Information Access Layer

The Information Access Layer, IAL, is maintained as an own Oracle User account, currently installed on the same instance as the Application Owner. This section describes how this Oracle User is setup in order to work correctly.

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Install Information Access Layer

To install your Information Access Layer, no further action is needed than performing the prepare database step done in the IFS Applications Installer. This process includes

  1. Setup of <IAL_USER> schema. The name of the user is defined in the define.tem file, the default value is IFSINFO. The user password will be requested during processing.
  2. The user will be granted needed privileges.
  3. Some business logic will be deployed into the database schema.
  4. The parameter Information Access Layer (IAL) Oracle user in form Solution Manager/Configuration/System Parameters in IFS Applications will be set to <IAL_USER>
  5. .

In order to build IAL views the <IAL_USER> needs to be granted access to all objects in the Application owner schema. However, this granting is automatically performed when the database objects are deployed and nothing you need to think about.

Install or upgrade IAL Objects

This section describes how to install and upgrade the component dependent parts of IAL, the IAL Objects themselves. It requires that IAL has been setup (prior chapter). IFS Configuration Builder will create an IAL.tem (template file) for deploying all IAL files within a build. These files will not automatically be installed (because there is a manual step to setup the IAL). The required IAL-files need be manually loaded into the database. See the Configuration Builder Manual for information related to installation templates and location in the build structures.

Refer to Products release notes for which .ial files to install.

Fresh installation

The IAL.tem, created by the IFS Configuration Builder, will deploy all IALs into the database. Using the File executor in IFS Installer (or SQL*Plus or any other similar tool), remember to log on as <IAL_USER> while doing this.

 

Upgrade

No differences compared to fresh installation.

 

Additional Development

The entire purpose of IAL is to 'open up' access to the IFS database. At a customer-site, this means that additional IAL Objects may with preference be created and loaded.

Refer to Developers Guide for a description on how IAL-Objects are developed.

Typically this means a skilled technician will develop the IAL Object or objects, load into the customer IAL, and then the end user may use any third party reporting tool to access the data.