SEPTEMBER 2014
Disclaimer
The following is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information
purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It 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 for Oracles products
remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
Table of Contents
Disclaimer
Upgrade Overview
Pre-Upgrade Survey
Upgrade Notifications
Release Information
Available Training
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P2T requests for customers using the delivered integration between Fusion HCM and
Taleo Recruiting
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Pre-Upgrade Checklist
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Upgrade Overview
Oracle Fusion HCM Cloud Services provide customers with a flexible upgrade program. This flexible
upgrade program allows you to plan your upgrade around critical business cycles performance
reviews, compensation cycles, end of year work, etc.
During the upgrade program you can select an upgrade slot that works in support of your business
needs. Oracle offers a sizable 4 month window within which you can select your upgrade slot.
Customers can then remain on their current release (N-1) until their selected upgrade time; while at
the same time, other customers are up-taking the latest release (N).
Oracle anticipates that the Fusion HCM Release 9 upgrade program will run from December 2014
through March 2015.
The following BPMN diagram provides an overview of the upgrade process.
Note: To view the BPMN diagram in more detail, open the attachment named Upgrade Process
Diagram in MOS article 1928157.1.
Please note that the Release 9 upgrade process requires that Test/Stage environments can ONLY be
upgraded midweek with downtime starting on Tuesdays. Production environments can ONLY be
upgraded on weekends based on the standard maintenance window start time for your patching
region. The default testing time between the Test/Stage upgrade and Production upgrade is 3.5
weeks.
Upgrade Communications
Pre-Upgrade Survey
At the beginning of the upgrade period, the primary upgrade contact or Service Administrator will receive an email
with a link to the upgrade survey. The purpose of this survey is to:
It is important that this survey be completed in order to help Oracle schedule your upgrade for a date that is
convenient for you. If you do not return the survey then your upgrade will be scheduled in the first available upgrade
window. Any contacts that you provide in the survey will be added to the Cloud Notification Portal (if they are not
already listed). Oracle will make every effort to accommodate your critical dates but can make no guarantees.
A few weeks after the survey has been sent out, you will receive an Upgrade Schedule Notification from the Cloud
Notification Portal with proposed dates for upgrading each of your environments.
Upgrade Notifications
All communication related to the upgrade will be sent to those contacts listed in the Oracle Cloud Service
Notification Portal. It is the responsibility of the customer Notification Portal Admin to ensure that all contacts are
kept up to date.
If you need to add additional users to the notification list, please see My Oracle Support (MOS) article Managing
Notifications in the Cloud Portal (Doc ID 1536370.1).
Release Information
Release Readiness material can be found on the Customer Connect Release 9 Dashboard. Here you will also find
upgrade information, webcasts and community discussions.
A SaaS Release 9 Readiness page is available on cloud.oracle.com. This page includes information on whats
new in Release 9, Release Content Documents (RCD), and release training content.
You should review what is new in the release, and give some thought as to what new features would benefit your
users. Where possible, Oracle strives to allow you to control when the new feature is exposed to your end users.
This allows you to upgrade, and then manage the introduction and use of new features into your user community
at a pace that works for you. Oracle recommends that you upgrade and validate all existing functionality in use and
then plan to implement new features at a later time. This is suggested due to the limited amount of time to perform
testing between Test/Stage and Production upgrades.
Available Training
Oracle will host HCM Customer Connect Sessions and Office Hours Sessions on Release 9. These sessions will
be recorded and posted on Customer Connect Release 9 Dashboard.
The schedule of upcoming sessions can be found on the Release 9 Dashboard.
Click the Create SR button under the Service Request section of the page
3.
To confirm the upgrade schedule dates, enter Problem Summary = REL9 Upgrade Confirmation
4.
5.
6.
Under the Where is the Problem? section, select the Cloud tab:
7.
a.
Service Type: Select Oracle Fusion Global Human Resources Cloud Service
b.
c.
1)
Please acknowledge that you have been notified about your production and stage upgrade dates.
2)
Please provide URL names for the Stage/Test and Production environments.
Test Env URL:
Production Env URL:
3)
4)
5)
As these requests are not production system/service impacting issues, please expect a slower turnaround on
them. The SR should NOT be logged as a Severity 1 issue.
Release 9 Upgrade
Outage Time for Upgrade
The estimated outage time for the Release 9 upgrade is 48 hours, but actual time may vary based on the amount
of data in your environment.
If your environment has any language packs installed, the upgrade time will be extended by approximately 3 hours
for each language pack.
When logging an upgrade related Service Request (SR) please file the SR using the Software tab, and then select
the new upgraded version for the release version. You must also include the string REL9UPG at the beginning of
the Problem Summary. This tag will be used by Support Management to help prioritize Upgrade issues and their
resolution.
Service Type: Select Oracle Fusion Global Human Resources Cloud Service.
Problem Type: Hosting Services Application > Fusion HCM P2T Standard.
P2T Requests for Customers Using the Delivered Integration between Fusion
HCM and Taleo Recruiting
Details on the P2T process can be found in article Doc ID 1534683.1 on My Oracle Support. Open the attachment
entitled Taleo Zone Refresh with Fusion HCM P2T.
A Production to Test (P2T) Content Migration can NOT be requested in the same SR as that used for confirming
the schedule of your the upgrade. You must file a separate SR for a P2T.
1. Login to My Oracle Support.
2. Click the Create SR button under the Service Request section of the page.
3. Enter Problem Summary = REL9 Upgrade Taleo Zone Refresh/Fusion HCM P2T
4. Enter a Problem Description.
5. Under the Where is the Problem? section, select the Cloud tab:
a. Service Type: Select Oracle Fusion Global Human Resources Cloud Service.
b. Problem Type: Hosting Services Application > Taleo Zone Refresh with Fusion HCM
P2T.
c. Support Identifier Customer CSI (this should default to your CSI).
6. Click Next to complete the template.
Ensure that you pick the P2T category when creating the SR (so that the appropriate template questions
are provided during the SR creation).
Production and Test/Stage environments must be at the same patch level. See HCM Cloud patching
article Doc ID 1619092.1 for more information on patching and P2T.
Production and Test/Stage environments must have the same language packs installed.
No P2T content migrations will be performed during the blackout period. The blackout period is from the
1st Friday in each month until the Monday after the 3rd Friday in each month.
See: Cloud Service Requests and Fulfillment for Oracle HCM Cloud Service (Doc ID 1534683.1) for more
information on P2Ts.
Pre-Upgrade Checklist
The Cloud Notification Portal Admin should ensure the correct contacts are listed in the Cloud Notific ation
Portal - only contacts listed in the Cloud Notification Portal will receive notifications related to the
upgrade.
Attend the Release 9 HCM Upgrade Planning & Logistics HCM Live session. View details on the
Customer Connect Release 9 Dashboard.
Review Release 9 enhancements and make necessary plans to implement new functionality after your
upgrade is complete.
If a Production to Test (P2T) Content Migration is required, file an SR via My Oracle Support.
Confirm the upgrade schedule dates received in the Upgrade Schedule Notification via a SR, instructions
above in section How to confirm/reschedule upgrade dates.
If you have used HCM sandboxes, review and delete sandboxes that are not needed and publish the
sandboxes that would be needed after upgrade to avoid loss of data only published sandboxes will be
available after the upgrade.
Upload reports after upgrade. Instructions can be found here: Doc ID 1581294.1
Check for and save any custom Help text using Functional Setup Manager (FSM), it will need to be
restored after the upgrade.
Create test plans that validate all necessary business processes to include test scripts, and any minor
new functionality that will be used immediately after upgrade .
o
Basic testing can be the standard test scripts that a customer runs after the monthly patch
bundles are applied.
Standard test scripts should be enhanced based on the new functionality of the release that will
be used immediately after the upgrade.
Log a SR for any issue that is related to the upgrade with REL9UPG at the beginning of the Problem
Summary.
Ensure you have suitable workarounds for any minor issues filed during stage testing which are not due
to be fixed in production upgrade.
Verify any SRs filed during stage testing that are due to be fixed in production upgrade.