Results for “fa_categories_tl”

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

Overview

FA_CATEGORIES_TL is the translated (MLS) table in the OFA – Assets (Oracle Fixed Assets) module that stores language-specific descriptive information for asset categories. It is the companion to the base table FA_CATEGORIES_B, which holds the non-translatable business and financial attributes of each category. Together the two tables form the standard Oracle E-Business Suite Multiple Language Support (MLS) pattern, where ..._B stores the language-independent row and ..._TL stores one row per installed language for the user-facing text columns (principally DESCRIPTION).

The documented physical schema (ETRM 12.2.2) shows the table owned by the FA schema with nine columns, two of which — CATEGORY_ID and LANGUAGE — constitute the primary key FA_CATEGORIES_TL_PK. A unique index FA_CATEGORIES_TL_U1 mirrors the same column pair, confirming that the surrogate key and the business key coincide at the (category, language) grain. The ETRM relationship data classifies the object heuristically as standalone, meaning it is not itself the parent or child of a foreign-key relationship but is resolved by join to its base-table counterpart. In Data Vault terms, this table is best modeled as a satellite hanging off the category hub, with CATEGORY_ID as the hub key and LANGUAGE plus the descriptive and audit columns as satellite attributes.

Key Information Stored

• CATEGORY_ID — the surrogate identifier of the asset category; part of the primary key and the join key back to the base category table.
• LANGUAGE — the Oracle language code (for example US, DE, ZH); the second component of the primary key, making the table multilingual.
• SOURCE_LANG — the language code of the row from which a translated row was derived; used by the MLS translation mechanism to track the source of each translation.
• DESCRIPTION — the translated, user-visible name or description of the asset category; this is the substantive payload of the table.
• LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY, CREATION_DATE, CREATED_BY, LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN — the standard EBS WHO columns recording insert and update audit information.

The surrogate primary key is the combination of CATEGORY_ID and LANGUAGE; the same pair is exposed as the unique business-key candidate FA_CATEGORIES_TL_U1. There is no separate sequence-generated column beyond CATEGORY_ID itself, which is owned by the base table. Financial defaults such as depreciation method, life, and book associations reside in FA_CATEGORIES_B and related setup tables, not in the _TL table.

Common Use Cases and Queries

The dominant use case is retrieving a category description in the session's language while simultaneously obtaining its financial attributes from the base table. A typical pattern forces the base row to the translated row for the current language:

• Reporting on asset categories with translated names, joining FA_CATEGORIES_B to FA_CATEGORIES_TL on CATEGORY_ID and filtering LANGUAGE = USERENV('LANG') or a specific language code.
• Data-quality checks that compare the count of category rows in each table to detect missing or stale translations, using a left outer join and testing for null DESCRIPTION.
• Multilingual listings for global deployments that show the description in the user's preferred language while defaulting to the base language when no translation exists.
• Audit queries examining LAST_UPDATE_DATE and LAST_UPDATED_BY to identify who most recently changed a category's descriptive text.

A representative query joins the base and translated tables on CATEGORY_ID, restricting FA_CATEGORIES_TL.LANGUAGE to the desired language, and selects DESCRIPTION alongside the financial columns from the base table.

Related Objects

• FA_CATEGORIES_B — the base MLS table holding language-independent category attributes; join on CATEGORY_ID. This is the primary dependency.
• FA_CATEGORIES — the public view that presents the translated category description for the current session language.
• FA_CATEGORIES_VL — the MLS validation view combining base and translated rows.
• FA_ADDITIONS_B / FA_ADDITIONS_TL — asset additions whose CATEGORY_ID resolves to a category stored here.
• FA_BOOK_CONTROLS — book-level setup that references categories for depreciation defaults.
• FND_LANGUAGES — the language registry that validates the LANGUAGE and SOURCE_LANG values.
• Fixed Assets category setup forms and the category definition concurrent programs, which insert and maintain both base and translated rows.