Requesting to Skip Automatic Updates for Environments

A customer, citing a justification for the request, may seek to skip automatic updates of an environment for a maximum of three upcoming monthly update cycles. You must specify an skip update for each monthly cycle. You can seek to skip the automatic updates of environments in the following scenarios:

• You identified a regressive bug in the test environment. In this scenario, Oracle will fix the bug and then update your environment without further delay. No customer approval is necessary for updating to the main code line.
• You are in the critical phase of your implementation project. In this scenario, Oracle will postpone the update to the date that you agreed upon when requesting the delay. If you do not make an additional skip automatic update request, Oracle automatically updates the environment on the date that you agreed upon when requesting the skip update.
• You want to skip this month's update because you do not have the time to test the monthly update. In this scenario, Oracle automatically updates the environment in the next monthly update cycle.
• You want to skip the update for the next three months to complete a quarter close or year end close. In this scenario, Oracle automatically updates the environment on the monthly cycle after the skipped cycles.

Generally, customers migrating from on-premises to Oracle Enterprise Performance Management Cloud use the skip update process. After they are comfortable with the update cadence, they update to the main line and then do not skip automatic updates.

Note:

Monthly update notifications will still be sent to the Service Administrators of the environments for which an update has been put on hold.

Repercussions of a Skip Update

The negative impacts of a skip update include the following:

• An environment that has not been updated in one or more monthly cycles requires a longer time to update to the main line.
• After the environment is brought to the main code line, you will incur more time to test (you will need to test features and changes from multiple monthly updates).
• Security updates and bug fixes are applied to environments only when they are updated to the main code line.

How to Specify a Skip Update

Setting a skip update is a self-service operation that is performed using the skipUpdate EPM Automate command.

Using this command, you can skip one, two, or three of the upcoming monthly updates. For example, if the environment is on the 24.01 update, you can skip the 24.02, 24.03, and 24.04 monthly updates, but not the 24.05 update. In this case, you need to issue the command thrice, once each for 24.02, 24.03, and 24.04. Your environment will be updated to the main code line in the 24.05 monthly update cycle. You run the skipUpdate command as follows to skip the updates in this example scenario:

epmautomate skipupdate add version=24.02 comment="Example comment"
epmautomate skipupdate add version=24.03 comment="Example comment"
epmautomate skipupdate add version=24.04 comment="Example comment"

Note:

If you skip updates using the skipUpdate EPM Automate command, weekly and emergency patches, if any, for the current month will continue to be applied to the environment. No updates will be made for the months for which the skip update is requested.

You cannot use skipUpdate command for an environment that is on a one-off patch. Additionally, you cannot use this command to skip monthly updates that are more than three months apart from the update that the environment is currently on. In these cases, you can ask for an exemption:

• Create a Provide Feedback submission from the environment for which the automatic update is to be skipped. See Creating a Provide Feedback Submission.
• Create a technical service request that identifies the Provide Feedback reference number. See Submitting a Technical Service Request. The service request must contain the following additional information:
  • Reason (for example, regressive bug information, critical phase of implementation project, test environment not tested, quarter or year-end close) why skip update is being requested.
  • If the skip update is not because of a regressive bug, the date or month when Oracle can merge the environment back to the main code line.
  • A formal request in the following format:

    I, <Your name>, request Oracle to skip the automatic update of the environment <URL of the environment>.

    Note:

    If you requested Oracle to skip automatic updates using a service request, no weekly or emergency patches (including those for the rest of the month) will be applied to the environment after the request is fulfilled.