Personalization vs Extension vs Customization

In Oracle EBS development, the terms Personalization, Customizations & Extensions are often used interchangeably. It often creates confusion among developers regarding the meaning of these terms. These terms are critically important terms that developers must understand and use properly. Let’s discuss them briefly here to simply understand what they are.

What is Personalization?

Personalization is the process of making changes to the User Interface (UI) from within an Oracle E-Business Suite Form/Page. It is possible to make personalization to both Form-based and OA Framework based pages.

What is Extension?

Extension is the process of making changes to the programmatic (i.e., PL/SQL or Java) elements of an E-Business Suite form/page. It is possible to extend both Forms based and OA Framework-based pages.

What is Customization?

Customization is the process of creating new forms/pages. While Oracle does provide tools to do this (i.e., Oracle Forms and JDeveloper 10g with OA Extension), this is the least supported option.