Oracle iStore 11.5.

10
Descriptive Flexfield Support

An Oracle White Paper

September 2004

Introduction
Flexfields are an integral feature of the Oracle E-Business Suite and often play an important role in an
Oracle Applications implementation
There are two types of flexfields: Key Flexfields (KFF) and Descriptive Flexfields (DFF).
Key flexfields provide a flexible way for the Oracle Applications to represent objects such as
accounting codes, part numbers, job descriptions, and more. For example, the Accounting Flexfield is
a feature that uses a key flexfield to represent accounting codes throughout most of the Oracle
Applications.
Similarly, descriptive flexfields provide a flexible way for the Oracle Applications to provide
customizable expansion space, as well as a way to implement contextsensitive fields that appear
only when needed. Both types of flexfield let you customize and extend Oracle Applications features
to meet business requirements without the need for programming.

Benefits of Flexfields
Flexfields provide you with the features you need to satisfy the following business needs:
Customize your applications to conform to your current business practice
for accounting codes, product codes, and other codes.
Customize your applications to capture data that would not otherwise be
tracked by your application.
Have intelligent fields that are fields comprised of one or more
segments, where each segment has both a value and a meaning.
Rely upon your application to validate the values and the combination of
values that you enter in intelligent fields.
Have the structure of an intelligent field change depending on data in
your form or application data.
Customize data fields to your meet your business needs without programming.
Query intelligent fields for very specific information.

Purpose
This paper aims to detail the formal setup of Descriptive Flexfields within Oracle iStore 11.5.10, and
integration with modules within the 11.5.10 Oracle E-Business Suite.
For complete details about flexfields, see the Oracle Applications Flexfields Guide.

A. Overview of Descriptive Flexfields in Oracle iStore

In this release, Oracle iStore has been greatly enhanced to fully support standard Descriptive Flexfield
(DFF) features such as context and list of values, allowing you to capture additional information from
users in the shopping cart and payment pages.

Following are the supported iStore Customer UI areas for using DFFs:
1. In the Your Shopping Cartpage, a link entitled Additional Information allows customers to
fill in data fields at the cart and/or item level(s).
2. In the Payment and Billing Informationpage, customer can enter cart-level information
3. In the Product Detailpages, the Display Template displays the prompt and the value of
descriptive flexfield global segments, if a value is defined for the item.

The initial setup of the Descriptive Flexfields is done in the Oracle Application Forms.
After you set up DFFs in Oracle Forms, Oracle iStore uses its own JSPs --- along with Oracle CRM
Technology Foundation APIs and renderers --- to display the fields in the UI. Merchants can utilize
DFFs to capture information that cannot be captured through the setup of products in Inventory. The
information passes into the Oracle Order Management system and is viewable in the sales order forms.

B. Behavior and Guidelines for Descriptive Flexfields in Oracle iStore

The following points describe Oracle iStore guidelines and behavior for DFF implementations.

B.1 Shopping Cart and Payment Pages DFFs

1. In the shopping cart and payment pages, Oracle iStore has implemented Oracle Order Capture's
Header: Additional Information DFF at the cart-level. The DFF segment values are stored in the
ASO_QUOTE_HEADERS_ALL table. Similarly, in the shopping cart page, Oracle iStore has
implemented Oracle Order Capture's Lines: Additional Information DFF at the cart line-level.
These DFF segment values are stored in ASO_QUOTE_LINES_ALL table.
2. Oracle iStore provides the flexibility to implement DFF either at the cart-level, item-level, or both.
In addition, site DFF implementation can be further controlled at the site and specialty store
language levels.
3. Oracle iStore supports both global and context flexfield segments at the cart and item levels in the
shopping cart. However, it does not provide any API-level validation to enforce mandatory
segments, for either of these levels, during order placement. However, API-level validation can be
indirectly enforced by setting up mandatory DFF segments in Oracle Order Management's DFF.
If the cart-level Order Capture flexfield in the Payment page has been implemented for a site, then
mandatory segments are enforced for the cart-level during checkout. Further, in this case,
mandatory validations are enforced for both global and context field segments.
4. If cart-level and item-level flexfields have been implemented in Oracle Order Capture, and if the
values entered by the end-user need to be available on the order after the cart is converted to an
order, then the implementer must set up the Oracle Order Management flexfields at the order
header-level and line-level -- these must exactly match the Oracle Order Capture flexfields.

The corresponding Oracle Order Management flexfields are: Additional Header Information
(OE_ORDER_HEADERS_ALL table) and Additional Line Attribute Information
(OE_ORDER_LINES_ALL table).
Caution: DFF values are always passed to Oracle Order Management DFF segments. Hence, if the
Order Capture DFFs are not identical to the Order Management DFF setups, and if the same database
column is used for a different usage, then the data will be visually misleading. Further, if Order
Management DFF segments have validations set up, then the Order placement through Oracle iStore
may fail.
5. Any default values defined for flexfield segments will be shown in Oracle iStore, provided the
user had not previously entered values for any of the flexfield segments. Also, Oracle iStore
supports default value setup for the DFF Context field, in which case, the context segments for
this context are automatically rendered.
6. Oracle iStore does not support "reference field" setup for a DFF context field.
7. Cart-level or item-level DFF information is not carried to a shopping list if the cart is saved as a
list.
8. Oracle iStore automatically saves cart- and item-level DFF information whenever a user saves or
shares a shopping cart/quote.
9. The shopping cart is re-priced when cart or item level DFF information is saved.
10. For cart-level or item-level DFFs, if mandatory global/context segments have been set up, these
mandatory segment validations are not enforced when the user selects Express Checkout in the
Shopping Cart page.
11. In some cases, item-level DFF information may not be captured during Express Checkout. For
example: Assume DFF setup is done for both the Order Capture and Order Management DFFs for
item level, with some of the segments as mandatory, and the user did not enter DFF information at
item level. In this case, for normal checkout, Order Management would capture it while placing
the order. However, if the items are checked out through Express Checkout from the catalog or
shopping cart pages, there is no way to capture the required DFF information at item level.
12. For configured items, DFF information can only be entered for the parent item. Similarly, for
serviceable items with attached services, users can only enter DFF information for the serviceable
item, but not for any related services.
13. Only Independent, Table, and Dependent valuesets can be used with Oracle iStore.
14. For carts/quotes shared with Read-Only or Viewer access, the user cannot view the DFF
information at the cart and item levels, as he cannot activate the cart.
15. If a customer has ordered multiple quantities of a single item, the items can be split to specify
different shipping information for each duplicate item. In such a case, the item level DFF
information for the original item is populated in each duplicate item.
16. If IBE: Merge Shopping Cart Lines is set to Yes, and if the same item is added more than once,
when the item in the cart already has DFF information entered, then the DFF values already
entered on the existing item in the cart are preserved.
17. No DFF information displays in order tracker.

B.2 Product Detail Page DFFs

1. For the product detail DFFs, Oracle iStore supports DFF segments defined on the Inventory Item
table.
2. Only global flexfield segments are supported.
3. Out-of-box, the seeded product templates, Product Detail without Image, Product Detail with
Image, and Product Detail with Services show product detail DFFs

C. Implementing Descriptive Flexfields in Oracle iStore

C.1 Oracle Forms DFF Setups
No matter which portion of the Customer UI you plan to use Descriptive Flexfields for, you must first
create the DFF segments and associated values using Oracle FormsDescriptive Flexfields forms.
Important: Be sure to review the guidelines in Section B, Behavior and Guidelines for Descriptive
Flexfields in Oracle iStore.

Steps
1. Log in to Oracle Forms with the Application DeveloperResponsibility.
2. Choose Flexfield > Descriptive > Segments to open the Descriptive Flexfields Segments window.
3. Choose View > Find.
4. If setting up Shopping Cart or Payment page DFFs, query the following flexfield:
Application: Oracle Order Capture
Title: Header: Additional Informationif implementing cart level DFF
Title: Line: Additional Informationif implementing item level DFF
5. If setting up Product Detail page DFFs, query the following flexfield:
Application: Oracle Inventory
Title: Items
6. Uncheck the Freeze Flexfield Definition checkbox to allow for changes to the flexfield definition.
7. Set up flexfield segments: Select Segments and then map each segment you wish to use to a
column, specified by the names ATTRIBUTE1 through ATTRIBUTE15. This column data
(attributes 1-15) corresponds to columns with the same name in the
ASO_QUOTE_HEADERS_ALL and ASO_QUOTE_LINES_ALL tables.
8. Once all the changes for DFF are done, check the Freeze Flexfield Definition checkbox to freeze
the changes, and select the Save icon. This compiles the flexfield definition in the database.
9. After you have set up the DFFs in Oracle Forms, perform the required Oracle iStore-specific steps,
depending upon the type of DFF you are implementing.

C.2 iStore Setups for Shopping Cart DFF

Use the following steps to set up your Shopping Cart page DFFs, after you have performed the
required setups in Oracle Forms.

Steps
1. Still from the Oracle Forms, switch to System AdministratorResponsibility and choose Profile >
System to open the Find System Profile Values window.
Set the IBE: Additional Shopping Cart Information profile option to Yes at the Application or
Responsibility level.
2. Log in to the iStore Site Administration UI and map the proper template to display a specific JSP
depending on the DFF you want to setup.
Use the following instructions to map the proper JSP to the template
Cart-Level DFF only --- Map STORE_CART_ADDINFO_HEADER to the
ibeCScdHdrAdditionalInfo.jsp
Item-Level DFF only --- Map STORE_CART_ADDINFO_LINE to the
ibeCScdLineAdditionalInfo.jsp
Both Cart- and Item-Level DFF --- Map both templates to the JSPs
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
f)
g)

Go to Advanced Tab and Template Manager Sub Tab

Choose Programmatic Access Name and search for the template where you want to display
the Descriptive Flexfield information
Click on the Update icon
Click on the Add Source File button
Enter the corresponding JSP for the Source File Name
Select the Site and Language
Click on Apply button

3. The flexfield segment prompts will appear in the shopping cart Additional Information section.
Important: Both the profile option IBE: Additional Shopping Cart Informationand the template
mapping must be set up for the Additional Information link to display in the Shopping Cart page.
4. If you have setup both item and cart-level DFF information, there will a drop down to choose
between cart and item information to enter.

C.3 iStore Setups for Payment/Billing Page DFF

The cart-level DFF information can also be captured in the Payment and Billing Information page.
Note the following:
If a user enters cart-level DFF information in the shopping cart section and then proceeds to
check out the cart, the same DFF information will be automatically populated in the Additional
Information section of the Payment page.
Note that this implementation step only enables the Additional Information section DFFs in

the Payment and Billing Information page, not the Additional Information link in the shopping
cart.

Use the following steps to set up your Payment and Billing page DFF.

Steps
1. The Payment page flexfield is enabled when the following template is mapped to the following
JSP (out-of-the-box, this template is already mapped to the JSP):
STORE_CHKOUT_ADDINFO_HEADER --- Mapped to ibeCCkdHdrBillPayFlex.jsp
2. If desired, the prompts for the Additional Information section of the Payment page can be
customized.
From the Application Forms, switch to Application DeveloperResponsibility and go to
Application > Messages. Query the following two messages:
IBE_PRMT_ORD_FLEX_TITLE --- Title of the flexfield
IBE_PRMT_ORD_FLEX_DESCR --- Instruction for the flexfield

Note
If you do not want the DFF display on the Payment and Billing Information page, map an empty JSP
(an empty one that you create) to the template, STORE_CHKOUT_ADDINFO_HEADER.
Since Template Manager will not allow you to map another All-All (site-language) mapping for this
template, you will need to map the blank JSP for each site-language combination for which you wish
to disable the Payment and Billing page's DFF display.

C.4 iStore Setups for Product Detail Page DFF

Steps
1. From the Application Forms, switch to InventoryResponsibility and go to Items > Master items.
Use the Inventory Organization that is set in the profile option, IBE: Item Validation Organization.
2. Query the item for which flexfield values will be entered.
3. Click on the rectangle enclosed within brackets next to the Description field in the Inventory Item
window. A window opens with the flexfield segments set up in the previous steps.
4. Enter values for the flexfield segments you want to display on the item detail page.
5. Bounce the apache server to clear the product cache.
6. From the iStore Site Administration UI, add the product to a section.
7. Now map a product detail template at the product level using the following steps:
a)
b)
c)
d)

Go to Catalog > Products and query the product that was added to the section
Select the radio button and select the Update button.
In the left area of the page, select the Display Template hyperlink
In the Select a Display Template for this product LOV, select the Select a Display Template
option and press Go

e)

The following product detail Display Templates can be used to display the Descriptive
Flexfield values:
Product detail without image
Product detail with image
Product Detail with Services
f) Select the radio button of the desired template
g) Press Apply to save changes
8.

The flexfield segment prompts and values will appear on the item detail page.

Oracle iStore 11.5.10 Descriptive Flefield Support

October 2004
Author: Arnal Robert
Oracle Corporation
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