Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 26A

Dec 6, 2025 ~ 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.

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Oracle AI World – Day 3

Oct 28, 2025Oct 28, 2025 ~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

Day 3 was the last day of Oracle AI World and whilst it was only a half day, it was one of my favourites! We all breakfast together, before going our separate ways. It was a lovely start to the day. I managed to fit in two sessions, one on AI Powered EPM and the final one was Amplifying Human Potential. I had lunch with lots of my fellow ACE program members, before we all went off on our ACE Adventure to the Atomic Museum.

The first session was on AI Powered EPM. Not only was the customer panel hosted by Marc Seewald, the EPM Product Manager, but I was able to sit in the front row next to Andy King, the King of EPM. I was surrounded by extensive EPM experience and it was extremely interesting. I particularly liked the inclusion of Andrew, the VP of Finance at Oracle. It was really interesting to hear his perspective on the value EPM brings to Oracle’s internal Finance processes.

All members of the Panel had extensive experience of Finance Transformation. EPM has been a fundamental part of their financial planning, albeit in different areas. As an EPM novice, it was really interesting to hear the different ways EPM has added value. It definitely has made me want to find out more about EPM. Hopefully I can share my learnings in the future.

The second, and last session of the day was Amplifying Human Potential. Again it was a panel discussion, this time about using HCM Cloud to improve business processes. As a HCM Nerd who loves innovation, this was definitely the session for me.

It was a really good panel, Julie has a HCM background, Kamwin has a systems background and Paul recently led an implementation of Recruiting Cloud. It was a great balance of Oracle experience and system viewpoints.

Not only was the knowledge sharing from the panel really inspiring, what I took away most from the session was how much I love the HCM Cloud community. During the Q&A at the end, a number of people asked for advice. One key question was around how to handle incorporating innovation when the organisation had only just gone live and were struggling to keep on top of BAU work. The panel were very reassuring and provided personal experiences, but so did the audience. A number of people, myself included, stopped to speak to the question asker at the end to provide advice and reassurance. I highlighted the importance of Cloud Success Navigator as they could record the new features that are of interest on their roadmap, then review them in the future when they feel in a better place to start switching on additional functionality. The general conversation and support given made me very proud of the community.

I can’t believe this is the end of my AI World blogs. I hope you found them all interesting. I’d love to hear what you think. Thanks for joining me on this journey.

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Oracle AI World – Day 2 Part 1

Oct 26, 2025Oct 26, 2025 ~ K8 Mead ~ 1 Comment

Day 2 was a jam packed day! I started with a session on using AI to accelerate HR processes; had another wander around the stands learning about all the upcoming features, attended Steve Miranda’s inspirational Key Note and finished the day with a session on AI use in EPM, which is a product I’m trying to learn more about. It was also the day of the Oracle ACE dinner and the party with Def Leppard, but I was so tired I gave the party a miss! There was so much happening on Day 2 that I’ve had to split it out into 2 blogs. This one will cover Accelerating HR with AI and EPM and AI. Steve Miranda’s key note will be in the second blog.

As soon as I saw Nancy Estell Zoder was presenting this session, I knew I wanted to see it. Having attended the Partner Day following Oracle CloudWorld in London, Nancy was a really dynamic presenter and it made me want to attend this one, I wasn’t disappointed! There was the added bonus of Jon MacGoy presenting too.

The overall introduction was really interesting. As someone who loves a stat, I loved hearing how successful the HCM Cloud product has been this year. It also recapped the breadth of the product, which whilst it is known by most, it’s always helpful to see the info graphic listing them all and how they relate to each other.

The feature that Jon demoed was one of my absolute favourites of the whole conference. Oracle are introducing a new way to use Journeys, Personal Journeys. If a user has some tasks they wish to carry out, but don’t want to write a to do list to remind them, Oracle have now provided a systemised solution. A user can now add tasks to a Personal Journey and create their own custom checklist of activities. On top of this, an AI Agent can be used to make the creation of the Personal Journey more streamlined. By asking what tasks do I have outstanding, the AI Agent will generate a Personal Journey that will incorporate all outstanding tasks that the user wishes.

AI World has really triggered an interest in EPM. I’ve enjoyed discussions with Product Managers, colleagues and other attendees on EPM. Given this, I was very keen to learn more about AI use in EPM. The session was a customer forum, but was really interactive. Numerous questions were asked of the audience who responded by displaying paddles with responses on.

It was an interesting discussion giving the perspective from both IT and Finance. The key points were the speed and accuracy of Financial Planning, which was cumbersome prior to the use of EPM. It has definitely triggered a lot more questions for me, which I will do further research on. When I do, I will share it with you!

That wraps up my summary of the first part of Day 2 at Oracle AI World in Las Vegas 2025. Keep an eye for more posts, as I’ll be sharing write-ups from Steve Miranda’s key note and also from day 3.

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Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 25C

Jun 7, 2025 ~ K8 Mead ~ 3 Comments

It doesn’t feel that long since we started talking about 25B, but now its time for 25C! With Core HR being mandatory in Redwood by Release 25C, I would be lying if I said there were a significant number of new features for Core HR in 25C, but there are some features of note! Please keep in mind that Oracle will continue to roll out additional features throughout the quarter, if there are any subsequent features of note, I will do a follow up blog on these.

A lot of organisations, particularly in the public sector have been eagerly awaiting the changes to the Public Worker Search functionality. For those of you who don’t know what Public Workers Access is, it determines which employee records are returned in searches and other public-facing views. This allows for controlling the visibility of sensitive information like job codes or positions by applying user-defined criteria. 25C is the first release that brings Public Worker Access support to Oracle Search and Redwood. So what does this mean? If you need to limit employees or positions being available in Public Search due to the confidential nature of their role, now you can! It can be configured in a variety of ways including adding exclusion criteria.

In addition, Oracle have introduced the ability to export your Public Worker Access between pods. This will allow the migration of Public Worker Access configuration to be much simpler and remove any risk of human error. It will ensure that the config that has been tested in your development pod is the same as what is deployed in Production.

Exporting Public Worker Access Configuration

There are a lot of Journey related features in this release. One I particularly like is quite a simple change but I think it will add significant value. The ability to easily schedule recurring Journeys will make Journey administration a lot easier. The flexibility of being able to chose the frequency, but also limit the number of times the Journey is assigned makes this such a great addition.

The final Journey feature that I want to highlight is the ability to embed Multi Agents into Guided Journeys. This will allow a variety of different AI Agents to be embedded into pages with ease. Added AI Agents to pages is done via Guided Journeys and this new functionality makes it much easier. This is the perfect time for this improvement when we’re all prepping for the introduction of AI Agent Studio to speed up the process of creating AI Agents!

Embedded Multi AI Agents in Guided Journeys

The other area of Core HR with significant changes are within the Workforce Structures workspace. There are a number of new pages that have moved over to Redwood, including the Legal Entity HCM Information and Legal Reporting Unit HCM Information pages. Additionally Oracle have given more flexibility in adding extra attributes on the summary of changes page for all Workforce Structure changes. These fields can be added in via VBS to allow for the easy review of changes to fields that are important to your organisation.

Additional Attributes in Redwood Workforce Structures Change Summary

As mentioned earlier, Oracle plans to roll out new features in Core HR later this month. Should these updates turn out to be noteworthy, I’ll publish a refreshed blog post. Additionally, keep an eye out for upcoming posts that will cover other modules within Fusion for Release 25C!

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Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 24D

Sep 7, 2024Nov 15, 2024 ~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

It’s that time of the quarter again, new features time! If you’re a New Features Nerd like me, I’m sure you’re equally as excited. Despite the date changes with the Redwood timelines, Oracle are still giving us lots of Redwood treats in this Core HR 24D release.

Originally Journeys and Time Cards were going to be mandatory in 24D, but these have been pushed back to 25A. This gives us a bit more breathing room to move forward in our Redwood journey.

Here are the top 5 new features in Core HR for Release 24D. Please keep in mind that Oracle will continue to roll out additional features throughout the quarter, if there are any subsequent features of note, I will do a follow up blog on these.

1)Redwood Journey Setup page. It won’t surprise anyone that given the mandatory move to Redwood Journeys in Release 25A, this is a very Journey heavy release. The first key point of note is the new Redwood Journey Setup page. This is the new landing page for anyone wanting to do any configuration relating to Journeys. As part of this, the Journey Templates; Journey Task Groups and Journey Task Libraries have all moved to Redwood.

2) Journeys Available for Non Workers. Keeping on the Journeys theme, I’m delighted that Oracle have now made it possible to assign Journeys to non-workers. Given the push towards the use of Journeys into all areas of Oracle Cloud, particularly SCM and Procurement, this doesn’t come as a large surprise. It does mean that where you have agency workers or Non Exec Directors set up as non-workers, it’s possible to assign Journeys and Journey tasks to them.

3) Redwood Position Costing. The introduction of position costing to Redwood might be quite a simple change, but it’s something that has been lacking in Redwood positions until now. Many organisations that also use ERP Cloud Financials want to be able to control where the costing of an employee is posted to based on the role they are doing. The introduction of Redwood position costing now allows this. It’s also possible to do split costing by percentage if multiple cost centres need to be charged for the work.

4) Redwood Pages Delivered Enabled in Release 24D. As we’re getting closer to the mandatory switch to Redwood pages, Oracle will be delivering certain Redwood pages automatically enabled. In 24D for Core HR there are only 2 pages being delivered switched on, the setup page for Guided Journeys and the Mass Download of Document Records. If you’re not ready for these to be in Redwood yet, they will need to be manually switched off in Manage Administrator Profile Values by setting the profile option to N.

Redwood Default Expense Account in Employment Update Flow

5) Default Expense Account added to Redwood Employment Update Flow. These do need to be configured in the Business Rules area of VBS to be visible, but this is a feature that has been missed by many since Person Management became non-supported. Default Expense Accounts are required before any employee can claim expenses in the ERP Cloud Expenses module. Adding them into the hiring and updating employment flows will minimise the risk of this valuable data not being recorded.

As previously mentioned, Oracle is expected to introduce additional features in Core HR later this month. If these new features prove to be of note, I will create an updated blog post. Stay tuned for blogs covering other modules within HCM Cloud for Release 24D.

Click here to read more about Version 1’s Oracle capabilities.

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

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 24C

Jun 11, 2024Nov 15, 2024 ~ K8 Mead ~ 5 Comments

If you’ve followed my previous posts, you’ll know I love quarterly release time! There’s nothing better than the day when Oracle release the new features that we’re getting. As anticipated, this release is once again brimming with Redwood and Journey enhancements. Oracle is gearing up for 24D, where Checklists will be replaced by Journeys, and in 25B, Employee and Management Self Services tasks become mandatory in the Redwood interface.

Here are the top 5 new features in Core HR for Release 24C. Keep in mind that Oracle will continue to roll out additional features throughout the quarter, so stay tuned for my follow-up post:

1)Redwood and Journeys are combined for the first feature. Business Rules, which allow you to personalise Redwood pages within Visual Builder Studio (VBS), are brought to Journeys. You can now use rules to incorporate or hide features within a Journey, to improve the experience for your users.

2) Any organisation which uses Expenses knows the importance of the Default Expense Account on an employee’s record. The journey to making all HR functions carried out in the Redwood toolset has made another leap forward. It is now possible to configure both the People Group and Default Expense Account key flexfields (KFF) within the Hire an Employee; Add a Contingent Worker / Pending Worker / Nonworker; Convert a Pending Worker and Create a Work Relationship.

3) There have been significant improvements to the Redwood Update Employment flow in 24C. These include the automatic calculation of FTE and Headcount; Probation Period and End Date; Defaulting of Location from Department; Ability to Add Non-Workers as Managers; and the new display of the remaining working hours in the ‘Weekly Working Hours Step’. All these automatic calculations will remove the need for manual intervention.

4) There is a new Redwood experience for Terminating Employment and for Employees to undertake Self Service Resignation. In addition to the process flow being moved to the Redwood toolset, so have the View, Reverse and Correct Termination. This ensures that more of the employee lifecycle process from onboarding to offboarding can be managed in the new streamlined Redwood UI.

5) There has been an improvement to the Work Patterns, which is particularly helpful for organisations which use rolling work patterns. The inclusion of non-working weeks provides significant value, especially for organisations with patterns like 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

As previously mentioned, Oracle is expected to introduce additional features in Core HR later this month. If these new features prove to be significant, I will create an updated blog post. Stay tuned for blogs covering other modules within HCM Cloud for Release 24C.

Click here to read more about Version 1’s Oracle capabilities.

About the author:

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

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Core HR 24B

Mar 2, 2024Nov 15, 2024 ~ K8 Mead ~ 2 Comments

It’s my favourite time of the quarter when Oracle release the details of what’s coming in the next release! Oracle will continue to reveal details of 24B over March, but what has been announced in Core HR so far, is already looking great.

Unsurprisingly, this is another Redwood-heavy release and I’m delighted with what has already been announced. As part of the drive to move Employee and Manager Self Service to Redwood, there is a new Team Activity Centre. This gives Line Managers a high-level overview of the important metrics relating to their team, including staff turnover and progression with goals and skills.

If your organisation is using Journeys, Line Managers can see details of outstanding tasks waiting to be completed. Additionally, key information that the Line Manager needs to view for their team, can be seen directly in the new Activity Centre, for example, compensation details, talent ratings and the status of recruitment requisitions.

Pending Workers have joined Redwood now! This is another key page that HR teams use regularly which has been completely rewritten within the VBS toolset. It’s now a guided process and Guided Journeys can be incorporated into the process too.

Journeys are another key theme of recent Core HR releases and this is no different. The worlds of Redwood and Journeys are meeting perfectly with a number of key new features in 24B.

Configuration has now moved to Redwood, with the new Journeys Configuration page. The new Journey Configurations page is the equivalent of the existing Configurations tab where Journeys were previously set up. The new page is designed to be easier to use, with fewer button clicks and better performance.

Additionally, there is a new Journeys Console and Journeys Integrations application written in VBS to replace the existing View Console and Integrations tabs on the Checklist Templates page. These include the same optimisations that the Journeys Configuration page has.

One more exciting new feature is the Autoprovisioning of Areas of Responsibility based on templates. It is now possible to mass assign, but also automatically end date, AOR based on user-defined template criteria. The new Assign by Criteria section allows organisations to add criteria and values that identify the user who should receive the responsibility with the Basic Info and Scope defined in the prior sections of the page.

As I said earlier, Oracle is likely to release more features in Core HR later in the month, so I will do an updated blog later in the month. Also, keep an eye out for blogs on other modules within HCM Cloud for Release 24B.

Learn more about how Version 1 can help you maximise your Oracle Cloud instances here.

About the author:

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

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

Oracle HCM Cloud Release 24A — Key New Features in Global HR

Jan 12, 2024Nov 15, 2024 ~ K8 Mead ~ Leave a comment

The first iteration of the What’s New 24A Oracle HCM Cloud has been released and it looks like it’s going to be a big one! There are a lot of changes, particularly around Journeys and Redwood.

Here are a few of my highlights:

1. Redwood Global HR Enhancements

24A is the first HCM Cloud Release that brings the Redwood User Interface to the masses. All the key processes that your HR users follow are now available in the new UI. For more details, please check out my article on Redwood in 24A.

2. Journeys

24A has a substantial number of new Journey-related features. These include an improved search functionality; allowing the use of Contextual Journeys in Redwood pages and the simplification of editing tasks. All of these new features are to help streamline processes for users.

3. Work Pattern Templates and Assignment Rules

This is a helpful new feature that allows you to create rules to automatically assign working pattern templates to employees based on rules. This will minimise mistakes with incorrect working patterns being assigned to employees. The automation will speed up the hiring process and simplify making changes to employee data.

4. Approvals Work Area

The new Approvals Work Area is a new application that works across the whole of HCM Cloud. This new page has a user-friendly interface and intuitive search functionality which allows users to find tasks more easily than within the current BPM Worklist. Approvals and rejections of transactions can be made in the Work Area as well as viewing the status of historical transactions.

5. Other Functionality of Note

Two areas of functionality are being made redundant in 2024. The first is the Share Personal Info page which will be made redundant in release 24B and there is no replacement for this functionality. Secondly, Checklists and Onboarding Tasks will be made redundant in release 24D. Oracle recommends moving to Redwood Journeys as soon as possible.

About the author:

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

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

Oracle HCM Cloud 24A — The Redwood Release!

Jan 10, 2024Nov 15, 2024 ~ K8 Mead ~ 1 Comment

As Oracle promised, 24A is the release that brings Redwood to the masses! There are so many Redwood new features in this release, now is the time to start your move away from Responsive UI to the new and improved Redwood-enabled Core HR applications.

So what is Redwood and why should I be excited about this?

Redwood is the new Oracle User Interface (UI) for all Oracle products. The long-term plan is for all applications within the Oracle Cloud EPM, ERP and HCM modules to have the same look and feel. The Redwood UI is designed to be mobile and tablet-friendly. When personalising pages, you can view how the page will look on named mobile device and tablet models, to see how the page will appear based on the dimensions of that particular device. All of this is to ensure that accessibility is central to the application.

So back to 24A. What features should I be looking out for?

There are numerous process flows now incorporated into the Redwood experience. These include Change Assignment, Promote, Change Position, Employment and Transfer. These are the processes that Oracle users have been waiting for.

Before 24A, the main applications that were within the Redwood UI were in the configuration areas, such as Workforce Structures. Now your HR users can carry out their day-to-day processes, such as carrying out promotions; changing line managers; managing contracts; and using the latest and greatest Oracle technology in a user-friendly and accessible interface.

For more details on release 24A, please see the Oracle 24A What’s New page here.

About the author:

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

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