Introduction

The links in the email notification points to the value specified in profile option APPS_FRAMEWORK_AGENT. The profile option APPS_FRAMEWORK_AGENT value will be set to an internal server which is the host accessed by users from
within network and the user can accesses the email and the links in it from inside
corporate network. But when EBS is setup with DMZ, the links in email still points to internal server and cannot be accessed from external server which is the DMZ host accessed by users from outside the firewall. When EBS is setup with DMZ, we need to provide an option to specify external server, and use the same to generate links in the email. 

In EBS release 12.2.6, a new feature is provided to support External Address for the users so that Mailer can use this address in the Notification Details html page.


Specifying External address

A new profile option ‘FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT’ is introduced
to allow the Workflow Administrator to set the External Address value if
there is any. Set this profile option value to External address.

External and Internal Users

The external users who receives the email notifications with external Address and internal users those receives the email notifications with internal Address are identified using the below approach.

  1. A new role is defined with name ‘WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE’
  2. The users that are assigned to this role are treated as External users and others are Internal users
  3. The product teams should have logic to assign this role internally when creating their external users. eg: suppliers
  4. The administrator or individual user need to assign ‘Workflow External User’ role manually if they want their users to be treated as external

When does the external address will be used in email notification

Workflow Notification Mailer uses the external address for the Notification Details page in email notification as per the below scenarios.

  • Scenario 1: FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT profile option value is not set
    When the ‘FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT’ profile option value is not set,
    Workflow Notification Mailer uses the APPS_FRAMEWORK_AGENT to construct the base URL
  • Scenario 2: FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT profile option value is set to external address
    When the ‘FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT’ profile option value is set, Workflow Notification Mailer
    verifies whether the recipient is external or internal user.
    • Case i:  Recipient user is assigned to ‘WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE’ role.
            When the Recipient user is assigned to ‘WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE’ role, then Mailer treats it as external user and uses the  FND_FRAMEWORK_EXTERNAL_AGENT to construct the base URL for Notification Details page
    • Case ii:  Recipient user is not assigned to ‘WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE’ role.
            When the Recipient user is not assigned to ‘WF_EXTERNAL_ROLE’ role, then Mailer treats it as internal user and uses the APPS_FRAMEWORK_AGENT value to construct the base URL for Notification Details page