Search Results get_doc

Overview

IRC_VACANCY_APPROVALS is an APPS-owned PL/SQL package body in the Oracle E-Business Suite iRecruitment module (IRC). Its documented purpose is to support the approval workflow associated with vacancy and posting transactions. When a recruitment vacancy, posting, or search criterion is submitted for approval, the approval engine needs to inspect the current state of the underlying business object, compare it against a prior state, and determine what has changed so that the correct approver and notification logic can be applied. IRC_VACANCY_APPROVALS centralizes that inspection logic.

The package reads the serialized transaction document stored in HR_API_TRANSACTIONS, parses it through XML utility calls, and exposes individual attributes (posting fields, vacancy fields, search fields) as scalar values returned to the calling approval framework. It also provides explicit "changed" predicates that report whether a specific attribute differs between the old and new versions of the transaction, which is the mechanism that drives conditional approval routing. The header comment (ircvacame.pkb 120.0, dated 2006) indicates the package has been stable since the early iRecruitment releases and is carried forward essentially unchanged into 12.1.1 and 12.2.2.

Key Procedures and Functions

The package exposes 28 documented procedures and functions, grouped by the object path they read from the transaction document. The g_posting_path, g_vacancy_path, and g_search_path globals define the XML navigation paths into IrcPostingContentsVlEORow, PerAllVacanciesEORow, and IrcVacancySearchCriteriaEORow respectively.

• GET_TRANSACTION_DATA — the core retrieval function. It opens the cursor get_doc over HR_API_TRANSACTIONS for the supplied transaction identifier, fetches the transaction document, and returns the value located at the supplied XML path via irc_xml_util.valueOf. This is the function that directly answers the "get_doc" search: it is the only place in the package where the get_doc cursor is declared and opened.
• GET_TRANSACTION_NUMBER_DATA and GET_TRANSACTION_MODE — return scalar transaction-level attributes used to characterize the approval event.
• GET_POSTING_DATA_NUMBER / GET_POSTING_DATA_VARCHAR — retrieve numeric and character posting attributes from the posting entity row.
• GET_VACANCY_DATA_NUMBER / GET_VACANCY_DATA_VARCHAR — retrieve numeric and character vacancy attributes from PER_ALL_VACANCIES.
• GET_SEARCH_DATA_NUMBER / GET_SEARCH_DATA_VARCHAR — retrieve numeric and character search-criteria attributes.
• Change-detection functions — GET_VAC_ORGANIZATION_CHANGED, GET_VAC_JOB_CHANGED, GET_VAC_GRADE_CHANGED, GET_VAC_POSITION_CHANGED, GET_VAC_BUDGET_VALUE_CHANGED, GET_VAC_BUDGET_TYPE_CHANGED, GET_VAC_STATUS_CHANGED, GET_POSTING_TITLE_CHANGED, GET_POSTING_JOB_TITLE_CHANGED, GET_POSTING_DEPARTMENT_CHANGED, and GET_POSTING_DEPT_DESC_CHANGED. Each returns a Boolean-style indicator of whether that specific attribute was modified by the transaction, allowing the workflow to decide whether that change is material to the approval.
• SHOW — a debug/tracing helper invoked throughout the body to log entry, exit, and returned values when debugging is enabled.

Tables Accessed

• HR_API_TRANSACTIONS — the primary and effectively only source table. The package selects TRANSACTION_DOCUMENT for a given TRANSACTION_ID. This is the XML/CLOB payload that carries the complete before-and-after image of the vacancy or posting object.
• PER_ALL_VACANCIES — referenced through the vacancy XML path (PerAllVacanciesEORow), so the vacancy data functions derive their values from the vacancy entity embedded in the transaction document rather than querying the base table directly.
• DBMS_LOB — used to manipulate the large object payload returned from HR_API_TRANSACTIONS and passed into the XML utility routines.

Usage Notes

IRC_VACANCY_APPROVALS is not a public API. The ETRM metadata records zero packages referencing it, which is consistent with its role as an internal helper invoked only from the iRecruitment approval workflow definitions and from the approval callback logic. It is not intended to be called directly by customer extensions.

Typical invocation occurs when the Oracle Workflow / AME approval process for a vacancy or posting fires. The workflow function activity calls the appropriate GET_* function with the transaction identifier, receives the attribute value or change flag, and branches the approval accordingly. Because the package reads the transaction document rather than the base tables, it always reflects the state captured at the moment the transaction was created, which is the correct semantic for approval routing. The GET_*_CHANGED functions should only be relied upon for transaction types that populate both old and new images in the document; they return a "not changed" result when the relevant node is absent. Debug output can be enabled through the SHOW helper to trace path resolution when an attribute unexpectedly returns null.