ASCEND is the conference for OATUG and OHUG. It covers a wide remit of applications and underpinning technology and is the unofficial home of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS).
The sell out session is the Strategy and Update session from Cliff Godwin, SVP, EBS Applications Development.
This is my high-level review of his session and a later ‘ask the Experts.’ It does not do justice to the content and examples he packed into the two hours. His slides are available if you want to see more.
Nuts and bolts
The only 10 years of life for EBS myth has been put to bed and ‘rolling 10 years support’ seems to be understood. This means you will have at least 10 years notice if they decide to stop it.
All release 12 is supported, but 12.2.7 is the earliest release for Error Correction support. Lower releases are still supported but may have to wait longer for patches than later releases.
In general, there is an annual release of EBS—the last was 12.2.14, September 2024.
Enterprise Command Centers (ECC) are updated every 6 months. These dashboards let you drill into your data. There are currently 165 dashboards and over 36 Command Centers. No cost from Oracle and you don’t have to be on latest version to take ECC updates, just above 12.2.4.
Most customers upgraded to 12.2 as a technical upgrade without taking new functionality, which is often true for point releases too—15 years of development investment going unused.
However there is a great resource to explore consolidated Release Content Document. Plus this Transfer of Information Document for level of training on these enhancements.
Digging deeper into ECC
Cliff gave several examples of ECC functionality. I believe Oracle are frustrated at the low uptake on ECC, and have previously discussed my theory that organisations are instead opting for investing in their own customisations or third party reporting tools, but I also see a move towards retiring customisations as a long term strategy in getting ready for SaaS. ECC could be a big part of that.
Here are just three ECC examples Cliff shared:
• General Ledger budget dashboard. This summary of budget v actuals is a superior way of visualising the data and drilling through to details.
• Receivables cash application dashboard. Radically improves how you can manage unapplied receipts, especially useful when written or verbal instructions have been given of where payment should be applied.
• The dashboard with the most votes for development was the enhanced ordering and billing or returning and cancelling internal sales orders.
ECC helps you manage by exception in these operational dashboards.
Cliff made the point that if you have exposed this data via a third-party reporting tool, it isn’t integrated, and you can’t drill down to action.
EBS trends and highlights
Cost and Profitability is worth highlighting as scenario planning on margins could help with tariff planning. EBS could do this previously, but with additional cost and needed OBIEE, an EBS native solution is coming soon in 12.2.15.
Cliff shared that 40% of EBS customers use OCI hosting. The move is quick and delivers improved cost and performance. Remember you are only paying for what you use and don’t have to size it for the highest peak load.
Ask EBS
The ability to ask Natural Query Language questions against your EBS, is not an EBS product, but a use of OCI AI Service with EBS. There is a small cost, OCI service and instance of autonomous database.
Find out more here: Enabling Natural Language Query of Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) Release 12.2, Leveraging Oracle Generative AI (MOS Note 3059877.1). Always look at most current version of the document as it is being updated frequently.
One new myth has surfaced that you need to be on OCI to use this Ask EBS. You do not.
I spoke at Ascend, comparing AI in EBS to Fusion. My conclusion? If you want to use AI pervasively in your organisation, it may be time to reconsider your move to SaaS. You can use AI services against EBS data, but you need to build out each use case. AI in Fusion SaaS is more embedded and with AI Agent Studio you can build out your own AI processes within the safety rails provided. Watch an earlier version of that webinar here.
EBS on 23ai
The second new myth is that once you are using EBS on 23ai, you won’t need to follow the process to create the new AI schema. Not true, EBS does not have a ‘translation layer’ that AI can use to understand the data. To understand more, check Inoapps’ AI with EBS blogs.
Technology Stack
Cliff suggested that over the next 2 years EBS customers should plan to move to 23ai database. Maybe not possible today as not all platforms have 23ai, so the EBS team cannot certify it. This delay is the 23ai release, not the EBS team. Today it is available on OCI and Exadata.
Currently an upgrade is application and technology combined. Oracle is separating these so a technical upgrade won’t affect on your code. It is currently being tested on Oracle hosted customers and will be available to all customers in due course. Another thing to plan for.
EBS and APEX
An enhancement that has appeared because of the work done to enable AI, is the ability to embed APEX extensions into your EBS application, same browser tab. This is done from a OA container frame – to the user looks like EBS, more natural. Some of the functionality is available from 12.2.7 but the full functionality is from 12.2.14.
My take away from these sessions and conversations I had with many EBS organisations. If you are planning to stay on EBS for a while, look at your customisations. Compare them with what Oracle has delivered in the application and ECC and see if some can be retired. Then with what is left consider if you will need them in Fusion (ask a trusted partner like Inoapps), and if they will still be required consider extracting them from the EBS code today, rewrite in APEX or Visual Builder and co-exist. Make use of that new APEX embedding. These steps will make your eventual move to SaaS much easier and give your users a better experience.
