ADF Query Saved Search in ADF 12c

ADF Query Saved Search functionality exists starting from ADF 11g - Persisting Query Criteria Results Across Sessions with Oracle MDS. Same works in ADF 12c, and more - from UI point behaviour improved. There are nicer and cleaner dialogs prompting user to save search after changes were applied. You need to remember few tricks to enable Saved Search functionality, I will list all of them in this post.

Firstly goes quite obvious step - enable user customizations across sessions using MDS in ADF View configuration. With this setting, SavedSearchApp.zip application is enabled to store user personalizations into MDS repository (it can be file system or DB):

It is important to enable ADF Security, as user personalizations must be stored for every user under user name context. MDS engine retrieves user name from ADF Security automatically. Screen to enable ADF Security:

One of the last bits - open adf-config.xml and in MDS section specify UserCC class from ADF library:

Specifically for ADF Query Saved Search functionality, make sure to add persistence config into MDS configuration section:

I noticed, when running MDS enabled application for the first time in 12c environment, it may fail with error: metadata store mapped to the namespace / BASE DEFAULT is read only. This can be fixed by adding MDS store class into config. For example, if you are using file store, define FileMetadataStore class as per this example:

Different class should be used in case when MDS repository is created in DB: oracle.mds.persistence.stores.db.DBMetadataStore.

Here how it looks on runtime. Let's assume you go to Advanced mode and add new query field (Email in this example). On the next action, ADF Query is going to ask you one time, if this change needs to be saved:

If you decide to save ADF Query changes, there is nice dialog to provide customization name, set it to be activated by default and executed automatically without pressing Search button again:

Saved search personalization is available in the list and can be selected any time:

Personalization is saved and available after logout/login - it renders added field and remembers entered criteria value:

Saved search personalization can be easily removed through ADF Query dialog:

This functionality is very important for the users, as it allows to perform search faster without entering parameters again and again. It improves application performance, as search is executed with parameters from the start, limiting results list.