Oracle Applications Flexfields

Hi,
In this blog i am going to list out the various aspects of an important concept in Oracle Applications called Flexfields. So, What are/is flexfield/s? : In a nutshell, flexfields are flexible fields to store important information about the organization/company in Oracle Applications.Flexfields allow screens and reports to contain data that is uniquely relevant for your organization.Each flexfield can be configured to capture and display the specific information you want.
There are two types of flexfields: Key and Descriptive.Key flexfields are used throughout the applications to uniquely identify information -- General ledger accounts,inventory items, fixed assets and other entities that every business needs to keep track of.
Descriptive Flexfields enable you to capture additional pieces of information from transactions entered into Oracle Applications.
Descriptive and Key flexfields share common features.They are multisegment fields,the number of segments and the length of each are totally under your control when you set up the applications.
When you navigate to a flexfield in a form, a pop-up window appears,you enter appropriate values for each segment or pick values from a pull-down list.The application validates individual segments according to value-set rules , ensures that the combination of segments makes sense using cross-validation rules.
Descriptive flexfields are recognized in most of the oracle applications database tables as attribute columns and key flexfields are usually segment columns.
More on flexfields will follow in the next posts....

How good is R12 for financial applications

R12 has been around for a couple of years now and i am sensing it is about time that the product be recognized for the cool features that it has. From the release in February of 2007 the product has surely evolved with ever increasing clientale and also providing what was promised in this release.
A few good features of R12 which sets it apart from the rest of the earlier packs is noted below:
1.Integrated : Oracle R12 provides with the most complete,open and integrated business intelligence solution on the market place.Oracle's BI(Business Intelligence) capabilities include enterprise reporting, dashboards, score cards and a host of other BI features.
2.Embedded search,collaboration, mobile access , Microsoft Office integration and the ability to invoke any of these BI features from customized dashboards sets the Oracle BI a breed apart in reporting capabilities.
3.Open BI architecture enables integration with heterogenous middleware and infrastructure environments and provides with Universal access to all enterprise data types, including relational, OLAP and unstructured legacy systems.
4.Oracle BI products are integrated with common metadata, security, clustering, administration services , query request generation and optimised data access.

My two cents on Oracle BI for today.I will be back with more interesting facts about Oracle will follow.

MurthyAduri B Uday
Oracle Applications Consultant.