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:

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.

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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. When you configure workflow tasks, select one or more task attributes that represent the users not to assign the task to.  These attributes can now be read from the task payload.  Previously, you could only do this for the task creator. Only actionable notifications are skipped for these users. FYI notifications are not.

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.

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 an unpublishable sandbox, that business object won't be automatically locked. So multiple teams can work on the same business object using different test sandboxes.

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.

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. Using this feature, you can export and import text for offline translation and modification. You can also select and replace text more easily, and you get a more robust user interface for editing your text.

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

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.

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: 

https://www.oracle.com/tools/downloads/application-development-framework-downloads.html

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. These objects are unavailable for extraction using BICC in Oracle Applications Cloud.

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.

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.

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.