What's New

January Maintenance Pack for 23D

Revision History

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

Overview

HAVE AN IDEA?

We’re here and we’re listening. If you have a suggestion on how to make our cloud services even better then go ahead and tell us. There are several ways to submit your ideas, for example, through the Ideas Lab on Oracle Customer Connect. Wherever you see this icon after the feature name it means we delivered one of your ideas.

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.

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.

Feature Summary

HCM Common

HCM Common Architecture

This section covers features used across all HCM Applications.

Attribute-level Event Conditions

You can define event conditions for the following entities (objects) using the simplified, attribute-level conditions builder.

• Address
• Assignment Supervisor
• Assignment Work Measure
• Contingent Worker Assignment
• Citizenship
• Contract
• Drivers License
• Email Address
• Employee Assignment
• Ethnicity
• National Identifier
• Pending Worker Assignment
• Passport
• Period of Service
• Person
• Person Legislative Information
• Person Name
• Phone
• Religion
• Visa Permit
• Work Pattern Assignment
• Work Pattern Break
• Work Pattern Shift
• Work Schedule Assignment
• Work Schedule Exception

Specify the entity for which the events should be triggered and the attributes that should trigger these events, as per your requirements. Change of value of any of the selected attributes triggers an event. Change of value of an entity, such as creation, update, and deletion can trigger an event for the consumers to process.

Define events for consumers by choosing the required attributes for the enhanced set of supported entities.

Steps to Enable

To manage event conditions:

1. Enter the configuration sandbox.
2. Go to HCM Experience Design Studio.
3. Go to Event Conditions.

Event Conditions Page

On the Event Conditions page, you can:

• Define and edit new events with simplified, attribute-level conditions.

• View and disable the previously created event conditions.

• View the read-only, system-level event conditions.

Tips And Considerations

Before creating any event condition, refer to the consuming product documentation.

Any user-defined event conditions created prior to the release 23D will continue to work, but you can’t edit them. However, you can deactivate them when they’re no longer required.

Access Requirements

The Event Conditions page is secured with the function privilege, HRC_EVT_COND_CONFIG_PRIV, which allows configuration of event conditions. This privilege is granted by default to the Human Capital Management Application Administrator job role. No data security is required for this page.

Update 23D

Revision History

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

Overview

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

• Release Updates (23A, 23B, 23C, and 23D)

• 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

HCM Common

HCM Common Architecture

This section covers features used across all HCM Applications.

Work Relationship Events for Employee Assignment Atom Feed

You can configure the employee assignment (empassignment) Atom feed to include assignment changes that are triggered by these work relationship-related events:

• New hire
• Termination
• Work relationship cancellation

Streamline your integrations by enabling work relationship-related events in the employee assignment Atom feed, and eliminating the need to subscribe to work relationship-related feeds, depending on your specific integration requirements. Assignment attributes are available directly in the employee assignment feed, without having to make additional REST calls from the work relationship feed entries.

Steps to Enable

1. Go to Setup and Maintenance > Manage HCM Atom Feeds.
   1. Select the Person's Assignment Changed Atom feed.
   2. Click the Other Events tab.
   3. Review and select the events of your choice.
   4. Save your changes.
2. Go to Setup and Maintenance > Manage Administrator Profile Value.
   1. Search for the ORA_HRC_ATOM_OTHER_EVENTS_IN_ASG profile option using the profile option code.
   2. Set the profile value to Y to make the configuration effective.
   3. Save your changes.

Employee Assignment Feed Configuration

Key Resources

For more information, see the REST API for Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM guide on the Oracle Help Center.

HCM Common

This section covers features used across all HCM Applications. For more information on HCM Common information check out the Using Common Features for HCM guide, located in the Oracle Help Center.

Extending HCM Redwood Pages Using Visual Builder Studio (VB Studio)

HCM Redwood Applications have a comprehensive set of features designed to meet a wide range of business requirements. In addition, HCM's flexibility enables you to customize and adapt the application to align with your business or individual requirements.

This document is a comprehensive guide to using VB Studio in the context of HCM Redwood applications. Refer to the official VB Studio documentation for detailed instructions on using specific VB Studio features. Our primary objectives are to:

• Help you understand how to effectively leverage VB Studio functionalities within the HCM Redwood application, thereby streamlining your experience.
• Guide you on how to identify the extensible elements of a page and the corresponding tools to use.

Glossary

Here are some terms to familiarize yourself with before you start extending your pages:

• Express Mode: A simple-to-use interface in VB Studio where functional administrators are presented with only the capabilities they need to tailor Oracle Cloud Applications pages.

• Business Rules: A feature of VB Studio used to control the display of regions and fields on a page. It's the Redwood equivalent of Transaction Design Studio for Responsive pages.

• Built-in Rule: An Oracle-delivered rule, including localization rules, available for a page. It corresponds to the Delivered Rules in Transaction Design Studio.

• Extension Rule: A rule created within your extension. It corresponds to the Custom Rules in Transaction Design Studio.

• VB Studio: Oracle Visual Builder Studio (VB Studio) is a robust application development platform designed to effectively plan and manage work throughout all stages of the app development lifecycle.

• UI Element: An action button, tab, filter, sort by, or any other element of a Redwood page that can be extended.

• Constant: A property value used in the HCM application to control page behavior. The property value can be modified by a functional administrator at design time in VB Studio. Each constant has a designated name, description, and type established by Oracle, which can be a number, string, boolean, or array, depending on the use of the constant. To understand the role of a constant on a page and the possible values it can take, refer to the constant label and description.

• Dynamic Container: An extendable page component used to organize content such as adding or reordering new content, both factory and user content, in a structured manner.

• Customization and Extension: Changes made by a functional administrator at design time that apply at the site level.

• Personalization: Changes made by end users to their pages at runtime that apply only to themselves and persist for that user each time they log in to the application. Personalization includes changes based on user behavior (such as changing the width of a column in a table), changes the user chooses to save, such as search parameters, or composer-based personalization, where an end user can redesign aspects of a page.

• HCM Experience Design Studio: The HCM Application extensibility tool to extend Responsive pages, which includes Transaction Design Studio and Autocomplete.

• Transaction Design Studio: A feature of the HCM Experience Design Studio used to control the display of Responsive pages.

• Autocomplete Rules: A feature in the HCM Experience Design Studio used to default and validate data in Responsive pages.

• Advanced Mode: An advanced interface in VB Studio where functional administrators are presented with all the features to tailor Oracle Cloud Applications.

Introducing Express Mode in VB Studio: New Tool to Extend Your HCM Redwood Pages

HCM leverages the new Express mode in VB Studio to empower your business users to customize HR processes and ensure data quality.

1. Use Business Rules, which is the Redwood equivalent to Transaction Design Studio (TDS) for Responsive pages, to:

• Leverage delivered best practices, or create your own rules based on various criteria, such as country and business unit.
• Make fields and regions required or optional, read-only, or editable, and show or hide fields and regions depending on specific criteria.

2. Use the various delivered constants to customize your Redwood pages to best fit your specific business needs, such as hide the evaluation panel in Connections.

You can learn about Express mode terms and key concepts in this overview.

Express Mode vs. Experience Design Studio Combined with Page Composer

Here is a comparison between the new Express mode in VB Studio and Experience Design Studio combined with Page Composer. Our goal is to empower you to make informed decisions and embrace the new possibilities that HCM Redwood Application unlocks for your business.

The new Express mode in VB Studio presents an opportunity to apply the same changes you previously made in HCM Experience Design Studio and Page Composer, while also introducing a host of amazing new features. Here are the capabilities available in this release.

NOTE: Transaction Design Studio, Autocomplete Rules, and Page Composer only apply to responsive pages and can't be used in the context of Redwood pages.

(1) HCM Experience Design Studio = TDS + Autocomplete, (2)xDS equivalent in VB Studio

What’s Extensible in Redwood Pages Using Express Mode

The types of modifications you can make to an HCM Redwood page in VB Studio depend on the specific page you're modifying. The changes listed below may not be universally available for all HCM Redwood pages.

NOTE: that all the setup tasks you use to configure your responsive pages, whether global or specific to a product such as Manage Common Lookup, Manage Person Name Style, and Manage Descriptive Flexfields, remain unchanged unless otherwise specified by the product documentation.

Control Field and Region Displays with Business Rules

Business Rules, similar to Transaction Design Studio for Responsive pages, allows you to:

• Maintain valid data and ensures data quality by reducing users' errors.
• Build more efficient HR processes that end users can trust by offering a simple user experience, without having to understand the complexity of HR policies.
• Make work faster, easier, and more manageable by seeing only the relevant, most appropriate content that in turn drives engagement and productivity.

Business Rules enables you to apply similar changes that you previously made in Transaction Design Studio and Page Composer, when required, while also introducing the new capability to make a field read-only. Here is a recap of what you can control at the field and region level.

With numerous usability improvements compared to Transaction Design Studio, Business Rules offers a user-friendly extensibility tool, enabling HR professionals and administrators to make changes without the need for extensive programming skills. Now, let's highlight some of the differentiating features of Business Rules.

If the Business Rules tab isn't available, it means that HCM hasn’t yet enabled the feature for the page. 

Customize Your HR Processes Using Constants

In VB Studio, HCM leverages the concept of constants, which functional administrators use to extend the functionality of HCM Redwood pages. These constants play a crucial role in the extensibility and are used for various purposes, such as reordering tabs in Journeys, showing or hiding panels in Connections, or configuring Guided Journeys. Ability to write expression to conditionally render an element, such as displaying the person pronoun for specific countries only, is supported in Express mode.

You can access the list of available constants for a particular page by navigating to the Constants tab in the Designer. If the Constants tabs displays the message "We didn't find any extendable constants on this page", it means that HCM hasn’t yet delivered constants for the page.

It's worth noting that HCM has already delivered hundreds of constants across various Redwood pages, ensuring a diverse range of options to tailor the application to your specific needs.

• Adding your own content to a page.
• Adding your own content to a region.
• Configuring Guided Journeys.
• Enabling Nudges.
• Controlling UI elements such as sort by, tabs, or colors, even field display in some cases.
• Reordering regions.

Customize Your HR Processes using Dynamic Container

Dynamic containers can be utilized in a page for two main purposes:

• Add your own content: With dynamic containers, you can add various types of content to customize your HCM application according to your specific needs. Common examples of content include text, images, forms, videos, and more.
• Reorder regions: Dynamic containers allow you to rearrange the layout of regions on the page, providing flexibility in organizing the content and optimizing the user experience.

It's important to note that these are the only two scenarios where you'd need to navigate to the Advanced mode to extend your page. Working with dynamic containers may require users with some technical skills.

If a dynamic container isn't available, that means that HCM hasn’t enabled the feature for the page.

This enhancement enables organizational agility to swiftly address your evolving business requirements.

Steps to Enable

Leverage the Visual Builder Studio to expose your applications. To learn more about extending your application using Visual Builder, visit Oracle Help Center > your apps service area of interest > Books > Configuration and Extension.

Before you can start working with VB Studio, a systems administrator must set as by following these instructions.

Tips And Considerations

• Extensibility has been turned off for any dynamic components used in the HCM Redwood pages. Also, you must remove any change done in the layout prior to Update 23D.
• The new page doesn’t yet have support for Autocomplete Rules. Autocomplete Rules isn't supported for the new Pending Workers page rebuilt in Redwood. All rules built on the underlying business objects for this page must be disabled when you enable the Redwood page. Note that disabling rules on a business object will disable Autocomplete for both the Redwood and Responsive pages.

Key Resources

To start customizing your Oracle Cloud Application in VB Studio, follow the instructions here.  As you’re working, you may find it helpful to refer to Extend Oracle Cloud Applications in Visual Builder Express Mode.

Adding your own content to a page may require some technical skills to use a dynamic container in Advanced mode. Instructions for doing so are here.

Access Requirements

You must be granted the Human Capital Management Application Administrator role.

Create Filtered Lists in HCM Applications

Create lists with custom-defined criteria containing attributes, operators, and other filters. You can save the lists you create as system lists that are available to all users or make it a personal list that’s only available to you.

Lists are available as a quick action in the My Client Groups tab, Data Exchange page.

You can edit, delete, and duplicate existing lists. You can also search for the lists you’ve already created.

Lists includes these components:

• Object: This defines the category of elements that the list returns. For example, Workers or Learning Items.
• Subscriber: This defines the application that the list is used in. For example, use a list to return learning items within the Skills Advisor application. You can create multiple lists to be used with the same subscriber.

• Conditions: These define the criteria based on which the list will return results. You can build a list that uses a criteria set with multiple conditions and operators to suit your business needs.

Note:

Lists are dynamic in nature that return different results based on current data. For example, if you create a list of workers with criteria to return information about contingent workers, the results of the list today can be different from the results of the list a month later. This is because the number of contingent workers might be different a month later.

Create a list with custom-defined criteria and use it for specific tasks. For example, create a list of new employees and assign an onboarding journey to all of them easily.

Steps to Enable

Provide the required access before using the feature. Details are in the Access #Requirements section.

Using the Filtered Lists feature requires the following functional privilege: HRC_MANAGE_HCM_LISTS.

Filtered lists are available as a quick action under My Client Groups / Data Exchange.

Access Requirements

Users need the HRC_MANAGE_HCM_LISTS functional privilege to access and use the Lists feature.

HCM Data Loader

HCM Data Loader provides a flexible and efficient method of bulk loading business object data for data-migration and on-going incremental updates to Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud.

Business Object Enhancements

Extend your data loading capabilities with these new and enhanced business objects:

NEW BUSINESS OBJECTS

Global HR - Workforce Structures

Workforce Management

.

BUSINESS OBJECTS WITH NEW ATTRIBUTES

These objects have introduced new attributes:

Absence Management

Absence Entry (PersonAbsenceEntry.dat)

.

Global HR - Checklists

Allocated Checklist (AllocateChecklist.dat)

.

Checklist Template (Checklist.dat)

.

Global HR - Person

Person Contact (Contact.dat)

.

Global HR - Worker

Worker (Worker.dat)

.

Global HR - Work Structures

Job (Job.dat)

.

Global Payroll - Costing

Cost Allocation (CostAllocationV3.dat)

Cost Allocation Account (CostAllocationAccountV3.dat)

.

Global Payroll - HCM Events

Event Group (EventGroup.dat)

Event Action (EventAction.dat)

.

Global Payroll - Person Information

Payroll Absence Record (PayrollAbsenceRecord.dat)

.

OTHER BUSINESS OBJECT ENHANCEMENTS

Global Payroll - Payments

External Bank Account (ExternalBankAccount.dat)

Recruiting

Candidate Job Application (CandidateJobApplication.dat)

Extend your bulk-loading capabilities with these new and extended objects available with HCM Data Loader and HCM Spreadsheet Data Loader.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

Use the View Business Objects task to review and download the latest business object information.

Configure Role Access to HCM Data Loader Business Objects

With this enhancement, users can configure which product areas and/or business objects can be bulk loaded by a job role using HCM Data Loader.

• Access the all new HCM Data Loader Business Object Access task on the HCM Data Loader functional area in Setup and Maintenance and select a role under Job and Abstract Roles.

HCM Data Loader Business Object Access: By Role

• For the selected role, under Assigned Business Objects section, click Assign.
  • The following role – business object mappings are available:
    • Assign an individual business object 
    • Assign all business objects in a product area
    • Assign all business objects that don’t load security-related data
    • Assign all business objects, including those that load security-related data

Assigned Business Objects

With the role-based configuration of business objects and product areas, you can restrict which business objects user roles can use for bulk loading, providing users access to the tools needed to fulfill their roles.

Steps to Enable

To use this feature, you'll have to:

• Create custom user roles using the HCM Data Load duty role to grant HDL access.
• Assign the business objects and product areas that users can bulk load data for.
• Enable the HCM Data Loader Business Objects Access functionality on the HCM Data Loader functional area in Setup and Maintenance by overriding the Enable Configuration of Business Object Access parameter using the Configure HCM Data Loader task.

Tips And Considerations

Considerations for Loading Security Related Data:

Overriding the Restrict Access to Security Related Business Objects parameter in the Configure HCM Data Loader page enforces that a user needs to be granted the Load HCM Security Data privilege in order to load data using a business object that loads security-related data.

Payroll flow task submission of HCM Data Loader:

If you currently use payroll flow tasks to initiate HCM Data Loader after a transformation formula or an HCM Extract, enabling role-based access to business objects will cause HCM Data Loader to fail. The current payroll flow tasks submit HCM Data Loader as the elevated user, so the security configuration of the submitting user can’t be evaluated. New payroll flow tasks will be delivered shortly.

Key Resources

For additional information, refer:

• HCM Data Loader Configuration Parameters
• How You Enable Access to HCM Data Loader

Data Disposal Support for Additional Parameters and SET param Overrides

You can now set additional runtime parameters to override the default HCM Data Loader values using the newly introduced Review Parameters collapsible section in the Submit Process page on the Remove Person Information task.

To do this:

• Navigate to the Remove Person Information task in the Data Exchange work area and click Submit Process
• On the Submit Process page, provide values for Process Name, Template, Person Numbers and select Remove as the Process Mode
• The following parameters are displayed in the Review Parameters section:
  • Delete Source File
  • Maximum Concurrent Threads for Import
  • Maximum Concurrent Threads for Load
  • Run Post Processes
• Set the parameters and click Submit.

If the Run Post Processes parameter was deselected while clicking Submit, then a warning message is displayed to indicate that post processes, including Oracle Search Bulk Ingestion, will not be executed for this Data Disposal process.

              Review Parameters

This enhancement allows the user the flexibility to:

• Run the Data Disposal processes with higher or lower threads than the defaulted values based on the volume of data processed or the time window available for completing the processing.
• Override the execution of post processes and defer its run only at the end of all the queued data disposal processes.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

For additional information refer: Remove Person Information

HCM Spreadsheet Data Loader

HCM Spreadsheet Data Loader provides a flexible and efficient method of bulk loading business object data for data-migration and on-going incremental updates to Oracle Human Capital Management Cloud.

Spreadsheet Business Object Enhancements

You can now share templates based on these objects with your business users:

Talent Management

• Content Items Relationship

Business users can use HCM Spreadsheet Data Loader to securely bulk-load Oracle HCM Cloud data.

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

HCM Data Loader help guide topics

• How You Associate a User Name with a Data Upload
• How You Assign Access to a Spreadsheet Template

HCM Extract

HCM Extracts provide a method for extracting data from your HCM applications that can be used for interfacing data to another source or extracting data to integrate reporting across systems.

Data Diagnostics Report

Use the Data Diagnostics report to identify the anomalies in the extracted data that prevent the usage of generated XML data by publishing tools. You can generate a Data Diagnostics report for a specific instance of an Extract Definition. Other than XML transformation status and issues, the report points out the parsing errors and their location to help you save troubleshooting time.

The data diagnostic summary report contains:

1. Transformation details such as:

• Instance name and library used
• Extract Definition ID and name
• XML tag name of main block and database item (DBI)
• Number of processed and error records
• Status of the transformation, with start and completion time

2. Problem descriptions such as:

• Invalid characters in the output
• Empty DBI tag name, without threading DBI
• Error details listing the Object Action ID number, its location, and tag name

To submit a Data Diagnostics process set and download the data diagnostics file of an Extract instance:

1. Click Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes.
2. On the Scheduled Processes Overview page, click Schedule New Process.
3. Leave the type as Job, search and select the Extracts Process Diagnostics Report process, and click OK.

Extracts Data Diagnostics Report Process

4. In the Process Details dialog box, in the Basic Options section, select:
   • Scope of the process as Data Diagnostics
   • Scope value as Extract instance name

Process Details

5. Define the schedule, output, and notifications for the process set, as you’d do for any scheduled process.
6. Set any other options and click Submit.
7. Copy the process ID from the confirmation message and click OK.
8. Search for the process ID and click its record in the Search Results section.  
9. Click the attachment link in the Process Details tab to view and download the data diagnostics file. 

Steps to Enable

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

Key Resources

Refer to the Extracts Process Diagnostics Report chapter within the HCM Extracts guide located in the Oracle Help Center.

Inactive Extract Definition Data

Enhance your database space utilization and improve the efficiency of extract runs by making unwanted and obsolete extract definitions inactive.

All the data extracted earlier by the inactive extract definitions will be purged with this new feature.

Steps to Enable

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

IMPORTANT Actions and Considerations for HCM Common

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.

_________________________

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)

Controlled Availability for HCM Common

The following is a list of Controlled Availability features that are being offered by our Controlled Availability Program.

NOTE: These features are not generally available for all customers at this time. These are only available through the Controlled Availability Program and will require approval to become a part of the features program. To be a part of these programs you will be required to participate in testing and providing feedback. Some programs may require other participation as well.

Not to worry if you don't have to time to be a part of these early stage programs. You can uptake this feature when it is generally available for all customers. When these features are available for all customers you will see the features under their product headings as usual.

We invite you all to browse through the list of features to see if there are any features you are interested in implementing in advance of the features scheduled release. The table below will provide information on signing up for features. Please sign up soon, as these programs have limited availability and some are designed for specific types of customers.

The table below gives you a brief description of the features available and how to sign up. Some features are bigger than others, so for more information there may be a What's New describing the feature in more detail below this table.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas as you participate the Controlled Availability programs!