Update 20B

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.

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.

CX Foundation

Accounts, Contacts, and Households

Purge Contacts to Comply with Data Protection Regulations

Purge person or contact data from the environment, rather than retaining the information in an inactive state. You can specify the number of days to retain contact data in an inactive state and then delete the data after the period has lapsed. 

View Ultimate Parent Account from Account Overview Page

Salespeople can view the ultimate parent and parent account associated with the account that they're working on in the Account Overview page. They can also drill down to the details of ultimate parent and parent account from this page. Additionally, they can quickly access the account hierarchy from this page, previously available from the Account Profile page, to manage the child account hierarchy. They can continue to manage the parent account from the Account Profile page.

Customer Data Management

Control Merge Notifications

Provide the ability to control when merge notifications are sent. You can enable or disable notifications at the individual-resolution request level and at the duplicate-identification batch level. You can also disable notifications altogether. You can also configure the default notification status for manually created resolution requests.

Use Groovy Script to Configure Merge Survivorship Rules

Create Groovy-script-based survivorship rules in Application Composer to configure how master records are chosen, how the master record's attributes are derived from the duplicate parties, and special conditions when merges should not be allowed.

Use a New Setup and Maintenance Task to Separately Configure Oracle Address Verification

Use a new Setup and Maintenance task titled Manage Integration with Oracle Address Verification to implement and maintain Oracle Address Verification. Previously, a single setup task was available to configure both Oracle Address Verification and Oracle Data as a Service (Oracle DaaS) data enrichment from Dun & Bradstreet Corporation (D&B). Now you can configure data enrichment separately, using either Oracle DataFox or D&B as the data source.

Workspace and Adaptive Search

About Adaptive Search and Workspace

• Adaptive Search is a high-performance search engine that provides keyword searching and enhanced filtering capabilities.
• Workspace is the UI built on top of this search engine. It's a unified work area that lets users perform searches and filtering and look at the results from supported objects.

Access Workspace Data Offline

Use the Export List button to download data from Workspace as a CSV file. The file includes all the rows filtered by the current filter criteria applied in the Workspace UI. Salespeople can then use the file to view or analyze their data offline.

NOTE: This feature was first released in update 20A.

Add Contacts and Leads from Your Workspace to Oracle Eloqua

Salespeople can select contacts or leads from their Workspace saved searches and add them as campaign members to Oracle Eloqua marketing campaigns. After the added contacts and leads are synchronized to Oracle Eloqua, they get added to the specified Oracle Eloqua marketing campaigns.

This synchronization results in a stronger sales-marketing collaboration, since your sales team can ensure that their prospect contacts and leads are targeted with the intended marketing campaigns.

Drill Down from Actionable Infolet Saved Search Filters to Workspace

Salespeople can include saved searches created in Workspace to display in the available filters list for their actionable infolets. When salespeople view a Workspace saved search filter, they can quickly open the saved search directly in Workspace by clicking on the Workspace icon in the infolet. Selecting available Workspace saved search filters allows for a more dynamic, effective, and targeted view of the records that they need to update and take immediate action on.

Navigate Seamlessly Between Global Search Powered by Adaptive Search and Workspace

If you have global search enabled to use the Adaptive Search engine, then when salespeople click on a search result from the global search UI, the application seamlessly takes them to the Workspace UI. This integration results in a streamlined search experience across Workspace and global search.

Support Many-to-Many Custom Relationships in Adaptive Search

Configure the application to let salespeople search on objects that are related through custom, many-to-many relationships. This enhances users' searching capabilities.

Use Adaptive Search to Access the Sales Catalog

Use Adaptive Search to access Sales Catalog objects such as Product, Product Groups, and Price Books. You can use Adaptive Search REST APIs to build a new UI for accessing Sales Catalog.

View Appointments That Don’t Have Call Reports

The My Calls to Log saved search in Workspace lets salespeople search for appointments that don’t have a corresponding call report. From the list of search results returned, salespeople can use the Create Call Report action to follow through on appointments.

Core Sales Force Automation

Leads and Opportunities

Browse the Sales Catalog to Add Products or Product Groups to a Lead

Salespeople can browse the sales catalog and add products or product groups to leads from the Browse Catalog button in the Edit Lead page.

Configure Default Search on Standard Subtabs

You can configure the default search filter on standard subtabs so that your salespeople can more easily find the subtab data that's relevant to their daily activities. In Application Composer, hide the default search on one or more subtabs if your users don't need it, or add default search filters and values to save them time. This setting applies to all existing details page layouts with this subtab. Default subtab search is configurable for standard subtabs on these object pages: Lead and Opportunity.

Enable Recommended Actions at the User Level

Enable the Recommended Actions set of features for a limited set of users, and then gradually expand the set of users, as appropriate.

Enterprise Contracts

Upload Contract Terms to an Alternate Contract

You can now upload a contract terms document sourced from one contract into another contract, using either the application UI or Oracle Contracts Microsoft Word Add-in. For example, let's assume you distribute a downloaded contract among various suppliers. Thereupon, you negotiate terms and conditions and finalize the supplier. You can then upload this negotiated contract document into a different contract created for the approved supplier.

Use Cross-References in Terms and Conditions

You can define cross-references in the contract terms for directing readers to related material between clauses. Updating the contract terms, for example moving a clause or inserting a new clause, automatically updates the cross-reference used in the clause text.

Add Table of Contents to Contract Terms

You can add a table of contents to the PDF document created when previewing a contract. This makes the contract terms easier to scan and locate the section you need, particularly in large contracts that run over several pages.

Partner Relationship Management

Use Access Group to Configure Data Security for Partner Objects

You can easily provide specific users with access to sales data using access groups. You can create an access group, assign members to the group, and then define rules to grant the group access to an object's data. You can add members to access groups manually or by defining membership rules. All group members receive the data access set for the group. If you add a user to more than one access group, the user gets access to all the data records that each of the groups has access to. This feature was initially released in update 20A, with support for the Partner object. In this release, these additional Partner Relationship Management objects also support access groups: Deal Registration, MDF Budget, MDF Claim, MDF Request and Program Enrollment.

Oracle Partner Finder

Use the Partner Finder template in Visual Builder to add a custom partner finder to your corporate website. Both your existing and prospective customers can easily find the relevant partner to work with, and then contact them for more information. Additionally, prospective partners can also explore and understand your current partner network before joining.

Oracle Sales Assistant

Sales Assistant Supports Microsoft Teams

Integrate Oracle Sales Assistant with Microsoft Teams to enable users collaborate on Microsoft Teams and act on sales application records via direct chat with Oracle Sales Assistant.

Sales Cloud for Office 365

Share Call Reports with Others Using Email

Configure the application to let users email call reports to others.

Create a Contact in the Sales Application Based on the Office 365 Contact

While creating a contact with the CX Sales Add in, the user is prompted if there are corresponding contacts in Outlook from which details can be copied.

Allow Making Fields Required in the Office 365 Add-In Only

You can make add-in fields required using the Office 365 Designer, even if the field is not mandatory in the object model.

Set an Address Based on the Account When Creating Contacts in Office 365, and Make Fields Required in the Designer

You can configure the application to set a default address based on the account when users create a contact in Office 365. In addition, you can make add-in fields mandatory from the Office 365 Designer. Plus, this update includes improvements to stale sync processing.

Allow Multi-Value Choice Lists Fields in Saved Searches

Users can use multiple-value choice list fields in their Office 365 saved searches.

CX Cloud Mobile

Use a Barcode Scanner to Scan an Asset's Serial Number

Salespeople can use a barcode scanner in the application to scan an asset's serial number. They can then either view the information about the asset or create an asset record containing the asset details.

Sort Your List View Pages Using Custom Field Attributes

You can now sort your List view pages using custom field attributes, in addition to the existing sort capability. Your users will be able to select the custom field attribute in the sort selector found in your List view pages.

Fixed Choice List Values Default to a Blank Value

Mandatory and cascading fixed-choice list values now default to a blank value, instead of the first value in the list. If a default value has been defined, then the application uses the default value instead of a blank value.

Sales Performance Management

Territories

Optimize Performance for Territory-Based Account Assignment

To enable optimal sales coverage, you can use an enhanced mode of territory-based account assignment processing to optimize performance. Territory-based account assignment is the primary means of assigning sales representatives to sales territories for your sales application objects. It facilitates the selling process by defining boundaries using hierarchical attributes such as products, geographies, industry, and so on.

Incentive Compensation

Import Orders from Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning into Incentive Compensation

Use Incentive Compensation's import mapping to easily import your Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) orders into Incentive Compensation. Map order data to Incentive Compensation transactions, and import order data directly from Oracle ERP. Use this feature to replace manual file loads and other import methods. Once the mapping is set up, importing orders is as simple as submitting a scheduled process.

Troubleshoot Automated Role Assignments

View enhanced log files to resolve issues in role proposals. When issues with role proposals require your review, the process ends in a warning status, and the log files show a list of errors. Look up the errors in the documentation for instructions on how to fix them.

Sales Analytics

Create Enhanced Reports on Earnings and Credits

You can add participant information to earnings and credits transaction reports for complete reporting.

View Object Activity for Mobile and Email in User Adoption Reporting

With the Sales – CRM Object Activity subject area, you can now report on object create events for the mobile and email channels, in addition to the existing web channel. You can also report on object update events for the mobile and email channels.

View User Sign-In Metrics for Mobile in User Adoption Reporting

You can now report on sign-in and session metrics for the mobile channel in the Sales – CRM Resource System Usage subject area, in addition to the existing web and email channels.

Get Better Reporting with Additional Note and Activity Attributes

The Note Title field, and Activity fields such as All Day and Set Reminder, are now available in existing subject areas for better, more detailed reporting.

Import and Export and REST APIs

Improve Purging Logic

Automate the table extension process and improve the purging logic for Import Management, with no manual intervention necessary. This feature lets you integrate Oracle Universal Content Management purging with regular purging, and also purge completed import and export jobs.

View Import Detail Status

Use this feature to get a detailed status and notification on long-running import jobs that are in queue and when they actually start processing. This feature notifies exactly when an import starts and finishes, so that you don't have to resubmit the same job.

Support for High-Volume Import of Custom Objects

Use the high-volume import feature to import custom objects and attributes that you have configured using Application Composer.

Regenerate Account Hierarchy as Post-Processing Job in High-Volume Import

You can now regenerate your account hierarchy information in the form of a post-processing job. This feature is available in high-volume import.

Get Top-Level Account Using REST API

Use the Account REST API to get the top-level account for any account. You can get the top-level account from the Ultimate Parent attribute for an account.

Use Source System Reference to Uniquely Identify Additional Names

Use source system reference to uniquely identify additional names as child of Account, Contact and Household objects in the REST API and Import business flows. In addition, the first name, middle name, and last name attributes are added to the Additional Names child object for Contact REST API and Import business flows.

Use Classification Code Object in Import and Export Management

You can now import and export classification code information using the Classification Code object in Import and Export Management.

Search Resources by Role Name and Role Code

You can search for resources using Role Code and Role Name in the Resource REST API.

Search Within Hierarchy Using Resource REST API

You can use the Resource REST API to search within a resource hierarchy. You can use the attributes Manager and PrimaryOrganization to search for a resource by the manager name and organization name.

Group Search Results and Search Based on Fiscal Quarters in Adaptive Search REST API

You can arrange the results of Adaptive search into groups. For example, you can place related records displayed together as a group based on account, country, rank, and so on. This provides an overview of the records in each value and you can select a group list to narrow down your search results even more. You can also perform searches based on fiscal quarters.

Provide Sum Aggregations for Adaptive Search REST API

Aggregate numeric fields with the Adaptive Search REST API. For example, aggregate the sum of revenue items on an opportunity or the total deal size for all deals on an account.

Service

Service Request Management

Specify Service Level Agreements Based on the Service Request Product

You can apply service level agreement milestones to service requests by using product level coverages on subscription contracts. When you create a subscription contract, you can specify a coverage line that applies at the product level, instead of having to name each individual asset as a covered asset. When a service request for that same customer specifies a product item that matches the contract, milestones are applied from the corresponding coverage as appropriate.

Start Action Plans Automatically

You can seamlessly automate Action Plans for your time-sensitive service requests and cases. An Action Plan will automatically start as soon as it applied to a service request if that Action Plan Template is designated as auto-start. Developers can use the auto-start option when invoking the Action Plan REST API. Developers or administrators can also automatically assign an Action Plan Template to a service request through event-based Groovy scripts.

Manage Survey Integration Setup Between CX Service and Help Desk Separately

The survey setup tasks for CRM and internal help desk are separate, which makes it easier to manage survey integration setup for these areas. The Setup and Maintenance > Service offering contains a setup task in the Surveys functional area, called Manage Survey Templates for HR Help Desk. Help desk administrators can access separate setup information for surveys in this task. CRM administrators can continue to access the setup task for CRM surveys under the Manage Survey Templates task.

Quickly Search Cases Using REST APIs

The Cases REST API now includes support for quick searches such as Assigned to me, Created by me, and Assigned to my team. You can use these searches to create interfaces to Case lists.

Assign Cases to Queues

You can now assign Cases to queues by defining rules in assignment manager based on Case attributes. Developers can use the new Assign Queue REST API to evaluate these rules for any Case.

Find Similar Service Requests Using Adaptive Intelligence

You can resolve service requests (SRs) faster by automatically finding similar SRs that your service organization has previously encountered and solved. In any service organization, there are always issues that aren't covered by the curated knowledge base, particularly for new products or emergent issues. 

When a new SR is reported, the system uses Similar Service Requests to automatically identify SRs that may have relevant solutions, to make that information readily available for faster troubleshooting. Similarity is detected using text analysis that finds likely matches based on similar products, categories, title and problem description details. Agents can view a new UI region in the Service Agent workspace to show similar SRs that can help them research and solve new SRs. As a result, you can shorten time to resolution and improve agents' efficiency by reducing ad-hoc searching and unnecessary troubleshooting.

NOTE: The Similar Service Request feature is available to customers participating in an early adopter program. To be considered for the program, submit a request via the B2B Service forum under Oracle Cloud Customer Connect. Please note that the program runs for a limited time and is only available to customers meeting qualifying criteria.

Knowledge Management

Set a Default Preferred Knowledge Locale

Knowledge managers can set a default preferred knowledge locale for their site. The default applies to any knowledge users who have not set a preferred knowledge locale in their preferences. You can set any active locale as the default.

Get Insight into Users' Contributions with Knowledge Analytics Manager Reporting

You can now report on a user's (authors or owners) direct manager in any Knowledge Management Analytics subject area. Managers can get insight into how their direct reports are contributing to the knowledge base and related activities.

Filter by Article State

You can use the Article State filter in the authoring application's advanced search to find all articles that are in the following states: draft, live, or expired. 

Automatically Add Product Names to the Search Dictionary

Knowledge managers can enable the application to automatically add product names to the search dictionary. Adding product names as concepts in the dictionary improves accuracy, because search then treats product names as being important terms in the knowledge base content. You can also add synonyms to product name concepts, which enables search to answer general questions about products or services with answers that are specific to your organization.

Knowledge in Digital Assistant for HCM Users

You can use Knowledge as a skill in Digital Assistant, which makes it available to HCM HR Help Desk users in multiple supported channels, such as SMS, Slack, and messenger applications. End users benefit from Digital Assistant's artificial intelligence-driven conversational engagement while using knowledge to search for and find answers to their questions.

Digital Customer Service

Find Information Quickly with the Visual Navigator

Use the Visual Navigator to help customers quickly find the information or functionality they need. The Visual Navigator provides the visual layout and basic logic for a variety of link-type behaviors.

NOTE: This feature was first released in update 20A.

Filter Knowledge Search Results

Use filters to quickly locate knowledge articles. You can filter by:

• Document type
• Collection
• Category
• Product

NOTE: This feature was first released in update 20A.

Interact with Oracle Intelligent Advisor Interviews in Knowledge Articles

Oracle Intelligent Advisor interviews use modeled natural language policies to provide guided experiences for users. Oracle Intelligent Advisor interviews can be embedded in a knowledge article. Users viewing the article can then interact directly, following an interview's guided processes.

NOTE: This feature was first released in update 20A.

Decide Whether to Make Product and Category Fields Required When Creating a Service Request or Initiating Chat

Choose whether the product field, the category field, or both are required when a self-service user creates a service request or initiates a chat.

View Work Orders in Digital Customer Service

Enable self-service users to view work orders. Self-service users can view standalone work orders and those associated with service requests.

Navigate to Product Group and Category Pages Using the Visual Navigator

Use the Visual Navigator to quickly find pages related to a specific product group or a specific category.

Field Service Integration

Cancel Part Orders in Service Logistics When a Work Order Is Cancelled

The work order cancel process is a predefined process. It automatically attempts to cancel any part orders associated to a work order when a user attempts to cancel the work order. The administrator can select which work order statuses for which the cancellation process should be enabled. Optionally, the administrator can decide to not use Oracle's predefined process for any status and instead handle the logic through a custom process. If there are part orders that can't be canceled, a user can still cancel the work order and those part orders will be handled through reverse logistics.

Manually Select Field Service Technicians on Work Orders

You can give users the ability to manually edit the Field Service Resource field on work orders. The field now provides a resource list of values that lets users select any person with the usage of Field Service Resource from the database. This option is particularly useful for situations where the work order is being managed locally within the cloud application, for example, when the Work Order object is not integrated with an additional field service application.

Service Analytics

Analyze Delays in Service Request Lifecycle

This feature lets you analyze the delays during a Service Request's lifecycle from the time it is created until it is resolved. This analysis lets you identify the factors that contribute to the overall resolution time. You can analyze causes of inefficiencies such as SR latency in queues and agents, wrong queue or resource assignments, and so on. The feature includes the following components:

• Infolets that quickly identify wait times for teams and queues
• Best practice prebuilt OTBI Reports in the BI Catalog
• A new OTBI subject area: Service-CRM Service Request Lifecycle with industry standard metrics for building ad-hoc reports.

Use Analytics to Obtain Survey Request Insights

Use the sample reports available in the BI Catalog, or use the OTBI subject area built specifically for surveys to create your own reports with the predefined metrics and contextual columns. The survey integration framework provides you with a structured approach to gathering customer feedback directly or through an integrated third party solution of your choice. Survey Analytics enables survey analysts, administrators, service managers, and employee help desk managers to obtain insights to better run and manage the survey process. Reporting about the survey requests sent, responses received, and other aspects of survey activity let your survey owners better design and target surveys. Analysis of survey questions and responses is not part of current functionality.

Security

Oracle Applications Security provides a single console where IT Security Managers and Administrators can perform various functions, including user lifecycle management, role definition, security policy management (both functional and data), role hierarchy maintenance, username and password policy administration, and certificate management. The console also enables users to simulate the effects of security changes, to run security reports, and to download a connector for integration with Microsoft Active Directory.

Use Access Groups to Configure Data Security for Additional Sales Objects

You can easily provide selected users with access to sales data using access groups. You can create an access group, assign members to the group, and then define rules to grant the group access to an object's data. All group members receive the data access selected for the group. If you add a user to more than one access group, the user will get access to all the data records that each of the groups has access to. This feature was initially released in 20A. These objects now also support access groups: Activity, Deal Registration, MDF Budget, MDF Claim, MDF Request, Program Enrollment, Quote, Sales Order.

Create and Edit Object Sharing Rules for Access Groups

You can define rules for both standard and custom objects and share them with access groups. Access groups contain members who represent the resources you want to be able to access object records in the Oracle CX Sales and B2B Service applications. You create and edit the rule conditions specific to your object and associate the rule with an access group.

Define Access Group Membership Rules

You can add members to access groups by defining membership rules. This means that you don't need to manually enter users and resources as access group members. You specify the rule conditions under which resources get added to groups. 

Application Composer

Limit the Number of Custom Long Text and Dynamic Choice List Fields Allowed

For optimal performance, you can create a maximum of five long text fields and 20 dynamic choice lists fields for standard objects, and five long text fields and 19 dynamic choice lists fields for custom objects. To change this limit across all objects, contact Oracle Support.

Manage Workspace-Seeded Actions

Manage Workspace-seeded actions, such as Create an Appointment and Create a Task, using the Smart Actions administration tool in Application Composer.

Configure Default Search on Standard Subtabs

You can configure the default search filter on standard subtabs so that your salespeople can more easily find the subtab data that's relevant to their daily activities. In Application Composer, hide the default search on one or more subtabs if your users don't need it, or add default search filters and values to save them time. This setting applies to all existing details page layouts with this subtab. Default subtab search is configurable for standard subtabs on these object pages: Lead and Opportunity.

Raise Bell Notifications for Custom Objects

You can use Groovy scripts to define notification rules for a custom object. A notification rule for a custom object lets you send a bell notification to the owner of the object or other appropriate recipients. Your administrator can define triggers for custom objects for the events that you want to trigger a notification. When active, the notifications are displayed in the recipient's bell notifications on the UI global header.

Integrations

Support for Product and Product Group User Context Services

You can use the User Context API to view user context records for relevant Products and Product Groups.

Simplified Setup

Automate Your Initial Sales Setup with Setup Assistant

Use the Setup Assistant to automate the initial setup of your sales application. You enter the minimum required information directly in the Setup Assistant or gather the information offline using an Excel template. The Setup Assistant then runs background processes that complete many of the basic setups for you. The assistant creates the enterprise structure, initiates all the background processes required for search, and creates any additional users to help you with setup. It generates the accounting calendar required for forecasting and reporting, creates the top of the sales resource hierarchy, and creates the top product group in your sales catalog. You can also import geography data and enable address mapping for up to three countries. In addition, you can create competitors to track in opportunities, configure basic opportunity behavior, and enable forecasting by opportunity owner. The assistant also creates the role mappings required to automatically provision security roles for all of the predefined sales resource roles, and any others you enter.

Support for Additional Service Role Mappings

When you use the Create Company Information quick setup page for the Company Profile functional area to set up basic company information, the application now creates additional mappings for the Service Vice President and Service Administrator resource roles. With this enhancement, the page now automatically creates mappings for all the standard resource roles for sales, service, customer data management, loyalty, and marketing. The mappings make it possible to automatically provision users with the security roles they need to do their jobs.