A user-defined datatype (UDT) contains data with a format or structure defined by a user.
You can read from a relational source or write to a relational target that contains user-defined datatypes. Since the user-defined datatype is not a standard data type defined by the database server, you must provide a conversion method so that the PowerCenter Integration Service can process the data correctly.
You can configure a properties file to define how to convert user-defined datatypes. There must be a separate properties file for each type of database used as a source or target.
To use user-defined datatypes with Oracle Applications, run SQL scripts to create functions in the database and add additional lines to the properties file.