Reference Numbers

Reference numbers are additional qualified numbers that can be assigned to business objects for informational purposes.

Reference numbers can be used in collaborative situations where there are various parties (or systems) involved with the same business object but each party refers to that business object using a different number. For example, an order that originated in E-Business Suites (EBS) may be referenced by one number while that same order in Oracle Transportation Management may have a different Order ID. In this situation, the EBS order number could be added as reference number to the order in Oracle Transportation Management. Another situation that warrants the use of reference numbers may occur when various service providers are responsible for different portions of a move or shipment and each service provider's identification of a shipment may differ from the actual Shipment ID in Oracle Transportation Management.

You can also identify which consol shipment you want to plan for an order release through a planning parameter, CONSOL SHIPMENT MATCHING REFNUM QUALIFIER. When you define a value for this parameter, the planning process matches the value of this order release reference number qualifier with the consol shipment reference number qualifier of the same value.  If the reference number value of the order release and shipment match, the shipment is considered as valid shipment and this order is planned for the primary leg.

For example, if the order release OR1 has the reference number qualifier "CONSOL BOOKING REFNUM" with value as "ABC", the planning process identifies the consol shipments with reference number qualifier "CONSOL BOOKING REFNUM" having value of "ABC". When the reference number value of the order release and shipments match, these shipments are considered as valid primary leg consol shipments and the order is planned for primary leg.

Note: If a consol shipment does not have a reference number with CONSOL BOOKING REFNUM qualifier, the shipment will be planned for any order.

If an order release contains multiple reference numbers with the CONSOL SHIPMENT MATCHING REFNUM QUALIFIER, and their reference numbers have different values, the planning process uses multiple reference number values match to a consol shipment. For example, order release OR1 can have reference number value A and B for this qualifier, consol shipment can match with either A or B.

You can define sequence numbers to define the order that reference numbers and reference number qualifiers display on order bases, order releases, and shipments.

Each of the managers that allow creating/editing of the business objects above provides a section for adding/editing reference numbers.

1. To make a reference number assignment, enter any alphanumeric value in the Reference Number field.
2. Choose an appropriate Reference Number Qualifier from the list to provide meaning for the value that you entered. Public Reference Qualifiers are provided to represent common industry numbers such as purchase order numbers, invoice numbers, etc. The qualifiers that appear in the list depend on the business object for which they were created. You can edit the public qualifiers by logging in as DBA.ADMIN or you define your own qualifiers in the domain of your choice.
3. Click Save and the reference number appears in the grid below these fields. You can add as many reference numbers as you need as well as edit and delete any record.

Default Reference Number

For most business objects, Oracle Transportation Management automatically assigns a default reference number (used for settlement purposes) that is a concatenation of the domain name and the business object ID with a qualifier of GLOG.

Auto-Generate Reference Numbers

In addition to the manual data-entry of reference numbers, you can also have the reference numbers auto-generated by the Business Number Generator based on a user-defined business number Rule and Type.

Updating Reference Numbers

You can configure whether remarks/reference numbers with a certain qualifier are updated or appended as a result of object updates that are made via XML interfaces.