There is a very useful Oracle ApEx REQUEST constant called BRANCH_TO_PAGE_ACCEPT. If included in a URL, the request will process the page as if it was submitted. Now think about this for a minute because this is a useful tool that can enhance your application dramatically. I will provide an example to make my point. Traditionally clicking on a URL in ApEx will simply load the page requested. Loading a page means that the “After Submit Processes” region in ApEx will never be triggered. As a consequence most programmers will plug their process in in “Before Header” or “After Header” point in their page process restricted via some execution condition. This is highly inefficient because it means that the process will be evaluated every time the page is accessed.
To improve this process, add a BRANCH_TO_PAGE_ACCEPT Request in your Column Link. This modification will submit the page requested which will then allow you to place the process in the “After Submit” region. Execution of the block will be more targetted making you application more efficient.
The request looks something like this:
f?p=&APP_ID.:23:&SESSION.:BRANCH_TO_PAGE_ACCEPT:&DEBUG.::P0_REQ_ID:#ID#
Happy Coding!