Attachments

Oracle Applications provide a functionality to attach not-structured data, such as image, document, URLs and files, to a record/form/function. This functionality is already enabled for some standard forms, and can be enabled for other forms by defining meta-data. The attachment functionality is invoked by clicking on the Clip button as shown in the figure (1).

Using attachment functionality, it is possible to attach:

• Long Text (Oracle LONG data type, 2GB)
• Short Text (up to 4000 Bytes)
• File  (Any kind of file like image, word doc, excel, PDF etc.)
• Web Page (URL of a web page)

The attached document can be associated with a category. This helps organizing various documents attached to a particular record.

Whenever a record is queried, the corresponding attached document can be retrieved by clicking on the clip button.

Uses

Attachment functionality is useful for attaching non-structured data with a particular record. For example, one may want to associate a scanned copy of purchase order with the PO record, or a copy of physical invoice with the invoice record. In case of contracts, we may want to associate a scanned copy of the contract with the contract record.

How to Enable an attachment

Enabling an attachment consists of defining the following things:

• Defining an entity (Table or view)
• Defining a category (we may also use pre-defined categories, like Miscellaneous)
• Defining attachment function

We will explain the enabling of attachment by taking an example. Suppose, we want to enable attachment for User Definition Screen (System Administrator => Security => User => Define). The screen is shown below (Figure 2):

1. Identify the name of the form. This can be done by clicking Help => About Oracle Applications. In this case, the form name is FNDSCAUS.
2. Identify the name of the base table which stores the data. In our example, the base table name is FND_USER. This can be identified by doing a query (F11 => Ctrl F11) and then doing Help => Diagnostics => Examine, Block = System, field = Last_Query.
3. Identify the primary key of the table. In our case, the primary key is USER_ID.
4. Identify the block name where we want to associate the attachment. In the example, block name is USER.
5. Navigate to Application Developer => Attachments => Document entities and enter the details as given below. Click on Save:

1. Now go to Application Developer => Attachments => Document categories and define a new category as below. Click on SAVE:

1. Go to Application Developer => Attachments => Attachment functions and enter the detail as below:

1. Now click on Categories button, and enter the category we just defined. Click on Save.

1. Click on Blocks button and enter the information as given below. Click on SAVE:

1.  Click on Entities button and enter the entity information as given below:

1. Click on Primary Key fields tab and enter the primary key information as given below. Click on SAVE.
   
   

We are now done with the setup required for enable the attachment in the user definition screen. Now go to the user screen and see if the click button is enabled.

How to use the attachment feature

For attaching a document, first query a record in User screen and then click on the Clip button.

Enter sequence Number (any unique number), Category (which is ‘User Application’) and data type.

Technical Details of the Attachment Functionality

Attachment Setup Tables

Document categories defined using Application Developer => Attachment => Categories are stored in the table FND_DOCUMENT_CATEGORIES

Document entities defined using Application Developer => Attachment => Entities are stored in the table FND_DOCUMENT_ENTITIES.

Attachment functions are stored in the following tables:

· FND_ATTACHMENT_FUNCTIONS

· FND_ATTACHMENT_BLOCKS

Attachment Usage tables

FND_ATTACHED_DOCUMENTS – stores information on entity, key and the associated attachment information.

FND_DOCUMENT_SHORT_TEXT – stores the details of short text type of an attachment.

FND_DOCUMENT_LONG_TEXT – stores the details of long text type of an attachment.

FND_DOCUMENTS/FND_DOCUMENTS_TL – stores the details of attached documents.

FND_LOBS – stores the actual File for attached documents