External Custom Validations

Use external custom validations to validate request items in Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Data Management using business rules and reference or transactional data that reside in an external system.

With external custom validations, Cloud EDM sends request information to an external system through a REST API call. The external system evaluates the submitted changes using its own validation logic and returns validation messages for any issues that are detected. The returned messages are then displayed in Cloud EDM along with other validation results.

External custom validations enable organizations to extend Cloud EDM validation capabilities beyond the data and logic available within Cloud EDM. This allows validation processes to incorporate external governance rules, downstream application requirements, reference data, or custom business logic maintained in other systems.

Considerations

  • You must have the following components set up in order to use an external validation:

    1. An external validation system.
    2. A REST API endpoint exposed by the external system (see External Custom Validation REST API Specification for the REST API spec that the endpoint must conform to).
    3. A global connection of the External Validation type configured to use the REST API endpoint. See Creating Global Connections.
    4. A custom validation with a Validation Type of External. See Creating Custom Validations.
  • External custom validations can only be run for request items and actions in a request.
  • The External custom validation evaluates the request items and actions using the configured Node Filter Expression, Trigger Actions, and Trigger Properties. The request items must meet the Node Filter Expression, and the request actions must be specified by the Trigger Actions and Trigger Properties in order to be sent to the external system for validation.
  • You can create a custom external validation on node types only. You cannot create a custom external validation on applications, dimensions, or hierarchy sets. See Creating Custom Validations.

External Validation Process Flow

The following steps describe the external validation process:

  1. A request is validated that contains request items that use a node type that has an external custom validation enabled.

  2. The external custom validation evaluates the request items and actions using the configured Node Filter Expression, Trigger Actions, and Trigger Properties.

  3. Cloud EDM identifies the request items and actions that should be validated in the external system and then sends the request item and action information to the external system's REST API endpoint using the configured External Validation global connection.
  4. The external system's API endpoint receives the request, evaluates the submitted changes using its own validation rules and business logic, and then returns validation results for any request items or actions that fail validation.
  5. Cloud EDM receives the validation results from the external system and converts them into EDM validation messages.
  6. The validation results are displayed in Cloud EDM along with the Severity that was specified in the custom validation.

Example Use Cases

Organizations can use external custom validations to support scenarios such as:

  • Preventing changes (such as Delete actions) that would violate target system data integrity requirements around reference or transactional data.
  • Validating chart of accounts changes against ERP application rules.
  • Checking hierarchy updates against downstream reporting application constraints.
  • Verifying that node property values exist in external reference systems.
  • Enforcing application-specific naming standards or dependency rules.