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.

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