In 11i, the go-to tool of the financial analyst was Application Desktop Integrator (ADI) – from here, an analyst could format financial reports, drill down on the numbers produced to get journal line detail, enter and upload a journal entry or an entire budget.
With the changes in architecture in R12, ADI is no longer supported, and the functionality provided by ADI has been replaced by other modules. BI Publisher has become the primary report formatting tool, Report Manager delivers report repository functionality (as well as drill-down functionality for FSG reports),and many white-papers and presentations exist for these areas.
I've found that there isn't much documentation around Oracle’s solution for the upload process – Desktop Integrators. Desktop Integrators allow you to load data from Excel into ANY Interface or API, using the same validation as if you were entering data through the forms. The tool allows you to build Lists of Values that will reach back to the database to ensure all entered data is correct before you import into the database.
To learn more about the tool, please come to my session at Collaborate 2011 – I’m presenting “Desktop Integrators - You mean I can load data from a spreadsheet straight into an interface??” on 4/13 at 2:15pm. The ADI Special Interest Group (of which I’m the chairperson) is also meeting at Collaborate on 4/10 at 1:30pm.
