AI Agent: Research Suppliers with AI

Use the new AI driven search experience by simply describing what suppliers you're looking for based on the items or services you want to procure.
For example, you can try phrases such as:

• Vendors of new hire kits based on recent orders.
• Suppliers of medical equipments like ventilators and syringes.
• Government funded suppliers of office stationery.

The AI agent will understand your search request and provide you a list of suppliers by searching in historical transactions, and the supplier profile. It will also present a summary of how it interpreted your search request to provide the supplier list.

To use this feature, click on the Research Suppliers (New) action to navigate to the AI-enabled Research Suppliers Redwood page.

Research Suppliers (New) Action on Redwood Sourcing Landing Page

To find a list of suppliers using natural language, just type in what are you looking for. For instance, type Need to procure bandages from suppliers recently ordered from.

Researching for Suppliers Using Natural Language Input Query

The AI can understand queries about one or more of the following:

• Negotiation line Items and their descriptions
• Purchasing categories of items
• Supplier keywords:
  • Supplier name
  • Alternate name
  • Parent supplier name
  • Supplier number
  • DUNS number
• Business classification of suppliers

The search is performed within purchase agreements, purchase orders, negotiations, and supplier profile records.   

You can also ask AI to exclude certain types of results when researching for suppliers. For instance, just type Show vendors of networking solutions that aren't privately owned. This helps exclude suppliers classified having a business classification as privately owned in the application.

Searching for Suppliers with Exclusion Criteria

This capability provides a simple casual interaction for category managers when finding suppliers. They can use natural conversation with AI to describe their supplier need, and the AI interprets intent, applies the right criteria, and returns results instantly. This cuts search time, removes the cognitive load of domain expertise, and feels closer to well-known search interfaces of the modern world.

Steps to enable and configure

Use the Opt In UI to enable this feature. For instructions, refer to the Optional Uptake of New Features section of this document.

Offering: Procurement

To enable this feature:

• Opt in to the Redwood: Add Suppliers Suggested by Oracle AI feature, if you haven't already, and run the Prepare Smart Supplier Suggestions ESS job to extract historical transactions and train the AI Model to provide supplier suggestions. After this, supplier data will remain available as the AI model is periodically retrained on new transactions.
• To search for suppliers using Supplier Keywords, the AI Agent uses elastic search index for reference. Search for and run the following ESS job to configure the supplier search index:
  • Process name: ESS job to create index definition and perform Initial Ingest to OSCS
  • Parameter Value for Index Name to Reingest: fa-prc-suppliers
    If you have already enabled the Suppliers (New) Redwood page, you don't have to run the process again.
     

In order to let your administrators and users configure and run AI agents, some additional setups and access requirements are needed:

• To enable permission groups for roles, take these steps:

• In the Setup and Maintenance work area, search for the Manage Administrator Profile Values task using the search link in the Tasks panel tab.
• Search for the Enable Security Console External Application Integration (ORA_ASE_SAS_INTEGRATION_ENABLED) profile option and set the Site profile level to Yes.

• Create AI Agent for Indexing Categories data
  To find a list of categories matching semantically with your search query. the AI Agent creates and reads through the index of purchasing categories available in your application. In order to create the index for the first time or to keep it updated with latest information, please schedule indexing of the purchasing categories data. To do this:
  1. Navigate to Tools > AI Agent Studio.
  2. From the Agent Teams tab, add an agent team and provide details for the new agent team.
     Details Tab

     Field	Description
     Family	Select PRC
     Product	Select Sourcing
     Type	Select Workflow

     

     Enter Details of New Agent Team for Scheduling Indexing of Purchasing Categories

     Triggers Tab
     Add a Schedule and provide details. For instance, these details can be entered to schedule the indexing on every Sunday

     Field	Description
     Schedule Type	Select Recurrence
     Recurrence Mode	Select Repeating
     Recurrence Pattern	Select Weekly
     Days of Week	Select Sunday
     Execution Time	Enter 10:25 as value

     

     Enter Schedule Details of New Agent Team for Scheduling Indexing of Purchasing Categories

  3. Click Update to add the new schedule.
  4. Click Create.
  5. Add a Workflow Node these details:

     Field	Description
     Family	Select PRC
     Product	Select Sourcing
     Workflow	Select Sourcing Vector Index Generator
     Input Variable - EntityName	Set PURCHASING_CATEGORIES as Value

     

     Enter Details of the Workflow Node

  6. Click Create and then click Publish.
  7. From the Monitoring and Evaluation tab, go to Activities tab and select Schedules to view the added schedule for indexing categories.
     

     View Schedule Details

Tips and considerations

• Use the Search Query Suggestions page property to add suggested search queries on the search box tailored to your business use cases by extending the application using Visual Builder Studio. The placeholder text will cycle through these suggestions to help user understand how to initiate the search. For instance, add 
  • Try 'Vendors of new hire kits based on recent orders.'
  • Search with 'Suppliers of medical equipments like ventilators and syringes.'

Automatic language translations for suggested queries isn't supported in this update. You can, however, add suggestions in language of your choice.

Custom Suggested Search Query

• In this update:
  • You can't search for suppliers based on supplier products and services categories (from Supplier Profile).
  • You can't search for suppliers based on procurement BU, business relationship, qualification name and outcome, nor assessment name and outcome.
  • You can't search for suppliers in approved suppliers lists.
  • You can't search and add the suppliers while creating a negotiation.
    These capabilities will be available in future updates.
• By default, results are limited to a maximum of 20 suppliers. To narrow the search, please provide specific and clearly defined search criteria.
• Administrators can use guided journeys to help category managers understand how to use the feature for their organization.

Key resources

• For information about using Oracle Visual Builder Studio to extend your Redwood application pages, see Oracle Fusion Cloud HCM and SCM: Extending Redwood Applications for HCM and SCM Using Visual Builder Studio.
• For information on enabling and using add suppliers suggested by the Oracle AI feature, see Redwood: Add Suppliers Suggested by Oracle AI.
• For information on enabling redwood experience for searching for suppliers, see Search Suppliers with a New User Experience.
• For information on enabling AI Agent Studio for Administrators, see Access Requirements for AI Agent Studio.

Access requirements

To access the Oracle AI Agent Studio for Fusion Applications and manage PRC AI agents, users must be assigned a configured job role that contains these duty roles:

• PRC Intelligent Agent Management Duty (ORA_PO_PRC_AI_AGENT_MANAGEMENT_DUTY)
• PRC Intelligent Agent Management Duty (ORA_PO_PRC_AI_AGENT_MANAGEMENT_DUTY_HCM)
• Fai Genai Agent PRC Administrator Duty (ORA_DR_FAI_GENERATIVE_AI_AGENT_PRC_ADMINISTRATOR_DUTY)

Users who are assigned a configured job role that contains this existing duty role can schedule Agent Teams:

• Fai Batch Job Manager Duty (ORA_DR_FAI_BATCH_JOB_MANAGER_DUTY)

Users who are assigned a configured job role that contains this existing privilege can access this feature:

• Research Suppliers (PON_ANALYZE_NEGOTIATION_SUPPLIER)

Users who are assigned a configured job role that contains this new duty role can use this AI enabled feature:

• Research Suppliers (ORA_DR_PON_RESEARCH_SUPPLIERS_WORKFLOW_DUTY)

In the Security Console, filter by Roles and Permission Groups to find this duty role.

To allow users to interact with agents, you must also enable permission groups in the Security Console on those users’ configured job roles that contain the Research Suppliers role. You can enable permission groups when you manage the basic information of your configured job roles.

Users’ configured job roles must also contain privileges that allow access to the pages where AI agents are enabled.

See Access Requirements for AI Agent Studio (for administrators) and How can I give users access to AI agents (for end-users) for more information.