How You Set Up and Define Flexfields

A flexfield is a set of placeholder fields associated with business objects and placed on the application pages to contain additional data. You can use flexfields to modify the business objects and meet enterprise data management requirements without changing the data model or performing any database programming.

Flexfields help you capture different data on the same database table and provide a means to modify the applications features. For example, a maintenance user may require specific attributes for an asset or work order that aren't predefined. Using a flexfield for the order business object, you can create and configure the required attributes. These attributes are then visible in the Additional Information region on the application pages for each object.

Oracle Maintenance supports descriptive flexfields for assets, maintenance work setup, and maintenance work execution. Alternatively, you can use Application Composer to extend the asset object and the Edit Asset page.

Descriptive flexfields are shared for common business objects, work setup, and execution, and are used in both Oracle Manufacturing and Maintenance. Therefore, you must be careful during the modeling of the flexfields if your organization performs both types of activities. For more details about flexfields, refer to the Configuring and Extending Applications guide

Note: For assets, you can define descriptive flexfields, Application Composer fields, or use both at the same time. However, it's generally recommended to use one or the other methods to extend the asset object. For more details about Application Composer, refer to the Implementing Manufacturing and Supply Chain Materials Management guide or the Configuring Applications Using Application Composer guide.

Note: Flexfields are defined and managed independently for each object. Therefore, there isn't any implicit functionality that the data will automatically flow or orchestrate across objects during the definition, create, update, or delete of flexfield data in the user interface, through REST API, or using File-based data import.

Set Up Flexfields

Define descriptive flexfields in the Setup and Maintenance work area. Don't use the task under the Maintenance Management functional area. Instead, use the Search option from the Tasks drop-down list to search for the generic setup task Manage Descriptive Flexfields.

On the Manage Descriptive Flexfields page, search by name or code for the type of object to view existing or to add new flexfields. You can search using the common name asset or work order, or by the code abbreviations using a wildcard like WIS% to view a list of common results

Here are the supported flexfields by type.

Type	Object Name	Module	Flexfield Code
Asset	Asset	Assets	CSE_ASSETS
	Asset Group	N/A	Flexfields aren't enabled for an asset groups
Maintenance Setup	Work Area	Work Areas	WIS_WORK_AREAS
	Work Center	Work Centers	WIS_WORK_CENTERS
	Standard Operations	Standard Operations	WIS_STANDARD_OPERATIONS
	Standard Operation Resources	Standard Operations	WIS_STD_OPERATION_RESOURCES
	Labor Resource Instance	Resources	WIS_EQUIPMENT_RESOURCE_INSTANCES
	Equipment Resource Instance	Resources	WIS_EQUIPMENT_RESOURCE_INSTANCES
	Work Definition Names	Work Definitions	WIS_WORK_DEFINITION_NAMES_B Note: At this time this object is seeded but not supported in the user interface, REST API or file-based import for data entry or update
	Work Definition Operations	Work Definitions	WIS_WD_OPERATIONS_B
	Work Definition Operation Materials	Work Definitions	WIS_WD_OPERATION_MATERIALS
	Work Definition Operation Resources	Work Definitions	WIS_WD_OPERATION_RESOURCES
	Work Definition Operation Outputs	Work Definitions	WIS_WD_OPERATION_OUTPUTS
	Maintenance Programs	NA	Flexfields aren't enabled for a program or its work requirements. You can enable the work definitions that are defined in a work requirement for flexfields. Note: The flexfield capability to default a segment value during object creation isn't supported for work orders created by a maintenance program forecast. This process uses the same import program as the maintenance work order file-based import and doesn't support this capability.
Maintenance Execution	Work Order Header	Work Orders	WIE_WORK_ORDERS
	Work Order Operation	Work Orders	WIE_WORK_ORDERS
	Work Order Operation Item	Work Orders	WIE_WO_OPERATION_MATERIALS
	Work Order Operation Resource	Work Orders	WIE_WO_OPERATION_RESOURCES
	Work Order Operation Output	Work Orders	WIE_WO_OPERATION_OUTPUTS
	Work Order Operation Resource Instance	Work Orders	WIE_WO_OPERATION_RESOURCE_INSTANCES
	Work Order Operation Transactions	Work Order Operation Transactions	WIE_OPERATION_TRANSACTIONS
	Work Order Resource Transactions	Work Order Resource Transactions	WIE_RESOURCE_TRANSACTIONS
	Work Order Material Transactions	Inventory	INV_LOT_ATTRIBUTES INV_SERIAL_ATTRIBUTES

Define Flexfields

For each object, these are the number of fields by type that can be defined:

• Text: 30

• Number: 10

• Date: 5

• Date and time: 5

Here are the components and capabilities if descriptive flexfields:

Segments: A segment is an extensible data field that represents an attribute and captures a value corresponding to a predefined, single extension column in the database for each object. A segment appears globally or based on a context of other captured information.

Value Sets: A value set is a group of valid values that you assign to a flexfield segment to control the values that are stored for business object attributes. A user enters a value for an attribute of a business object while using the application. The flexfield validates the value against the set of valid values that you configured as a value set and assigned to the segment. For example, you can define a required format, such as a five-digit number, or a list of valid values, such as green, red, and blue.

Flexfield segments are usually validated, and typically each segment in a given flexfield uses a different value set. You can assign a single value set to more than one segment, and you can share value sets among different flexfield.

Contexts: Context-sensitive flexfield segments are available to an application based on a context value. A context can be optionally configured as part of the descriptive flexfield setup. The context appears as a single drop-down list field in the Additional Information section of an application page for an object. If configured, the context drop-down list will contain one or more values. Depending on the value selected, one or more context-sensitive flexfield segments is exposed to the user for entry.

BI-enabled: A flexfield can be registered in the database as enabled for Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) using the check box in the segment definition. When a segment instance is BI-enabled, it becomes available for use in Oracle Business Intelligence once a concurrent process is run to refresh the OTBI. When a flexfield is deployed, run the Import Oracle Fusion Data Extensions for Transactional Business Intelligence scheduled process while selecting the CRM parameter check box. This imports the flexfields into Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI).

REST and File-Based Import: You can enter and edit descriptive flexfields using the application pages for an object, using a REST API or File-Based Data Import.