This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates are logged below, with the most recent updates at the top.
| Date |
What's Changed |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 14 AUG 2017 |
Initial Document Creation |
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in Oracle Service Cloud Release May 2017 and describes any tasks you might need to perform for the update. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable to begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.
For a listing of hardware and software requirements for Oracle products, log in to our support site and access Answer ID 31.
We would like to remind you if your system has modified security structures you may need to advise your security administrator of new features.
We welcome your comments and suggestions to improve the content. Please send us your feedback at http://documentation.custhelp.com/ci/documents/detail/5/4/12.
For information about upgrading from earlier versions, click the link for your specific upgrade path on the Upgrade Guides page.
Some of the new features are automatically available to users after the upgrade and some require action from the user, the company administrator, or Oracle.
The table below offers a quick view of the actions required to enable each of the features.
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Administrator Action Required |
Oracle Service Request Required |
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The August 2017 Oracle Service Cloud release adds new capabilities to Web Customer Service, Contact Center, Knowledge Management, Policy Automation, and Platform.
A reputation for excellent customer service can differentiate the brand and drive revenue. Oracle Web Customer Service helps organizations earn that reputation by transforming online web service into a highly interactive customer experience.
Community Self-Service Enhancements
Each release of Community Self Service after its August 2015 MVP launch provides additional “forum functionality” to build out the feature set and make community participation, moderation, and administration easier and more effective.
This release adds a collection of community widget enhancements. First, the ForumList Widget offers sticky forums that enable Customer Portal developers to select or pin a forum to the ForumList Widget on the home page. This widget also allows different sorting options, including sort by, last activity, questions, comments or Product ID.
Next, additional sorting options have also been added to the QuestionList Widget, from last activity to a relevant time period. Options include the ability to sort by year, month, day, week or any date range.
Finally, the Comment Widget was added, enabling community users to comment on another user’s post. This widget provides the same comment formatting community that users are familiar with, but adds additional functionality with the new CKEditor.
CKEditor for Community Self-Service
This Release adds the CKEditor to Community Self-Service, providing users with an enhanced text editor to submit a question or comment. CKEditor is an open source WYSIWYG text editor designed to bring common word processor features directly to web pages, simplifying content creation. Additionally, it provides the ability to paste from Word, advanced content filter and custom HTML formatting. It also integrates with HTML purifier which tests the HTML code for cross site scripting and cross site request forgery. Additionally, it supports accessibility with WCAG 2.0 standards.
Community Self-Service File Attachments
Community Self-Service file attachments provide community users with the ability to attach files to questions and comments. This increases community effectiveness by giving customers more control over how they present their questions and answers to the community. Administrators also have control over file criteria (e.g., file size limits or specify valid file extensions) to ensure strong site performance and security.
Key Resources
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/olh/CustomerPortal/topicrefs/c_Attaching_files_to_questions_bm1249592.html
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/olh/CustomerPortal/topicrefs/c_Attaching_files_in_css_082017.html
Oracle Service Cloud Cross Channel Customer Service empowers organizations to provide quick, consistent, proactive, and reactive assisted service across multiple channels. Oracle Service Cloud Cross-Channel Contact Center helps organizations increase efficiency and reduce operational costs by enabling customers to resolve simple issues using self-service, while directing the more complex issues to contact center agents.
Mailbox Administration Enhancement
Easier administration of mailboxes is a customer driven enhancement, offering more efficiency for customers with large, multi-interfaces, and multi-language Service Cloud sites. Administrators can now access all mailboxes from one interface. In the past, administrators leveraging multi-lingual interfaces had to go into each language interface to manage the mailboxes for that given language. With this enhancement, administrators can manage all language mailboxes in the language of their preference.
Business Rules 2.0 is an exciting new innovation driven by customer requests. Business Rules 2.0 gives the business rule editor in Oracle Service Cloud a new, intuitive and modern look. With this new feature, custom objects now support business rules. Additionally, administrators now have the capability to search and report on business objects. This allows administrators to search for rules and values used within rules.
Steps to Enable
You must perform the following tasks for all profiles that will view business rules:
- Add the Rules Designer to the navigation set.
- Select the Rules View check box in the administrative permissions.
Tips and Considerations
In the August 2017 release, Business Rules only works with custom objects. The Rules Designer only works in the Agent Browser UI.
Key Resources
With the August 2017 Release, customers can now enable the Agent Browser User Interface using the configuration assistant where the Oracle Service Cloud site information is managed. Customers no longer need to file an incident with Oracle to request BUI enablement on their site. Note, this feature is only available in Oracle Service Cloud version May 2016 or later.
Knowledge management is essential for delivering exceptional customer experiences and increasing customer loyalty. In the contact center, empowered, efficient agents must have access to timely information when they need it. Customers expect to find answers to their questions quickly and easily, when and where they ask them. Oracle Service Cloud Knowledge Management provides a fully integrated knowledge management solution that delivers a seamless, consistent experience across all channels, from self-service to contact centers to communities and social sites.
Oracle Service Cloud Knowledge Advanced
With the August 2017 release, Oracle continues to add new capabilities to the Knowledge Advanced edition, including new functionality in Knowledge Advanced for Customer Portal and Advanced Knowledge for Agent Desktop.
Knowledge Advanced: Language Aware Document Classification
Auto-product-concepts and classifications of external content is now available for all supported languages. This feature allows the classification of external content, such as web content, automatically into the product hierarchy. Therefore, external documents are automatically assigned to the correct product, category and disposition hierarchy that is designed within Oracle Service Cloud.
Additionally, Concepts which are used to increase search accuracy, are now created automatically using localized names. Automatic classification is done using NLP and text analysis. These features increase search accuracy and allow for easier filtering of search results across all curated and external content.
This enhancement is enabled automatically if the Automatic Product Concepts and Automatic Content Classification settings are On.
Tips and Considerations
Automatic Product Concepts and Automatic Content Classification settings are On by default.
Key Resources
Knowledge Advanced: Linking Enhancements
The August 2017 Release adds enhanced linking to answers by document ID, enabling authors to create a single ink to an answer regardless of the number of locales the answer is available in. This feature eliminates the need to create locale-specific links. When end-users select this link in the customer portal or agent desktop, the application will open the answer that matches the the end-user's locale.
There is no configuration or administration change for this feature. Authors can use this feature by entering the document ID in the Answer ID field when they link an answer to another answer.
Key Resources
- See Creating an Article in the Knowledge Advanced User Guide.
Knowledge Advanced: Community Self-Service Integration
With the Community Self-Service Integration, Customer Portal users will be able to access community knowledge alongside curated knowledge. This capability already exists with Knowledge Foundation and with the August 2017 Release can be configured and displayed in a similar manner with Knowledge Advanced.
Steps to Enable
Application Developers can modify the Customer Portal home page and search page to display community knowledge alongside Knowledge. They will need to set a configuration setting to enable community discussions in Smart Assistant.
Key Resources
- See Enabling Communities for Knowledge Advanced Users in the Knowledge Advanced Implementation Guide.
Knowledge Advanced: Additional Locales
Additional languages (locales) have been added to Knowledge Advanced with the August Release. New locales being introduced include:
- French – Belgium
- Dutch – Belgium
- English – India
- English – Ireland
- Portuguese – Portugal
- German – Austria
Administrators can add corresponding Knowledge locales as listed previously, for those locales that are supported in their Service Cloud implementation.
Tips and Considerations
Each supported Knowledge locale requires a provisioned Service Cloud interface.
Key Resources
- See Configuring Knowledge Advanced within Service Cloud in the Knowledge Advanced Implementation Guide.
Knowledge Advanced: Improved Product Picker
With the August 2017 Release, Product and Category Picker Pagination is scaled to support organizations with large numbers of products and categories in their taxonomy. Easy navigation, via pagination, allows authors to quickly explore the product and category trees and ensures efficient authoring due to faster page load times.
Policy Automation enables the automation of an organization’s business rules, processes, policies, or regulations. With Policy Automation, organizations can ensure polices and regulations are being met, leverage intelligent decisioning, capture the right customer information in interviews, assist the resolution of complex service requests, and help determine product or service eligibility.
The August release continues to add features that deliver smarter advice and personalized experiences. This includes capabilities to deliver seamless omni-channel experiences with interview checkpoints for Service Cloud agents, deliver consistent field experiences with mobile assessments, and automate policy lifecycle tasks with the REST API for hub deployments.
The OPA Hub REST API for deployments provides a flexible mechanism to automate certain tasks such as deploying, exploring, activating, retrieving and updating policy models on an OPA Hub. This enables administrators to:
- build custom web interfaces and automation scripts for policy life cycle tasks, such as promotion from test to production, and
- build value-add services that inspect the contents of deployed policies, such as ensuring compliance with certain corporate standards.
Steps to Enable
All OPA sites have access to this feature, but it is only available to API users with the Hub Admin role.
- Create an integration user on the Permissions tab in OPA Hub.
- Give the user the Deploy Admin role for the collections they want to access.
- Use the OPA Hub REST API to perform deployment-related tasks.
Tips and Considerations
All resources in OPA HUB REST API are self-describing. Start with GET <site>/opa-hub/api/latest/metadata-catalog and follow hyperlinks for more details.
Key Resources
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Developer_Guide/Administration/Overview_Hub_REST_API.htm
- http://docs.oracle.com/cloud/latest/servicecs_gs/OPAWX/
Checkpoints for Service Cloud Agents
Currently, customers can pause and resume an online interview. Policy Automation now gives Service Cloud agents the ability to save and resume interview checkpoints. Agents can resume and update partially completed interviews started by customers on the self-service channel, and vice versa. This provides a seamless omni-channel experience when customers call an agent for help completing an application or getting advice.
Steps to Enable
All OPA sites have access to this feature, but interviews can only use it if an Administrator imports the provided object definitions into Service Cloud, and they deploy interviews with agent checkpoints enabled.
- In Service Cloud, enable checkpoints for OPA interviews by importing the provided ServiceCloudCheckpoint custom objects.
- In Oracle Policy Modeling:
- Choose a Service Cloud connection for the project that supports checkpoints.
- Select the interview screens that will create checkpoints.
- Select the checkpoint option 'Agents can save and resume Contact checkpoints'.
Tips and Considerations
Configuration only needs to be done once for a Service Cloud instance. This will enable checkpoints for any interviews by logged-in contacts and agents that use that site.
For both agents and contacts, you can configure an interview to automatically remove the checkpoint from Service Cloud when the interview is submitted. This allows the interview to start afresh next time it is used, provided no additional checkpoints have been created on later screens.
Key Resources
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Developer_Guide/Service_Cloud/Configure_checkpoints_for_Service_Cloud_instance.htm
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Policy_Modeling_User_Guide/Checkpoints/Configure_screens_to_create_checkpoints.htm#Configur
Mobile Assessments for Service Cloud
Mobile assessments for Service Cloud allow field employees to complete interviews on mobile devices even while offline (no connectivity to the internet). Interviews are designed as assessments and workflow syncs the data to field agents who retrieve and complete assigned assessments on their mobile devices. Data is automatically uploaded from the mobile device and synced with Service Cloud when online.
Steps to Enable
OPA sites licensed for either Agent or Mobile users have access to this feature. To use it, an administrator must import provided object definitions into Service Cloud, and one or more policy models must be activated for the mobile channel. Also, Service Cloud must be configured to assign assessments to mobile users as needed.
- Set up required objects for mobile assessments in Service Cloud.
- Design assessments as interviews in Policy Modeling.
- Set up workflow to assign and track assessments to agents in Service Cloud.
Tips and Considerations
Field agents can also use the OPA mobile app to provide troubleshooting or other ad hoc advice as the need arises. The results of these assessments are not saved and are not part of the workflow in Service Cloud.
Custom applications that use the OPA mobile app functionality can be built using the OPA Mobile SDK.
Key Resources
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Service_Cloud_User_Guide/OSC_interviews/Mobile_assessments/Mobile_assessments_for_Service_Cloud.htm
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Developer_Guide/Service_Cloud/Configure_mobile_assessments_for_Service_Cloud_instance.htm
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Project_Administrator_Guide/Mobile/Use_OPA_mobile_app.htm
- http://documentation.custhelp.com/euf/assets/devdocs/august2017/PolicyAutomation/en/Default.htm#Guides/Developer_Guide/Mobile_SDK/Mobile_SDK.htm
The Oracle Service Cloud Platform includes App Builder products, the Experience Platform, and the Virtual Configuration Interface Object (CIO) Cloud Service.
This feature enables developers to log errors and custom messages through scripts. Administrators have the ability to access and review data logs and can enable or disable logging without code modification.
- Contact your Oracle account manager to have the ENABLE_CPM_LOGGING configuration setting enabled.
- Add the Probe Designer to the navigation set of any profile that will use custom process logging.
Tips and Considerations
The Probe Designer currently works only in the Agent Browser UI. However, you create the custom process models for logging in the Service Console.
Key Resources
New features to Connect v1.4 enable consistency across Connect APIs. Included are metadata improvements, support for bulk APIs for delete and extract operations, and unified metadata for Marketing and Mail APIs.
The August Release adds support for OpenID-based single sign-on support. This new protocol will enable agents to seamlessly log in to multiple OpenID Connect (OIDC) providers such as Google, Yahoo, etc. This is also a single unified protocol for web single sign-on and API security that works across various platforms including browser and mobile.
- Contact your Oracle account manager to have the SSO_ENABLE_EXTERNAL_IDP configuration setting enabled.
- Add the Single Sign-On Configurations component to the configuration list for the Configuration button.
- Register Oracle Service Cloud as a client with the OIDC provider.
- Define the OIDC provider in Oracle Service Cloud.
Tips and Considerations
Only one active identity provider can be enabled for Web SSO (across both the SAML and OIDC protocols).
Key Resources
This new API provides the ability to delete large amounts of data for incidents and related data using ROQL (RightNow Object Query Language).
Steps to Enable
Select the Bulk Delete check box on the Administration tab in the permissions editor for all profiles that will use this API.
Tips and Considerations
The maximum number of records that can be deleted at a time is 1000.
Key Resources
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