Oracle HCM Cloud Recruit 25D

Great news – 25D has landed! Unlike most modules, Recruit has a two-step journey to Redwood, and 26B is the big one to focus on to make sure users stay compliant and fully switched over for core Recruit tasks. If you’ve already got 25C, you should be handling requisitions, job applications and candidates in Redwood by now. The next wave is all about offers, interviews, campaigns, events and agency hiring. While 25C gave us a few Redwood features for offers, 25D really ramps things up to help you stay on track for the 26B deadline, but even more excitingly, it’s full of AI features to make your lives easier! So let’s dive in and explore what’s new….

This first feature isn’t actually a Redwood specific one, but it’s a great one that I’m very excited about! Given Oracle’s push to embed AI into Fusion, wherever it is relevant, this feature is a great use case for it! The new AI Agent for Candidate Experience introduces an AI Chatbot called Career Coach directly onto the Career Site. It will be much easier for candidates to search for a new role with the Job Recommendations Agent and Job Fit Agent, as they get tailored suggestions based on their experience and skills. The candidate just need to upload their CV, answer a couple of questions and then the Job Recommendations Agent will highlight roles that match their profile, while the Job Fit Agent helps them figure out if a particular job is the right fit and answers any questions. Both agents can even use uploaded documents to give more personalised advice, making the whole process smoother and more relevant.

There’s another AI feature I’m excited about. This was shown at CloudWorld London and customers have been asking me about it ever since! The Job Applicant Screening Agent Template lets you create a handy agent team in AI Agent Studio, which Recruiters can get to straight from the Job Application page. It’s a super helpful “ask me anything” assistant that can dig up all sorts of info, including feedback scores, background checks, recent updates, and what’s happened over the past few weeks. You can ask things like “What’s going on with this application?” or “Give me the full lowdown,” and it’ll even suggest things like interview feedback, timelines, assessments, and offer details. It’s a real time-saver, especially for people who don’t use the system much and just want quick answers without the faff.

If you’re anything like me and find creating job offers a bit laborious, you’ll definitely want to check out the new Job Offer Creation Agent in AI Agent Studio. It’s like having a helpful friend on hand, it’s ready to answer all your questions, whether they’re general or specific to certain fields. You can customise it with your own documents and prompts, so it fits your organisation’s policies perfectly. Wondering if you can tweak the start date after sending an offer? Not sure about the typical job grade for a Chief of Staff? Curious about salary differences between cities, or what to do if a candidate already has another offer? This agent’s got your back. It helps you breeze through the offer process smoothly, fills in the right info, and cuts down on errors, so you can focus on getting the right people on board, faster.

The final Recruit AI Agent I want to highlight is one I particularly love, the new Job Requisition Creation Agent to help speed up the process of creating Job Reqs. Think of it as your go-to FAQ buddy, it answers all sorts of questions, whether you’re wondering about salary grades, attachments, or who’s recruiting in a specific location. It works entirely off the documents you upload and the prompts you set, so it’s easy to tailor to your company’s policies and ways of working. Whether you’re asking if you can change job grades later or need to know the salary range for consultants in Dallas, this assistant helps you get it right first time, no interruptions, fewer downstream issues, and a smoother, more efficient experience all round.

In 25C, the Candidate Sourcing tile was added. In 25D, the Campaigns and Events tabs are no longer under Hiring, but moved to Candidate Sourcing. When you head into the Candidate Sourcing tab, you’ll find everything you need to start building your talent pipeline – from Candidate Search and Pools to Messages, Campaigns, and Events. Over in the Hiring tile, you’ve got quick access to the Activity Centre, Messages, Requisitions, Offers, and you’ll spot Candidate Search and Pools again here too, so you’re never far from the tools that help you keep hiring on track.

Oracle often sneak in new features throughout the month, so it’s worth keeping an eye out. If anything truly game-changing drops, I’ll write up another blog post to keep you posted and make sure you’re not missing out. In the meantime, feel free to check out my latest write-up on the new Core HR features in Release 25D, you can find it here.

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Oracle Digital Assistant – Does it have a Future?

With the introduction of AI Agents in Fusion, many are questioning the future role of Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) within Oracle’s roadmap. During the AI Agent Studio training, it was mentioned that ODA seeded skills will eventually become obsolete, although no further details with regards to a timeline were provided. Since then, Oracle’s 25C What’s New documentation has confirmed that some older seeded skills are beginning to be deprecated—however, this is not a new development, as the phasing out of legacy skills has been an ongoing process.

Oracle Digital Assistant

Several Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA) skills are now deprecated and may soon become obsolete, requiring timely updates to maintain compatibility with Fusion Cloud Applications’ quarterly releases. The Expenses skill built on ODA version 20.08, the Candidate Experience skill on version 22.08, and the Internal Candidate Experience skill version 1 on version 23.06 are all deprecated—customers should ensure they have deployed the appropriate V2 versions of these skills to stay aligned with the latest updates.

An additional key point of note is that the HCM Knowledge skill has been decommissioned as of release 25A, and customers using the Classic HR Help Desk are advised to transition to the ‘Search Knowledge Article’ intent within the Helpdesk skill for continued support.

Adding Skills in Oracle Digital Assistant

Oracle advises customers to check the Skill Store for updated versions for every release. If you access a skill built on a deprecated platform version, a warning message will appear, and you can click the ‘Tell me more’ option to view additional details about the platform versions. Skills will cease to function once their underlying platform version becomes inactive, which typically occurs no later than two years after their release.

To ensure your Digital Assistant or skill remains up to date, you can easily install the latest version from the Skill Store whenever an update is available. Simply sign in to Oracle Digital Assistant, navigate to Development > Digital Assistants via the Navigator, and within the tile for the relevant skill or digital assistant, click the menu icon and select Install Update. After upgrading your digital assistant, it’s essential to reassign the appropriate channels to the new version to ensure continued functionality. To do this, sign in to Oracle Digital Assistant and navigate to Development > Channels via the Navigator. Click on Channel, and in the Create Channel dialog box, enter the necessary details, selecting the required channel type from the list. Once created, to link this channel to the latest version of FADigitalAssistant, use the Route To drop-down menu to search for and select the updated version. Finally, click Reset Sessions, and in the Change Channel Routing dialog box, confirm by clicking Change.

Oracle AI Agent Studio

At this stage, there’s no immediate need for customers to move away from Oracle Digital Assistant (ODA); however, it’s a good time to begin reviewing the skills currently in use and identifying the types of questions your users typically ask. These insights can serve as a valuable foundation for developing AI Agents using the new AI Agent Studio, which is being introduced in release 25C. Taking a proactive approach now will give you ample time to plan and transition before ODA eventually becomes obsolete—whenever that may be.

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Ask Oracle – The New Way to Interact with Fusion

Have you heard about Ask Oracle? I was chatting with someone from Oracle recently and left the conversation genuinely excited! It gets a brief mention in the Common Features for 25C, but there’s not much detail available just yet. So, what is it? Ask Oracle will form part of a new navigation experience being introduced in 25D. You’ll be able to use it to search for tasks, applications, and information—and it will also serve as your way of navigating between different areas. The Home page with Ask Oracle will remember where you’ve recently been and the places you visit most often, helping you get to what you need more quickly and intuitively.

Ask Oracle Homepage

Oracle understands that when users open Fusion, it’s usually with a specific task in mind. The new Ask Oracle experience is designed to make that journey more intuitive—whether you prefer to simply ask for what you need or browse a curated list of intelligent suggestions. To support this, the redesigned home experience brings together three key elements: a product map view to help you explore what’s available; intelligent suggestions that surface the most relevant items based on your likely next steps; and a modern search function with rapid type-ahead, synonym recognition, and integrated business objects—making it easy to find what you’re looking for, even if you’re unsure of the exact name or didn’t realise you needed it.

Ask Oracle Navigation

The version being released in 25D is the first iteration. This will continue to evolve over time. Future versions of the Home experience with Ask Oracle will support a full range of user goals: whether you’re exploring what’s possible with “What can I do?”, tackling a specific task with “I want to do ‘x’…”, or checking in with “What needs my attention?” to understand what actions are required to keep things moving. The application will intelligently highlight tasks and priorities to help maintain workflow momentum.

If you’d like to use Ask Oracle, it will need to be enabled following the 25D release. Once enabled, the Home experience with Ask Oracle will replace both the global header and the existing home page used in the News Feed layout. You can set Home with Ask Oracle as the default home page layout via the Appearance work area.

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Oracle HCM Cloud Talent 25C

Talent became mandatory in Redwood by Release 25C, but that doesn’t mean that Oracle haven’t given us some new features in this release. As usual, Oracle do usually continue to announce more features throughout the month, so if any significant additional features are announced, I will do a follow up post to highlight them.

In 25C Oracle have enabled combined goal administration pages, where you can view the performance and development goals administrative tasks on a single page. On the Performance and Development Goals page, unsurprisingly you can view and manage performance goals and development goals of any persons you have access On the Goals Library page, you can view and manage performance and development library goals. Then there is the Setup of Goals Mass Processes, which manages mass assignment process for performance and development goals and also the mass sharing process for performance goals. The final page within the admin pages are the Scheduled Processes for Goals, which again is fairly self explanatory. These changes are a simple one, but it will make life easier for Talent Administrators which can only be a positive thing!

Library Goals Page Listing Performance Library Goals

Oracle has rolled out valuable enhancements to its Check-in templates, making performance conversations more efficient and tailored. You can now link Touchpoints check-in documents directly to performance review periods, eliminating duplication and ensuring a smoother flow of information. A particularly helpful update is the ability to include competencies from an employee’s position, job, or talent profile as discussion topics—this provides structure and relevance to each conversation. Additionally, organisations can now target specific employee groups by assigning eligibility profiles to Touchpoints templates, allowing for a more personalised and strategic approach to performance management.

Add Talent, Position, and Job Competencies as Discussion Topics

A small but impactful update from Oracle is set to make HR workflows more efficient—notifications can now be automatically sent to HR when general or goal-related feedback is submitted in response to an HR request. These alerts include a direct link to the feedback, saving HR teams from having to manually check each employee’s Goals or Feedback page. It’s a simple enhancement, but one that will be widely appreciated for the time and effort it saves.

HR notified when feedback is received for a worker

It wouldn’t be an Oracle release without a touch of AI—and this one delivers just that. Managers using Redwood performance documents can now benefit from enhanced AI support during evaluations, making the process smarter and more intuitive. What’s especially reassuring is the new transparency feature: the data sources used to generate AI-suggested comments are now clearly displayed, helping to build trust in the insights provided. Additionally, a new page property allows you to set a minimum character count before an overall summary comment is generated, giving organisations more control over the quality and depth of AI-generated feedback.

AI Enhancements For Manager Evaluations in Redwood Performance Documents

As mentioned earlier, Oracle often roll out additional features throughout the month. Should these updates be significant, I’ll publish a follow up blog post. Please check out my blog on the new features in Core HR for Release 25C here.

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Generative AI in Oracle HCM Cloud

Everyone is talking about AI these days and Oracle is no different! The use of AI within Oracle applications isn’t new – Digital Assistant, Oracle’s chatbot has been in action for a while. Digital Assistant uses ‘skills’ similar to Alexa which are used as a basis for enquiries. Oracle provides seeded skills but custom ones can also be created.

But what about Generative AI or Gen AI? Gen AI uses machine learning to learn patterns from the data and then create content based on it. Oracle have been incorporating Gen AI into HCM Cloud since release 24A. All of the features released require Redwood as they can be activated via VB Studio. Oracle have introduced AI Assist in a lot of applications, although predominantly in the Talent and Performance modules. AI Assist will take the information provided and summarise it. For instance, when a Line Manager reviews all Performance Documents, the AI Assist button will compile and summarise all pertinent performance information for that Employee. This feature saves the manager time by providing an editable summary, designed to enhance efficiency without eliminating the human touch.

Gen AI is also available in Recruit to help produce content for your Career Site. By populating the topic, how many words you require it to be and a few key terms / words, the AI Assistant will generate the text for you. As with all Gen AI within Oracle, you can tweak the content as much as required, but it will make the process much easier.

The new AI features continued in 24D, which included the introduction of AI Assistance for Market Composites in Compensation Info. This allows organisations to utilise Gen AI to generate explanations for market composites to Line Managers within the Compensation module. This will help guide the conversations between Line Managers and Employees about the competitiveness of their compensation package.

Oracle are constantly working on new use cases for Gen AI. It is anticipated that in 25A, the Benefits Analyst Agent will be available. This will allow Employees and Line Managers to ask the chatbot about available benefits for them, but also question why things have changed etc. It can also link to the sources that it used to determine the response, so the Employee can validate the information, if required.

Oracle is investing heavily in Gen AI and other ways to optimise user’s experience, so there will be more announcements soon. I expect a number of features to be included in 25A, not just the Benefits Analyst Agent. Once they are announced, I will do another post.

About the author:

Kate Mead is an Oracle-certified HCM Consultant and Solution Architect at Version 1 with 14 years of experience in Oracle HR and Payroll systems, including 7 years with Oracle HCM Cloud. She has worked across implementation projects and managed services, has a sound knowledge of UK Payroll legislation and — before becoming a consultant — was an HR Manager.

If you have any questions or would like more information on how Version 1 can help you realise the full potential of your Oracle Cloud instances, please contact her at kate.mead@version1.com

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