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Oracle Fusion Applications using Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Connector (BICC)

You can extract data from Oracle Fusion Applications in Data Integration by connecting those data sources either with Oracle Business Intelligence Cloud Connector (BICC) or Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher (BIP).

For example, to extract data from an Oracle Fusion ERP or HCM application, you set up an Oracle Fusion Applications data asset as a data source in a Data Integration data flow. When integrating using BICC, Data Integration instructs BICC to unload the data into a predefined Object Storage bucket configured in BICC (external storage location). Policies to use BICC, to access the Object Storage bucket, and network requirements for accessing Oracle Fusion Applications must be in place.

Before You Begin

Using Oracle Fusion Applications data assets in Data Integration requires extra setups and access to other services in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Before you create an Oracle Fusion Applications data asset, review this section.

Tip

First time using BICC with Data Integration

See the Load and transform data from Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications to build a data lake or data warehouse blog for an end to end walk-through.

More References

Use the task checklist in the following table to ensure that you have the required setup and information you need for creating and using Oracle Fusion Applications data sources.

Task Requirement
Obtain access to BICC

This topic assumes you already have the proper credentials to access and use BICC.

See Provision Access in Creating a Business Intelligence Cloud Extract.

Obtain your Fusion Applications connection details

When you create a Fusion Applications data asset, you need to provide the following:

  • Hostname of the inbound server
  • Username and password to connect to the server

Instead of providing the password, you can use a secret in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault to store the password, and provide the OCID of that secret.

See Vault and secret concept descriptions in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault

To copy the secret OCID, see Getting a Secret's Details.
Verify network configuration to access Oracle Fusion Applications.

If the Fusion Applications host is accessible from the internet, and the workspace has an attached virtual cloud network (VCN), the VCN must:

  • Use DNS hostnames
  • Include an internet gateway

See Virtual Networking Quickstart.

If the Fusion Applications host is not accessible from the internet, you can use FastConnect to set up a fast and secure connection between Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and the Fusion Applications host.

Create policies to allow Data Integration to access buckets and objects in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage.

To use an Oracle Fusion Application data asset in a data flow design, you need an OCI Object Storage bucket as the staging location. Object Storage is the only storage type in BICC that you can use as the external storage location for staging extracted data.

The following policies are required for staging the extracted data in an Object Storage bucket.

allow group <group-name> to use object-family in compartment <compartment-name>

allow any-user to use buckets in compartment <compartment-name> where ALL {request.principal.type = 'disworkspace', request.principal.id = '<workspace-ocid>'}

allow any-user to manage objects in compartment <compartment-name> where ALL {request.principal.type = 'disworkspace', request.principal.id = '<workspace-ocid>'}

allow any-user to manage buckets in compartment <compartment-name> where ALL {request.principal.type = 'disworkspace', request.principal.id = '<workspace-ocid>', request.permission = 'PAR_MANAGE'}
Create a bucket in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage.

After creating a bucket, gather the following details, which you need to provide in the BICC application to configure external storage.

  • Object Storage host URL. For example: https://objectstorage.us-ashburn-1.oraclecloud.com
  • OCID of the tenancy where you created the bucket
  • Namespace of the tenancy
  • OCID of the user with access to the bucket
  • Bucket name
Set up the external storage location in the BICC application, to reference the Object Storage bucket you created.

See the Set up BICC to use Object Storage blog for step by step instructions.

For a description of the fields, go to the Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications, Creating a Business Intelligence Cloud Extract documentation. Under the Implement chapter, go to Configure Where to Load Data and review the fields in Storage Type - OCI Object Storage Connection.
Note

Policies required also depend on whether the Object Storage instance and Data Integration instance are in the same tenancy or different tenancies, and whether you create the policies at the compartment level or tenancy level. Review more examples and the blog Policies in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) Data Integration to identify the right policies for your needs.

Oracle Fusion Applications Data Asset using BICC Connection

To use a secret for the password, see OCI Vault Secrets and Oracle Wallets.

To create a data asset that connects to a BICC source, complete the following properties and connection details.

Field Description
Properties
Name

Enter a name for the data asset.
Identifier

The identifier is a system-generated value based on the name you specify. You can change the identifier value, but after you create and save the data asset, you can't update the identifier.
Description

Add a description. This field is optional.
Type The field shows the data source type that you selected in the Select data asset type panel (as described in Creating a Data Asset). Data Integration displays the data asset property fields and default connection fields based on this type.
Oracle fusion applications host

Enter the host name.
Treat NUMBER columns without precision and scale as VARCHAR

Select this checkbox to treat numbers without precision and scale as VARCHAR to prevent data loss.

For example, if you have a numeric data type with a precision value that's greater than 38, or if you have numeric data types without precision and scale properties.
Retain NUMERIC data type for NUMBER columns without precision

Retain NUMERIC data type for NUMBER columns without precision. This check box is selected to retain numbers without precision as numeric data type when creating new target entity.

For example, if source has a numeric data type without a precision value and if this check box isn't selected, then such numeric fields are converted as string in target system instead of the numeric data type.

By default, when the Treat NUMBER columns without precision and scale as VARCHAR check box is selected, this check box is also enabled for Fusion and Oracle Data Assets.

The primary purpose of this check box is to facilitate the generation of target columns with numeric data types, specifically designed for forward engineering use cases which have unconstrained numeric columns in source.

The actual creation of target columns depends on how the underlying databases handle the creation of columns without scale and precision.
Default connection information
Name Enter a name for the default connection.
Identifier The identifier is a system-generated value based on the name. You can change the identifier value, but after you create and save, you cannot update the identifier.
Description (Optional) Add a description.
Type

Select Oracle BI Cloud Connector.
Username Enter the username that can connect to the Fusion Applications host.
Use vault secret OCID If you use a secret in Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Vault to store the BICC application password, select this option. The following field appears:
  • Vault secret OCID for database password: Copy and paste the OCID of the secret for the password associated with the user from OCI Vault.
Use password

If you select this option, enter the password in the Password field.
Default BICC external storage configuration

Optionally, select the default external storage location to use for this data asset. This option is the Object Storage bucket that BICC uses for staging the extracted data.

You can override the default location when you add the Fusion Applications data asset to a data flow.
(Optional) Test connection
Test connection After you complete all the required fields, click Test connection to ensure that the data asset details have been entered correctly and the connection can be established. A success message appears if the test is successful. If the test fails with an error message, review the connection settings and try again.

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