8 Application Composer: Creating Custom Subject Areas

Creating Custom Subject Areas : Overview

In this chapter, you will learn about:

• The concepts and terminology used in custom subject areas.

• Creating or editing, configuring, securing, and publishing custom subject areas and the various considerations involved.

• Creating and viewing reports using published custom subject areas using examples covered in this chapter.

Custom Subject Areas : Explained

Before you begin to create your own custom subject areas, review these topics:

• Objects in Custom Subject Areas

• Fields or Attributes in Custom Subject Areas

• Measures in Custom Subject Areas

• Date Leveling in Custom Subject Areas

• Implicit Fact Column in Custom Subject Areas

• Creating and Editing Custom Subject Areas

• Securing Custom Subject Areas

• Publishing Custom Subject Areas

Concepts and Terminology in Custom Subject Areas

• Objects: Object within Oracle Fusion CRM represents an entity; it can be, for example, a sales account or an opportunity.

  • Standard object: An object that is delivered when the Oracle Fusion CRM is first used is called standard object, for example, opportunity.

  • Custom object: A new object that is added during the deployment of Oracle Fusion CRM is called a custom object.

• Fields or attributes: A field, also called an attribute, is where entity information is stored in Oracle Fusion CRM. An opportunity name is stored in a field under the opportunity entity or object.

• Measures: Measures are a set of functions that you can apply on date, numeric, or currency type fields of the selected primary, child, or related objects while defining a custom subject area.

• Date Leveling: Date leveling is a date hierarchy representation between dates and the associated measures. For example, total revenue by month.

• Implicit Facts: Implicit Fact column defines the join path that should be used when running a report with only dimension attributes from a subject area that has measures from different facts or entities.

Objects in Custom Subject Areas: Explained

Oracle Fusion CRM also allows the creation of objects to store specific information that is not delivered with the application. For example, one may want to track trouble tickets and would then create a custom object called Trouble Tickets.

In the Application Composer, when you select the desired Application, the standard and custom objects are shown in two groups on an object's navigation tree in the left pane.

Standard and Custom Objects

Any configuration performed by the customer and later added to Oracle Fusion CRM is considered custom. If a new object or subject area is added during the deployment of Oracle Fusion CRM, it is then custom or called a custom object, custom field or custom attribute, or custom subject area.

When planning the design of your custom subject area, use the Application Composer to identity standard and custom objects or fields within Oracle Fusion CRM.

Primary Object

This figure shows the Opportunity object as the primary object for a custom subject area that is created to report on opportunities and winning partner.

Fields or Attributes in Custom Subject Areas: Explained

The Application Composer displays custom and standard fields in separate tabs on the Fields page.

Reportable Field Types

• Text

• Number

• Date

• Percentage

• Date time

• Currency

• Fixed choice lists

• Dynamic choice lists

Custom Attributes on Standard Objects

When you create a custom field, you can create reports for the following data types:

• Boolean

• Number

• Currency

• Date

• String

• Percentage

• Phone

• Date time

To create reports using extension dimension attributes:

1. Navigate to the Application Composer.

2. Create custom fields for standard objects, and ensure that the custom fields are exposed on the user interface. This enables users to enter data for these new attributes.

3. Navigate to Oracle Business Intelligence Composer through Reports and Analytics option in the Navigator Menu.

4. Select a real time or Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) subject area that includes the predefined extension dimension.

5. Create a report.

When you select report columns, you can see that custom fields automatically appear under the extension dimension folder.

Measures in Custom Subject Areas: Explained

Measures available to a particular type of field may differ depending on the field type. Once you define the measures for the desired fields and publish a custom subject area, you can view and select these fields along with the applied measures when defining the report data in the Oracle Business Intelligence Composer.

Here are some measures you can apply to numeric, currency, or date type fields.

• For numeric and currency fields, a measure can be:

  • All

  • Sum

  • Average

  • Total

  • Count

  • Count Distinct

  • Maximum

  • Minimum

  • First

  • Last

  • Median

  • Standard Deviation

  • Standard Deviation Population

• For date fields, a measure can be:

  • All

  • Maximum

  • Minimum

For more information about selecting the data for a report using the Oracle Business Intelligence Composer, see "Using BI Composer to Work with Analyses" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition)on Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/documentation.

You can select measures based on your reporting needs. For example, you can use measures to view product sales per store, state, or country. Or, to view the number of support tickets opened or closed per day, week, or month, and so on.

Implicit Fact Column in Custom Subject Areas: Explained

In the following logical business intelligence representation example, there are several paths to be chosen when reporting only on attributes from the included dimensions. The implicit fact column tells the desired path that will represent the data and join all the three entities correctly.

Date Leveling in Custom Subject Areas: Explained

This figure illustrates the date hierarchy linking a year with its quarters, months, weeks, and days.

Creating and Editing Custom Subject Areas: Explained

Creating Custom Subject Areas

To access the custom subject area wizard in Oracle Fusion Applications:

1. Navigate to Application Composer from the Navigator menu.

2. On the main Overview page, select an application from the Application choice list.

3. Select the Custom Subject Areas link in the Common Setup pane, or in the local area of the main Overview page.

4. Click the new icon to create a custom subject area.

   The custom subject area wizard is displayed.

5. Enter the following values for the custom subject area:

   • Label: Opportunity Sales Account

   • Description: Opportunity and sales account information.

   • Primary Object: Opportunity

6. Click Next.

   Note

   Subject areas usually have names or labels that correspond to the type of information that they contain, such as service requests and orders. Display labels have the Custom: prefix added automatically.

7. Select the objects that are part of the custom subject area and its label.

8. Click Next.

   When you select related objects for your custom subject area, consider the following points:

   • For a one-to-many primary-child relationship, you can add only one child for up to four levels like parent-child-grandchild-grand grandchild.

   • For a many-to-one primary-related relationship, you can add as many multiple related objects as you want.

   The primary object is added and displayed in this step automatically.

9. Choose the primary object's Display Label as Opportunity Sales Account.

   If the primary object has child objects, then the + icon is available.

10. Click the + icon.

    The Add Child Object screen is displayed. If the added child object has children objects then the + icon will be available again. The + icon is available up to four levels of child objects.

All fields from the added objects in the previous steps are automatically added as part of the custom subject area.

To remove undesired fields perform the following steps:

Securing Custom Subject Areas: How It Works

Managing Role Names and Access Rights

While defining a custom subject area using the wizard, you can use the Actions list in the Configure Security step to manage role names and access rights as follows:

• Select and add role names for a custom subject area from a predefined list of role names. This predefined list also provides the description for each role name. You can also select and add multiple role names from this predefined list using either the Shift or Ctrl keys. Once you add a new role name, you can select appropriate access for that role name.

• Select and delete role names listed for a custom subject area. You can also select and delete multiple role names using either the Shift or Ctrl keys.

  Note

  You cannot delete the role name listed as Everyone.

• Read access is granted by default to each role name you add. If you want to revoke Read access from a listed role name, select No access for that role name.

Publishing Custom Subject Areas: Explained

Understanding the Publishing Process

When you submit a custom subject area for publishing, two processes occur in the background. The first process is synchronous and creates Oracle Applications Development Framework (Oracle ADF) artifacts. You must wait until this first process is over. The second process is asynchronous and creates centralized metadata repository (RPD) fragments and submits them to the Oracle BI server.

After the status of a custom subject area changes to OK, you can use Oracle BI Composer to create reports using the objects, attributes, and measures that you configured for the subject area.

A custom subject area can have one of the following submission statuses:

• Pending: Save and close a custom subject area at any point before publishing is completed. You can return to the pending custom subject area to complete the configuration process. This status may also indicate a failure in the background processes while creating Oracle ADF and RPD artifacts for a custom subject area.

• In Process: The data is in the process of being published to Oracle BI.

  Note

  If the in-process status does not change to OK, even after multiple refresh attempts, then there could be an error in publishing.

• OK: A custom subject area is published successfully and is available to the Oracle BI Composer for report configuration and analyses.

For more information about selecting the data for a report using the Oracle Business Intelligence Composer, see "Using BI Composer to Work with Analyses" in Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (Oracle Fusion Applications Edition) on Oracle Technology Network at http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/indexes/documentation.

Creating a Custom Object and Associating it With a Custom Dynamic Choice List Field : Worked Example

This example covers these tasks:

• Winning Partner Custom Object configuration

• Winning Partner Dynamic Choice List

• Opportunity Winning Partner Custom Subject Area

• Viewing the Published Custom Subject Area

This figure illustrates the proposed transactional model.

Winning Partner Custom Object Configuration

In this section, you are creating a custom object called "Winning Partner". Before making any customization in Oracle Fusion CRM application, you should have a sandbox session active.

For more information on sandboxes and how to use them, refer Guidelines for customizing Oracle Fusion CRM using Application Composer and Sandboxes (Doc ID 1484889.1) on My Oracle Support (MOS) at https://support.oracle.com/.

Winning Partner Dynamic Choice List

In this section, you are creating a custom dynamic choice list under the Opportunity object based on the created Winning Partner custom object.

To do this, navigate to the Application Composer and perform the following:

Opportunity Winning Partner Custom Subject Area

In this section, you are creating a custom subject area to enable reporting on Opportunities and Winning Partners.

To do this, navigate to Application Composer and perform the following:

Creating and Viewing a Report for the Custom Subject Area

In this section, you first create a report using the published custom subject and then view it.

Creating Custom Fields for a Standard Object: Explained

You will create several custom fields under the Sales Account standard object. Before making any customization in Oracle Fusion CRM application, you should have a sandbox session active.

You will create the following types of fields under the Sales Account standard object:

• Text

• Number

• Choice List (Fixed)

• Date

• Percentage

For more information on sandboxes and how to use them, see Guidelines for customizing Oracle Fusion CRM using Application Composer and Sandboxes (Doc ID 1484889.1) on My Oracle Support (MOS) at https://support.oracle.com/.

Adding Custom Fields Using CRM Application Composer

To add custom fields:

Extensibility and Reporting : Example

Adding an Attribute to a Standard Object

In this example, you will add a custom, fixed-choice field called Strategic Value to the opportunity object.

1. Click the Navigator menu item.
2. Click the more... >> link.
3. Click the Application Composer link.

   You are on the main page of the Application Composer. You are adding an attribute to a standard object that belongs to the Sales application.

4. In the left pane, click the Application list.
5. Click the Sales list item.
6. In the Objects region on the left, locate the opportunity object.
7. Click the Expand button of the Standard Objects tree.
8. Under the Standard Objects tree, click the Expand button of the Opportunity tree item.
9. Click the Fields link under the Opportunity tree item.

   You are on the Fields page.

10. In the Custom tab, click the Create button.
11. In the Select Field Type popup, click the Choice List (Fixed) option.
12. Click OK.

    You are on the Create Fixed Choice List page.

13. In the Appearance region, enter "Strategic Value" in the Display Label field.
14. Enter "Select whether the deal is strategic" in the Help Text field.
15. In the List of Values region, click the Search and Select Lookup Type button.
16. In the Search and Select: Lookup Type popup, search for existing Yes/No fields.

    In the Search region, enter "Yes" in the Meaning field.

17. Click Search.
18. In the search results, click the Yes / No Lookup Type cell.
19. Click OK.
20. You are back to the Create Fixed Choice List page. You will now set a default value for a new deal. In the Default Value region, click the Fixed Value list.
21. Click the No list item.
22. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Save and Close button.

    You have added an attribute to a standard object.

Viewing Added Attribute as Reportable at Runtime

In this example, you will view the attribute that you added to the opportunity object, which is now reportable in the related subject area at run time.

1. Click the Navigator menu.
2. Click the more... >> link.
3. Click the Reports and Analytics link.

   You are on the Reports and Analytics page. Use the toolbar in the left pane to navigate to Oracle Business Intelligence Answers.

4. Click the Browse Catalog button.

   You are on the Oracle Business Intelligence Answers page. Use the Folders pane on the left to navigate to the extensions created for the opportunity object.

5. Double-click the Shared Folder tree.
6. In the Shared Folders tree, double-click the Sales tree item.
7. In the Sales tree item, double-click the Subject Area Contents tree item.
8. In the Subject Area Contents tree item, select Sales - CRM Pipeline.
9. In the main area of the page, click the Edit link under Pipeline.

   The left pane lists the standard and extended objects used for the Sales - CRM Pipeline subject area. Locate the Opportunity Extension tree item to see the attribute you added.

10. Double-click the Opportunity Extension tree item.
11. In the Opportunity Extension tree item, locate the Strategic Value field.

    You have completed the activity of verifying that a custom attribute is reportable at run time.

Creating a Custom Subject Area

In this example, you will create a custom subject area using the opportunity object.

1. Click the Navigator menu at the top.
2. Click the more... >> link.
3. Click the Application Composer link.

   You are on the main page of the Application Composer. You are creating a custom subject area using the opportunity object, which belongs to the Sales application; therefore, you will select the Sales application for your activity

4. In the upper-left region of the page, click the Application list.
5. Click the Sales list item.
6. In the Overview region, click the Custom Subject Areas link.

   You are on the Custom Subject Areas page. You can use this page to search or create custom subject areas.

7. In the Search Results region, click the Create button.
8. Enter a name for the custom subject area that you are creating. Enter "Opportunity_Contact" in the Label field.
9. In the Primary Object region, click the Primary Object list.
10. Click the Opportunity list item.
11. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
12. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Add Child Object button.
13. In the Add Child Object popup, click the Child Object list.
14. Click the OpportunityContact list item.
15. Click the OK button.
16. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.

    You will now define measures for date and numeric fields for the Opportunity primary object. You do not need measures applied to all Date and Numeric fields, which is currently selected by default; therefore, first remove the default selection, and then add measures to the fields you require for your custom subject area.

17. Ensure that the selected value in the Fields From list is Opportunity. Click the Actions menu.
18. Click the Deselect All Dates as Measures menu item. This action will deselect all Measures selected by default for the Date fields.
19. Click the Actions menu.
20. Click the Deselect All Numerics as Measures menu item. This action will deselect all Measures selected by default for Numeric fields.
21. You will now specify the fields on which you want to apply measures. Click the Measure option for the Revenue field.

    In this activity, you will not be applying measures for fields in the OpportunityContact child object.

22. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
23. You will now select fields to apply date leveling. In the Date Field Leveling table, click the Expand button of the Opportunity object.
24. Select the Allow Leveling option for the RevenueEffectivedate field.
25. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
26. Leave the default role access of Read for Everyone. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
27. Review your custom subject area. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Save button.
28. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Submit button.
29. A Confirmation message appears. Click the OK button.

    You have successfully created a custom subject area.

Creating a Report Using Sales - CRM Pipeline Subject Area

In this example, you will create a report in Oracle Business Intelligence Composer (BI Composer) using the Sales - CRM Pipeline subject area.

1. Click the Navigator menu at the top.
2. Click the more... >> link.
3. Click the Reports and Analytics link under Tools.
4. You are on the Reports and Analytics page. In the left pane, click the Create button.

   From the Select Subject Area popup that appears, you must first select a subject area to build your report. In this activity, you are building a report using the Sales - CRM Pipeline subject area.

5. In the Select Subject Area popup, locate and click the Sales - CRM Pipeline link.
6. You are in the Select Columns step of Oracle Business Intelligence Composer (or BI Composer) wizard. In the left box, click the Expand button of the Employee tree.
7. Add the following fields to the Selected Columns box on the right:

   1. Employee Name under Employee tree.

   2. Opportunity Name under Opportunity tree.

   3. Sales Stage Name under Opportunity tree.

   4. Status under Opportunity tree.

   5. # of Opportunities from Pipeline Facts tree.

8. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.

   You are in the Select Views step of the wizard.

9. Enter "Opportunity Count By Sales Stage" in the Title field.
10. Click the Graph list.
11. Click the Bar (recommended) list item.
12. Click the Preview option on the right of the Title field.
13. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
14. You are in the Edit Graph step of the wizard. From the Group By box, exclude the fields you do not want in your report. Notice how the Preview changes.
15. In the Group By box under the Graph Layout area, click the Opportunity Name option.
16. Click the Move To list adjacent to the Group By heading.
17. Click the Excluded list item.
18. In the Group by box, click the Employee Name option.
19. Click the Move To list adjacent to the Group By heading.
20. Click the Excluded list item.
21. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
22. You are in the Sort and Filter step of the wizard. In this step, you will select the following filters for your report:

    • Sales Stages to display in your report

    • The Customer for which these Sales Stages should be displayed.

23. In the Filter region, click the Add Filter list.
24. Click the Sales Stage Name list item.
25. Click the Operator list of the Sales Stage Name filter.
26. Click the is in list item.
27. Click the Value list of the Sales Stage Name filter.

    Select these options:

    • 02 - Negotiation

    • 07 - Closed

    • Short List

    • Solution Presentation

28. In the Filter region, click the Add Filter list to add another filter.
29. Click the More Columns... list item.
30. You are on the Select Column popup. In the popup, click the Expand button of the Customer tree.
31. In the Customer tree, click the Customer Name tree item.
32. Click the OK button.
33. You are back to the Sort and Filter step. In the Filter region, click the Operator list of the Customer Name filter.
34. Click the is in list item.
35. You will now search for a customer name. Click the Search button adjacent to the Value list of the Customer Name filter.
36. You are on the Select Values popup. Ensure that the Name field contains begins with value. Enter the desired information into the Search Criteria field. Enter "Pinnacle".
37. Click the Search button.
38. Click the Pinnacle Technologies item in the Available box.
39. Click the Move selected items to other list button in the middle.
40. Click the OK button.
41. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Next button.
42. You are in the Save step of the wizard. Enter the desired information into the Report Name field. Enter "Opportunity Count By Sales Stage".
43. In this activity, you will save your report in only My Folders. In the Save In area, click the My Folders tree.
44. In the upper-right region of the page, click the Submit button.
45. A Confirmation message appears. Click the OK button.
46. You may now view the report you just created. Click the Expand button of the My Folders tree.
47. Locate the report you just created.

    You have successfully created a report in BI Composer using CRM - Sales Pipeline subject area.

Extensibility Analytics: Worked Example

• Specify the aggregate formula to apply a measure so that the subject area is better defined and includes only the measures that you are interested in analyzing. Aggregated measures include CURRENCY data type measures, DATE data type measures, and NUMBER data type measures. You can only specify aggregate formulas to apply to a measure when creating a custom subject area. It is not possible to change predefined measures or edit an already published custom subject area measure.

• Use implicit facts to ensure the data representation displayed in the report is presented correctly when using only dimensional data in the report. An implicit fact is a fact that has been specified for a subject area to be used as part of any dimensional browsing query. The Oracle Fusion application then uses this fact as part of the query during dimensional browsing. Typically, the most frequently used fact or the functionally most relevant fact is specified as the implicit fact. For example, a revenue fact is stamped as the implicit fact in the Pipeline subject area, and a sales account fact is marked as an implicit fact in the Customers subject area.

• Make ID Fields available for reporting by selecting ID fields as part of the Custom Subject Area. You can then run reports on the ID fields.

The following example scenario demonstrates how to configure these enhancements.

Extend Analytics

1. Navigate to Edit Custom Subject Area: Fields.
2. Specify the aggregate formula to apply so that the subject area includes only the measures that you want to analyze. You can only define measures for number, date, or currency field types that have not being defined as a measure when editing a custom subject area. In the Select Aggregations column, select an option from the list of predefined formulas that you can apply to the Measure field. When you select the formula, the application applies the selected formulas to the selected field and measures.
3. After you specify all measures and related aggregations in the Fields step of the wizard, in the guided step called Configure Implicit Fact, specify one of the measures as the implicit fact. You can specify only one measure as the implicit fact for a subject area.
4. Select the ID fields Row ID, Record Type, and Record Number as part of the Custom Subject Area. For instance, Opportunity Row ID and Opportunity Number are attributes that you can report on.

   Navigate to the specific opportunity or partner page and use the ID as a parameter to run reports on the ID fields.

Custom Subject Areas: Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change a custom subject area''s primary object?

What happens if I change a custom subject area after it is published?

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