Hosted by Chandra Wobschall and Paul Houtkooper
Hey JDE Connection listeners – Chandra and Paul here! This week, we kicked off a multi-part series that takes a peek inside of JD Edwards’ design tools, starting with Form Design Aid (FDA). If you’re a Business Analyst, you’ve probably used every resource you can think of to answer the classic question: “What table is this application updating?” Well, in this episode, we explored how FDA can help you uncover that answer, even if you don’t consider yourself a developer.
When Cross Reference Isn’t Enough
It all started when Chandra was troubleshooting a meter reading process in the Equipment Management system. Normally, she’d head straight to Cross Reference, check what tables an application updates, and be on her way. But this time, the results didn’t line up. So, she turned to a few other resources including the data models in the technical catalog from LearnJDE.com, My Oracle Support, the implementation guide, and data browser. Ultimately, she did find her answer, but the question remained, was there another way? That’s when Paul suggested FDA.
Navigating FDA in a BA-Friendly Way
Paul walked us through how to use Form Design Aid to peek under the hood of an application. It’s not about writing code, it’s about understanding the anatomy of an application and how it behaves.
Once you’ve got access to the full client:
- Fire up Object Management Workbench (OMW).
- Add your target application (in this case, P12120 – Meter Readings) to your default project.
- Go into Design mode using the Design icon
- Launch Form Design Aid from the Design Tools tab.
- Explore the parent-child tree to see all forms tied to the application.
- Open Event Rules to uncover the logic behind each form.
The “aha!” moment? You can print the event rules for any form to a file, making it easy to search for keywords like write, update, or in this case meter reading.
Following the Trail
As Paul explained, sometimes the magic happens behind the scenes. What looks like a simple “Save” button may actually trigger a series of business functions that handle edits, validations, and table updates. In this case, when Chandra clicked “OK” on her meter readings, the data didn’t go straight into a table. Instead, it was passed through a master business function (MBF), meant to centralize the business logic required to ensure everything gets validated and committed consistently and properly.
From Curiosity to Competence
The best part? You don’t need to be a developer to benefit from FDA. You just need curiosity and a willingness to explore. By printing event rules, following logic through forms, and recognizing key functions like EndDoc, BAs can better understand:
- Where data originates and how it flows
- What logic runs before data gets committed to the database
- What tables store what data
And as we discussed, this kind of understanding is essential when building orchestrations or automating business processes.
What’s Next
We only scratched the surface in this episode. In Part 2, we’ll go deeper into how to trace the logic flow and follow the data from layer-to-layer, from applications to business functions to tables.
And yes, we’ll do our best to keep it out of “developer land.”
Midwesternism of the Day
We closed out the episode chatting about an upcoming marathon weekend and the inevitable scramble to make packet pickup in time. Let’s just say we were both in a hurry to wrap up, not because we were done talking, but because sometimes you just have to, well… get a move on!
Until next time, let’s keep learning, sharing, and laughing together.
Toodles!
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