No. We need to ensure all customers have the latest critical code updates and features/functions. Therefore, during implementation all maintenance packs are mandatory. Without these critical fixes, the stability of your cloud environment can be affected. You can 'freeze' on either of the last two maintenance packs (either 5 or 6) in the lead-up to go-live, but will need to catch up afterwards.

No. We manage the monthly maintenance packs for each General Availability release to support both implementing customers and live production customers. While implementing, you will be kept on the latest General Availability release and latest maintenance pack so you can make use of all available features, while Production customers will be using the mature releases which have very low rate of change to ensure stability.

This gives you time to perform testing in non-production before changes are introduced to your production environment.

We do not allow customers to remain on an unsupported (non-GA) release that is past the end of life date published in the Oracle Utilities Release Calendar. If you do not upgrade prior to the published end of life date, Oracle may force-upgrade any unsupported environments (including Production). You will be notified of upcoming release end of life dates and will also receive advance notification of any potential force-upgrades that need to occur.

The Maintenance notification tells you what version is being delivered. You can also find the Version number on the About Window found within each environment.

Review the following content:

No. We deliver most new features turned off by default. You need to 'opt-in' to turn new features on. See the Release Readiness content for more information (https://www.oracle.com/readiness). Please note that we recommend a 'technical upgrade' approach, which involves updating the production environment to the next General Availability release without turning on new features, then in a second phase configuring and opting-in to new features as desired.

No. We schedule predefined downtime windows for all updates, as it's critical to time updates when the Oracle Cloud Applications Operations team is available in your region and when most business operations are minimal. You can find additional details in the Planned Outages section in this paper.

Update the specific Service Request (SR) in My Oracle Support, indicating that the issue was not resolved after the application of the update. Provide details of any changes in error messages or symptoms and screen shots as appropriate.

Yes. You will receive updates for all Oracle Utilities Cloud Services at the same time.

An Environment Refresh can only be performed when both source and target environments are at the same version level. Note that monthly maintenance packs will set selected non-production environments to a different level from other environments between the first and third weekends of each month.

If you receive a hot fix update, your non-production test environment will typically be at a different version from your production environment and an Environment Refresh cannot be performed. Oracle will identify the impact of hot fix Updates on a scheduled Environment Refresh. We will not apply hot fix updates to synchronize environments for an Environment Refresh.

The Environment Refresh for an environment needs to be scheduled for a time period where both source and target environments are at the same version level. Also, it should not be scheduled within a blackout period (e.g. during Infrastructure Quarterly Patching). Please reference the Oracle Utilities Cloud Services Cloud Operations Guide for more details on Refresh.

You can check the version levels of the environments using the About Window. After you submit an Environment Refresh request, we will verify that your environments are at the same update level and can receive an Environment Refresh on the date you request. If necessary, Oracle will identify the date on which your environments could be updated to the same level so that you can reschedule your Environment Refresh.

This guide will be updated as changes occur and the changes will be communicated via Oracle Support.