Introduction

This post explains how to open an Oracle APEX modal page and securely pass unsaved form values as parameters, before they’re committed to session state. This technique is essential when users enter data into fields and trigger a modal window without submitting the page, ensuring values are passed safely and reliably.

Use Cases

• While entering an address, open a modal to validate the address.

• When entering a new customer or supplier, open a modal to check for duplicates.

• Provide additional information about a selection made in a list of values.

Example

In this example, we have created an APEX page that enables users to add Oracle e-Business Suite Suppliers. The user should be able to enter a supplier name and then click a button to use fuzzy search to find potential duplicate suppliers. The user should not have to save the page before performing the duplicate check.

When the user clicks the Duplicate Supplier Check button, the modal below should display potential duplicate suppliers.

We must pass the supplier name when opening the fuzzy match modal page to achieve this.

Button

Let’s start by creating the Duplicate Supplier Check button and adding a dynamic called Check for Duplicate Suppliers:

Check Supplier Name Entered

In the first step of the dynamic action, we are going to run some JavaScript code to make sure the user entered a value in the Supplier field:

apex.message.clearErrors();
if ( apex.item( "P210_SUPPLIER_NAME" ).isEmpty() ) {
  apex.message.showErrors( [
    { type:       "error",
      location:   ["inline"],
      pageItem:   "P210_SUPPLIER_NAME",
      message:    "Please enter an Supplier Name.",
      unsafe:     false
    }
  ]);
  apex.da.cancel();
};

Generate URL for Modal

In the second step, we will run Server-side Code to generate the URL for the modal:

BEGIN
  apex_debug.info ('Supplier [%s]', UPPER(:P210_SUPPLIER_NAME));
  :P210_OPEN_URL := 
    apex_page.get_url
     (p_page        => 225,
      p_items       => 'P225_SEARCH_VENDOR_NAME',
      p_clear_cache => 225,
      p_values      => UPPER(:P210_SUPPLIER_NAME));
END;

This is how P210_OPEN_URL is setup:

Open Modal

In the final step, we open the modal using the apex.navigation.redirect API:

Conclusion

Securely opening modal pages in Oracle APEX with unsaved user input is a powerful technique for building responsive, user-friendly applications without compromising session security. By combining client-side validation, server-side URL generation, and modal dialog APIs like apex.navigation.redirect, you ensure that parameters are passed with proper checksum validation, even before the page is submitted.

This pattern is especially useful in workflows that rely on mid-form lookups, validations, or auxiliary actions, such as duplicate checks. Once mastered, it becomes an essential part of any APEX developer’s toolkit for building dynamic, modern UIs.

More on Fuzzy Search

• Check out this post from sssuarez if you want to learn more about Fuzzy Search in the Oracle database.