| Oracle® Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Release Notes Release 19.0 F24874-01 |
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 Previous |
| Oracle® Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Release Notes Release 19.0 F24874-01 |
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Previous |
Release Notes
Release 19.0
F24874-01
May 2020
This document highlights the major changes for Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition 19.0.
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Note: Although this release has been branded as 19.0, it is based on the 19.0.002 service patch. |
In a world of Modern Retail, retailers must be able to:
Put the customer at the core of operations
Adapt to the fluid customer journeys, and to constantly changing customer demand
Better engage the customer in an individualized manner
Create unique experiences that keep customers intrigued and coming back
As retailers adapt to the changing landscape, and pivot their business processes and focus to the customer, what retailers are pursuing are three very simple strategies: Shift to Next Practice, Tailor the Experience, Drive Operational Agility - and a platform for modern retail is how retailers drive success across these three strategies.
Oracle's Platform for Modern Retail brings together a complete and connected approach to retailing across the entire retail enterprise, enabling retailers to shift from the traditional design-plan-buy-move-sell to a more modern and complete design-plan-buy-move-acquire-interact-comply. Our platform for modern retail enables us to differentiate our solutions, and to take to market more prescriptive processes, drive faster time to market, ultimately delivering quicker ROI.
Oracle's Platform for Modern Retail allows our retail customers to accelerate the move to Next Practice at speed and scale. It gives our retail customers the ability to Tailor the Experience and Engage the Brand, while also Driving Operational Agility, so our retailers can respond to Change in the market at a Continuous Cadence.
Best practice is about staying even with the pack, following in the footsteps of other retailers. Next Practice focuses on leading the pack, on defining and architecting leading edge practices, and next gen KPIs that will propel retailers into a leadership position.
Customer is the disrupter; retailers need a broad capability model that puts the customer at the core. Best practices allow retailers to stay on par and even compete in today's retail landscape; best practices enable retailers to manage their current customer segments, focus on the present, and look at the past. Leaders that focus on architecting Next Practice will differentiate. Next practices that focus on:
The lowest level of customer detail
The individual
How customers are driving retail landscape
The point of intent
Creating a "next practice" culture, that takes advantage of embedded science, AI and Machine Learning, as well as establishing and executing to more modern KPIs, will empower retailers to lead, innovate and put customer at the core of their operations, with ease and simplicity. Ultimately creating a groundswell of acceptance and widespread adoption for new and innovative next practices.
As retailers pivot to customer, it is more important than ever that they are hyper-focused on customer - 63% of consumers say 1 unsatisfactory experience is enough for them to change brands.
It is a nice sentiment to say, that customer satisfaction is the only thing that retailers care about, but the reality is, customer satisfaction is disruptive to deliver. The changing needs and demands of customers make this a challenging landscape to navigate. But to thrive in this disruptive landscape, it is critical that retailers have the customer at the core of their operations.
Retail has historically focused on product, placement, price - customer is now the 4th dimension of retail and needs to be at the core of all operations. Today we sell what we bought; tomorrow we will anticipate what our best customers will want to buy next, at full price, and then place those curated items in the location they will most likely want to retrieve them, while maintaining trust in the brand.
Empowering retailers to create a unique, tailored, and curated experience for each and every customer. Ultimately coordinating the outcome, driving increased customer satisfaction, and exceeding customer expectations in their retail journey.
Tailoring the experience is also about "Coordinating the Outcome" - where the retailer is doing everything they can to make the experience as seamless to the consumer as possible - no matter what journey the customer chooses (Buy Online Pickup in Store (BOPIS), Buy Online Return in Store (BORIS), etc.). This may mean driving meaningful data into operational dashboards for exception and real-time monitoring, or only interacting with exceptions. Whatever the process is, the focus is on creating that unique experience that will keep customers coming back.
Responding faster to change, executing at scale, and moving to a continuous cadence are all major ways in which Oracle solutions can best help retailers pivot to customer, with speed and agility.
Creating new opportunities with technology, and using embedded science and AI to supplement the work of business people are great examples of some of the ways that Oracle is helping retailers respond to change.
The shift to cloud has driven us to a continuous cadence model, where we enable retailers to consume the most up to date features and functions, seamlessly, with speed and without any disruption to retail operations. By extension, we are empowering retailers to also move to a continuous cadence of innovation, enabling them to adapt to the changing customer behavior, with speed and at scale.
RPAS CE platform is the foundation for Oracle Retail's Planning Solutions and provides a highly configurable platform and fit-for-purpose user interface. This empowers retailers to tailor planning processes that enable their business strategies and define these strategies through a user interface designed specifically for planning.
Following is a summary of the key features of RPAS Cloud Edition.
The dashboard presents a contextual and interactive view of key performance indicators, notifications, and exceptions by role and business process, as well as intuitive launch points to business activities. Users can easily access the recent plans that they have worked on.
The capabilities include:
Profiles tailored to business processes (such as pre-season and in-season)
Summary KPIs (through dashboard tiles)
Filters to focus on priorities
Visual representation of KPIs using dynamic charts
Personalized layouts
Quick access to recent plans
The Workspace facilitates the personal working copy of data for the user and enables the user to perform large-scale operations such as build, open, refresh, calculate, and commit. Other convenience operations available include the ability to sort, find, format, lock, unlock, and scroll through the page edges.
The capabilities include:
Easy to launch from multiple areas
Simultaneous work allowed in multiple workspaces
Quick text and cell resize
Exclusive Auto-Save
Simple and flexible to format to the user's preference
Instantly save and clear formats
The exception dashboard with summary tiles includes exceptional conditions to help the user focus on the specific areas of the plan that needs attention. Exception-driven processes are a key evolution from RPAS on the Fusion Client where batch and real-time alerts used to support a process projected on top of the alerts rather than exceptions driving the process from end to end.
The capabilities include:
Type of exceptions with Exception summary and alert counts
Supporting dynamic charts
Filterable exception dashboard
In-contextual launch to predefined workspace with automated alert navigation
True end-to-end exception-driven process with ability to launch alert navigation mode to the point of resolution
Utilizing the built-in features of the Oracle JavaScript Extension Toolkit (Oracle JET) framework, dashboard and workspace layouts provide responsiveness from large desktop down to small tablet form factors. Charts and tables automatically resize to adapt to the viewport and are implemented using touch-friendly controls for ease-of-use on a touch device.
A redefined navigational structure emphasizes the user's ability to move quickly throughout the workspace. Task flow navigation has been limited to focus on the initial building of a workspace, with frequently used areas migrated into the top navigation bar (Mega Menu), which provides simple access to all the steps and sub-steps within a plan.
What-if scenarios is a strategic method of scenario planning that the planner can use to make flexible plans by keeping the Initial scenario intact. What-if scenarios are additional plan versions that are created to simulate outcomes with different inputs. This allows the planner to maintain and re-forecast their primary plan while preparing a stretch plan to quickly react to upward trends or more aggressive business growth targets.
The planner can quickly promote the what-if scenario to be the primary plan and make it the go-forward plan.
With the addition of what-if scenarios, the planner is not only able to make more informed decisions, the planner is able to be more responsive in adjusting plans.
View management enhances the user's ability to customize their layout. Users can specify display preferences to suit their particular needs at any given stage in the planning process. View management uses a simple drag-and-drop interface enhanced for touch devices, making rearranging the user's data quick and easy. Once a layout is decided within a step, it will not change, so users can move about freely without fear of losing their display preferences.
The capabilities include:
Create, copy, and remove views
Drag-and-drop interface
Detach views to full screen
Pre-configured responsive view layouts (1X, 2X Horizontal, 2X Vertical, 4X)
Touch-friendly layout management
Quick ability to switch between pivot table and charts per view
Ability to change chart types
Page edge synchronized views
The Administrator Dashboard provides administrators with a visual system health check to quickly identify the actions needed. With the task status dashboard, the user can click on the status tiles directly to filter the data.
The Administrator Dashboard table view provides the flexibility to sort by process status, job name, task name, submitted by, submitted, started, and completed. When the Administrator wants to view more data, the detached view provides multi-layered sorting.
The Administrator can also filter by status, tasks, period, and the user who submitted the task. A convenient user interface provides access to system logs and a comprehensive portfolio of self-services tasks. It is easy to refresh the task dashboard for any updates.
Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition is hosted in the Oracle Cloud with the security features inherent to Oracle technology and a robust data center classification, providing significant uptime. The Oracle Cloud team is responsible for installing, monitoring, patching, and upgrading retail software.
Included in the service is continuous technical support, access to software feature enhancements, hardware upgrades, and disaster recovery. The Cloud Service model helps to free customer IT resources from the need to perform these tasks, giving retailers greater business agility to respond to changing technologies and to perform more value-added tasks focused on business processes and innovation.
Oracle Retail Software Cloud Service is acquired exclusively through a subscription service (SaaS) model. This shifts funding from a capital investment in software to an operational expense. Subscription-based pricing for retail applications offers flexibility and cost effectiveness.
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Note: With this release, Microsoft Windows 7 is no longer supported for the Oracle Retail Merchandise Planning & Optimization/Supply Chain Cloud Services. Microsoft Windows 10 is the only supported operating system. |
The following technology is supported:
Operating system:
Microsoft Windows 10 with Microsoft Office 2013
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Note: Oracle Retail assumes that the retailer has ensured its Operating System has been patched with all applicable Windows updates. |
Web browsers supported on Microsoft Windows 10:
Mozilla Firefox 68+ ESR
Google Chrome (Desktop) 79+
Microsoft Edge 44+
The functional enhancements described below are included in this release:
The Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition (RPAS CE) platform has been extended to include the Planning Data Store (PDS). The PDS provides a common reference point for shared measures across all RPAS CE-based solutions. This enables RPAS CE-based solutions to share updates in real time and to interact with external systems via consolidated integrations. For instance, MFP plan is available immediately to A&IP, or RDF CS forecasts are updated using the latest sales. The PDS also supports modern integration patterns, including support for database-to-database bulk data integration and on-demand web-services. These integration patterns are the foundation of native integrations with Oracle Retail SaaS solutions (such as Merchandising Cloud Services). These also simplify the integration processes of retailers as they integrate with RPAS CE-based SaaS solutions.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Planning Data Store Administration chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
The user can now download a more intuitive DPM template and import more easily through Excel than before. The revived DPM import allows the user to download a template for adding positions. This enables the user to select the dimension and level at which the new position needs to be added, such as style level, style color, or item level under the product dimension. Updating the downloaded template and simply importing it back will add new positions to the system. Each selection will provide a unique template with inbuilt examples to show how to fill in the template. This feature will be automatically available to the user.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Placeholder Maintenance chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition User Guide.
The user will be presented with an option of a rolling calendar in the wizard which enables the user to choose a range of time periods with respect to current date. This will help the user in planning / forecasting with relative dates, rather than using the pre-defined time period given on the wizard. The user can opt to make the user's own range of time periods. To take advantage of this feature, the system implementer needs to configure this feature.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Rolling Calendar section of the Segments chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition User Guide.
Oracle Retail now supports entire row / column data copy-paste from external applications to the RPAS pivot table as well as from the RPAS pivot table to external applications. This can be achieved by the keyboard shortcut command Ctrl+C & Ctrl+V. This will help the user to transfer a large amount of data efficiently.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Using Cut, Copy and Paste section of the Workspaces chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition User Guide.
There are multiple enhancements introduced in this release which provide tools that the administrator can use to do their job more efficiently.
Log viewing is now easier than before. With this release, Oracle Retail provides intuitive log viewing to the Administrators. They can now monitor logs from their admin dashboard, drilling down to the subtasks in one click. The parent task and child task are presented on the dashboard UI so that the Administrator can monitor easily and on time. It will provide the ability to download the log at any stage of the task run and support viewing the live log.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Administration Dashboard section of the Online Administration Tools chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
Monitoring the status of an OAT task on the dashboard can be tedious during weekends or non-working times. An email notification can be set up which will be triggered when the task is complete (Pass / Fail). The email id can be set up for those users who require the notification of the task run.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Email Notification with OAT Task section of the Online Administration Tools chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
Feature toggle provides the power of selection to the user for certain features. When an upgrade or a patch is run, there may be some feature which is not usable for the current business process of the user. Feature toggle provides an ability to select features which are relevant. The ones which are not relevant currently can be turned off before the upgrade or patch. The feature can be turned back on if it is required in the future.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Enable / Disable Toggleable Features Task section of the Online Administration Tools chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
The user can be from a different time zone. So, users need to run the batches per their local time. Now, the time zone can be set per the local or chosen time zone using an OAT task. This will help make scheduling the jobs easier.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the Data Administration chapter. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
An option is now provided to the customer to enable the latency logging. This will help the customer administrator to work with Oracle support on any network latency related performance issues.
The documentation change is outlined below:
Updates have been made in the RPASCE Client Logging Configuration appendix. See the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide.
The following noteworthy defect fixes are included in this release:
| Affected Component | Fixed Issue/Defect | Defect Number |
|---|---|---|
| RPAS CE Server | Changes have been made to make the workbook build process faster. | 29342806 |
| RPAS CE Server | Changes have been made to the NA handler to improve the response time. | 30374228 |
| RPAS CE Server | Running a load OAT task with the R parameter in the batch_loadmeas_list.txt file was not failing with error code 37 when there was any rejected record. This issue has been fixed. |
30438527 |
| RPAS CE Server | The PURGE OAT task was failing with an exception. This issue has been fixed. | 30592337 |
| RPAS CE Server | The presence of GLOBALDOMAINPARTITION.XML was causing the domain patch to fail. An extra check has been added to handle this issue. | 30617978 |
| RPAS CE Server | The Upload Batch Control Files OAT task displayed some inconsistency in handling the loaded batch files. This issue has been fixed. | 30624198 |
| RPAS CE Server | The Store Clustering workbook was not building correctly. This has been fixed. | 30640352 |
| RPAS CE Server | A read-only workbook was not available in the Recent Plans view. Changes has been made to make it available in the Recent Plans view. | 30656986 |
| RPAS CE Server | While launching an alert in the forecast review workspace, the UI was not responding correctly. This issue has been fixed. | 30656994 |
| RPAS CE Server | There was an issue with loading multiple load measures in parallel. This issue has been fixed. | 30669349 |
| RPAS CE Server | Changes has been made so that the eebatch_calc.ksh script now validates both the domain parameter and the execution type parameter. It further validates that the group or expression text value is not blank. | 30675082 |
| RPAS CE Server | If an export measure was run twice with the same measure, it was showing an error. This issue has been fixed. Now it will log the duplicate entry and process the measure once. | 30719131 |
| RPAS CE Server | Multiple commits of the same workbook done back to back with very less interval then the first and last commit will be processed, and others will be treated as duplicate. No error will be displayed. | 30764945 |
| RPAS CE Server | When the batch_xform_list.txt file contained windows line endings (CR), eebatch_xform.ksh generated the output Transformed File as blank. This issue has been fixed. | 30774918 |
| RPAS CE Server | An extra validation has been added for the export measure to validate the database and arrays. This will help in smoother processing of the script. | 30808271 |
| RPAS CE Server | Under the configured batch task in the UI, the merge of the batch_control and batch_control_cust OAT lists was not getting displayed. A fix has been made to show the merged list. An additional fix has been made to allow the duplicate label to appear in the OAT drop-down list. Also, a warning message was added to show why an item is hidden. | 30820423 |
| RPAS CE Server | The workbook build was failing due to the locking of a certain measure database. This issue has been fixed. | 30826049 |
| RPAS CE Client | Changes have been made to the list view for the Menu Bar so that the user can scroll when the list of views is big. | 30594718 |
| RPAS CE Client | Changes has been made to allow special characters for DPM labels. | 30755293 |
| RPAS CE Client | Changes have been made so that the user can download the DPM import sample template after getting any new/updated attributes. | 30867045 |
| RPAS CE Configuration Tools | There was an issue with merging a configuration file with one having an additional viewable measure profile. This issue has been fixed. | 30489817 |
| RPAS CE Configuration Tools | Selection of the Configuration Tools task type has been modified to make it more user friendly. | 30589542 |
| RPAS CE Configuration Tools | Extra validation has been added for the worksheets row in the Container View configuration. | 30657152 |
For more information, see the following documents in the Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition 19.0 documentation set:
Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Administration Guide
Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Configuration Tools User Guide
Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition User Guide
Oracle Retail Predictive Application Server and Applications Cloud Edition Security Guide
The following document is available through My Oracle Support using Doc ID 2492295.1. Access My Oracle Support at the following URL:
The following types of documents are available:
Release Value Proposition identifies major enhancements, and articulates expected business benefits in an upcoming release.
Advance Release Notification provides a summary of the enhancements that are planned and defects that are scheduled to be fixed in the specified service patch.
Release Notes provide a summary of the enhancements and fixed defects in the specified service patch.
White Papers provide additional information to supplement the official documentation published for the specified releases.
The following training is available.
The Oracle Retail Learning Subscription is a digital training solution for anyone on your team seeking training on Oracle Retail Products. With the learning subscription you get the key elements of an effective learning program and the conveniences of a digital format, making this training unmatched in the industry.
You get modern learning at its best, such as:
12 months of 24/7 access to a comprehensive set of high-quality videos delivered by Oracle experts.
Detailed coverage and step-by-step demonstrations.
Periodic updates for new features and product enhancements.
Flexibility to search, access, and learn about specific topics of interest.
The learning subscription enables current users to continually refresh and upgrade their product skills. It also enables new employees with a self-paced learning guide to help them quickly become proficient on Oracle Retail Products.
For training opportunities, see the following web site:
For information about Oracle's commitment to accessibility, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program website at http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=docacc.
Access to Oracle Support
Oracle customers that have purchased support have access to electronic support through My Oracle Support. For information, visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=info or visit http://www.oracle.com/pls/topic/lookup?ctx=acc&id=trs if you are hearing impaired.
Oracle® Retail Predictive Application Server Cloud Edition Release Notes, Release 19.0
F24874-01
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Value-Added Reseller (VAR) Language
Oracle Retail VAR Applications
The following restrictions and provisions only apply to the programs referred to in this section and licensed to you. You acknowledge that the programs may contain third party software (VAR applications) licensed to Oracle. Depending upon your product and its version number, the VAR applications may include:
(i) the MicroStrategy Components developed and licensed by MicroStrategy Services Corporation (MicroStrategy) of McLean, Virginia to Oracle and imbedded in the MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Data Warehouse and MicroStrategy for Oracle Retail Planning & Optimization applications.
(ii) the Wavelink component developed and licensed by Wavelink Corporation (Wavelink) of Kirkland, Washington, to Oracle and imbedded in Oracle Retail Mobile Store Inventory Management.
(iii) the software component known as Access Via™ licensed by Access Via of Seattle, Washington, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Signs and Oracle Retail Labels and Tags.
(iv) the software component known as Adobe Flex™ licensed by Adobe Systems Incorporated of San Jose, California, and imbedded in Oracle Retail Promotion Planning & Optimization application.
You acknowledge and confirm that Oracle grants you use of only the object code of the VAR Applications. Oracle will not deliver source code to the VAR Applications to you. Notwithstanding any other term or condition of the agreement and this ordering document, you shall not cause or permit alteration of any VAR Applications. For purposes of this section, "alteration" refers to all alterations, translations, upgrades, enhancements, customizations or modifications of all or any portion of the VAR Applications including all reconfigurations, reassembly or reverse assembly, re-engineering or reverse engineering and recompilations or reverse compilations of the VAR Applications or any derivatives of the VAR Applications. You acknowledge that it shall be a breach of the agreement to utilize the relationship, and/or confidential information of the VAR Applications for purposes of competitive discovery.
The VAR Applications contain trade secrets of Oracle and Oracle's licensors and Customer shall not attempt, cause, or permit the alteration, decompilation, reverse engineering, disassembly or other reduction of the VAR Applications to a human perceivable form. Oracle reserves the right to replace, with functional equivalent software, any of the VAR Applications in future releases of the applicable program.
