Previous	Next		Contents	Index	Navigation	Glossary	Library

If you have more than one datagroup for your installation of Oracle Applications, then your flexfield view is created in each Oracle ID corresponding to an Oracle Applications product. For example, if you have two datagroups that use different Oracle IDs for your Oracle Payables product, AP1 and AP2, then a view for an Oracle Payables descriptive flexfield would be created in each of the two Oracle IDs. Because the two installations of Oracle Payables share a single descriptive flexfield definition, the structure of the two views would be the same, though the views would contain different data.

Occasionally an Oracle Applications form may use a "fake" table for its descriptive flexfield. In this case, no view is created. Usually these special descriptive flexfields appear in a form block that contains more than one descriptive flexfield (normally a block may contain only one descriptive flexfield).

If the application to which the flexfield belongs is not an Oracle Applications installed or shared application, the view generator does not create a view. The view generator does not create views for non-Oracle Applications (custom) flexfields.

If the total number of uniquely-named segments (after segment names have been corrected for non-alphanumeric characters) for a descriptive flexfield exceeds 253, Oracle Applications cannot create your descriptive flexfield view and include columns for all of your segments (a view can contain only 256 columns). In this case, the flexfield view generator creates your descriptive flexfield view without columns for the individual segments, but does include the ROW_ID, CONCATENATED_SEGMENTS, and structure defining column (context column).

If you plan to use many segments (over all structures, both global and context-sensitive) for your descriptive flexfield, you should plan to use duplicate segment names. For example, if you define the Asset Category descriptive flexfield in Oracle Assets, you may have many structures (one for each category of asset, such as vehicles) that each have several segments. For this flexfield, you could easily exceed 253 uniquely-named segments.

However, you can intentionally share segment names among context-sensitive structures, and thus stay below 253 uniquely-named segments. For example, you might have a segment in a VEHICLE structure for vehicle type, and you might have a segment in a FURNITURE structure for furniture type. You could name both segments Type, and they would share a column in the view. Since the context (structure) column appears in the view, you can easily differentiate between the two uses of the column. Also, since the view uses the segment name, instead of the segment prompt, you can use different prompts for these segments and avoid confusing users. Be sure that none of the segment names for your context-sensitive segments duplicate the names for any global segments you have, however.

You should always verify that your view generation concurrent request completes successfully. If the concurrent request fails for some reason, such as duplicate column names, the view generator attempts to create a "null view" so that any grants and synonyms from a previously-existing view are preserved. In these cases, you should identify and fix the problem and then regenerate your view. The report file for your concurrent request contains a description of your view.

Updating a Flexfield View

See Also

Overview of Flexfield Views

Key Flexfield Concatenated Segment View

Key Flexfield Structure View

Descriptive Flexfield View

Segment Naming Conventions

Using Flexfield Views to Write a Report

Key Flexfield Views Examples

Descriptive Flexfield View Example