Month: Feb 2025

Redwood for Global HR – What Do you Need to Know?

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

As you will know, Redwood is mandatory for Global HR from Release 25C, so now is time to make the move!  The first question I am asked is will there be a replacement for Person Management? I’ll be honest with you, I love Person Management! The good news is that Oracle have confirmed that there will be, the ‘HR Activity Centre’. The date for release hasn’t been confirmed, but it is coming. Oracle have caveated that it won’t be a like-for-like replacement, but it will be a centralised location for transactions rather than having to go to different quick actions.

Oracle massively ramped up the number of Global HR features available within Redwood in 2024, so the majority of features are already available to you right now. As the picture above shows, if you’re not currently using autocomplete rules and have no requirement for creating unsupported defaulting rules, you can move to Redwood for Global HR right now. If you do have a requirement to default in data using rules, the amount of rules for defaulting data available will be significantly increased in 25B. This doesn’t mean wait for 25B though, it’s important that if you haven’t started, to start the switch in a non-production pod. Using a dedicated Redwood pod is always my recommended approach as it won’t impact on quarterly regression testing or issue resolution, due to the pod not matching what is currently in Production.

Global HR differs slightly to other modules when moving to Redwood. There are the usual steps, enabling Oracle Search, Updating Custom Security Roles; Reviewing and Migrating Personalisations using the Personalisation Helper Tool and Switching on the Redwood Flows via Profile Options. For Global HR, there are two additional prerequisites. Firstly, to be able to use the Redwood pages for Termination and / or Resignation, you must have migrated to Termination V3. To be able to use the Redwood page for Seniority Dates, you must be using Version 3 of Seniority Dates. So what happens if you’re not using one or both of the prerequisite versions? For terminations and resignations, you won’t be able to use the Redwood page. For Seniority Dates, there is an alternative, you can manage the dates via the Redwood Work Relationship page. If you want the full Redwood experience, I would recommend making the move to the latest versions of both Termination and Seniority Dates. My other recommendation is to migrate the V3s now, not after you’ve moved to Redwood. This will make the process more straightforward and therefore easier.

So what are my top tips? The Redwood ‘Bible’ only lists the key flexfields the need switching on. Check the What’s New Documents for all related modules for all the historic Redwood updates. Have you seen the Feature Listing Report on the Cloud Readiness website? From here you can download every upgrade since 2023 for every Fusion module in a handy spreadsheet. You can then use filters to find all the Redwood features for a given module.

A lot of users have reported issues with flexfields whilst testing Redwood. If this happens, redeploy the flexfields and make sure all flexfield personalisations have been migrated. Likewise if you’re having issues with pages, firstly ensure that the appropriate profile options for Oracle Search are switched on. If that doesn’t work, ensure custom roles have the correct privileges.

The Redwood Personalisation Tool is extremely helpful. Whilst it can’t migrate all personalisations, it will migrate some of them and reduce the amount of manual personalisations that will need to be applied. I would always recommend only using it in Migration mode for a small subset at a given time. Preferably one flow at a time. This gives you the chance to review the personalisations and make corrections more easily. Additionally once the tool has been used to migrate a flow, you can’t use it again for that specific flow. Even if a newer version of the tool provides more migration options within that flow.

Finally, use the new Activity Centres. Within the Global HR space, there is currently one for employees and one for line managers. These are a one stop shop for users to access all their and their team’s HR records and carry out their tasks. As I said earlier, one for the HR Team to replace Person Management is coming, so watch this space! Check out my earlier blog on Activity Centres here.

Please note all screenshots are the property of Oracle and are used according to their Copyright Guidelines.

Oracle Modern Best Practice – The Term Everyone is Going to be Talking About!

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Have you heard of Oracle Modern Best Practice? It’s actually not a new thing, Oracle have been talking about it for nearly 10 years, but with the introduction of the amazing tool Cloud Success Navigator, Oracle Modern Best Practice (OMBP) is now taking centre stage! Oracle have created OMBPs for Cloud Fusion products for the first time and they will prove invaluable.

So what are OMBPs? They are common business processes that Oracle have optimised to improve the performance of applications using the latest technology. Oracle have done thousands of implementations and have taken learnings from both the successful and unsuccessful ones. These learnings have been analysed by Oracle experts to put together their OMBPs and related process flows. These flows incorporate scalable and efficient practices which empower the business’ process owners which will, in turn, produce improved results. Oracle are constantly evolving their Fusion product and as such, the OMBPs are also evolving. OMBPs can be used to educate users; demonstrate business processes; help to plan an adoption path and structure the scope of an implementation.

So what is included in an OMBP process flow? They incorporate all of the required steps within the process. Often users can miss a step as they don’t appreciate the criticality of it and this will prevent this from happening. My favourite part of the OMBPs are the recommendations on analytics that provide organisations with key metrics that they might not have been aware of. Analytics help organisations to monitor performance of specific areas of the business and gain a better understanding which will help with decision making. Additionally the OMBPs incorporate AI and Machine Learning. The processes incorporate innovations which aim to automate processes and help organisations make faster decisions.

OMBPs are currently available for the majority of an organisation’s processes. These include ERP, EPM, HCM, SCM and CX. Additionally there are industry specific OMBPs, including Banking, Healthcare, Higher Education, Insurance, Public Sector, Utilities and Retail.

So why should you care? Organisations always ask me, ‘What is the Best Practice?’. The introduction of OMBPs enable organisations to have access to this information at their fingertips, without needing to search for it. This will ensure your organisation is using the latest functionality with the greatest efficiency. Cloud Success Navigator incorporating Oracle Modern Best Practice within the tool will make this even easier. Please check on my blog on Cloud Success Navigator here, for more details.

Please note all screenshots are the property of Oracle and are used according to their Copyright Guidelines

Oracle Cloud Success Navigator – What Is It and What Value will it Bring?

~ K8 Mead ~ 1 Comment

Oracle announced the Cloud Success Navigator at CloudWorld in Vegas in September 2024 and will be launching it at CloudWorld in London in March 2025. So what is it? It’s an interactive tool to help existing and new customers of Oracle Fusion / SaaS products to get the most value from their implementations. The tool helps right from the beginning of an implementation project through to when the system is fully established, by helping with by the road-mapping and adoption of new features from the quarterly releases.

Cloud Success Navigator has many different facets. As the name suggests, it ‘navigates’ you through your whole Oracle Cloud journey. As someone who is involved with volunteering in Scouting, I love all the outdoor references in Oracle’s training materials. Every time I see a compass or someone climbing, it makes me smile. Whilst it might not seem relevant to everyone, I think it’s a really great metaphor and it shows how Oracle is investing in working with Customers and Partners to ensure that every customer gets the most value from their Fusion implementation, whatever stage of the journey they are currently in.

So, when will I get it? Some partners and customers have been part of the ‘Limited Availability’ programme since June 2024 and I was delighted to be a part of this. General availability of the tool will be after CloudWorld on 20th March 2025, via your Customer Success Manager, Partner or by direct request. Being part of the Limited Availability programme gave me the opportunity to be involved early and provide feedback to Oracle to help shape the future of the tool. When I initially used the tool, it was very implementation centric, but the focus over the past six months has moved more towards the ‘Evolve’ stage to enable customers to take advantage of new features more easily.

There are so many features the Cloud Success Navigator provides. These include Starter Configuration; Oracle Modern Best Practice; Deployment Guidance; Cloud Quality Standards; Milestone Dashboard; and Quarterly Release Environments. Most of these features will be included in the General Availability version, but Oracle have big plans to develop it further.

The Starter Configuration is aimed at customers right at the beginning of their implementation or those who will be carrying out an implementation of a new module, post go live. The starter configuration requires a completely empty pod to be deployed into. The configuration is the same data that Oracle puts in their Demo pods, often referred to as Vision data. Whilst it’s not unique to the customer’s data, it does allow users the opportunity to go into a pod and have a play with processes, to enable them to understand them without having to wait for their organisation’s configuration to be created in a environment. This is particular useful for people who learn best by ‘doing’ and can be a useful tool in workshops. Have you considered exploring Oracle Guided Learning (OGL)? The Starter Configuration includes OGL, allowing you to test it with users and assess its value; but also it can help to guide your users through new processes that might be unfamiliar to them.

One of the things I particularly love about the Oracle Modern Best Practices section is the simplified process flows that have been incorporated. Within E-Business Suite there have always been process flows that you could download, but these were lacking in Fusion. There are videos, process flows and information which explains every step of a process that an organisation would carry out. This information can be used to explore how the business’ current processes can be mapped to those in Fusion. Alternatively they can be used retrospectively to see where current processes deviate from Oracle’s recommended approach. There are helpful suggestions as well and all of it is presented in different mediums to accommodate the majority of learning styles.

Deployment Guidance might be the area of the tool that most organisations feel they already have covered and therefore least likely to use. Before you jump to this conclusion, I’d really recommend checking it out. There’s advice and guidance from Oracle, based on the thousands of implementations that they have experienced and it’s in one handy place. It’s useful from a Change Management perspective and gives easy access to documents that your Project Sponsors and Stakeholders will appreciate in a business appropriate style. There are also example Cut Over Plans and Business Transition Documents which could reduce the time the business needs to develop these.

The Cloud Quality Standards section of the tool does ‘exactly what is says on the tin’. This section provides you with learning content and guidance at every step of the implementation journey, to ensure that you’re adhering to best practice, which in turn will lead to a more successful Cloud implementation.

The Milestone Dashboard is a wonderful addition to the tool which allows you to assess where you are at every key milestone in the project. You answer questions and it produces a helpful chart to highlight your progress towards the milestone. This visual summary would be helpful to share with Senior Managers for a quick overview of how close the project is to achieving the next milestone. It may help determine whether that milestone can be formally signed off and the important ‘Go / No Go’ decision.

The Quarterly Release section is my personal favourite and this is where Oracle has been focusing a lot of their efforts recently. There are lots of features coming in this section which I desperately want to share with you all, but have promised my Oracle partners I won’t ruin the announcements coming at CloudWorld! I can assure you they are really exciting advancements and everyone will want to utilise them when they are available. I’ll do a follow up blog on these additional features after the CloudWorld announcement. Despite the exciting additions coming, there are already great features for quarterly releases in the tool. Oracle has incorporated every feature from all Fusion modules from 24A onwards into the tool. Every feature has detail from the What’s New page, but some additionally have a short video demoing what the feature does. It’s also possible to share a link to a specific feature to a colleague, for them to easily check it out!

Finally, I wanted to highlight the new Adoption Centres. At the moment these focus on Redwood and AI as these are the key focus for the Oracle Cloud products at the moment. The Adoption Centres have training embedded in them to help speed up the adoption of these key new features and help organisations adapt to the new technologies.

Please let me know what you think of the Cloud Success Navigator and keep an eye out for my next blog!

Please note all screenshots are the property of Oracle and are used according to their Copyright Guidelines