1 Feature Summary
The enhancements below are included in this release.
Noteworthy Enhancements
This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in the Oracle Retail Merchandising Cloud Services update and describes any tasks you might need to perform for the update. Each section includes a brief description of the feature, the steps you need to take to enable or begin using the feature, any tips or considerations that you should keep in mind, and the resources available to help you.
Column Definitions
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Feature: Provides a description of the feature being delivered.
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Module Impacted: Identifies the module impacted associated with the feature, if any.
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Scale: Identifies the size of the feature. Options are:
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Small: These UI or process-based features are typically comprised of minor field, validation, or program changes. Therefore, the potential impact to users is minimal.
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Medium: These UI or process-based features are typically comprised of field, validation, or program changes. Therefore, the potential impact to users is moderate.
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Large: These UI or process-based features have more complex designs. Therefore, the potential impact to users is higher.
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Delivered: Is the new feature available for use immediately after upgrade or must the feature be enabled or configured? If no, the feature is non-disruptive to end users, and action is required to make the feature ready to use.
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Customer Action Required: You must take action before these features can be used. These features are delivered disabled and you choose if and when to enable them.
| Feature | Module Impacted | Scale | Delivered | Customer Action Required? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New and Updated Options | ||||
|
Merchandising Modernization – Location Foundation Data Upload/Download |
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
Independent Access for Warehouse Department Parameters Screen |
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
Query Database with Natural Language via Digital Assistant Chat |
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
Digital Assistant Chat Extended to Non-Production Environments |
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS, IMCS |
Medium |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS |
Small |
Disabled |
Yes |
|
|
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
New ReST Service to Define Transfer Price for Intercompany Allocations |
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
MFCS |
Larger |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
Added Visibility to Total Estimated Landed Cost (ELC) for Orders |
MFCS |
Medium |
Enabled |
No |
|
IMCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
IMCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
PCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
RFMCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
RFMCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
|
External Item API Enhanced to Contain Parent Hierarchy Details |
MFCS |
Small |
Enabled |
No |
|
New Allocation Service API for Timely Transfer of Inventory Data to RI |
MFCS |
Small |
Disabled |
Yes |
|
New Transfer Service API for Timely Transfer of Inventory Data to RI |
MFCS |
Small |
Disabled |
Yes |
New and Updated Options
Merchandising Modernization – Location Foundation Data Upload/Download
This cloud service update introduces spreadsheet upload and download capabilities for Location-related Foundation data within the modernized Locations Destination. The ‘Locations’ landing page now includes ‘Supporting Data’ actions for location-related spreadsheet templates, providing users with a centralized interface to download existing location data, make offline updates, and upload changes back into the application.
To support this new access to these spreadsheet templates, new security privileges and duties have been introduced enabling independent access control to each template from the Locations landing page.
Merchandising Modernization – Location Closing Maintenance
This cloud service update introduces a modernized Location Closings user interface within Merchandising as part of a broader, phased redesign aligned with contemporary design standards, ensuring a smooth transition for users.
The enhanced Location Closings workflow is available within the Locations Destination and can be accessed from both the Warehouse and Store pages. It provides a unified interface for creating and managing location-specific closings and company closing exceptions for individual locations, as well as viewing company-wide closings. The interface also offers intuitive search and filtering capabilities, enabling users to quickly locate and manage closing records at both the company and location levels.
The workflow also incorporates AI-assisted translations, enabling users to efficiently create multilingual content while reducing manual effort. Users can review and refine the generated translations as needed to ensure the final content is both accurate and contextually appropriate. New appropriate privileges are required to access or view the Locations Closings page in the Locations Destination.
Access to the Location Closings feature is controlled by new security privileges and duties.
Independent Access for Warehouse Department Parameters Screen
This cloud service update introduces a new standalone entry point for the Warehouse Department Parameters screen. Users can now access the page directly from the Replenishment folder in the Merchandising Tasks list and select the warehouse for which they want to maintain investment buy parameters at the warehouse or warehouse/department level. Apart from the new entry point, the existing functionality in the Warehouse Department Parameters screen remains unchanged.
To support this new access path, new security privileges and duties have been introduced, enabling independent access control to the Warehouse Department Parameters screen. This provides more granular security while ensuring that all organizational hierarchy functionality remains available during the transition to the modern user interface.
Manage Warehouse ReST Service
This cloud service update introduces new managed services that enable external systems to maintain physical warehouses, their associated virtual warehouses, and related information such as addresses and translations when Merchandising is not the system of record for organizational hierarchy data. The services also support the import of Custom Flexible Attributes (CFAs) during warehouse creation. Supported operations include Create, Update, and Delete, enabling seamless synchronization of warehouse master data between external systems and Merchandising.
Deprecation Message Banner for Re-platformed Screens
This cloud service update introduces a deprecation message banner which will be displayed in the classic view of the Organizational Hierarchy screen. The message banner is intended to inform users of the availability of the new modernized Locations Destination workflow replacing the classic view, and encourage their adoption of it, prior to the date upon which the classic view will be deprecated. The message that displays in the banner can be customized to better align with the rollout plan specific to the client’s user community using the Error Messages spreadsheet upload. The error message identifier for this message is 'UI_DEPRECATION_ORG_HIER'.
The Locations Destinations Access Duty will grant users access to the Locations Destination as well as trigger the display of the deprecation message banner in the classic view of the Organizational Hierarchy.
Query Database with Natural Language via Digital Assistant Chat
This cloud service update introduces the ability to use Natural Language Queries (NLQ) to retrieve information related to sales and inventory transactions. The capability is provided through the Digital Assistant chat feature. The Documentation Summarization system option must be enabled to provide access to the Digital Assistant within Merchandising. Users must be assigned the CHATBOT_VIEW_JOB role to interact with the chatbot.
The following points are relevant specific to the Natural Language Query (NLQ) feature implementation.
- The NLQ feature is supported only in Merchandising environments using Oracle Analytics Cloud (OAC).
- As part of the July release, NLQ support is available only for Inventory and Sales functional areas.
- The Retail Common AI Services (RCAIS) framework supports multiple languages, including non-English languages, for NLQ interactions.
- Data-level filtering is not supported for NLQ in the current release.
Digital Assistant Chat Extended to Non-Production Environments
This cloud service update extends the Digital Assistant chatbot interface to non-production environments, including UAT, staging, and pre-production. The interface can now be customized to meet specific user requirements.
AI-Assisted Explanation – Deal Income
This cloud service update introduces the ability to view an AI-generated explanation in the contextual pane of the Deals screen. The explanation summarizes the selected deal component, including its deal definition, computation method, and performance insights. This feature is currently available for Billback, Billback Rebate, and Vendor Funded Promotion deal types.
As with other AI-enabled capabilities, this feature is available only when the AI Assist system option is enabled.
New Feature to Copy Department Up Charges
This cloud service update introduces a streamlined capability to copy up charges within the modernized Locations Destination, enabling users to efficiently replicate department-level up charge configurations from one location to another. A new workflow allows users to select the source and target locations, supporting stores, virtual warehouses, internal finishers, importers, exporters, and external finishers. Users can choose to copy up charges across all departments, selected department groups, or individual departments, with multiple copy options available, including Full Replace, Copy Missing Shipping Routes, Merge and Replace, and Merge and Add Missing Up Charges.
This capability is also integrated into the store and warehouse maintenance workflows, allowing up charges to be copied during both new location creation and updates to existing locations, while preserving any intentionally configured item-level exceptions. For integration scenarios, a new ReST service has been introduced to support copy requests. All copy operations are staged and processed asynchronously through batch processing, ensuring efficient execution and scalability for large-volume updates.
Access to the Copy Up Charges feature is controlled by new security privileges and duties.
Enhanced Aggregation of Debit Memos/CNRs for RTVs
This cloud service update introduces a supplier site-level configuration that controls how Return to Vendor (RTV) debit memos and credit note requests (CNRs) are consolidated before being sent to Invoice Matching. Retailers can now configure an aggregation frequency of Daily, Weekly, or Monthly, enabling eligible RTVs for the same supplier site and location to be grouped and processed as a single financial document. This reduces the volume of debit memos and credit note requests generated, simplifies supplier reconciliation, and improves overall processing efficiency. If no aggregation frequency is configured for a supplier site, the system continues to follow the existing behavior, generating a separate debit memo or credit note request for each RTV transaction. This ensures full backward compatibility while providing retailers with the flexibility to adopt consolidated processing where required.
Item API Enhancements
This cloud service update introduces new cascade options for Item Import Attributes and Required Documents in Merchandising. When child items are created from a parent item, the associated import attributes and required documents can now be automatically copied to the child items. This enhancement extends the existing item maintenance capabilities available through spreadsheet upload and ReST services.
Fixed Deals ReST Service
This update introduces a new ReST service that can be used to create, modify, or delete Merchandise as well as non-Merchandise based Fixed Deals.
CFIN Integration Enhancements
This update includes two enhancements to the integration between Oracle Retail Merchandising and Oracle Cloud Financials (CFIN).
External Finisher Partner Integration
Previously, partners of type External Finisher could not be created in the Active status because the required Transfer Entity association was not established during integration. With this update, Merchandising derives the Transfer Entity from the Organizational Unit specified on the partner record. If a matching Transfer Entity is found, the External Finisher is created in Active status. If no matching association exists, the partner is created in Inactive status.
Support for Multiple CFIN Site Assignments
This update enhances supplier integration to support scenarios where multiple supplier site assignments in Oracle Cloud Financials map to a single supplier site in Oracle Retail that is associated with multiple organization units. This capability applies to both supplier synchronization into Oracle Retail and the financial integration between Oracle Retail applications and CFIN.
The enhancement helps simplify migrations in which multiple business units are consolidated into a single Oracle Retail instance, eliminating the need for manual updates to suppliers within Oracle Retail, thus reducing operational complexity and risk. To support this capability, Merchandising uses the supplier site assignment information published by CFIN. For each assignment associated with a supplier site, the ClientBU and ClientBUId values on the payload will be used to create a distinct Organizational Unit association. Based on whether a supplier site has multiple assignments, multiple Organizational Unit associations can be created for a single supplier site.
Handling Linked Allocations within the Enterprise
This enhancement enables Merchandising to efficiently handle multi-level allocations that are passed from Inventory Planning Optimization (IPO) and send these to downstream applications for actual execution. It involved modifications in the incoming ReST service linked with subscription of allocation data as well as database level changes to hold the updated dataset and support the end-to-end flow of the allocated goods across multiple tiers of locations.
New ReST Service to Define Transfer Price for Intercompany Allocations
This enhancement introduces a ReST Service that can be used to define and control the transfer price that needs to be associated with intercompany allocations within the Enterprise. Intracompany allocations will continue to use the Weighted Average Cost (WAC) of the sourcing location of the inventory.
Inventory Integration Enhancements
This enhancement introduces new inventory buckets at the item-location level to track inventory quantities across key order fulfillment stages, such as shipment and receipt. These additional parameters provide end-to-end visibility into the lifecycle of a purchase order, including on-order, in-transit, and cross-allocation inbound and outbound quantities. By capturing these inventory states within Merchandising, the solution establishes a comprehensive Enterprise Inventory Position that can be consistently consumed by downstream applications.
With this enhancement, the ITEM_LOC_SOH table becomes the authoritative source for inventory positions within the Enterprise. Inventory balances are maintained through near real-time updates received from Store Inventory Operations Cloud Service (SIOCS) via the Direct DB integration, ensuring that inventory information remains current and synchronized across applications. Downstream applications, including Retail Insights (RI), can leverage this consolidated inventory position to consume consistent information for the different inventory buckets, thereby improving reporting, analytics, and operational decision-making across the retail enterprise.
Added Visibility to Total Estimated Landed Cost (ELC) for Orders
This update provides visibility into the components of the Estimated Landed Cost for an item on a purchase order through the V_ORDLOC_EST_LANDED_COST view, which is primarily intended for Retail Insights (RI). The view exposes the Unit Cost, Unit Expenses, and Unit Duty values, along with the corresponding currency in which Merchandising calculates each value.
Ability to Mark Invoices for Pre-payment via ReST Service
This enhancement introduces a new ReST Service that enables users to specify one or more invoices to be designated for pre-payment before they are physically received and processed through the standard invoice matching workflow. It complements the existing screen functionality which allows users to manually select invoices for pre-payment, by providing an API-based mechanism to support automated and integration-driven business processes, thereby improving operational efficiency while maintaining consistency with the existing pre-payment workflow.
Added Configurable Delay Days for Invoice Posting
This update introduces a new supplier-level configuration parameter in Invoice Matching Cloud Service (IMCS) that allows retailers to temporarily hold invoices from matching and posting for a configurable number of days after receipt. This holding period provides additional time to complete receiving and verification activities, improving receiving accuracy, strengthening financial controls, and supporting more effective supplier reconciliation. The configured hold period is consistently enforced across all invoice matching processes, including Summary Match, Auto Match, Quick Match, and Discrepancy Resolution, ensuring a uniform invoice processing workflow regardless of the matching method used. Once the configured hold period expires, invoices become eligible for matching and subsequent posting based on the standard IMCS processing rules.
Translation for Promotion Details
This enhancement enables Pricing Cloud Service (PCS) to support translations for Promotion Description and Promotion Offer Description across all languages included in the installed language pack. Users can configure a preferred language, and when translations are available, promotion descriptions are automatically displayed in that language, providing a localized user experience.
Promotion data continues to be created and maintained in the primary (base) language, while translations for supported languages are managed through dedicated translation screens.
Financial Integration Batches Added to Nightly Schedule
Financial integration batches are now supported as part of the nightly processing schedule in Process Orchestration and Monitoring (POM). This enhancement enables these batches to be executed automatically during the End of Day (EOD) processing cycle, reducing manual intervention, and ensuring that financial integration processes are consistently included in standard nightly operations.
Fiscal Document Data Migration Workflow for Transfers
A new data migration workflow has been introduced to support the import of fiscal documents associated with transfer transactions. During the migration process, the system automatically creates the corresponding Fiscal Ledger balances, enabling accurate initialization of fiscal data. This capability is designed for new Fiscal Management Cloud Service (RFMCS) implementations and legacy system data conversions, providing a streamlined approach for establishing Fiscal Ledger records while preserving transfer-related fiscal document history.
External Item API Enhanced to Contain Parent Hierarchy Details
With this cloud update, the updated External Item API includes additional parent level hierarchy attributes, providing improved data integration and supporting downstream planning and analytical processes. It needs to be noted that to populate these new attributes for existing items, users will need to run the MerchAPI data rebuild/refresh processes.
New Allocation Service API for Timely Transfer of Inventory Data to RI
This feature introduces the Allocation Service API, enabling automatic transfer of allocation information from Oracle Retail Merchandising Foundation Cloud Service to Oracle Retail AI Foundation Cloud Service. The benefit is timely allocation data to support accurate inventory distribution, forecasting, and replenishment.
Steps to Enable
To enable this feature, follow these steps:
- Go to Webservice Configuration Screen.
- Configure the Publish API integration.
- Save your changes.
New Transfer Service API for Timely Transfer of Inventory Data to RI
This feature introduces the Transfer Service API, enabling automatic sharing of transfer information from Oracle Retail Merchandising Foundation Cloud Service to Oracle Retail AI Foundation Cloud Service, ensuring timely data for inventory planning and supply chain processes. The benefits of this service include improved downstream inventory planning and overall supply chain efficiency.
Steps to Enable
To enable this feature, follow these steps:
- Go to Webservice Configuration Screen.
- Configure the Publish API integration.
- Save your changes.