Search Results get_next_date

Overview

PER_QH_TIMELINE is an Oracle E-Business Suite PL/SQL package owned by the APPS schema that supports the "Timeline" feature of the Oracle HRMS person and assignment user interface. In Oracle EBS 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, HRMS forms such as the People window and the Assignment window expose navigation controls that allow an end user to step forward or backward through the dated, datetracked rows that make up an employee's history. PER_QH_TIMELINE is the server-side engine behind those controls. It interrogates the datetracked HR tables, applies the caller's security profile, and returns the effective dates that bound the available records so the form can decide which direction is navigable and which date to load next.

The package is classified as a non-public (OTHER) API. It is not intended as a general-purpose business API and does not perform inserts, updates, or deletes; it is a read-only query and navigation utility. Because the object is declarative in nature, it exposes a small, fixed set of entry points and no package-level variables of consequence, which keeps it safe to call from interactive forms where response time matters.

Key Procedures and Functions

The package declares two PL/SQL collection types, DATEREC and DATETAB, which model a range of dates as value/start_date/end_date triples. These types are the return vehicle for the bulk routine. The package then exposes five procedures:

• GET_DATES — returns the complete set of date ranges (as a DATETAB collection) that are valid for the supplied field and person/assignment context, filtered by the caller's security mode and controlled by the effective date and datetrack date. This is the primary retrieval routine used to populate a timeline view.
• GET_FIRST_DATE — returns, through an OUT NOCOPY DATE parameter, the earliest date available for the given field and person/assignment context. This is the routine most relevant to a search for "get_first_date"; it answers the question "what is the starting point of this record's datetracked history?"
• GET_PREVIOUS_DATE — returns the date immediately preceding the current position, enabling backward navigation within the datetracked history.
• GET_NEXT_DATE — returns the date immediately following the current position, enabling forward navigation within the datetracked history.
• GET_LAST_DATE — returns the latest date available for the field and context, allowing the caller to jump to the end of the record's effective history.

All five procedures share a common signature shape: a field name, a security mode, an effective date, a datetrack date, a person identifier, an assignment identifier, and a business group identifier. The first four procedures also expose an OUT NOCOPY DATE parameter for the resulting date, while GET_DATES returns the DATETAB collection. Parameters are consistently passed by reference where the target is a collection or an OUT value.

Tables Accessed

ETRM records a single referenced table for this package: PLITBLM. This table is part of the HRMS "DateTrack" and security infrastructure that stores effective-dated rows for person and assignment attributes. PER_QH_TIMELINE reads from it to determine which dates exist for a given field and to apply row-level security based on the supplied security mode, person, assignment, and business group. Because the package is read-only, no DML is issued against PLITBLM or any other object; the referenced table is queried to derive date boundaries only.

Usage Notes

PER_QH_TIMELINE is invoked from the Oracle HRMS Forms-based user interface, specifically the timeline navigation widgets embedded in the People and Assignment windows. When a user selects a field and clicks a previous/next/first/last control, the form calls the corresponding procedure, passing the current person, assignment, business group, and effective date. The returned date is then used to re-query and refresh the block. Custom code should treat this package as an internal, unsupported interface; it is not published as a supported public API, has no generated documentation outside the ETRM metadata, and is not referenced by any other package. Developers who need datetrack navigation in custom extensions should prefer supported HRMS public APIs and datetrack utilities, reserving direct calls to PER_QH_TIMELINE for form-personalization or diagnostic scenarios where the internal timeline behavior must be replicated exactly. The package header carries the standard Oracle copyright and version marker (peqhtmln.pkh 120.0.12010000.1), indicating it was shipped unchanged across the 12.1.1 and 12.2.2 releases.