Overview of Generating Flexfield Database Items

You configure registered HCM flexfields to add contexts and segments for your business requirements.

After you deploy the flexfield, you can generate database items for the flexfield for use in your formulas and extracts by submitting the Generate Flexfield Database Items process from the Payroll Checklist or Payroll Administration work areas.

You can generate database items for the following flexfields:

• Descriptive flexfields

• Extensible flexfields for single and multiple row routes

• Key flexfields

The process generates database items at the enterprise level only. As a best practice, when you submit the process, skip the legislative data group parameter so that the process generates database items for use by any legislative data group.

You can determine which database items to generate by specifying or skipping the flexfield and context parameters as shown in the following table.

Flexfield Parameter	Context Parameter	Result
Specify parameter	Skip parameter	Generate database items for all the contexts and related segments for a specified flexfield
Skip parameter	Skip parameter	Generate database items for all registered flexfields and their contexts.

The process creates database item names with this following structure:

de<FLEXFIELD_CODE><CONTEXT_CODE><SEGMENT_CODE>

When you include the database item in a formula or extract, the application returns a value for the database item, based on the flexfield context, for the segments column in the underlying flexfield table. After you generate database items, compile any formulas using these database items.

Periodically, you may need to update a flexfield structure, for example to add a segment to capture additional data. If you previously generated database items for a flexfield, submitting the process deletes and regenerates the associated database items. After the process regenerates the database items, be sure to compile any formulas using them.