What is Access Level In Workflow ?

Oracle locks the workflow process/activities at certain access level to discourage customers altering critical parts of the flow and to preserve the customizations from patching. 

• To modify such items, you will have to change your access level to lower than level already set.
• However altering key parts of the workflow process is not recommended.

The access levels are defined as follows:

•  0-9: Reserved for Oracle Workflow
• 10-19: Reserved for Oracle Application Object Library
• 20-99: Reserved for Oracle E-Business Suite
• 100-999: Reserved for customer organizations
• 1000: Public 

How does the developer define their Access Level?
Help-> About Oracle Workflow Builder 2.6.3 

Example- How Oracle protects their Objects from Modifications

Via help Menu, developer in Oracle Corporation will set Access Level to 20

Oracle developer locks the object at access level to 20

Developer at EBS Customer Site set the Access Level to 100

Access[100] is not between range 0 and 20. Hence Customer Site can not modify this activity

To modify such items, you will have to change your access level to lower than 20, so that it fits into the range of 0 to 20. However altering key parts of the workflow process is not recommended.

When Oracle developer unchecks “Lock at this access level”, then Protection becomes 1000

Access[100] is between range 0 and 1000. Hence Customer Site can modify this activity

However by checking Allow Modifications to customized object, Oracle will is able to modify the Customized  objects

Oracle delivers workflows via patches which use WFLOAD command to upload their definition to the Database

WFLOAD apps/password 0 Y <UPLOAD_MODE> XXXX.wft

Different “Upload Modes” applicable to WFLOAD

• UPGRADE – Honours both protection and customization levels of data
• UPLOAD -    Honours only protection level of data [No respect of Customization Level]
• FORCE   -     Force upload regardless of protection or customization level

As a standard practice, Oracle’s upgrade patches mostly run in UPGRADE mode, hence customizations can protected.