Geography Hierarchy information can be used for geography validation, which ensures that addresses have valid geographic information, such as the correct combination of city, state, and postal code. Because street level data is not included, however, this validation does not ensure that addresses pass postal validation and can have postal deliveries to those locations.

The real-time address validation in Oracle Trading Community Architecture and other Oracle E-Business Suite applications leverage geography validation based on the information set up in Geography Hierarchy. See: Real-Time Address Validation. Oracle E-Business Tax validation and calculation also leverages Geography Hierarchy.

Use the Manage Validations page to perform tasks that are part of the address or tax validation setup. See: Setting Up Real-Time Address Validation.

For address validation, specify the validation level for the country. If the level is not No Validation, then map the country structure to HZ_LOCATIONS source table attributes, and mark the mapping with Geography Validation usage. If you also use Flexible Address Formatting for this country, then do the mapping using the address style assigned to the country as a guide.

Prerequisites

• The country structure must be already defined if you want to map geography types to location table attributes for geography or tax validation purposes. See: Defining Country Structures.

• (Optional) The address styles used in this setup are from Flexible Address Formatting (FAF) for HZ_LOCATIONS source table, or HR address formatting for HR_LOCATIONS_ALL source table. If none of the seeded address styles fit your needs, then create custom styles and assign to countries. See: Setting Up Flexible Addresses, or Descriptive Flexfields and Address Styles and Changing Default National Address Styles.

   Procedure:

This table describes some terms in the pages used for this procedure.

Selected Terminology

1. Enter the source table first, as that determines the available address styles.

   The first time you set up for either the HZ_LOCATIONS or HR_LOCATIONS_ALL source table, you select a source table but not an address style because you must first set up a default address mapping.

   Note: No Style represents the default validation mapping, which is used if:

   • A country is not associated with an address style.

   • An application is not set up with Flexible Address Formatting.

   • The FAF or HR address style used in a particular situation is not set up here with a dedicated validation mapping.

   As long as you set up validation mapping for No Style, you ensure that geography or tax validation can be performed for any address in this country, based on your setup. After No Style is set up for the respective source table, you can define additional mapping for specific address styles:

   • If you do use Flexible Address Formatting for this country, select HZ_LOCATIONS and the FAF address style assigned to this country.

   • For HR_LOCATIONS_ALL, you can select from any HR address style.

     Suggestion: Set up geography mapping and validation for only HR address styles that are potentially used for this country.

   Note: Additional mapping after No Style for either source table is optional, even if you do use FAF for this country.

2. For address styles other than No Style, then select the source table and address style combination to display the address style mapping. Use the style information to help you map the address for validation purposes, in the next step.

3. Map geography types from the country structure to attributes from the source table. You can map different types to the same attribute for different address styles, but not for the same style.

   Suggestion: Map only geography types that you want to use for geography or tax validation purposes. For example, the mapping determines which address elements are part of the address validation process.

   Only mapped elements are processed when the Geography Name Referencing runs. See: Geography Name Referencing Process.

4. For any mapped geography type and attribute combination, optionally select at least one validation usage, tax or geography. The address elements corresponding to the geography types must be correct for the address to be considered valid for the selected usage.

   Note: If an address element is mapped to a geography type, but not selected for geography validation usage, then suggested values can be provided for that address element during address entry, but that element is not validated.

   Geography validation applies only to the HZ_LOCATIONS table.

   • Geography Validation: For example, for the United States, you specified the North America address style for HZ_LOCATIONS addresses. Then for that combination, you map the US country structure to HZ_LOCATIONS attributes, and specify that Country, State, and Postal Code values are used for geography validation. When the user enters a US address using this address style, the address must have the correct country, state, and postal code combination, based on Geography Hierarchy data, to be considered geographically valid.

     Use the Geography Validation check box to specify which address elements are mandatory during address entry, based on the geography validation level for country selected. The Geography Validation Level for Country can be:

     • Error

     • Warning

     • Mandatory Fields Only

     • No Validation

     Note: The Geography Validation usage determines which address elements are mandatory during address entry, based on the geography validation level selected. For example, if the validation level is Mandatory Fields Only, then users must enter address elements that have Geography Validation usage, but the address can still be saved if values are invalid.

   • Tax Validation: For example, for the United States, you had specified the North America address style for HR_LOCATIONS_ALL. Then for that combination, you map the US country structure to HR_LOCATIONS_ALL attributes, and specify that County, State, and City are used for tax validation. When a sales transaction involves an address with the North America address style, the address must have the correct county, state, and city combination, based on Geography Hierarchy data, to be considered valid for tax calculation.

   Attention: For either usage, do not skip more than one consecutive level unless you are certain that the selected geography types can uniquely identify geographies.

   For example, the country structure is: State, County, City, and Postal Code, and you want to select just State and Postal Code for geography or tax validation. However, for the combination of California and 94065, the city can be either Redwood Shores or Redwood City. In this case, you should also select at least City for geography or tax validation.

5. (Geography validation only) Specify the validation level for this country, if at least one mapping is selected for geography validation usage.

   Note: If you select Mandatory Fields Only, Geography Validation will change to Mandatory in the Geography Mapping and Validations section.