The predefined fields in Oracle HRMS windows are designed to meet your core information requirements. However, like all enterprises, you may have special requirements that are best met by fields that you design yourself. Oracle HRMS provides a flexible mechanism called descriptive flexfields to enable you to add fields to windows.
All window blocks in which you can enter information contain a user definable descriptive flexfield. You decide in which blocks you want to record additional information. Each user definable descriptive flexfield has 20 segments that you can define. After you define a descriptive flexfield, Oracle HRMS treats the segments as part of the window.
The following figure illustrates the distinctive appearance of descriptive flexfields. When users click in a flexfield that you have set up, or choose Edit Field from the Edit menu, a window opens, displaying up to 20 segments that you have defined.
The way in which descriptive flexfield windows open is controlled by the Flexfields:Open Descr Window profile option. If this option is set to Yes, the flexfield window automatically pops open when the user navigates to the field. If it is set to No, users can open the flexfield by choosing Edit Field from the Edit menu or pressing CTRL+L. The default is Yes.
For each segment, you can define:
Its prompt
The type of data it can contain
The values a user can enter
You can provide a list or range of valid values. You also control the size and display characteristics of each segment and the order in which the segments appear.
You can define two types of descriptive flexfield segments:
Global segments, which always appear in the window.
Context-sensitive segments, that appear only when a defined context exists. You can prompt the user to provide the context, or you can provide the context automatically from a reference field in the same block.
For example, a segment holding information about an employee's disability might appear only when the Disabled field is checked.
Attention: Some descriptive flexfields appear in more than one window. For example, the Additional Evaluation Details flexfield appears in the Job Evaluation window and the Position Evaluation window.
Check all of the windows that use a descriptive flexfield before you define any of the segments. This is especially important if you intend to make the flexfield context sensitive to another field. You must ensure that the reference field is present in all of the windows that use the flexfield.
See: Descriptive Flexfield List for a full list of user definable descriptive flexfields in Oracle HRMS.