Update 22D

Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Module	Feature	Notes
15 DEC 2023	Benefits	Cancel Pending Actions in Self-Service Benefits	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2022	Benefits	Cancel Pending Actions in Self-Service Benefits	Updated document. Feature delivered in update 22D.
22 NOV 2022	Benefits	Improved Person Change Causes Life Event Formula	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2022	Benefits	Use Guided Journeys for Benefits	Updated document. Revised feature information.
02 SEP 2022			Created initial document.

Overview

HCM Cloud applications have two types of patches you can receive that are documented in this What’s New:

• Release Updates (22A, 22B, 22C, and 22D)
• Optional Monthly Maintenance Packs to each update

It is important for you to know what Release Update your environment is on. You can find this in your Cloud Portal.

HAVE AN IDEA?

We’re here and we’re listening. If you have a suggestion on how to make our products better, please let us know. To enter an idea go to the Ideas Lab on Oracle Customer Connect. In this document wherever you see the light bulb icon after the feature name it means we delivered one of your ideas.

SUGGESTED READING FOR ALL HCM PRODUCTS

• HCM Common What's New - In this What's New you will find feature that are used across applications.
• Human Resources What’s New – In the Global Human Resources section you will find features on the base application in which other application are built upon.

NOTE: Not all Global Human Resource features are available for Talent and Compensation products.

• Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud Functional Known Issues and Maintenance Packs (Document ID 1554838.1). These documents identify bug fixes and possible known issues. You will also need to review these documents based in the release update version you are currently on or will be moving to.
• Oracle Help Center – Here you will find guides, videos and searchable help.
• Release Readiness – New Feature Summary, What’s New, Feature Listing Spreadsheet, Spotlights and Release Training

GIVE US FEEDBACK

We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content. Please send us your feedback at oracle_fusion_applications_help_ww_grp@oracle.com. Indicate you are inquiring or providing feedback regarding the HCM Cloud What’s New in the body or title of the email.

Feature Summary

Benefits

Benefits

Oracle Benefits is a complete, configurable and flexible global solution that enables organizations to successfully evolve and adapt to the unique needs of their workforce. The solution enables setup of traditional 'one-size fits all' plans to highly complex plans that selectively target different workforce segments with different benefit packages. Self-service capabilities present the user with an out of the box intuitive guided enrollment process with contextual information and embedded analytics.

Enhanced Auditing on Benefits Service Center

Benefits Service Center and Self-Service Benefits pages now have these additional columns to improve the customer audit capabilities:

• Created By
• Creation Date
• Last Updated Date
• Last Updated By

These pages have the new audit capabilities:

• Benefits Relationships
• Court Orders
• Enrollment Results - Beneficiaries
• Enrollment Results - Dependents
• Person Info (Benefits Service Center, Self-Service Benefits, and Core HR)
• Benefits Balance
• Benefit Groups

Benefits Relationships

Court Orders

Enrollment Results Beneficiaries

Enrollment Results Dependents

Person Info

Benefits Balance

Benefit Groups

This enhancement provides more visibility into ownership of changes in the system and helps you to understand the flow of data and processes.

Steps to Enable

Here’s how you display the new additional columns in Benefits Service Center and Self-Service Benefits:

1. Create a sandbox with Structure and Page Composer as tools and launch it.
2. On the Home page, click My Client Groups, HCM Experience Design Studio.
3. Select Benefits Service Center from the Action list and click Add.
4. Add the basic details.
5. On the Available Attributes section of the Edit Rule page, select Benefits Relationships as the Data Source and set these attributes to Visible:
   • Created By
   • Creation Date     
   • Last Update Date         
   • Last Updated By

Attributes

1. Repeat step 5 by selecting these data sources:
   • Court Orders
   • Enrollment Results - Beneficiaries
   • Enrollment Results - Dependents
   • Person Info
   • Benefits Balance
   • Benefit Groups
2. Click Save and Close.
3. Select Before You Enroll from the Action list and click Add.
4. On the Available Attributes section of the Edit Rule page, set these attributes to Visible:
   • Created By
   • Creation Date     
   • Last Update Date         
   • Last Updated By
5. Click Save and Close.
6. Select Family and Emergency Contacts from the Action list and click Add.
7. On the Available Attributes section of the Edit Rule page, select Additional Info on Edit Page as the Data Source and set these attributes to Visible:
   • Created By
   • Creation Date     
   • Last Update Date         
   • Last Updated By
8. Click Save and Close.

Manage Beneficiaries for Hidden Life Events in Self-Service Benefits

Employees can now designate or change beneficiaries using the anytime beneficiary flow for life events that are not visible in Self-Service Benefits. For example, you may not want employees to change enrollments from Self-Service Benefits but allow changes to beneficiary designations for events like salary change. In such cases, administrator intervention was needed for any changes to the beneficiary designation. Now employees can use the anytime beneficiary flow to manage their designations even if the Visible on self-service pages flag is disabled for the life event.

This enhancement eliminates the need for a benefits administrator to designate beneficiaries for hidden life events on behalf of an employee. Also, employees can now designate beneficiaries for enrollments from a life event that is not available in the self-service enrollment flow.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Key Resources

For more information see the Enable Participants to Update Beneficiary Designations Anytime topic.

Display Primary Care Physician for Processed Life Events

You can now view your primary care physician designations in Self-Service Benefits when there are no life events in the Started status.

Self-Service Benefits

This enhancement allows the employee to view their primary care physician information at any time. They no longer need to use any third-party website to view the primary care physician information. This enhancement reduces the calls to the benefits administrators regarding the information on primary care physicians.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Benefits Open Enrollment Diagnostic Report

You can now run Benefits Open Enrollment Diagnostic Report to discover and resolve open enrollment issues.

This report:

• Identifies any missing or incorrect setups that are associated with the target event and general configurations on self-service. Also, identifies the associated outcomes or drawbacks.
• Identifies the current state of enrollment and associated transactions and action items. Provides alerts on completing corrective and cleanup actions before you process the target event.
• Provides alerts and recommended use of relevant product features, such as Alerts and Plan Compare, that can help you manage the event and communicate effectively with participants.
• Recommends the best practices to follow on Purge Jobs, Auditing, Profiles, Lookups, and Batch Parameters so that you achieve optimal performance while processing the event for the identified set of participants.

The timing of running this report is critical. You can run this report while setting up the open enrollment or preparing for an upcoming open enrollment after setting up new plans, options, and rates. Also, you can run the report a few times as the changes get implemented for the open enrollment. This can reduce the issues that could possibly arise when the scheduled event process runs.

Sections of the Report

The sections of this report are generated based on the following input values:

• Program Name
• Life Event (Open/Administrative/Unrestricted Open - LOV)
• Life Event Date

Here’s the list of sections that are available in this report:

• Configuration for the Scheduled Open Event at the Program Level
• Missing Payroll Calendars
• Missing Plan Year Periods
• Retire or Inactivate Old Plans and Options
• Add Plans, Options, and Rates for the Upcoming Plan Year
• Self-Service Benefits: Customization and Configuration
• Missing Fast Formulae
• Missing Input Values
• Lookups for Opt-in Features
• Unresolved Life Events, Suspended Enrollments, and Pending Action Items
• Aged Out Covered Dependents: US-Specific
• HSA and FSA Calculators and Rates
• Overridden Enrollments and Rates
• Alert for Adding Missing Contacts
• Alerts for Open Enrollment
• Review Compare Plans Configuration
• Dependent Eligibility for Newly Added Contacts
• Review Audit Configuration
• Performance of Batch Processes: Thread Size, Compute Stats, Fast Formula, and Audit Log Parameter
• Other Scheduled Jobs

Sample Report

Here’s how you generate and view Benefits Open Enrollment diagnostic report:

1. Click the logged-in user's icon, and click Run Diagnostics Tests in the Troubleshooting section.
2. On the Diagnostic Dashboard page, search for Benefits Open Enrollment Diagnostic Report, select it and click Add to Run.
3. In the Choose Tests to Run and Supply Inputs section, click the Input Status icon to enter the details. Configure these parameters to run the report:
   1. Program Name
   2. Life Event
   3. Life Event Date
4. Click Save and enter a name and display name for the test.
5. Click OK.
6. Click Run in the Choose Tests to Run and Supply Inputs section.
7. In the Diagnostic Test Run Status table, click Refresh to see the latest status.
8. When the execution status reads Complete, click the Report icon to view the report.

This enhancement proactively identifies the open enrollment issues to save time and money, and it fosters the confidence of the employees in the application. Also, the early identification of issues or omissions provides time for resolutions, and it can increase the success rate of open enrollment.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Improved Person Change Causes Life Event Formula

The Person Change Causes Life Event formula determines whether to trigger a person life event or not. This enhancement helps you use the new input values to trigger events based on formula logic. 

Here's the list of the new input values that you can use in the formula:

• BEN_ASG_IN_COLLECTIVE_AGREEMENT_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_COLLECTIVE_AGREEMENT_ID
• BEN_ASG_IN_REASON_CODE
• BEN_ASG_IO_REASON_CODE
• BEN_ASG_IN_ASSIGNMENT_NUMBER
• BEN_ASG_IO_ASSIGNMENT_NUMBER
• BEN_ASG_IN_ASSIGNMENT_SEQUENCE
• BEN_ASG_IO_ASSIGNMENT_SEQUENCE
• BEN_ASG_IN_ACTION_OCCURRENCE_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_ACTION_OCCURRENCE_ID
• BEN_ASG_IN_CONTRACT_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_CONTRACT_ID
• BEN_ASG_IN_FULL_PART_TIME
• BEN_ASG_IO_FULL_PART_TIME
• BEN_ASG_IN_GRADE_LADDER_PGM_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_GRADE_LADDER_PGM_ID
• BEN_ASG_IN_LEGAL_ENTITY_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_LEGAL_ENTITY_ID
• BEN_ASG_IN_LEGISLATION_CODE
• BEN_ASG_IO_LEGISLATION_CODE
• BEN_ASG_IN_MANAGER_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IO_MANAGER_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IN_PERMANENT_TEMPORARY_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IO_PERMANENT_TEMPORARY_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IN_PRIMARY_ASSIGNMENT_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IO_PRIMARY_ASSIGNMENT_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IN_PRIMARY_WORK_RELATION_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IO_PRIMARY_WORK_RELATION_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IN_PRIMARY_WORK_TERMS_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IO_PRIMARY_WORK_TERMS_FLAG
• BEN_ASG_IN_RETIREMENT_DATE
• BEN_ASG_IO_RETIREMENT_DATE
• BEN_ASG_IN_SYSTEM_PERSON_TYPE
• BEN_ASG_IO_SYSTEM_PERSON_TYPE
• BEN_ASG_IN_UNION_ID
• BEN_ASG_IO_UNION_ID

This enhancement allows the usage of formulas in correction mode. That is, it allows you to control the triggering of the life event based on the comparison of the old and new values. For example, you can compare BEN_ASG_IN_ACTION_CODE and BEN_ASG_IO_ACTION_CODE.

Steps to Enable

You don't need to do anything to enable this feature.

Key Resources

For more information see the Fast Formula Guide: Person Change Causes Life Event topic in the Administering Fast Formula guide.

Use Guided Journeys for Benefits

This enhancement lets you configure help information such as videos, text, and documents for the Benefits pages and sections within the page. For example, you can add a video on how to designate dependents and beneficiaries to the Before You Enroll Page.

The participants can launch the video from the page when they need guidance.  You can configure to add guided journeys to the following pages in Self-Service Benefits:

• Before You Enroll: Page-level and section-level guided journey.
• Benefits Election Overview: Page-level guided journey.

You can see the Guide Me icon on the pages and sections where the guided journey is enabled:

Guide Me icon

Implementation Considerations:

• Review your organization's existing communication strategy to determine where and how the guided journeys can fit.
• Review the existing communication sources and navigation.
• Determine where to strategically place additional information in the application.

This enhancement helps administrators to configure helpful information such as videos, text, and documents in strategic locations to best serve the employees.

Steps to Enable

Here’s how you enable a guided journey in Benefits:

1. Create a checklist template to set up and add tasks that are relevant to the guided journey.
2. Use Transaction Design Studio to map the checklist template with the Benefits pages or sections. You select the tasks that you want to display at the page header or section header region.

Note: Ensure that the ORA_PER_GUIDED_JOURNEYS_ENABLED profile option is enabled to support the guided journey.

Create A Checklist Template

A checklist is a group of tasks that you need to complete when an action occurs. For instance, tasks that you need to perform when you configure participant dependent or beneficiary designations at different levels. You create and maintain checklist tasks within a template using the Checklist Templates task in Setup and Maintenance. A checklist can be automatically allocated when an action occurs, or you can allocate it manually.

Checklist Templates

Here’s how you create a checklist template and add tasks under it:

1. On the Home page, click My Client Groups, Show More.
2. Click Checklist Templates under Employment.
3. Click Create and follow the prompts. Ensure that you select Guided Journey as the Category.
4. Select the Status of the checklist as Active in the General tab.
5. Click Add Task in the Tasks tab and follow the prompts. You can only use tasks of the type Analytics, Document, Embedded Learning, External URL, Manual Task, Questionnaire, Report, and Video in a guided journey.
6. Set up the title of the guided journey in the Message tab.
7. Click Save and Close.
8. If needed, repeat step 5 to add more tasks.
9. Use the Preview button to see how the task appears in the Benefits pages.

Map Template with the Benefits Pages and Sections

Here’s how you map the checklist template with the Benefits pages and sections:

1. Create a Sandbox with Structure and Page Composer as tools and launch it.
2. On the Home page, click My Client Groups, HCM Experience Design Studio.
3. Select Before You Enroll from the Action list and click Add.
4. Add the basic details.
5. On the Show or Hide Regions section of the Edit Rule page, click the edit icon next to the Page-level guided journey configuration.

Page-Level Guided Journey Configuration

6. Search for the checklist that you have set up, select the checklist, and click OK.
7. Select the checklist tasks that you want to map to the Before You Enroll page from the Task list.

Task Selection

8. Repeat steps 5-7 for the following sections too. Note: If the Personal Info attribute is not enabled by default, you need to make it Visible from the Available Attributes section of the Edit Rule page.
   • People to Cover
   • Beneficiary Organizations
   • Personal Info
9. Click Save and Close.
10. Select Benefits Election Overview from the Action list and click Add.
11. Repeat steps 4-7 to set up the page-level guided journey configuration.
12. Click Save and Close.

Key Resources

For more information, refer to these resources on the Oracle Help Center:

• Chapter Checklists and Journeys in the Using Global Human Resources guide
• Chapter Checklists and Journeys in the Implementing Global Human Resources guide

For more information on contextual journeys, see Quick Guide: Contextual and Guided Journeys on Customer Cloud Connect.

• Use Transaction Design Studio to Configure Field Displays, 
• Transaction Design Studio -What It Is and How It Works (Document ID 2504404.1)

Access Requirements

• You must be granted the Manage Journey (PER_MANAGE_CHECKLIST_TEMPLATE_PRIV) function privilege to work on checklist templates.
• You must be granted the Access HCM Common Components function privilege to view guided journeys on the transaction pages.

Cancel Pending Actions in Self-Service Benefits

Participants can now resolve the pending actions in the self-service page when they can’t provide the certificates for various reasons. You can use the Declare Missing Certification button in the Pending Actions page to resolve pending actions. Pending certification can lead to suspension of coverage. The message and button appear on the Confirmation pages also.

The Declare Missing Certification Button

The Declare Missing Certification button appears only when:

1. The life event is in started state.
2. The effective date is within the enrollment window.
3. The pending certification is just for the participant. The button doesn’t appear for the designation action items for dependent or beneficiary or for the missing date of birth or social security number action items.
4. Document of records is configured for certification and the document is not uploaded.

This feature simplifies the process of clearing suspensions and allows employees to declare that they can't provide a certificate.  Previously, a Benefits administrator had to involve and clear such suspensions.

Steps to Enable

Here’s how you allow participants to declare that they can't provide a certificate:

1. On the Home Page, click Benefits Administration > Plan Configuration.
2. In the Tasks panel drawer, click Self-Service Configuration.
3. Select the Allow employees to declare that they can't provide a certificate check box in the Pending Actions section.
4. Click Save.

Access Requirements

•  
• Employee
• Benefits Manager
• Benefits Specialist
• Benefits Administrator

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations for Benefits

REPLACED OR REMOVED FEATURES

From time to time, Oracle replaces existing Cloud service features with new features or removes existing features. When a feature is replaced the older version may be removed immediately or at a future time. As a best practice, you should use the newer version of a replaced feature as soon as the newer version is available.

Product	Removed Feature	Target Removal	Replacement Feature	Replaced In	Additional Information
Benefits	Benefits Service Center and Employee Self-Service Classic Pages	23A	Responsive Pages		See Decommission Notice below.

_________________________

Decommission Notice

In Update 23A of Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Resources Benefits, we will decommission the classic user interfaces of Benefits Service Center and Employee Self-Service

The redesigned HCM responsive user experience has been available and promoted as our standard since the 18B release. If you’re still using the older HCM classic simplified pages, you must begin transitioning to the HCM responsive pages. The older pages won’t be supported any longer starting with Update 23A.

For more information on the responsive features, see the HCM Common What's New for Update 18B and 18C.

The redesigned features are under a heading named Redesigned User Experience and have groupings by product. Features that have come out from 19A onwards are in the Benefits What's New.

For consolidated generic setup information, refer to the My Oracle Support document HCM Responsive User Experience Setup Information (Document ID 2399671.1)

Highlights of the Responsive Pages:

• The employee and manager self-service pages are redesigned to look and behave the same on desktop and mobile devices. The new look and feel of the pages provides you a better experience.
• The pages and messages look more modern and use simpler and more conversational language so that you can more easily read and understand content across all devices. 
• The pages are clutter-free and clean and display only those fields that are required to complete the task. 
• You can personalize the pages and add more fields that are hidden by default. For more information, see Use Transaction Design Studio to Configure Field Displays and Displayed and Hidden Responsive Benefits Fields.

_________________________

KNOWN ISSUES / MAINTENANCE PACK SPREADSHEETS

Oracle publishes a Known Issues document for every Update to make customers are aware of potential problems they could run into and the document provides workarounds if they are available.

Oracle also publishes Maintenance Pack and Statutory Maintenance Pack documentation of bugs that are fixed in the monthly or statutory patching.

To review these documents you must have access to My Oracle Support:

Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud Functional Known Issues and Maintenance Packs (Document ID 1554838.1)