Search Results po_note_references_n2

Overview

PO.PO_NOTE_REFERENCES is a table in the Oracle E-Business Suite Purchasing (PO) schema. According to ETRM metadata for releases 12.1.1 and 12.2.2, the object is documented with a status of VALID, though the ETRM notes explicitly state that "This table is no longer used." The table resides in the APPS_TS_ARCHIVE tablespace, which further signals its status as a historical or dormant object retained for backward compatibility with earlier releases. Despite its deprecated status, the table remains physically present in the schema, and its indexes and foreign key relationships are still available for research, migration, and archival reporting purposes.

Functionally, PO_NOTE_REFERENCES was designed as a satellite-style entity under the heuristic Data Vault classification mined from its foreign key structure. It served as a reference mechanism linking notes stored in PO_NOTES to the specific business entities they annotate. Rather than duplicating note text, the table stored pointers — a table name, a column name, and a foreign identifier value — that resolved to the owning record. This design allowed a single notes infrastructure to annotate multiple Purchasing entities such as purchase orders, requisitions, quotations, and releases without schema-specific note tables.

Key Information Stored

The table contains 34 documented columns. The most significant include:

• PO_NOTE_REFERENCE_ID — Surrogate primary key of the table, backed by the unique index PO_NOTE_REFERENCES_U1. This is the only business-key candidate documented as unique in the metadata.
• PO_NOTE_ID — Foreign key to PO_NOTES, identifying the note record being referenced. This is the sole documented outbound foreign key from this table.
• TABLE_NAME — The name of the table where the note owner is stored (for example, PO_HEADERS_ALL).
• COLUMN_NAME — The column holding the unique identifier of the note owner within that table.
• FOREIGN_ID — The actual value of the owner's unique identifier, completing the polymorphic reference.
• SEQUENCE_NUM — Ordering sequence for the note.
• ATTACHED_DOC_ID and APP_SOURCE_VERSION — Retained for Release 10SC and Release 11 attachment functionality.
• STORAGE_TYPE — Documented as unused.
• Standard WHO columns: CREATION_DATE, CREATED_BY, LAST_UPDATE_DATE, LAST_UPDATED_BY, and LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN.
• Concurrent program columns: REQUEST_ID, PROGRAM_APPLICATION_ID, PROGRAM_ID, and PROGRAM_UPDATE_DATE.

Fifteen ATTRIBUTE and ATTRIBUTE_CATEGORY columns provide the standard EBS descriptive flexfield scaffolding.

Common Use Cases and Queries

Because the table is no longer actively written by current Purchasing functionality, its practical value lies in historical analysis, data migration assessments, and impact analysis of customizations built during earlier releases. A typical query identifies all references to a particular note:

SELECT PO_NOTE_REFERENCE_ID, PO_NOTE_ID, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, FOREIGN_ID FROM PO.PO_NOTE_REFERENCES WHERE PO_NOTE_ID = :note_id;

Reporting scenarios may trace orphaned notes by outer-joining to PO_NOTES, or profile the distribution of TABLE_NAME values to understand which legacy entities carried notes. Data migration projects can use the FOREIGN_ID/TABLE_NAME/COLUMN_NAME combination to verify that migrated notes correctly resolve to their source records. Archival queries frequently leverage the secondary indexes PO_NOTE_REFERENCES_N1 (PO_NOTE_ID) and PO_NOTE_REFERENCES_N2 (FOREIGN_ID, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME) to filter efficiently.

Related Objects

• PO.PO_NOTES — The parent note table, joined on PO_NOTE_REFERENCES.PO_NOTE_ID = PO_NOTES.PO_NOTE_ID. This is the only documented foreign key relationship.
• PO.PO_HEADERS_ALL — Common target of the polymorphic TABLE_NAME/COLUMN_NAME/FOREIGN_ID reference for purchase order notes.
• PO.PO_LINES_ALL — Another frequent note-owner target at the line level.
• PO.PO_REQUISITION_HEADERS_ALL and PO.PO_REQUISITION_LINES_ALL — Requisition entities historically annotated through this table.
• PO.PO_QUOTATIONS and PO.PO_QUOTATION_LINES — Quotation records referenced via the polymorphic pointer.
• FND_USER and FND_LOGINS — Referenced by the standard WHO columns CREATED_BY, LAST_UPDATED_BY, and LAST_UPDATE_LOGIN.
• FND_CONCURRENT_REQUESTS — Referenced by REQUEST_ID for concurrent program audit columns.

No public APIs or views specific to this table are documented in the metadata, consistent with its deprecated status.