During Quest Forum Digital Event: Cloud Week, Floyd Teter, Senior Director at Oracle HCM Development Center of Excellence, discussed how to maintain a regular cadence living in the cloud – specifically Oracle Cloud HCM. Teter specializes in HCM, but it is important to note that the majority of the information in the presentation is applicable across Oracle Cloud.

Due to COVID-19 and the current environment, this is the first time in the workforce that Generation Z, Y-Millennials, Generation X, and Baby Boomers are all working together using technology. It is important to note that these characteristics are important to pay attention to when addressing the needs of the different generations.

Benefits of Leveraging Cloud

In these times, cloud can be a major asset to the workforce. There are several reasons why the cloud is so highly recommended and utilized by so many. It provides opportunities for current innovation and utilizes digital strategy. In addition, it is comprised of a competitive workforce. All the content and features within the cloud are agile and relevant and assist in getting business done.

Typically, the IT team is overworked, understaffed, and clashes with the business and functional leads. However, Oracle Cloud HCM can bring balance to the “force” business. Now the IT team can focus on innovation. They can convert IT talent like DBAs into cloud administrators. With the cloud, the infrastructure and delivery are no longer IT’s concern. With Oracle Cloud HCM, there is consistent delivery of functionality and consistent updates and maintenance. Additionally, there is an increase in ROI and usage and also an increase in engagement and satisfaction.

When the business is happy, everyone is happy. With Oracle Cloud HCM, a new digital strategy has been put in place. Employees can now work anywhere because the technology is mobile. Oracle Cloud HCM is competitive in the workforce with technology and assists in increasing productivity. Additionally, Oracle Cloud HCM promotes collaboration and an employee-focused system. Finally, Oracle Cloud HCM increases engagement and satisfaction.

Another wonderful thing about the cloud is that it is an all-in-one solution.

• ONE HCM Solution: Complete
• ONE design: Simple interactions
• ONE experience: Any device
• ONE homepage: Newsfeed style, responsive UI, mobile
• ONE platform: Beyond HCM
• ONE data model: Single source of truth
• ONE security: Across SaaS and PaaS
• ONE connection: Unified integration
• ONE toolset: Adaptable configuration
• ONE innovation partner: AI/ML/Blockchain/IoT/bots
• ONE community: HR thought leaders/practitioners

Oracle Cloud has several solutions for success. Documentation, My Oracle Support (MOS), Key Portals, Cloud Customer Connect, and docs.oracle.com are some of those solutions. Additionally, environment upgrades, patches, and Cloud policy also contribute to successes.

Cloud Customer Connect

Oracle Cloud Customer Connect provides opportunities to collaborate, innovate, engage experts, learn, preview, and get recognized. Users can collaborate and explore best practices with customers from their industry. They can also share their ideas, vote on other ideas, and contribute to Oracle’s product roadmap. They can engage experts and leverage the knowledge of product experts to get answers. Learning through participating via invitation-only events such as Customer Showcase and Tips and Tricks can also be very beneficial. Users can preview and gain early insight into cloud updates, roadmaps, and previews. Users can also manage their reputation with badges and certificates to promote their expertise and accomplishments.

Roles in the Cloud

In regard to HCM Cloud functional roles and customer roles, there are several typical duties, responsibilities, knowledge, and skills necessary to be successful. Customers must maintain business process and procedure documentation for an area of responsibility. They must also maintain test use case documentation and test scripts for an area of responsibility. It is also necessary to do functional regression testing post-upgrade. Customers also need to understand the fundamentals of Fusion HCM. They need to understand the detailed business processes and practices of the enterprise. Additionally, they must understand the detailed setup of Fusion HCM and the expected use as deployed. Finally, they must maintain and change the setup to meet changing needs in the enterprise.

There are also several typical duties, responsibilities, knowledge, and skills necessary for HCM Cloud System administration roles and customer roles. They must schedule and troubleshoot standard reports. They need to run standard audit reports and initiate actions. They must set up and maintain role and data security definitions in HCM. Setting up and maintaining transaction approval rules for specific functional area owners is also necessary. They must also Log Service Requests and work with Oracle Support and an implementation partner to achieve resolution. In addition to the fundamentals of HCM, they must have good problem-solving skills and be confident in working effectively with Oracle Support. They need to be able to perform the Administrative Tasks in Functional Setup Manager and Oracle Identify Manager.

New Cloud Service role models include Service Innovation Manager, Service Delivery Manager, and Service Testing Manager. The Service Innovation Manager promotes the adoption of Oracle innovation and drives the deployment schedule. The Service Delivery Manager coordinates your business schedule with Instance Management and refreshes and updates. Service Testing Manager manages testing for business continuity and deployment of innovation.

Responsibilities in Oracle Cloud

This breakdown shows the responsibilities that lie with Oracle vs. the customer in the cloud:

• Oracle
  • Provide modern application that will be maintained on a consistent basis with a roadmap of new functionality
  • Maintain the application code and technology stack
  • Deliver an environment that is high-performance, scalable, and secure
  • Provide a rich knowledge base, application support, and a focus on customer success
• Customer
  • Manage ongoing configuration and data
  • Prepare for and test updates and upgrade regularly against your business processes
  • Establish a knowledgeable internal support structure
  • Select a qualified System Integrator (or OCS) to carry out your implementation
  • Education/enablement of users and administrators
  • Maintain any integrations

Continuous Innovation with Cloud

There are many benefits to continuous Cloud innovation and its predictability, including:

• Less downtime
• A predictable schedule
• Features come faster
• Easier to consume
• Can be switched off
• Simple to activate

Planned Updates

The image below shows the next planned quarterly updates: