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Overview
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Overview

The RA_PHONES table is a core data repository within Oracle E-Business Suite Receivables (AR) that stores telephone and other communication details for business entities. It serves as the central table for managing contact numbers, enabling the system to maintain comprehensive communication profiles for customers, their contacts, and specific addresses. Its primary role is to support customer relationship management, order processing, and customer service functions by providing a normalized, reusable structure for phone data that is linked to key party and location entities within the Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA) model as implemented in Receivables.

Key Information Stored

The table's structure is designed to associate phone numbers with specific contexts. The critical columns include the primary key PHONE_ID, which uniquely identifies each record. The foreign key columns CUSTOMER_ID, CONTACT_ID, and ADDRESS_ID define the relationship of the phone number to a customer in RA_CUSTOMERS, a specific contact person, or a physical location in RA_ADDRESSES_ALL, respectively. Other typical columns, inferred from standard EBS design patterns, would store the phone number itself, an area code, a country code, a phone line type (e.g., 'HOME', 'WORK', 'FAX', 'MOBILE'), a primary flag indicating the preferred contact number, and standard Who columns (CREATED_BY, CREATION_DATE, LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY).

Common Use Cases and Queries

This table is central to operations requiring customer contact. Common use cases include generating contact lists for customer service, populating phone information on printed invoices or statements, and validating contact data during order entry. A typical reporting query might retrieve all primary work numbers for active customers:

  • SELECT c.customer_name, p.phone_number, p.phone_line_type
  • FROM ra_customers c, ra_phones p
  • WHERE c.customer_id = p.customer_id
  • AND p.primary_flag = 'Y'
  • AND p.phone_line_type = 'WORK'
  • AND c.status = 'A';

Another common pattern is joining through RA_ADDRESSES_ALL to get phone numbers for a specific customer site location for shipping or billing communications.

Related Objects

As per the provided metadata, RA_PHONES has integral relationships with several key tables. It is a child table to RA_CUSTOMERS, RA_ADDRESSES_ALL, and a contact table (implied by RA_PHONES.CONTACT_ID). Its primary key is referenced by tables in other modules, such as AS_LEAD_CONTACTS_ALL in Oracle TeleSales and AS_LIST_ENTRIES in Marketing, demonstrating its shared-service role across the CRM and Financials suites. The primary key constraint RA_PHONES_PK on PHONE_ID ensures data integrity for these cross-modular references.