Results for “category_number”

AI-generated from documented ETRM metadata — verify critical details on the linked pages.

Overview

CSS_DEF_REPORTING_CATS_VL is a reporting view within the Oracle E-Business Suite CSS (Support) product family. The "VL" suffix indicates that the view joins a translated (_TL) table and exposes language-specific descriptive columns, so callers receive the description appropriate to the session language. Its purpose is to present the product reporting category set used by CSS as a flat, denormalized list of category identifiers, concatenated category numbers, and category descriptions.

Two characteristics of the object should be noted. First, the ETRM documentation classifies CSS - Support as obsolete, and the view is explicitly recorded as "Not implemented in this database." Installations running EBS 12.1.1 or 12.2.2 should therefore treat this view as informational rather than as a guaranteed runtime object; it may exist only in environments where the CSS product schemas were deployed. Second, the view is a thin presentation layer: it performs no aggregation or transformation beyond resolving the reporting category set identifier at runtime and returning the corresponding key flexfield segment values alongside descriptions. This makes it a convenient lookup for reports and integrations that must render category data without re-implementing the flexfield concatenation logic that MTL_CATEGORIES_B_KFV already provides.

Underlying Base Objects

The documented view definition references three base objects plus a function call:

• MTL_CATEGORY_SET_VALID_CATS — the intersection table of category sets and their valid categories. It supplies CATEGORY_ID and enforces membership in the reporting category set.
• MTL_CATEGORIES_B_KFV — the key flexfield concatenated-segments view over MTL_CATEGORIES_B. It supplies the CONCATENATED_SEGMENTS value aliased as CATEGORY_NUMBER. This is the object most commonly referenced by the search term provided.
• MTL_CATEGORIES_TL — the translated descriptions table for categories, filtered on LANGUAGE = USERENV('LANG') so that only the session-language row is returned.
• CSS_DEF_MTL_API.GET_PROD_REPORTING_CAT_SET_ID — a CSS API function invoked from DUAL in a scalar subquery. It returns the category set identifier configured as the product reporting category set, which is then matched against A.CATEGORY_SET_ID.

Joins are equijoins on CATEGORY_ID across all three relations. No joins are documented between the base tables beyond CATEGORY_ID, and no owner or additional referenced objects are recorded in the 12.2.2 metadata. Because the category set is resolved dynamically by function rather than by parameter or predicate, the result set is fixed to whatever set the API is configured to return in the current environment.

Key Columns

• CATEGORY_ID — the surrogate primary key of the category. This is the value to use for foreign-key joins to other category-referencing tables and for programmatic lookups.
• CATEGORY_NUMBER — the flexfield CONCATENATED_SEGMENTS string from MTL_CATEGORIES_B_KFV; the human-readable, segmented category identifier as configured in the key flexfield structure.
• CATEGORY_DESCRIPTION — the descriptive text from MTL_CATEGORIES_TL in the caller's language. Reports keyed on this column will vary by session language and must not be treated as a stable identifier.

Common Use Cases and Queries

The view is typically used for reporting and validation where a list of valid product reporting categories with readable labels is required. A common pattern is to drive a report parameter or LOV from the view, or to enrich a table containing CATEGORY_ID with the concatenated number and description.

A straightforward extraction:

• SELECT category_id, category_number, category_description FROM css_def_reporting_cats_vl ORDER BY category_number;

Joining the view back to a fact or transaction table that stores CATEGORY_ID:

• SELECT t.transaction_id, v.category_number, v.category_description FROM my_category_txn t, css_def_reporting_cats_vl v WHERE t.category_id = v.category_id;

Because the category set is resolved through CSS_DEF_MTL_API.GET_PROD_REPORTING_CAT_SET_ID, queries cannot vary the category set through a predicate on this view. If the required set differs, query MTL_CATEGORY_SET_VALID_CATS and MTL_CATEGORIES_B_KFV directly with an explicit CATEGORY_SET_ID. The absence of an OWNER in the ETRM metadata also means qualified references (for example, APPS.CSS_DEF_REPORTING_CATS_VL) are preferable in custom SQL to avoid resolution ambiguity.