Hello,
One of the best parts of my job is delivering the good news about new features in each release! There can be so many new features coming out, that it is difficult to cut through the noise and know what to focus on. In many cases, after a client is live and the work shifts to a Managed Services team, they focus more on regression testing and keeping functions working, and lose sight of the ability to innovate and improve.
I found that I was having opportunities to share this information in different ways with my friends from current and past projects, and a common theme is a desire to learn more. On our side, it’s very rewarding to hear how Oracle’s innovations do solve real world pain points (even if there are still plenty of opportunities for improvements!).
I’ve put together this list of features in 25C that I think are most interesting. Would you like to get this information by email each quarter? Send me a note @ mgibby@hcg.com!
AI Agent Studio
AI Agent Studio is the big news for 2025! This feature builds significantly on the 24D “RAG Agent” feature that enabled intelligent chatbots to answer user questions. Now, Agents will have access to multiple “Tools,”
- Ability to send outbound email messages for you based on what they find out
- Can generate Deep Links so a user can ask a question and get not only the answer, but a link to open the document without navigating to that page separately
- Access to all Business Objects (REST APIs) in Oracle. For example, the Agent can get purchase order information, create a change order, or create an order from scratch based on your chat interaction. Note: the agent only has access to the same functions that the human running the agent has; and the agent can be restricted to have access to only certain fields.
- Documents – just like the classic RAG agent, the Agents can reference documentation to answer user questions, as well as to guide the Agent actions
- External REST – Like an integration, but more powerful because the agent will handle topics flexibly with intelligence, you can connect to any external rest source to get, patch, and post data
AI Agents are complementary to existing tools, and don’t replace them all right away. For example, AI Agents cannot currently output flat files like FBDI, and not all tasks in Oracle are available through a rest resource.
Oracle is delivering some agents, like a requisition lookup and deep link tool, natively and at no additional cost. Creating custom agents does come with a new SKU with pricing by agent-seat or by employee. Huron has an exciting announcement at Cloud World, and we are already hard at work building agents for the Marketplace. Want to learn more about how AI Agents could help your team? We offer free workshop sessions where we talk about what AI features could make the most impact for you!
Self Service Procurement
Specific Search Results in RSSP for number based searches
Huron logged an Idea in Idea Lab in 2024 requesting improvements in how elastic search and fuzzy logic is handled. I’m sure you have experienced the frustration—you know the exact item to search for, but the results in RSSP include hundreds or thousands of unexpected results just because a portion of the MPN, SPN, GTIN, etc, match with the part number. Now, you can turn that off, and enforce exact matches for those attributes!
Get Specific Search Results for Number-Based Attributes
Requisition Delivery Date based on lead time in PIM or BPA
Another common pain point is that the requested delivery date defaults to a set # of days in the future, even if this is unrealistic. Now, you can set lead times based on PIM or BPA Lead Times! This will let your requesters see a more realistic date and result in fewer change orders required to update dates for long lead time items.
Use Lead Times to Determine Delivery Dates for Requisitions
Confirm Receipts from My Requisitions page
This is enabled by default as long as you have opted into the “Review requisition lines with invoice holds in RSSP” feature—which we have been recommending since it was first offered.
Confirm Receipts to Resolve Invoice Holds for Pending Receipts
Enhanced Search for Locations
Now you can search with just 1 character, and have the ability to search by more attributes. Additionally, now only locations where the managing BU is the same as the inventory organization. This will require enabling the enhanced search view in VBS.
Search for Locations Using Additional Attributes in Preferences
Sort Order
RSSP results are now sorted alphabetically, until you enter keywords, at which point they switch to sorting by relevance. This is automatic, and just something you may consider adding to your support documentation incase requesters have questions about sort order
Display Results Alphabetically When Shopping Using Featured Categories
Bug Fixes
If you’ve noticed that requisition lines or shopping cart lines appear in duplicate sometimes, such as when editing a quantity, this has now been fixed!
Procurement
Redwood Requisition Processing page gets significant updates.
- Process requisition -> negotiation (new or existing)
- Split, return, reassign
- Add lines to existing staged document including automatically to incomplete staged documents
- View alternate suppliers from whom you have purchased the same item before
- Review and publish staged documents
- Add new metrics from OTBI to the page
Redwood: Use Additional Capabilities When Processing Requisition Lines as a Buyer
Review PO Change Orders in Redwood
Redwood: Review Purchase Order Changes as a Buyer
Redwood: Search for Agreement Lines in Redwood
Redwood: Search Purchase Agreements and Agreement Lines
Healthcare/External Purchase Prices
Buyer Assignment
Control buyers by source contract value, previously it would just assign your default buyer, this is much greater control with a new mapping page. You must be using the Create BPA by Source Contract opt in.
Define Mappings for Contract Owners to Buyers in External Purchase Prices
Redesigned Landing Page
The landing page is now redesigned and looks more similar to the PO and Req processing pages, with KPI’s at the top. This is automatic.
Redwood: Use the Improved External Purchase Prices Landing Page
Suppliers
Bank Account Validation
This is a hot topic feature! The good news: Oracle can now validate that the account is valid and the owner is the supplier.
The bad news: This works with JP Morgan’s Bank Account Validation Service, which is a paid subscription and requires a JP Morgan bank account that was opened in the US. It only validates US bank accounts, but it will validate for any bank within the US. You need to log an SR and follow steps in the link below to set this up.
Redwood: Validate Supplier Bank Accounts
Negotiations
Redwood
Redwood is coming for Negotiations! Generally this is by profile value but there are setup jobs to run for elastic search. No known date to require the move, but we advise clients to consider Redwood as early as the pages are stable and have parity for the required business functions—which can be unique for each client. As usual, consider where you are in your implementation journey. If you are pre-go live with fewer than 3 test cycles remaining, probably better to wait as long as it’s not a required move. Huron is adept at helping clients consider, plan for, and handle their Redwood migrations for all modules.
Contracts
Subject Area for Key Terms
Hopefully you’ve already enabled the Extract Key Terms and Classify features, which use AI to read contract documents and provide standardized outputs on the terms in them, even if the language is structured differently. Now, there is a subject area to report on these, so you don’t need to write a BI Publisher report! And, we have learned that there is a roadmap item to bring the Extract Key Terms feature to contracts in draft status as well, though timing is still TBD.
Generate Reports on Contract Requests and Key Terms Using OTBI
Visual Builder Add in for Excel
Visual Builder Add in for Excel version 4.5 is out!
Remember that version 4.4 included a Huron Idea which makes it easy to copy or reference an entire column from another worksheet to use for downloading. For example, if you have a BI Publisher report with a list of Purchase Orders that require update, you can copy the column and paste it in to the Download window.
Version 4.5 includes another Huron Idea. Now, your current instance URL is displayed at the bottom of the Status window, so you can easily confirm you are logged in to the expected instance when downloading, updating, etc.
Recent Ideas to Upvote
Allow Validation Rules on Category Name — Cloud Customer Connect
Control Negotiation Messages AI Assist “helpfulness levels” — Cloud Customer Connect
Looking for this type of post, but in the EPM realm? Check out Your Hot Pink Guide to Oracle EPM!
All the best!