Update 20A

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	Feature	Notes
29 MAY 2020	Updated Digital Certificate for Oracle ADF Desktop Integration Add-In	Updated document. Delivered feature in update 20A.
20 DEC 2019		Created initial document.

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update, and describes any tasks you might need to perform for the update. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable or begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.

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.

Optional Uptake of New Features (Opt In)

Oracle Cloud Applications delivers new updates every quarter. This means every three months you'll receive new functionality to help you efficiently and effectively manage your business.  Some features are delivered Enabled meaning they are immediately available to end users. Other features are delivered Disabled meaning you have to take action to make available. Features delivered Disabled can be activated for end users in a couple of ways:

Access the Opt In page from the New Features Work Area

1. Click the Navigator, and then click New Features (under the My Enterprise heading)
2. On the New Features page, select the offering that includes new features you’d like to review
3. Click Go to Opt In for any feature you want to opt in
4. On the Edit Features page, select the Enable option for the feature, and then click Done

or...  Access the Opt In page from the Setup and Maintenance Work Area

1. Click the Navigator, and then click Setup and Maintenance
2. On the Setup page, select your offering, and then click Change Feature Opt In
3. On the Opt In page, click the Edit Features icon for any area that includes features you want to opt in
4. On the Edit Features page, select the Enable option for any feature you want to opt in to. If the Enable column includes an Edit icon instead of a check box, then click the icon, select your feature options, and click Save and Close. 
5. Click Done.

Opt In Expiration

Occasionally, features delivered Disabled via Opt In may be enabled automatically in a future update. This is known as an Opt In Expiration. If your cloud service has any Opt In Expirations you will see a related tab in this document. Click on that tab to see when the feature was originally delivered Disabled, and when the Opt In will expire, potentially automatically enabling the feature. You can also click here to see features with Opt In Expirations across all Oracle Cloud Applications.

Feature Summary

User Experience

Avoid Assigning Approvals to Specific Users

Usually your approval rules won’t result in assigning workflow transactions to users who would be direct beneficiaries of getting those specific transactions approved. But, in some cases, you might want to take an extra step to seal up any loopholes in the rules, for example, to make sure people don’t approve their own transactions. You can prevent approval workflow assignments to users based on task attributes. When you configure workflow tasks, select one or more task attributes that represent the users not to assign the task to, for example the preparer for expense reports. These attributes can now be read from the task payload. Previously, you could only do this for the task creator, using the Skip creator for Approval List check box. Only actionable notifications are skipped for these users. FYI notifications are not.

In BPM Worklist, go to the Task Configuration tab, select the workflow task to configure, and open the Configuration subtab. You can find this feature in the Prohibit User Self-Approval section.

1. Select the Prohibit self-approval by users named in these payload attributes check box.
2. Select the task attributes that contain the IDs of the users whom you would like to skip. You can specify more than one.
3. Select the Reassign approvals to those users' managers check box to have the approval sent to the manager of the user who is skipped. If you don’t select this, the prohibited user is simply left out of the list of approvers.

You can also do this setup for specific participants in the task, if it's not an FYI task. In the Assignees subtab, select the participant, click Advanced, and find the same Prohibit User Self-Approval section.

Steps to Enable

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

Tips And Considerations

• Unless you've been having issues with users approving their own transactions, you likely don't need to use this feature.

• When selecting the task attributes containing the users to skip, make sure the attributes would return user IDs at run time. These are the IDs that users enter to sign in to the application.

• Any settings you used to have in the Skip creator for Approval List check box will automatically be carried forward into this new feature.

Key Resources

• Prevent Assigning Approvals to Specific Users

Role Information

To use this feature, you need a role that lets you perform administrative tasks in BPM Worklist.

Updated Digital Certificate for Oracle ADF Desktop Integration Add-In

You can now download the latest version of the Oracle ADF Desktop Integration add-in, version 5.0.5.2.21020. This new version is digitally signed with a new certificate. If you have installed certificates in the past, you might need to install this new certificate also. For more information, see document ID 2149821.1 on My Oracle Support at https://support.oracle.com.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• My Oracle Support

Extensibility

Create Sandboxes for Testing Only

Using the Unified Sandboxes feature, you can now also create sandboxes for testing purposes only. While creating sandboxes, if you set the Publishable field to No, such sandboxes can never be published.

NOTE: If you create or modify a business object using Application Composer in a sandbox that can't be published, that business object won't be automatically locked. So multiple teams can work on the same business object using different test sandboxes.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Create and Activate Unified Sandboxes
• Object Locking in Application Composer

Expedite Migration by Excluding Business Intelligence Extender Artifacts from Your Migration Set

For faster migration of configurations from the source environment to the target, you can exclude Business Intelligence Extender artifacts from your migration set. To do so, set the Business Intelligence Extender in Configuration Set Migration Disabled profile option to Yes in the target environment. You can specifically use this option for certain product-specific implementations that don't use Business Intelligence Extender.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Migrate Configurations Using Unified Migration
• Set Profile Option Values

Opt In to the User Interface Text Update Feature

To have greater control over your UI text and how it’s edited, you can opt in to the new User Interface Text Update feature.

NOTE: In some implementations, you might have already opted in to this feature in a previous release.

Here’s what you can do using this new user interface:

• Export and import your text for offline translation and modification.
• Select and replace text more easily.
• Edit your text using a more robust user interface.

Steps to Enable

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Multiple Offerings  No Longer Optional From: Update 20B

Key Resources

• Configure Offerings
• Modify Text with User Interface Text Update

Send Email Notifications During Migration

While migrating configurations from the source environment to the target, you can now make sure that specific people are notified after the export, import, apply, and restore processes are completed. To notify people, you need to just provide their email IDs while running these processes. Sending such notifications will enhance your user experience and productivity.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Migrate Configurations Using Unified Migration

Create Automated Regression Tests

You can create automated regression tests against your staging pod by following the set of instructions for Oracle ADF - Runtime Automation Sample Library.

Using this tool you can make better use of the limited testing time before you use your production pod.

Steps to Enable

• Please download the Oracle ADF - Runtime Automation Sample Library
• Once downloaded, review the requirements, installation instructions and test automation development steps in the user guide: Test Automation Oracle JDeveloper Java SE Development Kit Selenium WebDriver

BI Cloud Connector

Inactive and Unavailable BI View Objects (BIVOs) and BIVO Columns for Exclusion from Extraction in BI Cloud Connector

Beginning with update 18B, there are BI View Objects and BI View Object columns that are unavailable or marked inactive in Oracle Applications Cloud. The unavailable and inactive objects and columns must be excluded from BICC extracts.

Steps to Enable

Refer to this link for a list of BIVOs and BIVO columns that are unavailable for extraction using BI Cloud Connector (BICC).

OTBI Metadata Independent Mode for Extraction

In update 19C, BI View Objects may now be extracted in OTBI Metadata Independent Mode.

Oracle Development strongly recommends that you switch your BICC extracts to use OTBI Metadata Independent mode by update 20C.

Steps to Enable

USE THE OTBI METADATA INDEPENDENT MODE

New implementations of BICC in 19C use the feature by default. All Data Stores (BIVOs) are in OTBI Independent Mode (OTBI Metadata dependent option is deselected).

NOTE: The mode for all BIVOs in a job can be managed either at the Job or the BIVO level using the Manage Jobs Console in BICC. All BIVOs default to OTBI Independent Mode when using the Manage Jobs feature. It's recommended to use the Manage Jobs functionality instead of using the Manage Offering and Data Stores option to manage the extract mode of the BIVOs.

Existing BICC implementations with BIVOs delivered prior to 19C retain their configuration with OTBI Metadata Dependent mode. Before update 20C, you must switch these BIVOs to use the OTBI Metadata Independent mode and test and validate your integration using the new mode.

Key Resources

• Update 19C: Introducing OTBI Metadata Independent Mode Using BI Cloud Connector (BICC)

Reporting and Analytics

Executing BI Answers Direct Database Query Is Disabled

To protect data security and system performance, Direct Database Query is disabled. As advised, you should review and migrate Direct Database Query analyses to use either Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) subject areas or BI Publisher before the 20A update.

After the update, BI Administrators can no longer execute analyses created using Direct Database Query. If you click a direct database query analysis, you’ll receive a message: “Starting with 20A Update, Direct Database Query option in BI Answers is no longer available. Please create reports with OTBI subject areas or BI Publisher.”

This change doesn’t affect creation or modification of BI Publisher SQL data models. You can execute BI Publisher reports.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

• Refer to OTBI subject area guides, available reports posted on the OTBI Help Landing Page (available from the Help link), and other product documentation to use OTBI best practices for reporting.