Introducing My Microsoft Copilot Agent for Oracle ERP & HCM Metadata

Earlier, I shared a blog post detailing a Python-based CLI tool that leveraged Oracle Cloud HCM metadata and generative AI to provide SQL generation, metadata explanation, and table join suggestions. Building on that foundation, I’ve now brought the experience directly into Microsoft 365 using a Copilot Agent integrated with SharePoint.

This new solution allows users to interact naturally with metadata from Oracle ERP and HCM—without ever leaving the Microsoft ecosystem.

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🧠 What This Copilot Agent Does

This Copilot Agent acts as a metadata consultant within your Microsoft 365 environment. It enables:

• Natural language discovery of relevant Oracle Cloud tables and columns
• Contextual SQL generation based on business terms
• Join recommendations using known key fields like person_id, assignment_id, etc.
• Explanations of tables, columns, and relationships
• Starter query generation for BI Publisher reports

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📁 Why CSV Metadata Format?

During development, I found that Microsoft Copilot currently does not support JSON-based data sources for grounding

As a result, I converted my metadata files to CSV format to ensure compatibility.

This included structured metadata for tables and columns sourced from both Oracle ERP and HCM Cloud.

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🤖 Copilot Agent Instructions

Agent Purpose:

You are an intelligent enterprise metadata consultant designed to assist Oracle ERP and HCM users.
You use structured metadata stored in SharePoint to help users explore, understand, and query Oracle Cloud Applications datasets.

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Behavioral Instructions (Copilot Agent):

Understand the Metadata:
Use metadata stored in the provided SharePoint folder:

ERP and HCM Tables Metadata

• Table_Metadata.csv: Contains table-level descriptions and possible usage context.
• Columns_Metadata.csv Contain schema-level information, including table name, column name, and column descriptions.

First load the Table_Metadata.csv, then load the Columns_Metadata files.
Use the shared table_Id to join columns to their corresponding tables.

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Tasks You Can Perform:

• Suggest which tables or columns are most relevant to a user's query
• Generate optimized SQL queries based on natural language prompts
• Recommend joins using shared fields such as person_id, assignment_id, etc.
• Explain what a specific table or column is used for in business terms
• Summarize metadata for one or more objects when asked to “explain” or “describe”
• Help build starter queries for Oracle BI Publisher (BIP) reports
• Support semantic search (e.g., a search for "payroll balances" should find related metadata even if it’s not an exact match)
• Act as an expert Oracle Cloud ERP and HCM analyst and developer, capable of solving advanced metadata questions and building queries based on complex requirements

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How to Complete the Tasks:

• Always refer to metadata found in the provided SharePoint files
• Never fabricate or guess metadata
• If no matching result is found, say: “I could not find relevant metadata for your request based on the provided files.”
• If the user provides multiple keywords (e.g., “payroll, salary”), treat them as individual context terms
• Scan for matches across both table names and descriptions and column descriptions
• Use exact column name and table name matches where possible
• Suggest joins using shared fields such as assignment_id, person_id, location_id
• Prefer documented relationships where available
• When generating SQL, use clear formatting and include comments if needed
• When a user says “HCM only” or “Exclude ERP,” make sure results match
• Clearly state which app (ERP or HCM) an object is part of when helpful
• When asked to return specific fields (e.g., “name, email, location”), find which columns correspond to those descriptions and which tables they belong to
• Ensure final responses are concise, technical, and clearly grounded in real metadata

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⚠️ Known Limitations

While this Copilot Agent adds tremendous value, it still has some important limitations:

• It can hallucinate: If metadata isn’t found due to vague prompts, the agent may fabricate plausible-sounding but incorrect information
• It requires clear prompting: Users get the best results when they use specific, well-structured queries
• File linking is not perfect: Even though metadata is grounded in CSV files, deep linking between them can still pose a challenge

Despite these caveats, the Copilot Agent demonstrates how far we can go by bringing structured enterprise metadata and AI together inside the tools we use every day.

AI Enhances Oracle Cloud HCM Support: Elevating Insight with the Oracle HCM Intel CLI

🤖 Oracle Gen AI + Public HCM Metadata = Limitless Insight

The Oracle HCM Intel CLI Tool is a professional-grade command-line assistant that uses your extracted HCM metadata and combines it with the capabilities of Oracle’s OCI Generative AI service (powered by Cohere) or OpenAI, or the LLM of your choice, giving you intelligent insights relative to HCM data structures. And it's all done securely and locally—no sensitive data leaves your environment.

By referencing public HCM data definitions, this project demonstrates just how powerfully Oracle Gen AI, and other AI offerings, can be applied in the enterprise to support analysts, developers, and architects with tasks such as:

• Generating SQL queries based on natural language
• Suggesting joins between key Oracle HCM tables
• Explaining and optimizing existing SQL
• Creating BI Publisher-ready templates
• Performing semantic metadata searches

👉 Project GitHub: oracle_hcm_intel_cli

👉 Demo: Watch Demo

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🔐 Built With Practical Enterprise Needs in Mind

The tool includes features that any real-world implementation would benefit from:

• Encrypted .env handling using runtime secrets
• Markdown output for reporting or Copilot/Teams usage
• Audit mode for logging what metadata was passed to the LLM
• Modular provider support for OpenAI or Oracle Gen AI
• Interactive prompt chaining for analysts and non-developers

It’s optimized for real users working in real environments—offering flexibility without sacrificing security or precision.

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🛠️ Powered by Oracle Technology, Honoring Oracle’s Vision

This CLI tool is powered by Oracle’s own public documentation and showcases the capabilities of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure’s Generative AI platform. It's a clear example of how AI and metadata can be responsibly applied in the enterprise, especially when building tooling around Oracle’s HCM ecosystem.

💡 Oracle’s Gen AI service is the star of the show here—it brings context, comprehension, and creative query generation to the hands of business users and technical professionals alike.

Earlier this month, I introduced a Metadata Extractor CLI Tool built to programmatically parse Oracle Cloud HCM’s public documentation and extract table and view metadata into JSON format. That foundational tool—available on GitHub at oracle_hcm_metadata_extractor—has enabled this powerful second act: the Oracle HCM Intel CLI.

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🧪 Get Started

1. Extract metadata using: oracle_hcm_metadata_extractor

2. Query and explore with: oracle_hcm_intel_cli

Whether you’re working in HCM data architecture, reporting, or support—this is your AI-powered sidekick.

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I hope this project inspires others to build upon Oracle’s cloud platform and apply Generative AI responsibly. The future of enterprise tooling is intelligent, secure, and deeply integrated—and with Oracle Gen AI, that future is now.

—
Julio @ OracleSpot.net

Supercharging Oracle HCM Research and Support with a CLI Tool to Obtain Structured Documentation Metadata

As an Oracle Cloud HCM customer and practitioner, I frequently rely on the Oracle Cloud Applications Documentation to understand how various tables and views are structured. Whether I’m building BI Publisher queries, supporting Fast Formulas, or troubleshooting integrations, knowing the exact column names and their meanings is essential.

But manually digging through dozens (or hundreds) of HTML pages is time-consuming and repetitive.

So, I decided to automate it in a way that would allow me to have conversations with this data versus clicking through hundreds of pages aimlessly looking for answers.

📌 What I Built

I created a Python-based command-line tool that extracts Oracle's publicly available HCM documentation, regarding tables and views, and outputs structured metadata for tables and views into clean JSON files. This helps streamline research, improve automation, and accelerate troubleshooting for internal support.

Here’s what it does:

• Parses the toc.js file from Oracle’s documentation site to extract all table/view URLs

• Visits each documentation page using a headless browser

• Extracts metadata such as:

  • For Tables: table name, description, details, columns (with data types), primary keys, and indexes

  • For Views: view name, description, details, column names, and SQL query

No more flipping through documentation pages—just clean, structured data ready for analysis or integration into support tools, with many useful use cases including those in the AI landscape.

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🛠️ How It Works

Step 1: Extract Links from toc.js

The Oracle documentation includes a toc.js file which holds all the links to individual table and view pages. The tool first parses that file to build a list of URLs.

python oracle_hcm_cli_tool.py --toc toc.js --csv oracle_links.csv

Step 2: Convert CSV to JSON

For downstream processing, the CSV is converted to a simple JSON array of {name, url} pairs.

python oracle_hcm_cli_tool.py --csv oracle_links.csv --json oracle_links.json

Step 3: Extract Table and View Metadata

The final step launches a headless browser with Playwright and visits each page to extract structured metadata.

python oracle_hcm_cli_tool.py --json oracle_links.json --tables 

oracle_tables.json --views oracle_views.json

Or all three steps in one:

python oracle_hcm_cli_tool.py --toc toc.js --csv oracle_links.csv 

--json oracle_links.json --tables tables.json --views views.json

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📦 Output Format

Here’s what the output looks like.

For Tables (tables.json)

{
  "table_name": "PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F",
  "url": "...",
  "description": "This table stores information about...",
  "details": "Schema: FUSION Object owner: PER Object type: TABLE Tablespace: APPS_TS_TX_DATA",
  "columns": [
    {
      "column_name": "PERSON_ID",
      "data_type": "NUMBER",
      "length": "",
      "precision": "18",
      "not_null": true,
      "description": "System generated surrogate key"
    },
    ...
  ],
  "primary_key": {
    "name": "PER_PEOPLE_F_PK",
    "columns": ["PERSON_ID", "EFFECTIVE_START_DATE", "EFFECTIVE_END_DATE"]
  },
  "indexes": [
    {
      "name": "PER_PEOPLE_F_U1",
      "uniqueness": "Unique",
      "columns": ["BUSINESS_GROUP_ID", "PERSON_NUMBER"]
    }
  ]
}

For Views (views.json)

{
  "view_name": "FAI_DEEP_LINKS_VL",
  "url": "...",
  "description": "This view shows deep link metadata...",
  "details": "Schema: FUSION Object owner: FAI Object type: VIEW",
  "columns": [
    { "column_name": "DEEP_LINK_ID" },
    { "column_name": "DEEP_LINK_CODE" },
    ...
  ],
  "sql_query": "SELECT ... FROM FAI_DEEP_LINKS_B b ..."
}

---

💡 Why This Is Useful

This tool is a game-changer if you:

• Frequently need to understand Oracle's schema to troubleshoot or write custom reports

• Work in integrations, BI, or payroll support and need faster insights

• Want to build dashboards or internal tools that visualize schema metadata

• Need a starting point for building generative AI agents or search interfaces that utilize documentation in order to drive intelligent insights

• This same approach can be followed for Oracle ERP, and other use cases, for Oracle customers

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⚠️ Disclaimer

Disclaimer: 

This tool and blog post are independently created for research, education, and internal productivity enhancement by an Oracle customer. 

All references to Oracle® products and documentation are made strictly for educational and interoperability purposes. 

Oracle, Java, and MySQL are registered trademarks of Oracle and/or its affiliates. 

This tool is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Oracle Corporation.

Metadata shown (such as table names and column names) are extracted from publicly accessible Oracle documentation. 

No proprietary documentation or licensed software is redistributed or reproduced in full.

Always refer to Oracle Cloud Documentation for official and up-to-date content.

---

🧪 Want to Try It?

You can clone the tool and try it for yourself:

https://github.com/TheOwner-glitch/oracle_hcm_metadata_extractor

Happy automating!

Introducing the Oracle HCM Fast Formula Agent – Built with AI to Help You Work Smarter

🚀 Introducing the Oracle HCM Fast Formula Agent – Built with AI to Help You Work Smarter

After months of juggling fast formulas, fielding questions from HR teams, and trying to decode cryptic payroll logic at 2AM, I decided it was time to build something better.

Today, I'm happy to share an open-source project that came from that journey:

👉 Oracle HCM Fast Formula Agent – A smart, simple tool that uses Generative AI to help you generate, validate, explain, and modify Oracle HCM Fast Formulas, and more!

🎥 Check out a quick demo - Watch on Loom

💡 Why I Built It

Working in the Oracle Cloud HCM space, I saw firsthand how challenging it can be to:

• Interpret legacy Fast Formulas written years ago
• Validate logic across hundreds of conditional paths
• Explain formula outcomes to business users
• Generate new formulas based on complex rules — under tight deadlines

And with the rise of AI, I thought: Why not build an assistant that understands Oracle HCM and speaks "formula"?

⚙️ What It Does

With this Flask-based app, you can:

✅ Generate new Fast Formulas from plain-English descriptions
✅ Explain existing formulas in readable, line-by-line language
✅ Validate and suggest corrections for logic/syntax errors
✅ Modify formulas based on user input
✅ Extend the tool with new advanced actions using a plugin system, like the included Summarize advanced action!

It even has a clean admin panel and a dark mode toggle because... well, late-night debugging deserves a good theme.

📦 Plugin Architecture

Want to add your own action like summarize_formula or compare_logic_blocks? Just drop it in the plugins/ folder. No changes to the main app required. It's built for extensibility.

🐳 Docker Ready

Whether you’re developing locally or deploying in the cloud, the app comes with a Dockerfile that runs the app via Gunicorn for production-grade performance.

🔗 Get Started

Clone it, run it, or fork it for your own use:

👉 GitHub: https://github.com/TheOwner-glitch/hcm-fast-formula-agent
📹 Demo: Watch the video

🙌 A Call to the Oracle Community

I built this for consultants, analysts, and developers who need to move fast and support critical Oracle HCM needs in the Fast Formula space, but more importantly to share an example of how AI Powered application development can be compelling and reduce the need for conditional and hardcoded business logic by instead leveraging the power of generative AI  to interpret natural language. If you try it out and find it helpful — or have ideas for improving it — I’d love to collaborate.

Thanks for reading. Now go automate your fast formula headaches away.

— Julio

Leveraging Oracle Cloud’s Generative AI with Cohere: A Hands-On Approach

After days of tinkering and fine-tuning, I'm excited to share something I’ve been working on — OCI Generative AI Cohere Integration with external services. If you're someone who works with AI, Oracle Cloud, or just enjoys diving into new tech, this project might be something you'll find interesting.

What's the Project About?

In short, it's a simple yet powerful integration of Oracle Cloud’s Generative AI service with Cohere's language model by exposing it to external usage in order not to be confined to the chat experience within the OCI console. The goal is to provide an easy-to-use interface for AI-driven responses via a Flask API or function-based approach. Whether you're running the service locally or integrating it into your own applications, this project is meant to be a starting point for building smarter, AI-powered experiences that allow you the flexibility of using your preferred development platform outside of the playground in your Oracle OCI Tenancy.

Why This Project?

If you’re like me, you enjoy playing with new tools but don’t always want to reinvent the wheel every time you build something. That’s why I wanted to simplify integrating Oracle's powerful AI services into everyday applications. The project takes the heavy lifting out of the process and provides a clean, easy-to-use API for interacting with Oracle’s AI models.

But it doesn’t stop there. Whether you're building out something bigger or just playing around with ideas, this project is designed to be flexible and easily extendable.

Here’s What You Get:

• Flask API: If you’re building a web-based application and want easy interaction with the Generative AI service, the Flask API is ready to go. You can send requests, get responses, and scale up as needed.
• Function-based API: For those who don’t need a full web API, you can call the AI service directly from a function that you can import into your Python projects. Perfect for smaller integrations or experimenting within your own apps.
• Configuration Flexibility: With environment variables and a configuration file, you have full control over things like model parameters and Oracle Cloud credentials.

How to Use It?

1. Set up your environment: Whether you're using the Flask API or the function-based setup, you’ll need to configure your environment with Oracle Cloud credentials and some basic settings.
2. Get running: Once configured, you can easily call the API or function with any message you want to send to the AI model, and you’ll get a detailed response in return.

I’ve added full instructions on the project’s GitHub page, including setup steps, environment variables, and how to run both approaches.

What’s Next?

The goal is to keep expanding this project. Right now, it’s all about integration, but as AI services evolve, I want to keep adding new features and I likely will build apps that consume these interfacing endpoints in order to use the power of the Cohere LLM. Expect more updates on this as I add new functionality and more tutorials to help everyone get the most out of the platform.

Feel free to dive into the project, contribute, or just ask questions. I’m always happy to connect with fellow developers who are exploring AI and Oracle Cloud.

Check it out on GitHub: OCI Generative AICohere Integration

I've added some screenshots below showing the interactions with the OCI Gen AI service via Postman by utilizing the Flask API, allowing extensibility outside of the chat experience in OCI which is the default experience. 

By utilizing the API approach you can take advantage of the power of the Cohere LLM through Oracle OCI in your applications and data science tools while maintaining your security assurances of being inside of your OCI tenancy.

Thanks for reading, and happy coding!

OCI Gen AI Playground

Click on the images to expand them for ease of viewing

Postman Interaction with Flask API Exposing the OCI Gen AI Chat Service

OCI Gen AI Traffic from the API

Oracle HCM - Preparing for the USOPTE Transition: What You Need to Know

The payroll landscape is undergoing a significant shift as Oracle HCM customers prepare to transition to the native US Payroll Tax Engine (USOPTE). This change, mandated by Oracle for all customers by update 26A, marks the end of support for third-party tax engines and introduces a new era of integrated payroll tax processing.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s changing—and what organizations should be doing now to prepare:

Transition Overview

• From: Third-party tax engines (e.g., Vertex)
• To: Oracle’s native USOPTE
• Deadline: Update 26A (mandatory)

Key Requirements

• Enhanced Address Validation: Must be enabled as a prerequisite
• ORA_HCM load geography process
• Scope: Impacts HR and Payroll modules (not ERP)

Timeline & Planning

• Many organizations are targeting Q4 2025/Q1 2026 for implementation.
• Early planning is essential to manage dependencies, regression testing, and downstream impacts.

Stakeholder Engagement

• Cross-functional collaboration is critical—HR, Payroll, IT, and vendor partners all play a role.
• Some teams are treating this as a formal project with dedicated resources and governance.

Benefits

• Improved compliance and audit readiness
• Streamlined integration with Oracle HCM
• Reduced reliance on external tax engines

If your organization is navigating this transition, now is the time to engage with Oracle resources, attend webinars, and connect with peers who are further along in the process. Sharing lessons learned and best practices can help ensure a smoother rollout for everyone.

Below are some crucial visuals that aid in understanding the goals and next steps of this effort

Click on each image to expand it

 

Updated HCM Redwood Roadmap from Oracle - April 2025

What is changing?

There is an updated roadmap for Redwood HCM!

Below is a summary of the key changes, alongside a snapshot and a link for more information!

Click on the image to expand it

The following are the points that stood out to me the most, and I would really consider how it may impact your existing and future plans! The good news is that you have more time to plan and prepare in several areas, which we can all use!

Workforce Compensation

• Adoption deadline changed from 25D to 26D.
• Pages for budget allocation to managers and compensation to groups during a cycle.
• Redesign of Comp Worksheet to be released early 2026.
• Workforce Compensation landing page and budgeting pages to be delivered late 2025.
• Other Compensation pages (Salary, Individual Comp, Salary Admin) remain on 25C schedule.

Recruiting

• Second adoption date introduced for Redwood Recruiting.
• Adopt Offer Management, Interview Management, Events, Campaigns, and Agency Hiring before 26B.
• Features released starting second half of 2025.
• Remaining pages (Requisition Management, Job Application Management, Candidate Management) retain 25C adoption date.

Learning

• Adoption split between two dates.
• Before 26A: Resource Management, Recommendation Management, Self-Paced Learning Management for Customer Created Content, Self-Paced Learning Management for External Provider Content.
• Before 26D: Assignment Management, Instructor-Led Management, Learning Path Management, Category + Topic Management, Official Community Management.

What is not changing?

• Remaining adoption deadlines are unchanged.
• All dates represent the deadline for migration to Redwood pages.
• For 25C adoption date for Talent Management, customers should complete adoption before receiving 25C in production pod.
• Dates include all pages within noted functionality for employees, managers, and HR professionals/specialists.

For Auto Complete validations and defaults, refer to the Auto Complete portal for specific delivery dates.

Link below to the full announcement and more details

https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/796773/oracle-hcm-redwood-timeline-update

How to Create and Manage a Microsoft Teams Copilot Agent

Creating and managing a Teams Copilot Agent can significantly enhance your team's productivity and streamline various tasks. In this blog post, we'll walk you through the steps to set up and configure your agent, along with some useful tips to optimize its performance.

Pre-requisites

Before you start, ensure you have access to Copilot in Teams. You may need to be part of the ACL Group that manages access to the agent. Additionally, users in this group must have access to the SharePoint folder where the source data is located.

Step-by-Step Guide

1. Navigate to Copilot in Teams

In Teams, go to the Copilot section under "Chats."

2. Create an Agent

Click on "Create an Agent" and then select "Configure."

3. Select a Template

You can choose a template that will auto-populate instructions and other fields. These instructions essentially define the persona your agent will assume.

Tip: Pick a template of the kind of agent you want, then place the instructions template in ChatGPT or Copilot or OCI Gen AI and ask it to create a persona based on a given context of your choosing.

4. Point the Agent at Source Data

In the "Knowledge" section, point the agent at the source data. Place the files that will serve as the content for the agent in SharePoint or Teams. You can add up to 20 sources in SharePoint.

Tip: Avoid versioning files; store the latest version of the document. Organize the content and folders the agent is pointing to for higher accuracy.

5. Configure Agent Capabilities

If you want to build an agent that generates images or writes code exclusively, check the respective boxes. For a general-purpose conversational agent, leave these boxes unchecked.

6. Set Starter Prompts

These are prompts users will see when they start a conversation with the agent. You can hardcode common prompts to get users started.

7. Create the Agent

Once all the information is filled out, hit "Create" (top right).

8. Set Access Controls

Enter the ACLs to expose the agent to specific users. Copy the link to the agent and share it with the people who will access it (they also need to have Copilot).

Tip: Individual users may not work depending on your company policies; only ACL groups.

Editing an Agent

To edit an agent, go back to "Create an Agent," click on "View all agents," and navigate to the one you want to edit. You can change the instructions or access settings as needed.

If you are using Microsoft Teams, you can create very useful Agents on top of your existing data and make research, discovery and troubleshooting more engaging, it is a great way to assist new employees or help enhance productivity in general!

Enhance Your Oracle HCM Cloud Redwood Timecard Experience!

Dear Oracle Cloud HCM Community,

The Redwood Timecard Experience is an elevated and modern user experience that provides a lot of value and content for users. That being said, there’s always room for improvement even for a great product!

We need your support to improve the Redwood timecard user experience! Below are some key enhancements that can make a significant difference in our daily workflows. Please take a moment to understand each enhancement and click on the links to vote for these ideas on Cloud Customer Connect if you agree!

1. Enhanced Time Card Copy and Template Management
   Unable to copy timecards beyond the most recent one. This feature is crucial for employees working different rotating shifts.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/853878/enhanced-time-card-copy-and-template-management/p1?new=1
2. Favorite Timecard Feature for Redwood Experience
   Unable to favorite a timecard for future use. This option is essential for employees with varying shifts.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854448/favorite-timecard-feature-for-redwood-experience/p1?new=1
3. Reintroduce 'All Days' Option for Enhanced Timecard Flexibility
   No option to choose 'All Days' for State, County, and City coding, leading to more manual entries.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854449/reintroduce-all-days-option-for-enhanced-timecard-flexibility-in-redwood-experience/p1?new=1
4. Reintroduce Column Reordering or Hiding Option
   Managers, Timekeepers, and Employees cannot change their timecard layout relative to this requirement, making it less efficient.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854451/reintroduce-column-reordering-or-hiding-option-or-both-for-enhanced-timecard-experience-in-redwood/p1?new=1
5. Include Employee's Person Information on Redwood Timecard
   Unable to see essential employee information like Department, Location, and Manager on timecards.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/798556/include-employees-person-information-on-redwood-timecard?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=person+information
6. Reintroduce Job Information Links for Enhanced Timecard Functionality
   No links to view job information on timecards, which is needed for researching employee information.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854456/reintroduce-job-information-links-for-enhanced-timecard-functionality-in-redwood/p1?new=1
7. Redwood Multiple Row Delete Option in Timecard
   Unable to delete more than one row at a time on the timecard, which is helpful for Managers and Timekeepers.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/782974/redwood-multiple-row-delete-option-in-timecard?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=delete+row
8. Sort Redwood Timecard Search Results by Headers
   Unable to sort employees by Name or Person ID on the Team Timecards page, which is helpful for Timekeepers and Admins.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/838275/sort-redwood-timecard-search-results-ascending-descending-by-headers?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=sort
9. Reintroduce Excel Download Option for Enhanced Payroll Processing
   Unable to download the list of employee timecards into Excel from the Team Timecards page, which is critical for payroll processing.
   https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854458/reintroduce-excel-download-option-for-enhanced-payroll-processing-in-redwood-team-timecard/p1?new=1
10. Enhance Redwood Team Timecard Search by Saving Columns Chosen
    Options chosen on the Team Timecards page do not stay the next time you log in, which is helpful when looking for employees.
    https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/745068/enhance-redwood-team-timecard-search-by-allow-to-save-the-saved-search-and-columns-chosen?utm_source=community-search&utm_medium=organic-search&utm_term=team+timecard
11. Persistent Column Freezing for Enhanced Timecard Management
    The bold gray line on the timecard does not stay in place for better scrolling the next time you log in.
    https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/854463/persistent-column-freezing-for-enhanced-timecard-management-in-redwood/p1?new=1
12. Pass Person Number and Timecard Start/End Date Parameters
    Should be able to pass Person number and Timecard Start/End date parameters for deep linking in Redwood.
    https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/842700
13. Redwood Team Timecards Missing Warning Message on Cancelling
    No warning message on cancelling the timecard page without saving, which prevents data loss and re-entry.
    https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/782141/redwood-team-time-cards-are-missing-warning-message-on-cancelling-the-timecard-page-without-saving#latest
14. Redwood Admin Template Enhancement for Efficient Payroll Processing
    https://community.oracle.com/customerconnect/discussion/860739/redwood-admin-template-enhancement-for-efficient-payroll-processing#latest

Your vote can make a difference! Let's work together to enhance our Redwood timecard experience.

Thank you for your support!

Note: If you receive an error when navigating to the links, even though you have a CCC profile, it's probably because you are not following the Idea Lab for OTL. 

You can do so as seen below. Click on the image to see it in full size.

Enhancing Oracle HCM Recruiting and Oracle Projects with Personalized Notifications

Effective communication is key to successful recruitment and project management. Oracle HCM offers robust tools for personalized notifications, ensuring that the right messages reach the right people at the right time. In this blog post, we'll explore how to leverage the Content Library and Alerts Composer for personalized notifications in Oracle HCM Recruiting, as well as configurable workflow notifications in Oracle Projects.

Personalized Notifications in Oracle HCM Recruiting

Oracle HCM Recruiting provides two primary methods for sending emails and worklist notifications:

1. Content Library: This tool is primarily used for sending messages to candidates. Within the "send messages" feature, you can select templates that you've created in the Content Library. This allows for consistent and professional communication with candidates, enhancing their experience and engagement with your recruitment process.
2. Alerts Composer: This tool can be used for internal notifications, such as emails to hiring managers. The Alerts Composer allows you to modify delivered alerts or create custom alerts with your own content. This flexibility was utilized during our ORC implementation to tailor notifications to specific needs, ensuring that internal stakeholders are always informed and up to date.
3. Alerts composer can also be a powerful tool to send personalized emails in other situations and providing another alternative to those that rely heavily on BIP to send email alerts and acknowledgements. You can create custom alerts or modify out of the box alerts to change the email body’s and insert your own branding.

The below images show how to navigate to the candidate/recruiting content library and the templates created can then be selected when sending messages (second screenshot). The third screenshot shows the Alerts Composer, once you click on actions, you can see all you can do with the selected alert.

Click on the images for a full sized experience

In Summary, while the Content Library is specific to Oracle Recruiting, the Alerts Composer is a versatile tool within Oracle HCM. It enables you to modify standard alerts or create custom alerts for various scenarios, such as notifying employees when their driver's license is about to expire. For more details, you can refer to the Common Features for HCM documentation on the Alerts Composer.

Configurable Workflow Notifications in Oracle Projects

Oracle Projects also offers powerful tools for managing notifications. According to the documentation, the recommended approach is to modify the standard BIP (Business Intelligence Publisher) notification templates. This allows for a high degree of customization, ensuring that notifications are relevant and actionable.

Another option for ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) is to use the ERP Business Event framework in conjunction with Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC). This setup allows you to listen to events and send personalized notifications. There is extensive support for various modules, including Payables and Projects. For example, you can use this framework to send acknowledgment emails by listening to FBDI (File-Based Data Import) business events. This is necessary because the Alerts Composer is an exclusive feature of Oracle HCM, and not of Oracle Projects.

Documentation:

Overview of Configurable Workflow Notifications in Project Management

Oracle ERP Cloud Adapter Capabilities

Conclusion

By leveraging the Content Library and Alerts Composer in Oracle HCM Recruiting, and the configurable workflow notifications in Oracle Projects, you can significantly enhance your communication strategy. These tools provide the flexibility and customization needed to ensure that your messages are timely, relevant, and effective. Whether you're communicating with candidates, hiring managers, or project stakeholders, Oracle HCM and Oracle Projects have the capabilities to support your needs.

Leveraging the Oracle Autonomous Database and AI for Effective Content Moderation in Online Communities

Today, managing online communities and forums can be a daunting task. From duplicate questions to unaccepted answers, and from unchanged idea statuses to duplicate ideas, the challenges are numerous. Even with active management, the manual effort required by product teams can be overwhelming. However, AI-driven content moderation offers a promising solution to these pain points. In this blog post, we'll explore how AI can be used to streamline content moderation and enhance the user experience in any online community.

Addressing Duplicate Content

One of the most common issues in online communities is the presence of duplicate ideas or questions. Here's a methodology to tackle this problem using the Oracle ADB and Gen AI Service in OCI:

1. Database Integration: Connect your community's database to an AI service. For instance, if your community is hosted on an autonomous database (ADB), you can set up a trust between the ADB and an AI service (like the OCI Gen AI Service) natively.
2. Creating Views: Develop views that represent the community categories, containing idea numbers, names, and descriptions, for example, as metadata for the AI Service to utilize.
3. AI-Powered Duplicate Detection: Create a stored procedure (API) that calls the AI service to identify similar ideas/questions already created. Based on a predefined accuracy/confidence level, the AI can flag potential duplicates.
4. Automated Comments: Develop an API to automatically comment on flagged ideas, informing users about the duplication and providing links to similar ideas or threads.
5. User Feedback and Model Training: Allow users to challenge the duplicate flag. These challenges can be used to train a custom model over time (you can start with Oracle's AutoML feature with very low effort), improving accuracy with minimal effort. This would be done at the client end.
6. Nightly Jobs: Schedule nightly jobs to run within the database to perform this true-up, using AI services and APIs to perform regular content moderation.

Enhancing Search Validation

To further strengthen content moderation, consider the following steps:

1. REST Enablement: REST enable the stored procedure API using a service like Oracle Rest Data Services (ORDS), which is native within the ADB.
2. Improved Search Validation: Integrate this API as a validation step when users create new ideas or questions in your website or app. This step can enhance the existing search validation by considering different languages, descriptions, and metadata, ensuring a more accurate detection of duplicates.

Flagging Existing Capabilities

Another opportunity for AI-driven content moderation is to flag ideas/questions/enhancements that suggest features already available in your product:

1. Repository Integration: Expose a repository of current capabilities to the AI service.
2. Automated Comments: Develop an API to automatically comment on flagged ideas, providing links to documentation and informing users about existing features.

Conclusion

AI-driven content moderation offers a powerful solution to the challenges faced by online communities, including for product teams that crowdsource content to improve their software solutions. By leveraging AI, communities can reduce manual effort, enhance user experience, and ensure more accurate and efficient content management. Whether it's detecting duplicate content, improving search validation, or flagging existing capabilities, the ADB and OCI Gen AI Service can transform the way online communities are managed, driving growth and success.

Unlocking the Power of RPA in Oracle Integration Cloud

We know that automation is key to staying competitive. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) has emerged as a powerful tool to streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and enhance efficiency. Oracle Integration Cloud (OIC) has taken a significant step forward by integrating RPA capabilities, offering a seamless and unified experience for users. In this blog post, we'll explore the benefits of OIC's RPA feature and how it compares to non-native options such as Blue Prism.

Seamless Integration with Oracle Ecosystem

One of the standout features of RPA in Oracle Integration Cloud is its native integration within the Oracle ecosystem, particularly the Oracle Fusion applications like ERP Cloud. This integration allows for a unified, drag-and-drop experience to create intelligent business automations. By leveraging other Oracle services like Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS) and Process Cloud Service (PCS), OIC's RPA enables businesses to design automations that are part of the overall system architecture rather than "external solutions".

Enhanced Capabilities and Flexibility

OIC's RPA is designed to automate manual repetitive tasks without the need for APIs or data loads, making it a versatile tool for various use cases. Whether it's invoking APIs, manipulating files, or automating cascading changes in projects, OIC's RPA offers the flexibility to adapt to different business needs. This capability fosters collaboration between business and IT stakeholders, ensuring that automations are efficient and effective.

The RPA feature in OIC promotes collaboration between business and IT teams, enabling them to create automations that are integrated into the design process. This approach not only enhances efficiency but also ensures that automations are aligned with business objectives. By reducing the reliance on third-party tools outside of the Oracle ecosystem, OIC's RPA simplifies the automation process and provides a more cohesive strategy.

Comparing OIC's RPA with Blue Prism

While Blue Prism is a popular RPA tool, it requires additional integration efforts when used with Oracle Cloud.

Integration: OIC's RPA is natively integrated within the Oracle ecosystem, reducing the need for third-party tools and simplifying the automation process. In contrast, Blue Prism requires additional setup and may not offer the same level of seamless integration.

Unified Platform: OIC's RPA is part of a unified platform that includes other Oracle services, providing a more cohesive automation strategy. Blue Prism, on the other hand, may require additional integration efforts to achieve the same level of cohesion. Additionally, OIC adapters to ERP cloud, for example, are tested by Oracle in coordination with the ERP team, ensuring better backwards compatibility than when using external tools.

Scalability and Flexibility: OIC's RPA can be easily scaled and adapted to various business needs, offering flexibility in how automations are designed and implemented, where the RPA bots can be invoked in flows during an integration orchestration or user action from VBCS, as examples.

Conclusion

Oracle Integration Cloud's RPA feature offers a powerful and seamless solution for businesses looking to automate their processes. With its native integration within the Oracle ecosystem, enhanced capabilities, and unified platform, OIC's RPA stands out as a superior option compared to non-native tools like Blue Prism. By leveraging OIC's RPA, businesses can streamline operations, reduce manual effort, and enhance efficiency, ultimately driving growth and success.

You can find out more about OIC's RPA capability, which is now generally available, at What's New in Oracle Integration 25.02