Introduction
While there are several methods of updating person records some of the most widely known ones being FBL (File Based Loader), HDL (HCM Data Loader) , Web Service Calls (eventually calls either the FBL or HDL loader service), Spreadsheet loaders or UI updates the most simple one is ‘Mass Update’.
This is a feature which is primarily designed to make bulk updates to records and is very easy and can be performed by either a Technical, Techno-Functional, Functional Consultants or for that matter even Business User.
This is a simple guided flow which allows us to choose
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The Type of change like Assignment Change, Location Change, Manager Change... to name a few
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Filter and Select Population
And then make mass changes to person records.
This is a very handy feature which helps us to get the job done very easily where-in we neither have to be very well aware of the FBL/HDL templates nor have to navigate through multiple pages of each individual Person Record before effecting a change.
So that’s all from a theoretical perspective and let’s get down to the actual field area and try to understand the same with a live example.
Demonstration
As a part of this demonstration we would randomly select 5 person records namely 1515,1576,1585,1574 and 1578
First of all we need to login to the application with an individual having proper roles for this example we choose ‘Robert. Jackman’
Next, we should click on the navigator icon and then on the ‘Mass Updates’ link under 'My Workforce'
This would open up a new page and which would allow both a ‘Search of already submitted Mass Update Requests as well as creation of new ones”. We will have to click on the Create Icon
Once we click on the ‘Create’ icon a new Page appears. We will populate the following details on the page (referred to as ‘Basic Details’ page within Oracle Fusion Applications)
We now need to click on the ‘Next’ button and this would take us to the next train stop ( yes it is named ‘Population’ as clearly shown in fig above.
On the ‘Population’ tab we will have a (+) ‘Select and add’ a click on which would open the person search window.
Since we have already randomly chosen person# (namely 1515,1576,1585,1574 and 1578 ) and we can easily see that these numbers all start with 15 so we would use this to do a pattern search for all person records starting with 15% as person number and this would show us a screen as below
We can select the Person# one after another (we need to press the ‘Ctrl’ button and navigate the cursor to choose the rows we are interested in).
Once done we need to click on the ‘Apply’ button followed by Ok and then it would only display the rows we are interested in. The screen below captures the same:
A mouse click on the ‘Next’ button takes us to a new screen (referred to as ‘Changes’ train-stop)
We will populate the various sections of this page with the following details:
Now, we would move further by hovering the mouse over the ‘Next’ button and a click on the same would start the validation popup-window
The moment validation is complete it would take us to the ‘Verification’ screen and we would clearly see that the status column has a ( ). This indicates that the records have been successfully validated.
I could notice that while the status column states fine but for Person# 1574 the ‘Action Reason’ is blank, while this is not a major area of concern and we can easily do away with this but it is good to keep the same populated and hence we would explicitly navigate to the record and populate the same with ‘Assignment Change’.
We even established by the above step that although we have chosen common changes for all the above records but still, if we need some explicit changes on any of those we can still do so by navigating to the individual row ( flexible isn’t it)
Now, when we click on the ‘Next’ button it takes us to the review screen which also has an ‘Export to Excel’ which allows us to download a copy of the same (for offline verification)
The downloaded Excel would appear ( The excel, as well as the UI screen, displays both the current and the proposed value so in case there is some change which seems incorrect can be rectified )
All looks good to us and hence we would move forward and click on the submit button and this would lead to a request submission confirmation message
We will click on the ‘OK’ button and the next screen would ensure that the requested data changes are processed.
Now, with this we completed the execution part but we are yet to validate whether the changes have reflected on the system.
There are various ways of verifying the same, the most simplest one being the ‘Manage Mass Update’ page which allows us a search option.
As such, we will navigate to the Manage Mass Update Page ( Navigator -> My Workforce-> Mass Updates) and search for ‘Mass Update Change Demo’ (remember we used this name during our demonstration)
Once we enter the detail in the Name tab and click ‘Search’ we will get the below screen and we could clearly see the status is shown as completed which confirms that the transaction was successful.
So, this is how we can make changes to person records in bulk from the application and the best part being all this without any technical knowledge. Cool stuff isn’t it.
That’s it for the day and hope the article was useful. Good Day !