Definition of Lookup in Oracle Apps R12 Or What is Lookup in Oracle Apps R12? Or What is the main purpose of lookups in Oracle Apps R12?

Definition of Lookup in Oracle Apps R12

Or

What is Lookup in Oracle Apps R12?

Or

What is the main purpose of lookups in Oracle Apps R12?

The main purpose of a lookup is to keep programs flexible and easier to configure. Lookups are an approach of creating a configurable “list of values” in E-Business Suite. One of the simplest examples of a lookup type is gender. A “gender lookup” will have definitions as shown next:

Code       Meaning
M             Male
F             Female
U             Unknown

Suppose that there is a table for employees named PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F and it has the following columns:

FIRST_NAME
LAST_NAME
DATE_OF_BIRTH
GENDER

The screen that displays an employee’s gender will display a value of Male, Female, or Unknown. However, the database column PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F.GENDER will store a value of M, F, or U. Hence, the screen displays the meaning, whereas the database columns reference the lookup via a lookup code.

If in the future your organization wants the users to see “Undisclosed” instead of “Unknown,” you will have to make a change to just one record in the lookups table via the lookup screen. By doing so, you will avoid having to update thousands of records in PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F. Your new lookup will look like the following:

Code       Meaning
M             Male
F             Female
U             Unknown

Here lies the power of the lookups; you do not need to modify thousands of records in a transactional table. A simple change via the lookup screen will suffice. Using the lookup screen, you can either create new custom lookups or modify existing lookups.

What are the differences between system, extensible, and user lookup types in Oracle Apps R12?ORType of Lookups in Oracle Apps R12

User

• Insertion of new codes is allowed
• Updating of start date, end date, and enabled fields is allowed
• Deletion of codes is allowed
• Updating of tag is allowed

Extensible

• Deletion of lookup type is not allowed
• Insertion of new codes is allowed
• Updating of start date, end date, enabled fields, and tag is allowed only if the code is not 'seed data'
• Deletion of codes is allowed only if the code is not 'seed data'
• Updating of module is not allowed

System

• Deletion of lookup type is not allowed
• Insertion of new codes is not allowed
• Updating of start date, end date, and enabled fields is not allowed
• Deletion of codes is not allowed
• Updating of tag is not allowed
• Updating of module is not allowed

The following table shows the differences between system, extensible, and user lookup types:

Brief, some pre-seeded lookups given by Oracle cannot be modified. For example, Oracle has a lookup type called a termination type as shown in above figure. Oracle has some rules defined within the Payroll Engine program that read the value of a termination type code for employees before calculating their final salaries. Such lookup codes, if changed, can affect the logic within the Payroll Engine. For this reason, Oracle flags some lookups as system lookups, and the Lookup Entry screen will not let you modify those lookup codes.

How can a lookup type be directly attached to a flexfield segment to do validations in Oracle Apps R12?

To do this, create a value set of Table type that validates against FND_LOOKUP_VALUES using the desired lookup. In this manner, you can validate flexfield segments against lookup values.

The point here is that a lookup type cannot be directly attached to a flexfield segment to do validations; however, it is indirectly possible to do so.

Examples and use cases where we use lookups in Oracle Apps R12.

Example: Interfacing Data to Third-Party Systems

Sometimes there is a need to create a database view that becomes the source of information for data transfer to other third-party systems. You might have to put filtration rules in place; for example, for HRMS Extract, people with person types Employee and Applicant should be extracted. To achieve this, instead of hard-coding Employee and Applicant in the database view, you can do the following:

1-Create a lookup type XX_EXTRACT_EMPLOYEE_TYPES.
2-Add lookup codes Employee and Applicant to this lookup type.
3-In the database view, join the HR Person Types from HR Tables with FND_LOOKUP_VALUES for this lookup type.

So through this manner, Lookup also gives you the flexibility to change hard-code Value in Code.


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