Retrieving Information Stored in Flexfield Columns

Flexfields are customer-configured fields that are used to store necessary information that does not have a home in the regular attributes.A flexfield can be a key, descriptive, or extensible flexfield.

You can map the flexfield attributes from Oracle Fusion Applications into Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse.

Optional or Mandatory

This is a mandatory configuration step if flexfield information is required in Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse.

Applies to

Oracle Fusion Applications source systems.

Organization Information

The Organization Information flexfield is a special case as the source data does not naturally sit in the Organization Dimension in Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse. The Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse dimension has one row per organization and only holds current information, whereas the Organization Information flexfield has multiple rows per organization (for different Information Contexts) and keeps a history.

The HR Organization Information History dimension can be configured to load one or more Information Contexts from the flexfield, and all flexfield attributes are mapped into the dimension placeholder columns.

Three dimension roles are installed by default:

  • HR Organization Information History - Joins to the Workforce Fact using Organization and Snapshot Date to give the flexfield attributes correct at time of snapshot.

  • HR Organization Information History (Current) - Joins to the Workforce Fact using Organization and Current Flag to give the latest value for the flexfield attributes regardless of the Snapshot Date on the fact.

  • HR Organization Information History (Previous) - Joins to the Workforce Fact using Previous Organization and Snapshot Date to give the flexfield attributes for the previous organization correct at the time of the snapshot.

General Flexfields (Fusion on cloud)

This information is not yet available.

General Flexfields (Fusion on premise)

This information is not yet available.

Dependency

None.

Configuration Steps

  1. In Configuration Manager, use the Data Load Parameter named HR Organization Type List to specify a comma separated list of Organization Information Contexts for extraction.
    1. From the Tasks bar, click Manage Data Load Parameters to display the Manage Data Load Parameters dialog.
    2. Use the Search pane to locate the Data Load Parameter named 'HR Organization Type List'.

      You can either search on Parameter Name or Parameter Code (HR_ORG_TYPE_LIST).

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    3. Edit the value and specify a comma separated list of Organization Information Contexts for extraction.
  2. In ODI Studio, Designer tool, if the default mapping of flexfield attributes to Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse attributes does not satisfy the usage requirements for this dimension, then customize the ETL mapping

    The default extract maps the flexfield attribute 1 to the Oracle Business Analytics Warehouse attribute 1 and so on (for all selected information contexts).

  3. In Oracle BI EE Administration Tool, expose Department Extensible Attributes folder(s) in Oracle BI Presentation Catalog.

    By default it is listed under the Workforce Frozen Snapshots subject area, but hidden.

  4. In Oracle BI EE Administration Tool, re-label the presentation columns in the Department Extensible Attributes folder(s) with a description of the attribute mapped to that column.

    If multiple contexts are required, then there are two options for modelling this:

    • (Default) One dimension role with a grain of multiple contexts. The expectation is that when using this role users must filter on a single Information Context otherwise duplication of metrics could occur.

    • Multiple dimension roles each filtered in the repository’s logical model to a single context. This can be done by copying the default dimension role implementation and adding logical filters as needed. Then users can select attributes from multiple Information Contexts in a single report without affecting metrics.