tracked based in Liquibase<\/a> integrated and enhanced in SQLcl. Vault is also integrated in SQLcl to ease and automate the password management.
\nAnother target of DevOps is zero downtime. This can be supported with tools like consul.io<\/a> and fabiolb<\/a> which permit to dynamically add ORDS servers covered by dynamic load balancing.<\/p>\n

Klick, Klick, Test – Automated Testing for APEX<\/h3>\n

There are lots of automated testing tools on the market but they mostly are restricted to specific web browsers.
\nThe target is to have a solution that fits most of them and allows testing of APEX web applications.
\nIt needs a testing framework to abstract the scenario from underlying tool: codecept.io<\/a>
\nThe code generated by the testing framework being standardized it can be generated based on APEX metadata analysis with the help of a templating tool: handlebars<\/a>
\nThe process is then supported by an APEX application that can retrieve the applications from the workspace and manage the dedicated test scenarios as well as trigger them on docker containers.<\/p>\n

Sponsored Session Pitss: Migration from Oracle Forms to APEX – Approaches compared<\/h3>\n

Migrating forms applications to APEX can be very cumbersome as they can be very large and complex.
\nThe main phases fo such a migration are:
\n– Forms application preparation and analysis
\n– Migration
\n– APEX Application fine tuning
\n– Rollout
\nThe success of such a migration lays on the combination of skilled FORMS developers and APEX developers.<\/p>\n

APEX-Actions<\/h3>\n

Beside the well known Dynamic Actions in APEX, there is a new JavaScript library introduced in APEX 5.0: apex.actions
\nDocumentation to it came with version 5.1 in the APEX JavaScript API documentation<\/a>.
\nIt’s used by the APEX development team in the Page Designer and is now available to all developers.
\nActions allow to centrally encapsulate and define rendering, associated function and shortcuts of objects from the web pages all of it dynamically.
\nIt uses an observer which allows to have the same behavior for multiple objects of the same type on the same page.<\/p>\n

The day ended with Sponsor Pitches & Lightning Talks:
\n– APEX Competition Winner Plugin
\n– 5 things that make your life easier when using Docker
\n– Verwenden Sie kein PL\/SQL!
\n– Improving Tech with Compassionate Coding<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The day first started with a 5K fun run. After the Keynote about \u201cAPEX: Where we have come from and where we\u2019re heading: Personal insights on Application Express from the Development Team\u201d by John Snyders, Anthony Rayner and Carsten Czarski explaining their work on APEX and some upcoming features, I decided to attend presentations on… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4134,4133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-application-server","category-database"],"yoast_head":"\nAPEX Connect 2019 - Day 2 - dbi services | Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"APEX Connect 2019 - Day 2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"dbi services | Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dbiservices\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alain Lacour\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@dbiservices\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@dbiservices\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alain Lacour\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Alain Lacour\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e4eb404f9b8f13a19b50021b3eb66065\"},\"headline\":\"APEX Connect 2019 – Day 2\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":669,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Application Server\",\"Database\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"APEX Connect 2019 - Day 2 - dbi services | Blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00\",\"description\":\"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Accueil\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"APEX Connect 2019 – Day 2\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"dbi services Blog\",\"description\":\"#BeSharing\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\"},\"alternateName\":\"dbi Blog\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#organization\",\"name\":\"dbi services\",\"alternateName\":\"dbi\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/dbi-services-logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/dbi-services-logo.png\",\"width\":512,\"height\":512,\"caption\":\"dbi services\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/logo\\\/image\\\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/dbiservices\\\/\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/dbiservices\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.linkedin.com\\\/company\\\/dbi-services\\\/\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.youtube.com\\\/user\\\/dbiservices\"],\"description\":\"Swiss IT consulting and services company specialised in efficient data infrastructures and platforms: databases, application servers, cloud, DevOps, digitalization, analytics, data quality and monitoring. Headquartered in Del\u00e9mont with offices in Nyon, Basel, Bern and Zurich.\",\"email\":\"info@dbi-services.com\",\"telephone\":\"+41 32 422 96 00\",\"legalName\":\"dbi services SA\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e4eb404f9b8f13a19b50021b3eb66065\",\"name\":\"Alain Lacour\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/08\\\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/08\\\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/08\\\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg\",\"caption\":\"Alain Lacour\"},\"description\":\"Alain Lacour, part of the Oracle Bern & Zurich team, has more than 20 years of experience in Oracle application development. He specializes in APEX and PL\\\/SQL development, with additional expertise in Java, Oracle WebLogic, and OpenText Documentum middleware. His background also covers business analysis, solution architecture, and service and project management. Prior to dbi services, Alain was Senior Consultant at IMS Health (IQVIA) in Basel and Software Engineer at M&H Informatics. His industry experience covers pharma (including GxP-regulated environments), healthcare, insurance, and banking.\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.dbi-services.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/alain-lacour\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"APEX Connect 2019 - Day 2 - dbi services | Blog","description":"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"APEX Connect 2019 - Day 2","og_description":"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions","og_url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/","og_site_name":"dbi services | Blog","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dbiservices\/","article_published_time":"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00","author":"Alain Lacour","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@dbiservices","twitter_site":"@dbiservices","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Alain Lacour","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/"},"author":{"name":"Alain Lacour","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e4eb404f9b8f13a19b50021b3eb66065"},"headline":"APEX Connect 2019 – Day 2","datePublished":"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/"},"wordCount":669,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Application Server","Database"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/","name":"APEX Connect 2019 - Day 2 - dbi services | Blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2019-05-08T21:17:36+00:00","description":"Oracle APEX Connect conference Day 2 was having focus on DevOps, automated testing, application migration and specific APEX features like actions","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/apex-connect-2019-day-2\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Accueil","item":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"APEX Connect 2019 – Day 2"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/","name":"dbi services Blog","description":"#BeSharing","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#organization"},"alternateName":"dbi Blog","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"dbi services","alternateName":"dbi","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/dbi-services-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/dbi-services-logo.png","width":512,"height":512,"caption":"dbi services"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/dbiservices\/","https:\/\/x.com\/dbiservices","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/dbi-services\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/dbiservices"],"description":"Swiss IT consulting and services company specialised in efficient data infrastructures and platforms: databases, application servers, cloud, DevOps, digitalization, analytics, data quality and monitoring. Headquartered in Del\u00e9mont with offices in Nyon, Basel, Bern and Zurich.","email":"info@dbi-services.com","telephone":"+41 32 422 96 00","legalName":"dbi services SA"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/e4eb404f9b8f13a19b50021b3eb66065","name":"Alain Lacour","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/ALA_web-min-scaled.jpg","caption":"Alain Lacour"},"description":"Alain Lacour, part of the Oracle Bern & Zurich team, has more than 20 years of experience in Oracle application development. He specializes in APEX and PL\/SQL development, with additional expertise in Java, Oracle WebLogic, and OpenText Documentum middleware. His background also covers business analysis, solution architecture, and service and project management. Prior to dbi services, Alain was Senior Consultant at IMS Health (IQVIA) in Basel and Software Engineer at M&H Informatics. His industry experience covers pharma (including GxP-regulated environments), healthcare, insurance, and banking.","url":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/author\/alain-lacour\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}