Flexfields

Concepts

-Priyank Dube

© 2011
2005 KPIT Cummins Infosystems Limited

We value our
We value our
relationship
February 27, 2025
relationship Version 1.0
Topics to be covered

. Why do we need Flexfields?

. Overview of Flexfields
. Basic business fields satisfied by Flexfields
. Components of the Flexfields
. Value sets
. Types of Flex Fields
. Key Flexfields
. Descriptive Flexfields
. Difference between Key Flexfields and Descriptive Flexfields
. Limitation of Flexfields

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Flexfield :Purpose and Application

. Flexibility to implement code structure

. Flexibility to capture Additional Information

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Why do we need Flexfields?

•Every organization has individual business requirements.

•In legacy systems we overcome these problems by various
solutions such as modifying a form or altering a table.
•Oracle apps provides most of the functionalities common to
all types of organization
•There are specific business needs in exceptional cases that
are not functionally mapped in Oracle apps.
•Oracle does not support large scale customization of the
forms and reports that are part of its applications.
•Flexfields help us in overcoming this difficulty.

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Overview of Flexfields

• As the name suggests, a flexfield is a “Flexible Field”.

• A flexfield is a field made up of segments (which are

actually table columns). Each segment has a name that
can be assigned, and a set of valid values.

• There are two types of flexfields in Oracle Applications:

Key flexfields (KFF) and descriptive flexfields (DFF).

• Using key and descriptive flexfields, you give end users

the ability to customize your application to match their
business needs, without programming.

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Basic Business Needs satisfied by Flexfields

•They are “intelligent fields”—fields comprised of one or

more segments, where each segment has both a value
and a meaning.
•They rely upon your application to validate the values or
the combination of values that you enter in intelligent
fields.
•They have the structure of an intelligent field change
depending on data in your application.
•They capture additional information if you so choose.
•They customize data fields to meet your business needs
without programming.
•We can query intelligent fields for very specific
information.

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Components of Flexfields
Flexfields consists of the following parts

.Value sets – Value sets is a a set of values used in the parts of the flexfields
•Segments - Each segment of the Flexfield represents a characteristic of the
entity.
•Structures - Structures are combination of logically related or grouped
segments.
For example, consider the location of workstation at KPIT Cummins
Infosystems Ltd.
HB04B001W
This location is actually a structure which can be broken up into the following
segments

H B 04 B 001W

Office Location Building Location Level/Floor Wing Workstation Location

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Features of the components of Flexfields

•Validating Segments – This can be done by attaching each

segments with Value Set.
• Segments can be restricted to appropriate length and data
type by using value sets.
• Segments can be defined mandatory / non-mandatory.
• Prompt & segment value description can be also given.
• We can define multiple structures for one type of Flexfield
which offers us even more flexibility. For example – For
different Regions like UK, India, US we can define different
structures.

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Value Sets

•Values Sets are used throughout the applications.

•Value set can be defined for segment of the flexfield
•They require a Value Set Name and description.
•They allow you to choose Format Validation.
•They provide size and value limitations.
•They provide method for validation.

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Types of Flexfields

Oracle Applications uses two types of flexfields,

1)Key flexfields
2)Descriptive flexfields.

A key flexfield is a field provided by Oracle which you can

customize to enter multi–segment values such as part
numbers, account numbers, and so on.

A descriptive flexfield is a field you customize to enter

additional information for which your Oracle Applications
product has not already provided a field e.g optional
informatiom such as Passport or Visa details for an
employee ,country-specific information such as PAN card
No (in India) or Social security No (in the US).

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Key Flexfields

Features of Key Flexfields(KFF)

KFFs are mandatory.
KFFs are used by the application as unique identifiers.
KFFs share common information across many applications .
KFFs are defined at the global level.
KFFS are defined at the beginning of the implementation by
the
functional consultants.
Once KFFS are defined and ‘Frozen’,it is difficult
to modify them

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Key Flexfields

• A key flexfield represents an “intelligent key” that

uniquely identifies an application entity.

• Each key flexfield segment has a name you assign, and a

set of valid values you specify. Each value has a meaning
which can be specified.

• A key flexfield provides with a flexible ”code” data

structure that users can set up however they like using
key flexfield segments.

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Key Flexfields

• Key flexfields let you satisfy the needs of different

customers as per their business practices, without having
to reprogram the application.

• For each segment one can also define valid values for each
segment, as well as cross–validation rules to describe valid
segment combinations.

• Oracle General Ledger’s Accounting Flexfield is an

example of a key flexfield used to uniquely identify a
general ledger account.

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Key Flexfields

• You could use the Item Flexfield in an inventory application

to uniquely identify inventory parts. It could contain such
segments as product class, product code, size, color and
packaging code.

• You could define valid values for the color segment, for
example, to range from 01 to 10, where 01 means red, 02
means blue, and so on.

• You could even specify cross–validation rules to describe

valid combinations of segment values.

• For example, products with a specific product code may

only be available in certain colors.

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Key Flexfields

• A Flexfield Segment Is a Single Sub-field of a Flexfield

• Each segment is a single column of a table.
• Flexfield segments are usually validated against a set of
valid values, called a value set.
• Key Flexfields Identify an Entity
• Key flexfields serve as an intelligent primary key, where
each segment contains meaningful information.
• Key flexfields are integral parts of a form. They appear as
normal fields until the flexfield window pops up.
• Often the segment descriptions also appear on the form
in a concatenated-values field.

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Example of a Key Flexfield

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Example of a Key Flexfield

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Usage of Key Flexfields

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Usage of Key Flexfields

•The example above describes that Company A has different

accounting structure than company B. As seen, Company A
has five segments while company B has only four accounting
segments.

• While capturing such type of information into KFF, it needs

two separate structures for Company A and Company B
which contains five and four set of segments respectively.

• Below is the example of few Oracle Applications and

different KFFs available under each of them

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Key Flexfields
•The Oracle Applications products provide many key flexfields as
integral parts of the products.
•Here is a table listing all the key flexfields in Oracle Applications,
ordered by the application that ”owns” the key flexfield.
•other applications may also use a particular flexfield

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Descriptive Flexfields

Features of Descriptive Flexfields(DFF)

 Descriptive fields are not mandatory

 Descriptive flexfields provide customizable ”expansion space”
on your forms.
 Though the fields on an Oracle Applications form are more than
enough to capture all the possible information from the user
perspective, but still the users can feel the need of capturing
additional information.
 A descriptive flexfield gives you room to expand your forms for
capturing such additional information.
 Descriptive flexfields help us to capture adhoc information in
the form.
 Provides easy & powerful way to extend Oracle Apps features

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Descriptive Flexfields

• A Field Made Up of Sub-fields

• Flexfields appear in a pop-up window on a form.
• Flexfields are implemented as a set of database columns,
with one column for each segment.
• The brackets [ ] indicate the presence of a descriptive
flexfield.
• When the cursor reaches the brackets, the descriptive
flexfield pops open.
• If the descriptive flexfield is not enabled, the cursor skips
over the brackets.

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Descriptive Flexfields

• A Field Made Up of Sub-fields

• Flexfields appear in a pop-up window on a form.
• Flexfields are implemented as a set of database columns,
with one column for each segment.
• The brackets [ ] indicate the presence of a descriptive
flexfield.
• When the cursor reaches the brackets, the descriptive
flexfield pops open.
• If the descriptive flexfield is not enabled, the cursor skips
over the brackets.

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Example of Descriptive Flexfields

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 Oracle Apps supported Descriptive
Flexfields

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Usage of Descriptive Flexfields

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Usage of Descriptive Flexfields

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Usage of Descriptive Flexfields

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Usage of Descriptive Flexfields

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Difference between DFF and KFF

• KFF captures mandatory business information like

company,account etc. where DFF captures additional
business
information like name of company’s MD etc.
• KFF is displayed as text item while DFF displays like [ ]
• KFF does not provide additional space for storing additional
information while DFF provides.
• KFF is stored in Segments while DFF is stored in attributes.
• KFF is unique identifier and DFF is used to store information

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Limitations of Flexfields

 Once Key Flexfield is created it can not be deleted or

modified
easily.
 In customize form we can not create DFF or KFF.

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Definitions

• Values, Validation and Value Sets

•Your end user enters a segment value into a segment
while using an application. Generally, the flexfield
validates each segment against a set of valid values (a
”value set”) that are usually predefined.

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Types of Value Sets

• None Validation is minimal

•Independent Input must exist on previously defined list of values.

Dependent Input is checked against a subset of values based on a

prior value.
•
Table Input is checked against values in an application
table.

•Special Value set uses a flexfield itself.

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Types of Value Sets

• Pair Two flexfields together specify a range of valid

values.

•Translatable Independent Input must exist on previously

defined list of values; translated value can be used.

•Translatable Dependent Input is checked against a subset of

values based on a prior value; translated value can be used.

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Validating Input Using Value Sets

Category value set

COM APPL FURN

__ Item Information _________

Category COM Computer

Item 876 Monitor

755 876 933

Item value set

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Validation Type None

• Values are checked for expected data type,

length, and so on.

•Values are not checked against an approved values list.

•Examples include credit card number, street address, phone

number.

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Independent Value Sets

Category value set

COM APPL FURN

__ Item Information _________

Category COM Computer

Item 876 Monitor

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Dependent Value Sets

Category value set Item value set

755 Modem
COM 876 Monitor
Computer
933 Printer
320 Microwave
APPL 560 Refrigerator
Appliances
876 Washer

877 Desk
154 Table
FURN Furniture 677 Bunk Bed

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Table-Validated Value Sets

Customer

Name
table
Region City
Acme Computers Western San Jose
North Bay Foods Eastern Boston
Midwest Grain Eastern Chicago
Southern Milling Southern Charleston
Rockies Mining Western Denver

WHERE
Cities_West
REGION San Jose Denver

=
value set
‘Western’

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Value Sets
Value Set Options

Set Options Format Type Validation Type

Name Format Type Independent

Description Maximum Length Dependent

Security Available Precision None

LongList Enabled ? Alphabetic Characters? Table

Uppercase Only? Special

Right-justify Zero-fill Pair

Numbers?

Minimum Value

Maximum Value

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Validation Types: Summary

Type List
of Values Values Stored
Available  In

None No N/A

Independent Yes AOL* Table

Dependent Yes AOL* Table
Table Yes Application Table
Special/Pair Depends on value set Depends on value set
Translatable Yes AOL* Table
Independent
Translatable Yes AOL* Table
Dependent

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Predefined Value Sets

•Choosing a predefined value set limits the necessary

maintenance of values.
•Most predefined value sets are table-validated value
sets.
•A useful value set is Yes_No, containing the values Yes
and No.
•Never alter value sets provided by Oracle Applications,
especially the SRS value set.

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Steps in Defining Value Set

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Valueset Type: None

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Valueset Type: Independent

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Valueset Type: Dependent

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Valueset Type: Table

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Valueset Type: Table

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Values for Independent Valueset

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 Thank You

© 2005 KPIT Cummins Infosystems Limited

We value our
relationship