Understanding the Difference Between Extending and Cloning

Though extending and cloning are similar on a surface level, they have key differences and purposes. This section explains the differences, however, for EPM Digital Assistant, we recommend using extending only.

• When you extend a skill:

  • You can make a wide range of additions and changes to the extended skill but you cannot delete anything that was defined in the base skill.

  • You can later rebase, which means applying updates from the base skill into your extended skill. Rebasing is possible for extended skills because the internal tracking IDs that are generated for the extended skill match those of the base skill.

  Use extension when you want to customize a skill and then later be able to incorporate any improvements or new features from the base skill into your customized version. You can only extend skills and digital assistants that you have pulled from the Skill Store.

• When you create a clone of a skill (not recommended for EPM Digital Assistant skills):

  • You create a totally independent copy of the skill.

  • You can make unlimited changes to the clone.

  • The clone loses all association with the original skill (the tracking IDs for the cloned skill do not match those of the original), so you can't later rebase to an updated version of the original skill.

For more information about extending a skill in Oracle Digital Assistant, see Oracle Digital Assistant documentation.