User Defined Attributes in

Oracle Product Information

Management data Hub

White Paper
Sajal Banerjee
Engineering and Industrial Services

TCS Confidential

User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Confidentiality Statement

No part of this document may be reproduced or distributed in any form

by any means without prior written authorization of Tata Consultancy
Services Limited
Copyright 2012 Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. All rights reserved.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Abstract
Strong business need exists to define high number of custom attributes for product master
database and managing different business processes around them. Most ERP systems are
not capable of handling high number of custom attributes and they dont have the
flexibility to display them properly or managing business processes without lot of
customization.
Oracle fulfilled the requirement to a good extent with the product Oracle Product
Information Management Data Hub. With Oracle Product Information Management Data
Hub, its possible to define as many custom attributes at different business entity levels as
required. It also provides some unique features of capturing them, displaying them and
managing complex business functions around the attributes.
This document talks about the different ways custom attributes can be defined and
managed within Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

About the Author

Sajal Banerjee has been working with TCS for last 10 years. His primary area of work
consists of implementation of different supply chain, distribution, manufacturing and
master data management solutions of Oracle Application for different businesses.
Currently he is working as project manager for GE Healthcare Product Controllership
program in Milwaukee, WI, USA.

About the Domain

PDM systems are mainly focused on maintaining the Product lifecycle, Change control
and As-Designed information. Most companies are having more than one PDM systems;
so it requires a Master Data Management (MDM) solution to consolidate the data from
the disparate PDM systems to manage data and associated processes.
Seamless integration between PDM, MDM and ERP/CRM systems provides an efficient
solution to resolve data related conflict early in the entire engineering and supply chain
process.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................................6
USER DEFINED ATTRIBUTES (UDA) IN ORACLE PRODUCT INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT DATA HUB.......................................................................................................................7
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

DEFINING ATTRIBUTE GROUPS FOR DIFFERENT BUSINESS ENTITIES....................................................7

MANAGING SECURE ACCESS TO A PARTICULAR ATTRIBUTE GROUP FOR SPECIFIC USERS/ROLES.........9
DEFINING SINGLE ROW AND MULTI ROW ATTRIBUTE GROUPS.............................................................9
ASSOCIATING ATTRIBUTE GROUPS TO ICC AND DISPLAYING IN ITEM PAGE.....................................10
ASSOCIATING UNIT OF MEASURE CLASS TO ATTRIBUTES.................................................................11
STYLE , SKU ITEMS AND USE OF VARIANT ATTRIBUTE GROUPS........................................................12
RAISING PRE AND POST ATTRIBUTE CHANGE EVENTS........................................................................13
ASSIGNING USER-DEFINED ACTIONS FOR ATTRIBUTES.......................................................................13

CONCLUSION.............................................................................................................................................14
REFERENCES.............................................................................................................................................15

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Introduction
Every item has a set of operational attributes that controls the features of the item in the
corresponding engineering, CRM or eBusiness Suite applications. In Oracle ERP an item
can have a list of predefined attributes and its possible to define descriptive flex fields
for up to 20 more fields. In real world there is definite need to define quite high number
of custom attributes that more specifically identify items, their characteristics,
specifications, and follow different levels of control.
Oracle fulfilled this deficiency of ERP Inventory Management system by introducing the
Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub. In Oracle Product Information
Management Data Hub, its possible to define as many custom attributes as required at
different business entity levels. This document talks about the different ways the user
defined attributes can be configured and managed within Oracle Product Information
Management Data Hub solution.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

User Defined Attributes (UDA) in Oracle

Product Information Management Data Hub
With Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub, custom attributes are grouped
by different attribute groups. The attribute groups are then attached to the Item Catalog
Categories (ICC) and associated with an item page to display. (Item Catalog Categories
are hierarchically structured business classification/grouping of items which provides key
benefits like access restrictions, specific displays etc.)
It is possible to setup as many attribute groups as necessary, but there is some limitations
on the number of attributes an attribute group can hold.
An Attribute group can hold

40 character attributes

20 number attributes

10 date attributes

40 translatable attributes

These are few of the unique features of Oracle Product Information Management Data
Hub in terms of defining attributes.
1. Defining Attribute groups for different business entities
The attribute groups can be defined for one or more than one different business entity
levels
1. Item
2. Item Revision
3. Item Organization
4. Item Supplier
5. Item Supplier Sites
6. Item Supplier Site Organization
An attribute group can be associated with multiple business entities. The attribute values
default from entity to entity in the following order when an attribute group is associated
with multiple business entities:

item to item supplier

item supplier to item supplier site

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

item supplier site to item supplier site organization

item to item organization

Attribute values only default from the parent to the child level during item creation. It is
possible to override the defaulted attribute value at the child level.
Here is the entity relationship diagram that depicts the relationship between the relevant
entities mentioned.

In Oracle Product Information Management, attribute groups can be defined in these

levels as well

BOM header level

BOM line level

Change Header level

Change Line level

Attribute groups defined in these levels allows storing of information specifically

relevant to a certain bill header/line or a certain change header/line level. These attribute
groups/attributes behave in similar way as item UDAs.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

2. Managing secure access to a particular attribute group for

specific users/roles
The business need of restricting view and edit access of certain attributes can be achieved
by standard configuration within Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub.
Different functions/privileges are defined and assigned separately for edit or view
privilege configuration of an attribute group. Then the privilege is attached to a role and
the role is attached to a user or a group of user. This allows view and edit access
specifically to a user or a group of users for the attribute group whom the corresponding
role is assigned to.
While ICCs provide secure access to a specific group of items for a user, this feature
allows even granular level of access restriction to the level of attribute groups.

3. Defining single row and multi row attribute groups

Sometime its needed to store more than one value for a certain attribute of an item. For
example, country of sale for an item might need to hold multiple values. Similarly some
attribute values depend on value of another related attribute. For example short
description and long description need to hold different values based on the attribute
language or country.
In Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub, attribute groups can be defined as
single row, multi row or as variant. Single row attribute groups accept only one value per
attributes and multi row ones accept multiple values per attributes. Variant type is used
for distinguishing attributes for a style item which we would discuss later in the
document.
When defining a multi-row attribute group its required to define the attribute or
combination of attributes which are part of the unique key. This ensures that the values of
other attributes will change for one combination of the key attributes and the users cant
enter more than one row of record for the same combination of the unique keys.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Below screenshot displays a typical multi row attribute group for an item. Location,
Status, Orderable and Quotable are all attributes defined under attribute group
Geographic Location and Location is setup as primary key.

4. Associating Attribute groups to ICC and Displaying in item

page
Oracle PIM has the concepts of classifying items into Item Catalog Categories (ICC)
which enables segregation of items for specific access, attribution or processes. ICC
classification is hierarchical.
Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub allows the attribute groups to be
defined in global level and then the attribute group can be assigned to one or multiple
Item Catalog Categories (ICC).
After assigned to an ICC, the attribute group can be added in different item pages.
One item page can contain multiple attribute groups and they can be sequenced as
required. The attribute groups and pages assigned to a parent ICC automatically inherit to
its child ICCs. This diagram shows an example of how attribute groups are associated and
automatically inherits to child ICCs.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

ICC1
Attribute group1
Attribute group 2

ICC2
Attribute group1
Attribute group 2
Attribute group 3

ICC4
Attribute group1
Attribute group 2
Attribute group 3
Attribute group 4
Attribute group
5

ICC3
Attribute group1
Attribute group 2
Attribute group 4

ICC5
Attribute group1
Attribute group 2
Attribute group 3
Attribute group 6

BOM and Change header/line level attribute groups cannot be associated to specific ICC.
They can be directly associated to the corresponding pages created for the structure
types/change types.

An attribute can be displayed in these formats in the item pages.

Text field
Text area
Checkbox
Hidden( not shown)
Static URL
Dynamic URL
Radio Group
Attachment

Below table shows the different display types supported for different data types of
attributes.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Display Type

String

Number

Date

Translatable Text

Supported
Not
Supported
Supported
Not
Supported
Supported

Date
Time
Supported
Not
Supported
Supported
Not
Supported
Supported

Text Field
Check Box

Supported
Supported

Hidden
Static URL

Supported
Supported

Dynamic
URL
Radio Group

Supported

Supported
Not
Supported
Supported
Not
Supported
Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Supported

Attachment

Not
Supported

Supported

Not
Supported

Not
Supported

Not Supported

Supported
Not Supported
Supported
Supported
Supported

5. Associating Unit Of Measure class to attributes

With Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub its possible to associate unit of
measure classes to an attribute (only for the attributes with data type of number).
System allows selection of any of the unit of measures for the assigned UOM class
against the attribute while updating the attribute and the UOM would be displayed in the
item pages. So there is no need to setup separate attribute named UOM for a
specification.

Below screenshot shows how an attribute names Weight for which UOM class of
weight has been assigned would be displayed in the item page. User will have choice to
choose the desired unit of measure for the item for that class.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

6. Style , SKU items and use of variant attribute groups
With Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub, its possible to define a style
item and list of SKU (stock keeping unit) items associated by defining an attribute group
as variant. Different combination of attributes within that attribute group creates different
SKU items for the style item.
For non-variant attributes of the style items its possible to master some attributes in Style
item level and inherit them to the SKU items.
This feature is very useful in retail industry where they can setup a style item first and
then create different variants (based on color, size, cut etc.) and all non-variant attributes
are inherited to the SKU items from the style items.
Below screenshot shows an example of SKU items created based on the variant attributes
of color and size for a style item.

7. Raising pre and post attribute change events

Its possible to configure an attribute group to raise standard business events before
committing the change or after committing the changes to any attribute of that attribute
group. This enables validation of any proposed attribute change to a validation criteria or
execution of functions or workflows based on the business process.

8. Assigning user-defined actions for attributes.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

It is also possible to implement complex PL/SQL or java function or to hyperlink an
external url as actions pertaining to an attribute.
The actions can be displayed as a button or a url link in the page the corresponding
attribute group is included. Upon clicking the button or link the code associated will be
triggered and it can perform the desired tasks like calculating and populating other
attributes based on a predefined logic.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

Conclusion
So we have seen using Oracle Product Hub solution, its possible to fulfill the
requirement of defining and capturing any number of user defined attributes holding
single or multiple values, displaying them with user defined format restricting its access
to a specific group of people, triggering business events, inheriting them based on
different configuration. All these capabilities make the product very suitable as a master
data management solution helping customers consolidate great amount of information
from different system into a single data hub.

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User defined attributes in Oracle Product Information Management Data Hub

References
https://support.oracle.com
http://docs.oracle.com/cd/B53825_08/current/html/docset.html

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