This chapter describes implementation of specific features in Oracle Customers Online.
This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Customers Online (OCO) provides many features for users to view and manage customer information. The setup and administration for many of these features are available from the Administration tab.
Note: To use the Administration tab, you must have the Oracle Customers Online Superuser responsibility.
The setup for some of these Customers Online features involves setting up and administering Data Quality Management (DQM). The DQM setup and functionality, for example the staged schema, are shared across all affected features. See: Data Quality Management Overview, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
You can set up these features, which are included in or directly affect Customers Online:
Accounts: Set up for accounts and account details. See: Setting Up Accounts.
Addresses: Set up for creating and updating addresses. See: Setting Up Address Formatting and Setting Up Real-Time Address Validation.
Bookmarked Lists: See:
Bookmarked Lists, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Certification: Set up display of certification levels in organization search results and overview. See:
Searching for Organizations or Persons and Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Note: Set up certification level display only if you also use Oracle Customer Data Librarian.
Classifications: Create and manage the class categories and codes that users can use to classify their customers. See: Administering Classifications, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Data Sharing and Security (DSS): Assign the TCA Data Security Administrator responsibility to those who need access to administer DSS. DSS administrators control the access privileges of users to create, update, or delete data in Customers Online. See:
Administering Data Sharing and Security, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide
Duplicate Identification: Set up for users to mark duplicate organizations or persons for merge. Set up duplicate identification only if you have Oracle Customer Data Librarian. See:
Marking Duplicate Organizations or Persons, Oracle Customers Online User Guide.
Duplicate Prevention: Set up duplicate prevention to warn users if the organization or person that they are creating is a potential duplicate of existing records. See: Setting Up Duplicate Prevention.
Extended Attributes: Set up custom attributes that users can view and update. See: Setting Up Extended Attributes.
Import: Set up for import of customer data. See: Setting Up Import.
Recent Items: See:
Recent Items, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Relationships: Manage the relationship types and roles that users can use to create relationships, including contact relationships. See: Setting Up Relationships.
Reports: See:
Overview of Reports, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Searches: Set up the searches in the Home, Organizations, and Person pages with Data Quality Management. See: Setting Up Searches.
Source System Management (SSM): Set up for users to map organization, person, and contact records to the source systems that the records originated from. See: Setting Up Source System Management.
Third Party Data Integration: Set up for users to purchase information from D&B about customers of type Organization. See: Setting Up Third Party Data Integration.
Transactions: Set up the Transactions viewer for third party applications. See: Extending Transactions Viewer to Non-Oracle Applications.
Note: All feature-specific implementation steps are performed with the Oracle Customers Online Superuser responsibility, unless specified otherwise. Set profile options with the System Administrator responsibility.
Your account setup determines the type of information users can enter when they create or update accounts and account details. You can also make credit summaries available for them to view, for accounts or account sites.
To Set Up Accounts
Responsibility: Trading Community Manager or Receivables Manager
Set up and compile descriptive flexfields to provide custom attributes for maintaining accounts and account details. This table shows the flexfields to set up and where the flexfield segments would be available to the user.
| Flexfield Title | Flexfield Name | Accounts Functionality |
|---|---|---|
| Address Information | RA_ADDRESSES_HZ | Create and update account sites |
| Contact Information | RA_CONTACTS_HZ | Create and update account contacts and account site contacts |
| Contact Role Information | RA_CONTACT_ROLES_HZ | Create and update account contacts and account site contacts |
| Customer Information | RA_CUSTOMERS_HZ | Create and update accounts |
See: Descriptive Flexfield Segments Window, Oracle Applications Flexfields Guide.
Responsibility: Receivables Manager
Set up system options in Oracle Receivables.
Automatic Customer Numbering: If you select this option, then users cannot edit account numbers when they update accounts.
Automatic Site Numbering: If you select this option, then users cannot enter or update locations for account site business purposes.
See: Transactions and Customers System Options, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Responsibility: Credit Management Super User
Optionally set up and process credit reviews, for users to view credit summaries of accounts or account sites. Perform this step for either the account or account site level. See: Processing Credit Reviews, Oracle Credit Management User Guide.
Related Topics
Accounts, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
Set up Flexible Address Formatting (FAF) for creating or updating addresses. Address formats determine which and how fields are displayed. You can use the same format for multiple countries, but each country can use only one format. You can also optionally create custom formats and set up lists of values to validate specific fields. See: Address Formatting, Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide.
Tip: For additional validation on entered addresses, set up real-time address validation. See: Setting Up Real-Time Address Validation.
To Set Up Address Formats
Responsibility: System Administrator (Step 1 to 2) and Receivables Manager (Step 3)
Aside from using seeded address formats, optionally create custom address formats. See: Creating Custom Address Styles, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Tip: In seeded formats, you can hide fields that you do not want to display and use.
Optionally set up validation for specific fields. See: Defining Flexible Address Validation, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Assign address formats to countries. See: Assigning an Address Style to a Country, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Set profile options:
Related Topics
Creating and Updating Addresses, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Flexible Addresses, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide.
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
Set up duplicate prevention to warn users if the organization, person, or contact that they are creating is a potential duplicate of existing records, and provide options for resolving the issue.
Duplicate prevention uses Data Quality Management (DQM), which provides powerful matching functionality, based on match rules that determine which attributes to consider for identifying duplicates and how to score the results. You can use seeded match rules or create new rules.
To Set Up Duplicate Prevention
Set up Data Quality Management. See: Administering Data Quality Management, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide. Make sure to:
Run the DQM Staging program to create the staged schema.
Periodically run the DQM Synchronization program to update the staged schema.
Compile all match rules that you plan to use.
Optionally create your own match rules, with the Search purpose, for organization, person, or contact duplicate prevention.
You can create one match rule each for organization, person, and contact duplicate prevention, or create one for organization and another for both person and contact.
Note: When the user enters an organization as part of creating a person, duplicate prevention is applied to that organization value using the organization duplicate prevention match rule set for the HZ: Match Rule for Organization Duplicate Prevention profile option. The person duplicate prevention match rule is applied to all other values that users enter to create a person. When creating your match rules, keep in mind that person duplicate prevention involves both match rules, and that the organization duplicate prevention match rule is used not only when users create an organization, but also in the above situation.
Use only attributes that correspond to user-entered values that you want to base duplicate prevention on. These tables describe the DQM attributes you can include in match rules for preventing duplicate organizations, persons, or contacts.
| Field That Users Enter to Create Organization | Entity | DQM Attribute Name |
|---|---|---|
| Address 1 | Address | Address 1 |
| Address 2 | Address | Address 2 |
| Address 3 | Address | Address 3 |
| Address 4 | Address | Address 4 |
| Alias | Party | Known As 1 |
| City | Address | City |
| Concatenated Phone Number (not an actual separate field to enter) | Contact Point |
|
| Country | Address | Country |
| County | Address | County |
| Customer Category (available via personalization) | Party | Category Code |
| D-U-N-S Number | Party | D-U-N-S Number |
| Income Taxpayer ID (available via personalization) | Party | JGZZ Fiscal Code |
| Mail Stop (available via personalization) | Address | Mailstop |
| Org Name Pronunciation | Party | Phonetic Representation of Organization Name |
| Organization Name | Party |
|
| Phone Area Code | Contact Point | Phone Area Code |
| Phone Country Code | Contact Point | Phone Country Code |
| Phone Ext | Contact Point | Phone Extension |
| Phone Number | Contact Point | Phone Number |
| Postal Code | Address | Postal Code |
| State | Address | State |
| Tax Registration Num (available via personalization) | Party | Tax Reference |
| URL | Contact Point | Web Site |
| Field That Users Enter to Create Person or Contact | Entity | DQM Attribute Name |
|---|---|---|
| Address 1 | Address | Address 1 |
| Address 2 | Address | Address 2 |
| Address 3 | Address | Address 3 |
| Address 4 | Address | Address 4 |
| City | Address | City |
| Concatenated Name (not an actual separate field to enter) | Party |
|
| Concatenated Phone Number (not an actual separate field to enter) | Contact Point |
|
| Country | Address | Country |
| County | Address | County |
| Customer Category (available via personalization) | Party | Category Code |
| Contact Point | E-Mail Address | |
| First Name | Party | Person First Name |
| Job Title | Contact | Job Title |
| Last Name | Party | Person Last Name |
| Mail Stop (available via personalization) | Address | Mailstop |
| Middle Name | Party | Person Middle Name |
| Phone Area Code | Contact Point | Phone Area Code |
| Phone Country Code | Contact Point | Phone Country Code |
| Phone Ext | Contact Point | Phone Extension |
| Phone Number | Contact Point | Phone Number |
| Postal Code | Address | Postal Code |
| Prefix | Party | Person Pre-Name Adjunct |
| State | Address | State |
| Suffix | Party | Person Name Suffix |
When defining match rule thresholds, remember that a record's score must meet or exceed the match threshold to be considered a potential duplicate.
Note: The override threshold and the HZ: Duplicate Allowed profile option do not apply to duplicate prevention in Customers Online.
Assign search match rules to these profile options, for organization, person, or contact duplicate prevention. You can also keep the match rules that are defaults for the profile options.
Set the HZ: Enable Duplicate Prevention at Party Creation profile option to enable duplicate prevention for organizations, persons, or both. The setting for persons also apply to contacts.
Related Topics
Preventing Duplicate Organizations, Persons, or Contacts, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
Set up extensions to provide custom attributes to display and use in the application. Specific UI pages would have an Additional Attributes option, from which users can select the extended attributes to view and update.
You create groups of attributes, with optional functions for user actions, and associate each group with an entity. You then assign attribute groups to a defined page. A page can contain multiple attribute groups, with the same associated entity, to display as an UI component. The entity determines where in the application the page is used.
For example, you create three attribute groups for organization profiles. You assign two of the groups to page A and the other to page B. When users are in the Overview page for organizations, they can select either page A or B from the Additional Attributes option, and access the assigned attribute groups accordingly.
This table shows the entities you can assign attribute groups to and the application pages they would be available in.
| Entity | Application Page |
|---|---|
| Organization Profiles (HZ_ORGANIZATION_PROFILES) | For organizations only:
|
| Party Sites (HZ_PARTY_SITES) |
|
| Person Profiles (HZ_PERSON_PROFILES) | For persons and contacts only:
|
To Set Up Extended Attributes
See: Administering Extensions, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Related Topics
Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Profile, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Creating and Updating Addresses, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
In Customers Online, users can import data from external sources by:
Loading CSV files of data into the import interface tables.
Automatically transferring the data from interface tables to the TCA Registry after the CSV file load successfully completes. This automatic import process follows the same steps as when the Import Batch to TCA Registry program is submitted. See: Import Process, Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide.
The automatic import is optional, and the user has no control over that process. Users manually submit a CSV file load, and when the load succeeds, that data is transferred to the Registry based on your setup, without any notification to the user. If you do not set up automatic import, users can finish the import process with Oracle Trading Community Architecture or Oracle Customer Data Librarian.
To Set Up Automatic Import
Set up as you would for TCA Bulk Import. See: Setting Up Bulk Import, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Set the IMC: Automate CSV File Load into TCA profile option to Yes.
Set these profile options if you want to run any of the optional preimport processes.
Related Topics
Customers Online File Load Setup
Import Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
Real-time address validation validates addresses during address entry. See: Real-Time Address Validation, Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide.
Most of the address validation setup involves Geography Hierarchy. See: Administering Geography Hierarchy, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Real-time address validation can work alongside Flexible Address Formatting (FAF), if both are set up. If you do not need to use validation for a country, then you can set up and use only Flexible Address Formatting. See: Flexible Addresses, Oracle Receivables Implementation Guide. Likewise, you can set up real-time address validation without setting up and using FAF.
Note: Before setting up real-time address validation, verify that valid location data exists from your data sources such as Receivables, a content provider, or manual data entry.
When setting up Flexible Address Formatting and real-time address validation, make sure they are consistent with your Geography Hierarchy setup.
Geography types in your defined country structure must match the address elements in the Flexible Address Formatting address style assigned to that country. For example, if the US country structure has City, State, and Country, then the address style assigned to United States should also have those address elements. See: Defining Country Structures, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Geographies that you define for this country must match any value sets defined for address elements in the address style, if the geography type is mapped to the address element for that style. For example, for the US address style, the State address element is mapped to the State geography type. If this address style has a defined list of states for the State address element, then do not define a different set of states for the State geography type. See: Viewing and Defining Geographies, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide and Managing Validations, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
(Recommended but optional) Address elements defined as mandatory in the address style should be mapped for geography validation. For example, if State is defined as a mandatory element in the US address style, then map the State geography type to the HZ_LOCATIONS source table and select the Geography Validation usage. See: Managing Validations, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
See: Address Formatting, Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide.
Note: Perform these steps for each country that you need to validate addresses for.
Set up the country structure in Geography Hierarchy. This structure determines the available geography types, which corresponds to address elements, for address validation. See: Defining Country Structures, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Define geographies for each geography type in the country structure. Address values are validated against the defined geographies. See: Defining Geographies, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide and Updating Geographies, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Note: If an address has values that you defined as alternate geography names or codes, those values are still valid, but the primary name or code is saved and subsequently displayed to the user.
Select HZ_LOCATIONS as the table to map the country structure against. This initial setup is not for a specific address style, so you see No Style.
Map each geography type in the country structure to the appropriate HZ_LOCATIONS column and select the Geography Validation usage. This mapping and usage assignment determine the address elements that must be entered and valid for the address to be considered valid. See: Managing Validations, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Specify the address, or geography, validation level for the country. See: Managing Validations, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
After you set up validations for No Style, and if you have a Flexible Address Formatting address style assigned to this country, then optionally repeat steps 4 and 5 with the FAF address style selected.
Important: If changes are later made to the Flexible Address Formatting address style assigned to this country, then you should make equivalent changes to your mapping and usage assignments for that address style, if defined.
See: Managing Validations, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Set up profile options.
HZ: Address Validation Level for Application - to set different address validation levels by applications, if needed.
HZ: Batch Size for committing records in Geography Name Referencing process.
HZ: Maintain Location History.
HZ: Number of workers for a given Geography Name Referencing request.
HZ: Reference Territory - to set the default territory (country) used to determine the locale for name and address formatting.
HZ: Default Flexible Address Format - to set the default style for address entry when no flexible address format is defined for a country.
HZ: Default Address Style - to set the default format for address display.
Run the Geography Name Referencing process to map addresses in location tables to master reference geographies. See: Geography Name Referencing Process, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Related Topics
Geography Hierarchy Overview, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide
In Customers Online, users create and manage relationships among the organizations and persons in their trading community. Customers Online includes a specific group of contact relationships, with persons as contacts, employees, or members of organizations. All other relationships, which are not in this group of contact relationships, are managed in the Other relationships feature.
Any hierarchical relationship can also be viewed and managed with the hierarchies feature.
To Set Up Relationships
Create and manage the relationship types, phrases, and roles that relationships among your customers are based on. Customers Online displays only phrases, not roles. See: Administering Relationships, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
The relationship phrase pairs you create will not appear in all relationship lists of values in Customers Online. For example, if you create a relationship phrase pair with Organization as the subject and object type, the phrase would not be available if the user is creating a relationship for a person.
Assign seeded or custom-defined relationship phrases to be used in Customers Online to an appropriate relationship group. Relationship phrases are not available to the user unless assigned to a relationship group. See: Assigning Relationship Phrases and Roles to Relationship Groups, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Party Contacts: Relationship phrases assigned to the Party Contacts group are used for contact relationships. This group is already seeded with some phrases, but you can assign other phrases, seeded or custom, to be used for contact relationships.
In features for both persons and contacts, the user can switch between managing information for the person and for the person in a contact relationship role. For example, you add Representative as a contact relationship phrase, and the user creates relationships with Joe as an employee of Vision Corporation and as a representative for Elcaro Corporation. In the overview page, the user can switch among viewing information for Joe the person, Joe as a representative, and Joe as an employee. See: Contacts Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide.
Relationship phrases assigned to all relationship groups other than Party Contacts are used for Other relationships. These other groups are not seeded with phrases, so you must assign any seeded or custom relationship phrases that you want to use for Other relationships.
Set the HZ: Allow Hierarchy Copy profile option to allow or prevent copying of relationship hierarchies. See:
Copying Hierarchies, Oracle Customers Online User Guide.
Related Topics
Contact Relationships, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Other Relationships, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Hierarchies Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
The Home page in Customers Online provides simple and advanced searches for both organizations and persons. The Organizations page provides the same searches for organizations, and the Person page for persons.
For all these searches, you can set up Data Quality Management (DQM) to:
Control the available search criteria.
Improve the flexibility and performance of the search.
DQM provides powerful search functionality, based on match rules that determine which search criteria are available and how to select and rank the results. You can use seeded search match rules or create new rules.
If you do not set up DQM, Customers Online provides a basic set of search criteria and uses standard search functionality.
To Set Up Searches
Set up Data Quality Management. See: Administering Data Quality Management, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide. Make sure to:
Run the DQM Staging program to create the staged schema.
Periodically run the DQM Synchronization program to update the staged schema.
Compile all match rules that you plan to use.
Optionally create your own match rules, with the Search purpose. The acquisition and scoring attributes would be the available search criteria. With match rule sets, the superset of all attributes in the set is the search criteria.
Caution: Do not include the Organization Name attribute in match rules that you create for searching for persons in Customers Online.
If attributes are assigned a display order, they are presented as two columns of search criteria, from left to right, then top to bottom. For example, you have six attributes assigned 1 through 6. Attribute 1 and 2 would be in the first row of the two columns, from left to right, then attributes 3 and 4 from left to right in the next row, and attributes 5 and 6 in the last row.
When defining match rule thresholds, remember that a record's score must meet or exceed the match threshold to be displayed in the search results.
Assign search match rules to these profile options, for any of the searches you want to set up with DQM. You can also keep the match rules that are defaults for the profile options.
Set the HZ: Enable DQM Party Search profile option to Yes. Only the searches that you provided a match rule for in the previous step are enabled.
Related Topics
Home Page, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Searching for Organizations or Persons, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
For any organization or person record that originated from a third party, legacy, or other external data source, the user can use Customers Online to map the record to that system or just view the mapping.
To Set Up Source System Management
Define the source systems that are actively providing data to organizations and persons, so that users can map specific organizations and persons to the records' source systems.
Control how source system and user-entered data are displayed, created, and overwritten. If you set up Single Source of Truth (SST), Customers Online would use and display the SST record.
See: Administering Source System Management, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Set the HZ: Source System Mapping Access profile option to determine user access for source system mapping.
Related Topics
Source Systems, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
Customers Online lets users enrich information for customers of type Organization by purchasing data from D&B.
To Set Up Third Party Data Integration
Integrate Customers Online with D&B. See: Setting Up Third Party Data Integration, Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Set the HZ: Allow Access to D&B Online Purchase profile option to enable D&B purchasing for users.
Related Topics
Setting Up Source System Management
Searching for Organizations or Persons, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Overview, Oracle Customers Online User Guide
Introduction to D&B, Oracle Trading Community Architecture User Guide
Feature-Specific Implementation Overview
You can extend your view of transactions in Oracle Customers Online to include transaction data from applications that are not part of E-Business Suite applications to provide a complete view into all customer business transactions in your organization.
How the transactions viewer works:
When you open the Transactions page, the transactions viewer engine reads metadata queries from supporting views and tables to create dynamic view objects for each transaction type. The view objects retrieve the data for the transaction type and display it on the Transactions page.
The transactions viewer metadata model consists of several tables that store information for customer transaction types. At runtime, the transactions viewer engine retrieves and displays transactions for each customer by running the queries stored in the metadata model.
You can extend the transactions viewer metadata model by using queries that:
Identify customers from page context.
Identify customers using page context and existing external source system queries.
For more information on how to extend the transactions viewer and update metadata, including sample code, table and view descriptions, see Oracle Customer Data Hub Implementation Concepts and Strategies White Paper OracleMetaLink Document 312811.1.
Related Topics
Transactions, Oracle Customers Online User Guide