Oracle, Crystal Reports and XML

[DNA7433]

I have an understanding of XML, basic Crystal Reports, and I've used Access and SQL Server, but not Oracle.

What I'm trying to do is standardize the way a particular form is stored electronically in the company. As a starting point, there would be a database with a table with fields for each of the fields in the form...that's the really easy part. The hard part is that different groups fill out the form differently. So for instance, the Details section of a report would have different columns for each group. I was thinking those parts of the form could be stored as an XML field, with the schemas for each group defined in another table.

What I'm not clear on is:

Is it possible to have an XML field in Oracle where the schema isn't known ahead of time?
Is there any way to create a generic report that could consume the XML field, possibly applying an XSLT/XSL to format the data for display, depending on which group in the company created that record?


Thanks!

[Crooze]

different groups fill out the form differently. So for instance, the Details section of a report would have different columns for each group.

I'm going to call your groups filling out your form "Depts".
On your report if you group this data by Depts you can create multiple detail sections arranged differently for each department. You can then dynamically show or hide these sections based on the value of the group section.

[DNA7433]

How would I arrange a specific group in my report if all the groups pull from the same field in the database and that field could have different schemas depending on the particular record?