HCM Data Loader [HDL] is Generally Available now!
This is the newer version of FBL available which is now GA HDL also accepts flat files, but the related objects .dat files are also accepted as zipped into a single zip file, which means the dependencies between the objects and order of loading gets automatically handled. It also supports most fields, so if you had to do one-time SR based workarounds using FBL, chances are that you won't need those for HDL.
Error Reporting for HDL
Extracting Data HCM Data Loader makes use of two outputs from HCM Extracts. Like all seeded HCM Extracts it is recommended that you make a copy of the seeded extract and tailor it to suit your use case. Status and Errors HCM Data Loader is delivered with the HCM Data Loader Data Set Summary report available in HCM Extracts. This report extracts the Data Set and Business Object status and record counts, along with all messages raised and the records impacted by each message. The delivered output is in XML making the extract machine readable, you can however create your own BI Publisher formats based on this extract - the tables are prefixed with HRC_LOADER_
Question: What happens if the HDL process is interrupted by a system outage mid-load (after staging, so the actual commit stage) – does it resume automatically? Does it back the changes out from the incomplete run?
Answer: It depends on which phase in the Data Loader processing the system outage occurred and whether the ESS processes are automatically restarted or need manual intervention.
There are two primary Data Loader phases. First phase is the import which reads the zip file and populates the Data Loader stage tables. If the system falls over during this phase then the processing needs to be restarted from the beginning. There is no graceful continue or pick up from where it stopped.
Second is the load phase. When the system failure has been resolved the ESS process infrastructure may automatically restart the processes which were executing at the time of the failure. Data Loader load processes will continue the load of the remaining objects into the primary Fusion product database tables, without any intervention by the user. If the ESS processes do not restart and there are any unprocessed or in error objects then the user can manually submit a load of each business object again. This option is available from the Data Loader Import and Load page. When Load is ran again it will only process those objects which have not already been successfully processed before the system outage, plus any objects which were in error. Hence there is no need to undo those objects which were successfully processed in the first execution.
File Based Loader
This was the primary mechanism for loading HCM data (both initial load and incremental updates) into Fusion HCM. If you use FBL currently, you can still turn on HDL in "Limited" mode, but it will be available only for objects not supported by FBL.
Once you switch to using HDL in "Full" mode, you can no longer use FBL, or switch back to using FBL [Reason for this decision from Oracle is due to the potential for data corruption by intermingling the two modes for the same object]
Documentation Links
File Based Loader Cloud Documentation
Links to the reference documentation for FBL. More recent FBLDi Information
Sample demo data files for File Based Loader can be downloaded here
FBL R7 Enhancements:
FBL Loader has been enhanced in R7 to support
a. The following Descriptive flexfields
PER_ASG_DF
PER_CITIZENSHIPS_DFF
PER_ETHNICITIES_DFF
PER_GRADES_DF
PER_JOB_FAMILY_DFF
PER_JOBS_DFF
PER_LOCATIONS_DF
PER_ORGANIZATION_UNIT_DFF
PER_PERSONS_DFF
b. Person Visa / Passport
c. Non Worker and Pending Worker
d. Person Contracts – very useful for EMEA as employment contracts are used by many companies
e. Action/Reason
2. ESS process to Load Data Set Values will be available as a patch on top of R7.
3. Historical performance documents - R8, but some basic functionality being back ported to R7.
4. FBL will read documents from Webcenter UCM rather than the sFtp Server. UCM impact on FBL is detailed in this MOS White Paper
NOTE - Helpful info on Integrating from Peoplesoft EBS to Fusion in co-existence
Spreadsheet Loader
Hr2Hr Customers:
For customers already using Hr2Hr (which has been obsolete for a while now),..
The process of migration from Hr2Hr to FBL is actually very straightforward - it's really just a flip of a switch that can be coordinated with Development. It just means that the extract programs (from EBS or Peoplesoft) are your responsibility from that point onwards, so you should ensure your IT guys have looked at those programs and thoroughly understand them.
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