Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Documentation

Extend Data with Custom Data Configurations

As a functional administrator, you can use the available custom data configurations to extend your data for detailed and varied analytics.

Topics:

About Extending Data with Custom Data Configurations

Custom data configurations are ready-to-use templates that enable you to create custom functional areas with the data that you bring into the Autonomous Data Warehouse. You later use these custom functional areas to augment the data from the source or enrich the data available in the Autonomous Data Warehouse.

When you start using a custom data configuration for the first time and deploy it, Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse assigns the custom data configuration a version number. You can then edit the deployed version, make changes, and save it. This saved version then gets a new version number. While you’re changing the definition, the deployed version continues to fetch new data. An example of the currently available custom data configuration is the Descriptive Flex Fields (DFF) Attribute Mapper.

About Extending Data with the Descriptive Flex Fields Attribute Mapper

You can use the Descriptive Flex Fields (DFF) Attribute Mapper custom configuration to select the ready-to-use DFFs with their attributes, generate, and deploy the selected DFFs in the warehouse. The deployed DFFs create a custom functional area that you can use like the ready-to-use functional areas.

The DFF Attribute Mapper supports the following:
  • For attribute name, it supports "alphanumeric", "_", and "$". This is according to the Oracle SQL database restrictions. Avoid using any other characters because they aren’t supported.
  • For display name or label, proceed with caution using any special characters because they can create an issue in report generation. Comma isn’t allowed by default.

The DFF Attribute Mapper custom configuration is available with the 22.R3 application update. For tenant instances that you create after upgrading to this application update, as a service or functional administrator, you must navigate to this custom configuration, search for and select the DFFs that you want to move to the warehouse, map the attributes as needed, and deploy the selected DFFs. You can filter based on functional areas such as General Ledger, Accounts Payables, and Accounts Receivables or applications from the source system such as Payables and Receivables to list DFFs that you need to move to the warehouse. If you require a new DFF later, then complete this process again.

For tenant instances already operational before the 22.R3 application update, to ensure backward compatibility, Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse automatically copies the DFFs based on the functional areas that are activated. For existing tenant instances, Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse also copies the DFFs when you activate a new functional area. Oracle recommends that you start using the DFF Attribute Mapper to select DFFs and map the required attributes yourself.

Select Descriptive Flex Fields and Map Attributes

As a functional administrator, select and add the ready-to-use descriptive flex fields (DFFs) and their attributes to your Autonomous Data Warehouse using the DFF Attribute Mapper.

While selecting and adding the ready-to-use DFFs and their attributes, you must ensure that they are BI-enabled. The BI-enabled DFFs are registered in the database as enabled for Oracle Business Intelligence (BI) and include a BI-enabled setting for each of its segments. When a global, context, or context-sensitive segment is BI-enabled, it's available for use in Oracle Business Intelligence. If you select any attribute that isn't BI-enabled, then your extraction and downstream data augmentation may fail.

After adding the DFFs such as Invoice and Payment Information along with their attributes, you can use the data from the added DFFs to augment the data from the source or enrich the data available in the Autonomous Data Warehouse. The ability to select the attributes that you need enables you to avoid pipeline failures and slow performance.

While searching for the ready-to-use DFFs, filter the DFFs by functional areas or applications from the source system to view a smaller set. View the details of the flex field using the Details tab. You can add selected attributes or add all available attributes using the Add all attributes option.

  1. Sign in to your service.
  2. In Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse Console, click Data Configuration under Application Administration.
  3. On the Data Configuration page, under Configurations, click Custom Data Configurations.
  4. On the Custom Data Configurations page, click Create, and then select Descriptive Flex Fields.

    Description of fawag_select_dff_option.png follows

  5. On the Descriptive Flex Fields page, click Actions (Actions menu ellipsis icon) for a descriptive flex field that you want to add attributes.
    Description of fawag_dff_actions.gif follows
  6. In Actions, click Edit to select attributes
  7. In the descriptive flex field dialog, select the check box for the attributes that you want to add and then click Done.
    Description of fawag_select_dff_attributes.gif follows
  8. After adding attributes to the descriptive flex fields that you want, click Save on the Descriptive Flex Fields page.

Activate the Descriptive Flex Fields

After selecting the attributes for the descriptive flex fields (DFFs) that you want, you must activate them to enable data load.

Activation involves these two steps:
  • The Generate step initializes the custom application for activation. Generate evaluates the selections for the DFFs and prepares the application for deployment. It changes the status to scheduled and after processing, sets the custom application as active.
  • After the Generate step is complete, you can deploy the custom application. In the Deploy step, Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse connects to the source system and extracts the data for the selected flex fields and their attributes. Once the data is copied to the warehouse, the data is visible for analysis in the subject areas. The subsequent incremental data loads copy the data for the DFFs to the warehouse automatically.
  1. Sign in to your service.
  2. In Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse Console, click Data Configuration under Application Administration.
  3. On the Data Configuration page, under Configurations, click Custom Data Configurations.
  4. On the Custom Data Configurations page, click\ Actions (Actions menu ellipsis icon) for a descriptive flex field that you want to activate.
  5. In Actions, click Generate.
    Description of fawag_dff_generate.gif follows
  6. On the Custom Data Configurations page, when the status changes to Completed, click Actions for the applicable descriptive flex field and in Actions, select Deploy.
    Description of fawag_dff_deploy.gif follows

Deactivate the Descriptive Flex Fields

You can deactivate the descriptive flex fields (DFFs) if you no longer want to include the data from the DFFs in the incremental data loads.

  1. Sign in to your service.
  2. In Oracle Fusion Analytics Warehouse Console, click Data Configuration under Application Administration.
  3. On the Data Configuration page, under Configurations, click Custom Data Configurations.
  4. On the Custom Data Configurations page, click Actions (Actions menu ellipsis icon) for a descriptive flex field that you want to deactivate.
  5. In the pop up, click Deactivate.