Oracle Cloud continues to be in demand since various businesses are drawn towards the benefits that arrive with the Oracle Cloud ERP environment, including a minimized burden on infrastructure management. However, when we consider various functionality, Cloud is still playing catch-up to the existing features of its on-premise E-Business Suite (EBS) counterpart. In its current manner, Oracle frequently releases Cloud updates like the latest Oracle Cloud 22B release, which comprises better functionality, customer enhancement requests, and previous release bug fixes. In most cases, these updates are mandatory and applied on a planned date that can’t be changed once it’s been established.
In case you are in the middle of your implementation or already using Cloud services, understanding the effects of the latest updates in internal business processes is necessary to ensure a seamless update. In this article, we will consider various recommendations to consider before applying the next release update.
- Allocate resources to determine the impact of the update
The initial step while preparing for an update is downloading and reviewing the new feature release notes from Oracle’s official website. As a rule, the Oracle updates follow a quarterly schedule and are named sequentially; for instance, the 2022 Q1 release is 22A, the 2022 Q2 release is 22B, etc. It is recommended to verify that you are downloading the New Feature Summary for the appropriate release period.
- Review the Timing of your Update
While Oracle quarterly updates are released to the customer environments, bugs are recognized that eventually require the release of subsequent maintenance packs. It is recommended for companies to consider installing updates in the second month of the quarter, allowing the issues identified by the early installer to be incorporated into their latest patch. As stated by Oracle, businesses only have the capability to change their update schedule once.
- Test, Test, and Retest
In most cases, Oracle updates are applied to the customer test environment during the initial week of the customer’s chosen month, and in the production environment during the third week of the month. Such a thing provides two weeks to test the impact of the update in your test environment and identify any significant changes. In addition, it is also recommended to perform testing on core business functionality (i.e Approval of Workflow, Cutting Purchase Orders, etc.), integration, key reports, and any other new feature that have been categorized as relevant to your businesses’ processes.
- Convey to End-Users
Business Change Management is a critical piece in the success of any implementation, like the oracle cloud 22b release. However, it should not stop while going live. As businesses identify update functionality that will impact end-users, communications or learning sessions should be arranged to provide information that users may experience changes while using the application. Learning sessions can be arranged company-wide, department-wide, or role-specific but can offer a reference point for end-users once the update has been applied in production.
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