Category: Quarterly Releases

Oracle ERP Cloud Financials 26B

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Don’t worry, I haven’t abandoned the world of HCM for ERP just yet. My enthusiasm for Oracle AI is very much alive, and with four new AI agents landing in Financials this release, I simply couldn’t ignore it. I’d never claim to be a Financials expert, but I do know how long ERP users have been asking for meaningful AI capabilities, and this release feels like a real response to that demand. Oracle has clearly leaned in, and there’s plenty here worth getting excited about.

The long awaited Ledger Agent brings an intelligent, AI‑powered experience to General Ledger, helping finance teams work more efficiently and proactively. It continuously monitors balances, journals, and transactions using configurable prompts, surfacing clear, contextual insights only when attention is needed. Accountants can ask natural language questions about balances, variances, journals, and process statuses, and receive precise, easy‑to‑understand explanations backed by correlated ledger and subledger data. By combining proactive monitoring, root‑cause insight, and seamless access to related ledger actions in a single guided experience, the Ledger Agent reduces time spent navigating multiple screens or compiling information manually, supports earlier detection and resolution of issues, and helps teams maintain accurate, up‑to‑date financial positions while respecting existing security and access controls.

The Payables Agent delivers a modern, AI‑driven approach to invoice processing, helping organisations move towards a truly touchless Payables experience. It automates invoice ingestion, compliance, and control across multiple sources and formats, using GenAI to reduce manual effort, improve data accuracy, and surface only the exceptions that need attention. With unified capture, automated attribute defaulting, intelligent anomaly detection, and a single, streamlined view for managing invoices, teams gain full visibility and control across the invoice‑to‑pay lifecycle. The result is faster processing, stronger compliance, reduced risk of errors or fraud, and improved supplier satisfaction, allowing Payables to shift from a reactive cost centre to a value‑generating function that supports better financial outcomes.

The Payments Agent introduces a smarter, more strategic approach to supplier payments by helping organisations optimise how and when they pay, rather than simply executing scheduled runs. Using AI‑driven insights and conversational guidance, it supports users across the full payment lifecycle, from evaluating payment options such as dynamic discounting and virtual cards, through creating and managing supplier offers, to executing and monitoring payments securely. By assessing the financial impact of different payment programmes in real time and translating decisions seamlessly into action, the Payments Agent improves cash flow, generates incremental financial benefits, and strengthens operational control. The result is a more proactive, insight‑led Payables function that reduces manual effort, highlights exceptions early, and enables finance teams to focus on working capital optimisation and stronger supplier relationships.

The Expenses Agent simplifies expense reporting by allowing employees to complete and submit expenses entirely through email, using natural language. Employees can forward receipts directly to the agent, which automatically creates the expense and prompts for any missing details, such as justifications, attendee information, or cost centres, via a simple email reply. Once all required information is captured, the expense is ready for submission or can be auto‑submitted in line with company policy. This conversational, email‑based approach reduces manual data entry, minimises errors, and cuts down on back‑and‑forth, accelerating reimbursements while improving compliance and delivering a far more intuitive experience for both employees and finance teams.

To wrap up, this has been my first step into writing about ERP Cloud Financials, and I’ve genuinely enjoyed exploring what Oracle is doing in this space, particularly around AI. I’d really welcome your feedback on this post, whether it’s what resonated, what you’d like to see more of, or where I could go deeper. If there’s interest, I’d be more than happy to write further blogs on Financials and continue sharing my perspective as these capabilities evolve.

Oracle HCM Cloud Learn 26B

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Release 26B is now here and we’re edging closer to the final Redwood deadline for Learn in 26D. This final deadline incorporates the remainder of the Learning Admin tasks, but the key one is Assignment Management. This is going to be a key focus for Oracle in the next couple of releases.

The first feature is one that came from the Customer Idea Lab, which means a customer logged it and other customers voted for it. The enhanced Instructor Activity Center brings all instructor‑led event management into a single, intuitive calendar‑based workspace. Instructors can view and manage sessions in multiple calendar views, access event details and materials directly from the calendar, create or join sessions quickly, and easily manage learners, attendance and enrolments. By centralising scheduling, session management and learner engagement, the experience reduces administration and allows instructors to focus more on delivering high‑quality learning.

The enhanced Learning Creation Assistant now allows learning content to be created directly from email, making it faster and easier for instructors and learning teams to contribute new content. By simply sending instructions in the email body or as an attachment, users can generate a range of learning formats and receive a confirmation with a direct link to the draft item. This streamlined approach reduces administrative effort, removes reliance on complex workflows, and helps organisations accelerate knowledge sharing across the business.

The updated Redwood Record and Request Learning experience makes it easier to record, request and track learning activity across the organisation, whether it sits inside or outside the learning catalogue. Teams can record completions, request external learning, and manage assignments more flexibly, including setting initial statuses and creating profiles with past start dates. Together, these enhancements provide a more complete and accurate view of workforce learning, supporting compliance, personalised development and better‑informed decision‑making.

The enhanced support for online learning events makes it easier to deliver engaging, well‑managed virtual classrooms, including richer integration with Microsoft Teams. Instructors can use automated meeting creation, breakout rooms, attendance tracking and completion rules, while learners benefit from seamless access via notifications and calendar invites. Together, these improvements reduce manual effort for learning teams and create a smoother, more connected experience for both instructors and participants.

The final enhancements I want to highlight focus on third‑party learning content, specifically integrations with OpenSesame and Udemy. The OpenSesame integration makes it simple to bring high‑quality, third‑party content into Oracle Learning as self‑paced courses, with automated refreshes keeping the catalogue up to date and learner progress tracked seamlessly in a single transcript. Alongside this, the Udemy Business integration allows curated learning paths to be automatically imported and managed within Oracle Learning, giving learning teams clear visibility through xAPI tracking while providing learners with uninterrupted access to Udemy content. Together, these integrations reduce administration, improve catalogue visibility and broaden access to valuable learning resources real‑time tracking of learning outcomes.

Oracle often introduces a few additional features as the month progresses, so it’s always worth keeping an eye out. If anything particularly exciting appears, I’ll share a follow‑up blog to make sure you’re fully up to date. In the meantime, you can read my latest write‑up on the new Core HR features in Release 26B here.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Payroll 26B

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

It’s my favourite moment in the quarter, Oracle has just unveiled what’s coming in Release 26B. As you’d expect, this Payroll update includes a strong focus on Redwood‑driven improvements, alongside a welcome number of enhancements that have come directly from customer ideas, which is always great to see. While Oracle may add more features as the month progresses, let’s start by taking a look at what’s been announced so far.

The first feature I want to call out is one that originated directly from a customer idea. If you’re not familiar with Oracle’s Ideas page, it’s where customers can submit suggestions and vote on others, and those that gain the most support often attract Oracle’s attention. While there’s no guarantee an idea will make it into the product, it’s a great way to influence the roadmap. One such idea has led to the new Redwood Earnings and Deductions page, which brings all employee earnings and deductions into a single, streamlined workspace. From one clear summary view, payroll administrators can review and manage records across a chosen date range, drill into details such as values, costing and processing history, create new entries and even submit QuickPay, all without switching between pages. The result is a more intuitive day‑to‑day experience that supports accurate, timely payroll processing.

Another set of enhancements that’s worth calling out has also come directly from customer ideas, and it’s great to see Oracle responding to what users have been asking for. The new Redwood QuickPay and QuickPay Cycle flows make it far easier to run payroll for an individual employee when needed, all within a guided, Redwood‑based experience. Administrators can review and adjust earnings and deductions, submit QuickPay, and move through each stage of the process with clear visibility of tasks, results and statuses, including payslips and payments where required. With flexible task selection, automatic skipping of steps that aren’t relevant, and the ability to verify results as you go, off‑cycle processing becomes much simpler without losing control or confidence.

Alongside this, Oracle has also made it easier to manage corrective actions across payroll flows. A new security approach allows administrators to grant designated users the ability to resolve issues on flows they didn’t initiate, without relying on complex, per‑task group ownership. This reduces administrative overhead, speeds up issue resolution, and ensures access remains tightly controlled to only the flows each user is responsible for managing.

Turning to legislative updates, UK users will be pleased to see that a long‑awaited permanent solution for Statutory Neonatal Care Leave and Pay is now in place. Employers can record neonatal care absences and make statutory payments where eligibility is met from April 2025, with support for day‑one entitlement, accrual of up to 12 weeks’ leave, and flexible take‑up within 68 weeks of discharge, all backed by the necessary legislative data and RTI reporting. Alongside this, LGPS pension calculations during child‑related leave have been improved to ensure contributions are based on actual pensionable pay where it exceeds assumed pensionable pay, using daily proration to accurately handle pay changes mid‑leave and deliver more precise employee and employer contributions.

With the recent introduction of new Irish legislation, it’s no surprise that this release includes a strong set of updates for Ireland. Support has been added for Parent’s Leave Benefit payments and offsets through new payroll attributes that simplify absence setup and improve the accuracy and consistency of benefit calculations, alongside additional attributes to support the processing of parental leave more broadly. There are also important enhancements for statutory redundancy and termination lump sum payments, including a new predefined redundancy element to handle tax‑exempt payments and improved support for calculating and reporting termination lump sums based on service and exemption rules.

Further updates introduce payroll attributes to support Health and Safety entitlements and payments, helping organisations correctly calculate both statutory and benefit‑based payments linked to these absences. Finally, a new Ireland Gender Pay Gap reporting solution provides an assignment‑level extract and a ready‑to‑use spreadsheet template, streamlining the collection of pay and hours data and supporting all required statutory calculations. Together, these changes significantly reduce administrative effort while helping organisations remain compliant with Irish legislative requirements.

There’s just one update to call out for our US customers this time, but it’s an important one. Address Search has been enhanced to support FedRAMP‑compliant environments, meaning organisations operating in federally regulated pods can use the same address search functionality while meeting stringent security and data protection requirements. The experience remains unchanged for users, ensuring consistent behaviour across both commercial and FedRAMP environments while continuing to support downstream processes such as payroll.

As mentioned earlier, Oracle often releases additional features as the month goes on. If any of these turn out to be real stand‑outs, I’ll share a follow‑up blog to keep you up to date. In the meantime, you might like to take a look at my latest post on the new Core HR features in Release 26B, which you can find here.

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

Oracle Fusion Common Features 26B

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

It’s my favourite time of the quarter, Oracle has just shared what’s coming in release 26B. I don’t usually write about the Common Features releases, but this is where the really exciting developments for AI Agent Studio tend to appear, and this update is no exception. As ever, more features may follow later in the month, but for now let’s take a look at what’s been announced so far.

AI Agent Studio now supports the creation of agentic apps, bringing together multiple specialised AI agents to deliver a single, seamless user experience. Rather than relying on one general‑purpose agent, organisations can combine task‑focused agents such as Sales, Inventory or Finance, each with its own context and reasoning, to provide deeper insights and more relevant actions. This modular approach makes it easy to scale and evolve apps over time, while enabling them to analyse information, prioritise activities and recommend actions that help drive the business forward.

The new Playground capability in AI Agent Studio makes it much quicker, and safer, to refine and validate custom AI Agents by letting you edit and test individual parts of an agent team directly in the studio, rather than running the entire end‑to‑end flow each time. You can isolate specific nodes (including supervisor, agent and LLM nodes), tune prompts and parameters, and see results immediately using Save and Run, with dynamic prompt insertion to add expressions on the fly and Run History to track changes. In practice, this shortens the build–test cycle, improves quality control, and gives teams far more confidence when creating and evolving custom AI Agents because they can verify behaviour in real time before publishing. I’m really looking forward to this one!

AI Agent Studio now includes a set of Oracle‑managed, predefined topics that can be applied across agents and agent teams to help deliver more consistent and professional interactions. These topics support areas such as professional voice and tone, age‑neutral language and gender‑neutral responses, automatically shaping outputs to be appropriate, inclusive and business‑ready. By applying these topics directly within agents and nodes, organisations can accelerate agent design while increasing confidence that responses align with expected standards and organisational values.

The final feature isn’t an AI one, but a integration change. This Redwood enhancement enables faster and more reliable data extraction by shifting reporting and integration workloads away from the transactional system and onto a read‑optimised replica, synchronised in near real time. By extracting data from a replicated Autonomous Data Warehouse, organisations can reduce load on live Fusion applications while benefiting from a modern architecture that abstracts business objects from the underlying data model. To support this, specific security changes are required, including enabling the external application integration profile option, assigning new extract and scheduling privileges, and granting roles to allow users to manage extracts and securely view or download files, ensuring controlled access to this high‑performance data extraction capability.

As noted earlier, Oracle may introduce further Common Features later this month. If any of these updates stand out, I’ll share a follow‑up blog covering the highlights. In the meantime, you might like to read my latest post exploring the new Core HR features in Release 26B, which you can find here.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 26B

~ K8 Mead ~ 4 Comments

It’s my favourite point in the quarter: Oracle has just announced what’s coming in Release 26B. As you’d expect, this update brings a strong focus on AI‑led enhancements, with plenty to be excited about. While Oracle may add further features as the month goes on, let’s start by exploring what’s been announced so far.

The first thing I want to call out actually relates to Release 26C, but it’s important enough to flag now. For organisations that are a little behind in their move to Redwood, Oracle will be automatically enabling a number of pages in 26C. These include the Team Activity Center, Personal Details, Contact Information, Family and Emergency Contacts, Identification Information, Additional Person Information, Person Identifiers for External Applications, Grades, Grade Rates, Legal Entity HCM Information, Legal Reporting HCM Information and Reporting Establishments. While not all of these pages are end‑user facing, if you haven’t already enabled them, I’d strongly recommend completing your testing and switching them on as soon as possible. That way, you can be confident everything works as required for your organisation before Oracle enables them automatically.

Now let’s turn to AI, which is probably why you’re here. The Personal Information Assistant has been enhanced to go well beyond simply retrieving data, allowing users to create, update and delete selected personal information directly within the chat experience, all in line with existing role‑based access controls and approval rules. It supports key personal details such as demographic and biographical information, email addresses and phone numbers, validates entries where lists of values apply, and guides users through any required choices. The assistant can still view information for the user or others, search by name, email address or person number, and provide direct links to the relevant pages where a change needs to be completed in the application. Importantly, it fully respects your existing Fusion security configuration, so users will only ever see data they’re entitled to access, and where fields have been hidden using VBS, the agent prompt can be adjusted to ensure those fields remain restricted.

There are two new, closely related features in this release, both focused on Journeys. AI can now be used to trigger a workflow agent when a Journey task is completed or even when it’s saved, enabling key business actions to run automatically without manual follow‑up. As soon as a task is marked complete, the associated workflow agent executes the required logic, such as sending notifications or integrating with external systems, ensuring downstream processes are triggered immediately and consistently. For example, when a manager approves a badge request, the agent can notify the badging system, confirm approval to the employee and kick off badge creation straight away. The same applies when a Journey task is saved as a draft, allowing certain processes to start earlier, improving responsiveness and reducing unnecessary delays.

The Document Records Management Assistant has been further enhanced in Release 26B with the introduction of Document Records Management Assistant V2, extending the capabilities introduced in 26A beyond employee self‑service to support line managers and HR specialists. This new workflow agent uses natural‑language interaction and advanced language models to help users quickly find, create and manage document records across their teams, while the original 26A agent remains available for employee self‑service without disruption. By bringing document management into a single conversational experience, the assistant simplifies access to records, automatically understands user intent, guides users through record creation with the right metadata, and provides clear, policy‑aligned responses and direct links where needed, reducing training effort and making document management faster and more intuitive for everyone involved.

The final AI capability worth highlighting is the new AI Assistant for Managing Jobs. This AI‑powered companion for Oracle Cloud HCM Jobs enables HR teams to create, view, update and manage job data through a single conversational experience. Using natural‑language interaction and Oracle’s AI Agent framework, it provides clear, policy‑aligned responses, making it quicker and safer to work with job records without navigating multiple screens. The assistant highlights changes across job versions, generates helpful summaries and insights, guides users step by step through updates and validations, identifies missing or outdated information, and can also edit or delete jobs where appropriate. By reducing manual administration and minimising the risk of errors, it helps HR teams maintain accurate, compliant job data while freeing up time to focus on more strategic priorities.

I’d also like to highlight a number of updates in Release 26B that will be particularly relevant for UK public sector organisations. Enhancements to the HCM UK TPS Generic Setup Diagnostics report introduce more robust checks, making it easier to identify and resolve Teachers’ Pension setup issues, with additional validation highlighting mismatches in Annual Full‑Time Equivalent salary rate definitions and expanded balance feeds helping administrators spot missing or incorrect inputs that impact pension calculations. Updates have also been made to the Civil Service Pension Scheme interface to reflect new and revised validation rules introduced by Capita as scheme administrator, with many of these changes already supported within the existing extract logic, helping ensure submissions continue to meet current scheme requirements and removing remaining references to MyCSP from user‑facing text. Finally, support has been added for proportional TLR1 and TLR2 payments within the Teachers’ Pension Scheme, enabling awards to be calculated, reported and pensioned in line with updated guidance effective from September 2025, and ensuring full‑time and part‑time arrangements are treated accurately based on contract type.

As mentioned earlier, Oracle will be rolling out additional Core HR features later this month. If any of these updates prove particularly noteworthy, I’ll share a follow‑up blog with the details. In the meantime, keep an eye out for upcoming posts where we’ll take a closer look at other Fusion modules as part of Release 26B.

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

What’s New in Oracle HR Help Desk 26A: A Smarter, More Connected Experience

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Oracle’s 26A release marks an important step forward for HR Help Desk, with a clear focus on improving the experience for employees, HR teams and service managers alike. Built entirely on the Redwood user experience, this release reinforces Oracle’s direction of travel: HR Help Desk is evolving from a traditional case management tool into a smarter, more responsive service platform that blends self‑service, automation and AI‑assisted support.

A key message is that Redwood is now the standard. The Classic HR Help Desk experience has been deprecated and will not receive further feature enhancements, with customers expected to complete their move to Redwood ahead of the 27A release. Any new HR Help Desk implementations must use Redwood from the outset. For organisations that have not yet made the transition, this release is a clear signal that now is the right time to plan and prepare.

From an employee perspective, 26A introduces a more intuitive and conversational way to get help. A new AI agent within My Help allows employees to ask questions in plain language and receive answers based on published HR knowledge, with the option to raise a request or be guided to the right support when needed. At the same time, Oracle has strengthened how requests are presented to employees by ensuring that primary contacts only see information intended for them, keeping internal notes and agent‑only details out of view by default.

HR agents and supervisors also benefit from more control and visibility. Enhancements to the omnichannel supervisor dashboard make it easier to see agent availability, workload and queue performance, with new metrics supporting better day‑to‑day decision‑making. Case handling has been refined too, with smarter assignment options, improved search, and the ability to upload case documents directly into employee document records. AI‑assisted case analysis is available throughout the case lifecycle, helping agents identify next steps or similar cases, particularly in more complex situations.

Knowledge management continues to play a central role in HR Help Desk, with 26A introducing new tools to create, structure and reuse content more effectively. Oracle has expanded its AI Agent Studio, added richer attributes for knowledge content, and enabled the use of generative AI to create articles for custom content types. Knowledge events can now be surfaced to support wider integration and automation. Taken together, these changes show Oracle’s continued investment in making HR Help Desk more intelligent, scalable and ready to support modern HR service delivery.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Recruit 26A

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Things are really heating up in the world of Recruit as we approach the final deadline to move the remaining Recruiting pages over to Redwood in 26B. This release is your last opportunity to make the switch. With the 25C deadline behind us, you should already be managing requisitions, job applications and candidates in Redwood. The next phase brings exciting updates around offers, interviews, campaigns, events and agency hiring. So, let’s dive in and see what’s new…

The AI Career Coach, first introduced in 25D to help candidates find roles that match their skills, has already been enhanced in 26A. The Career Coach now uses the Supervisor model, which brings all agents together under one umbrella, streamlining information sharing and removing redundancies. The agent is pre-seeded and ready to run, so there’s no need to create agents from templates. You can also choose to display the widget as an overlay, ideal for highly customised sites, rather than the default side panel, ensuring it doesn’t interfere with your design. For one-page application flows, the widget now displays correctly, and when shown as a side panel, the navigation menu is replaced with a horizontal progress bar. The fixer button appears on the page instead of the left-hand side, and a clickable Terms and Conditions link pulls content from the job application legal disclaimer in the Recruiting Content Library. If you’ve enabled CV parsing, candidate CVs will be parsed into the application flow when uploaded via the widget. From this release, any CV uploaded into the recommended jobs widget in the candidate experience will also be available to the agent.

As many of you know, I’m a big fan of AI, anything that makes life easier. The next update introduces an AI assistant for job requisition creation, working like a smart, on-page helper that answers both general and field-specific questions as you build a requisition. Because its guidance is driven entirely by the documents you upload and the prompt you configure, it’s easy to tailor to your organisation’s policies and practices. The agent helps users get it right first time, capturing the correct data, minimising downstream issues and boosting overall efficiency without interrupting the flow.

By 26B, the Job Offer process must be fully transitioned to Redwood, and Oracle has introduced a new AI agent to make this easier. Acting as an FAQ-style assistant, the agent helps users by answering both general and field-specific questions during job offer creation. Its guidance is based entirely on the documents you upload and the prompt you configure, making it simple to align with your organisation’s policies and practices. This smart assistant ensures job offers are created smoothly, reduces downstream issues by capturing accurate data, and boosts overall efficiency without disrupting the process.

Another useful Redwood Offer feature is the Initiate Job Offer Creation for Hiring Managers functionality. Hiring managers with the Initiate Job Offer privilege can now start the process and share notes with the recruiting team using the Create Job Offer action from the Redwood job applications list or details page. On the Create Job Offer page, they can add comments in the Notes to Recruiter field to provide context or instructions. Once they click Save and Close, the candidate’s application moves to Offer – Draft status and appears on the Redwood Job Offers list page. The recruiter receives a notification to complete the offer details using the Edit Offer action, with the manager’s notes displayed in a banner above the Details and Offer tabs. When ready, the recruiter can submit the job offer for approval or save it for further editing later.

The final feature worth mentioning is the new Redwood Interview Details page, which brings several improvements over the previous responsive version. A new Basic Info section now displays key interview details at a glance. In the Interviewers section, you can easily resend the Interview Scheduled notification, handy if someone says they haven’t received it. The Scheduled Candidates section allows you to click candidate and job requisition links to open a drawer with more information, and the Actions menu lets you manage candidates scheduled for the interview. Under Interview Resources, you’ll find interviewer guidelines, attachments and candidate notes added to the interview. If you’re an interviewer, you can respond directly to the invitation, accept, tentatively accept, decline or propose a new time. When proposing a new time, the drawer can even display your availability if calendar integration (Microsoft 365 or Google) is enabled.

Oracle often slip in new features during the month, so it’s worth keeping an eye out. If anything truly game-changing appears, I’ll share another blog post to keep you updated and make sure you don’t miss out. In the meantime, why not check out my latest write-up on the new Core HR features in Release 26A? You can find it here.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Learn 26A

~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Release 26A has arrived, marking the start of the second phase of Recruitment for Learn becoming mandatory. This update sets the deadline for the first half of the required changes to Learning Admin pages, covering Resources, Recommendations, Self-Paced Learning and External Content. The remaining updates to Learn Admin pages will become mandatory with Release 26D. Let’s take a look at what is new!

Before you can use this first feature, Dynamic Skills must be enabled. Oracle have updated the licensing for Dynamic Skills over the past year, so it may already be included in your Core HR licence. If you’re unsure, it’s worth checking with your Oracle Customer Success Manager. Once enabled, you can take advantage of the AI Learning Catalogue Smart Search Advisor. This clever tool lets you search the learning catalogue using questions rather than just keywords, delivering more focused and higher-quality results. The results are semantically relevant to your query and tailored to you, taking into account your work history, talent profile and learning record. When active, you’ll notice a new section on the learning catalogue page after you search. This section highlights up to five learning items the advisor has identified as most suitable for you and your request.

There are several new features for Self-Paced Learning, starting with Redwood functionality for enrolment forms, evaluations and feedback. You can now collect the information you need when learners enrol by requiring an enrolment form, a questionnaire, or both. The Learner Info Collection options available in the Self-Paced Learning configuration under the Rules tab in the Enrolment section, offering four choices: no extra information, a combined page with both questionnaire and request form, just the questionnaire, or just the request form, each leading to the Enrolment Details page. These options are controlled by a single setting within Self-Paced Learning.

Oracle has added support for two new content types in Self-Paced Learning: CMI5 and AICC URLs. You can now upload CMI5 .zip archive packages when creating self-paced courses. This format combines the structured approach of SCORM with the flexible, detailed tracking of xAPI, enabling richer data sharing between the learning item and the server. The result? Deeper insights into learner progress and engagement. In addition, you can create self-paced courses by adding an AICC URL as content. Once the page refreshes, the Learning Format field appears, defaulted to Online Course, alongside the Mastery Score field. You can adjust the format as needed and set a mastery score, which moves to its usual spot on the Rules tab under Completion when you create the draft. The score can be updated later if required.

Oracle has introduced a new Redwood Learning Events page, offering a streamlined way to publish instructor-led training directly to your learning catalogue. This update simplifies setup and adds flexibility, allowing events to be defined by formats such as In-Person, Webinar, or custom options tailored to your organisation. Events can be delivered as standalone offerings or included in a course for equivalency, with improved scheduling that supports multiday and overnight sessions and calculates effort automatically. You can specify dates and times via a calendar or manual entry, integrate feedback through evaluations and ratings, and control when learners provide it. Enrolment periods can now be configured separately from catalogue visibility, enabling early access via deep links, while enhanced withdrawal and waitlist options give greater control. Although events cannot yet be added to specialisations and pricing isn’t included in this release, both features are planned for future updates.

The final feature worth highlighting is the new Redwood Course Management page, which brings a modern, visually appealing interface to Oracle Learning. Learning Specialists can now enjoy a streamlined experience with grouped tabs for managing courses, Definitions, Defaults, Access, Skills and Qualifications, User Experience, and More Details, alongside a step-by-step creation process for organising core details, descriptions, visuals and settings. All course offerings, whether instructor-led, self-paced or blended, plus associated events, are accessible from a single Offerings tab for quicker navigation. Learners benefit from improved course detail pages with clearer layouts, showcasing included content, expected effort, acquired skills, instructors, outcomes, languages and celebratory completion notices. They can also engage through ratings, comments and lively discussions via dedicated interaction tabs.

Oracle often slip in a few extra features during the month, so it’s always worth keeping an eye out. If anything truly exciting comes along, I’ll share another blog post to keep you updated and ensure you don’t miss out. In the meantime, take a look at my latest write-up on the new Core HR features in Release 26A, you can find it here.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Payroll 26A

~ K8 Mead ~ 1 Comment

It’s that time again, quarterly release time, and there’s plenty to look forward to! With Oracle’s strong focus on AI, Release 26A promises some exciting updates. Oracle often adds extra features throughout the month, so keep an eye out for more enhancements as they arrive. This release is especially important for UK Payroll customers, as it includes all the new tax year functionality.

Global Payroll introduces an exciting new AI-powered tool, the Payroll Administrator Troubleshooting Agent. Known as the Payroll Run Analyst, this assistant helps payroll administrators validate employee payroll results directly from the Payroll Results page, including reviewing statements of earnings. Built on Oracle’s AI Agent framework, it delivers secure, role-based information within your permissions and significantly reduces manual effort during payroll reconciliation. It also streamlines corrective actions with deep links to related HCM pages, such as earnings and deductions, for quick updates. Best of all, it requires no extra setup and is ready to use immediately, with a chat experience coming in a future release.

Another feature worth highlighting is the redesign of payslip templates using the Redwood toolkit. The new Redwood Payslip offers a far better experience than the previous responsive version, but until now it only worked with the seeded payslip, which most organisations don’t use. With this update, the Redwood payslip can be viewed online or downloaded, and the PDF/UA templates are fully accessible while meeting all legislative requirements for payslip reporting. To stay compliant with local regulations, Oracle recommend adopting the Redwood payslip template as soon as possible.

As mentioned earlier, this release includes the UK legislative updates for the new tax year. Please note that a monthly patch may be required to incorporate any additional changes announced by the UK Government closer to April. One key update relates to the Full Payment Submission (FPS). You can now choose whether employee addresses are reported for all employees or only new starters. This option applies to the FPS processes for tax years ending April 2025 and April 2026. To set this, use the new field Employee Address on FPS from Tax Year 2024–25 on the organisation-level Statutory Deductions calculation card. By default, this is set to All Employees.

There’s also an update to the P60 template for the 2025/26 tax year. A new Statutory Neonatal Payment field has been added to the Statutory Payments section of the P60, along with a corresponding balance in the UK Balances for the End-of-Year Archive group. To generate and issue P60 End-of-Year Statements to employees, use the updated templates for 2025/26: Type LE(P), eP60 – Online and Plain Paper.

New payroll attributes have been introduced to help organisations set up adoption, maternity, and paternity absences for calculating benefit payments or offsets. Detailed steps are provided to guide you through creating the necessary elements, entitlement formula result rules, balance feeds, and validation formulas based on delivered templates. You’ll also find instructions for setting up entitlement formulas, certificates, absence plans, and absence types, ensuring a smooth and compliant process.

Oracle has now introduced Advance Pay for Irish legislation, giving employees the option to request payment before going on holiday. The amount is then recovered over a set period, such as weekly, bi-weekly, or lunar cycles, as needed. Before processing Advance Pay, make sure all other earnings and deductions have been completed. You’ll also need to configure Advance Pay usage and ensure that earnings are correctly processed during the holiday period.

Enhanced Reporting Revenue (ERR) Requests are now available, making compliance easier. After payroll runs and prepayments that include ERR element entries, use the Run Enhanced Reporting Submission Request. You can also run this process for a specific time period to report on unprocessed ERR entries, such as Travel and Subsistence, Remote Working Daily Allowance, and Small Benefit Exemption. The process generates three outputs: an ERR Audit Report showing archived employee and element details, an Errors and Warnings report, and a JSON file for Revenue submission via the Send File Submission process. For corrections, use the Run Enhanced Reporting Correction Request on previously submitted ERR files. This creates a revised JSON file, an ERC Audit Report, and an Errors and Warnings report—ready to send to Revenue.

As I mentioned earlier, Oracle usually drops extra features throughout the month, so keep an eye out! If anything really exciting comes along, I’ll post an update to make sure you’re in the loop. In the meantime, why not check out my latest blog on the new Core HR features in Release 26A? You can find it here.

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 26A

~ K8 Mead ~ 1 Comment

It’s the most wonderful time of the quarter! Sorry, I just put up my Christmas tree and now I’m feeling festive. Oracle have just announced the latest features that will be coming in release 26A. As you would expect, it’s an AI heavy one! As usual, additional features may follow later this month. In the meantime, let’s review what’s been introduced so far.

The first feature is one I saw at AI World in October and I thought it was great, so I’m glad it’s here now. The new Manage Journeys with AI Assistant makes managing employee journeys so easy. Powered by Oracle’s AI, it understands your everyday questions and gives you clear answers that fit your organisation’s rules. Need to check overdue tasks, see onboarding progress, or jump straight to the right page? Just ask. It cuts through the clutter, saves you time, and means less training for your team. Managers and HR can quickly get the info they need without digging through menus, so you can spend less time clicking and more time supporting your people.

Everyone loves a good dashboard, and now there’s the new Redwood View Legal Employer Changes Dashboard. It’s your one-stop shop for reviewing and keeping track of all global transfers, but only those that you have access to. The dashboard gives you a clear summary of each worker’s transfer details, making it easy to stay on top of changes. One thing to note: even if the Change Legal Employer dashboard is enabled for Redwood, the deep links on this page still follow their own product-specific profile settings. For example, if you click the Compensation Info link, it will open the Compensation page based on its profile option. It will only open in Redwood if that page’s Redwood setting is enabled, otherwise it will open in the responsive view.

HR teams already have plenty on their plate, so there’s a growing shift towards employees taking ownership of their own data and using self-service wherever possible. The new Request My Assignment Change feature makes this easier than ever, allowing employees to update their own assignment details through a simple Redwood process. From the self-service interface, employees can now request changes to update their work location or adjust their working hours, without any HR involvement. The Request My Assignment Change process uses the existing assignment approval framework. To customise approvals for this request type, configure rules with:
sensorDataReferenceCode = "RequestMyAssignmentChange".

Two new AI features are now available in Workforce Structures: the Job Assistant and the Workforce Structures Insight Analyst. The Job Assistant speeds up creating roles by asking a few simple questions and setting up the job with minimal details like name and code – quick, straightforward, done. The Workforce Structures Insight Analyst is where things get really powerful. Acting as an intelligent companion, it gives you instant access to workforce structure data without the need to build custom reports or navigate complex analytics. You can ask natural language questions and receive clear, actionable answers tailored to your organisation’s policies. Managers can quickly get summaries of job families, positions, and organisational hierarchies; compare structures across teams; and even analyse areas that aren’t covered by standard reporting tools. It’s designed to save time, reduce complexity, and provide insights that help you make informed decisions faster, all from a single, intuitive interface.

The Document Records Management Assistant brings AI to one of the most essential yet often overlooked areas, document records. This smart assistant makes creating, organising, and finding records quick and effortless. Using advanced language models, it understands the context of each document type and offers helpful suggestions, so you can capture records accurately, categorise them correctly, and retrieve them when needed. With natural language interaction, direct links, and intuitive guidance, it removes complexity, reduces training, and even anticipates intent, such as fetching the latest passport record. In short, it streamlines document management into a simple, conversational experience.

As mentioned earlier, Oracle will be rolling out new Core HR features later this month. If any of these updates turn out to be particularly significant, I’ll share an updated blog post with the details. In the meantime, keep an eye out for upcoming posts where we’ll dive into other Fusion modules as part of Release 26A.

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