Is your organization running on Oracle Cloud HCM? If so, it’s time to prepare for the Oracle 25B release, scheduled for April 2025. These quarterly Oracle updates are essential not only for system performance but also for maintaining compliance, improving usability, and delivering a modern employee experience.
With Oracle Cloud HCM 25B, organizations can expect significant Redwood Experience enhancements and powerful feature upgrades across modules including Global Human Resources, Payroll, Benefits, Compensation, Recruiting, Time and Labor, and Absence Management. These changes enable businesses to better align with modern HR practices while optimizing workforce operations.
In this blog, we’ll cover the detailed feature updates in Oracle Cloud HCM 25B, along with how Kovaion, an Oracle Partner, supports seamless adoption of quarterly updates with strategic enablement, configuration, and validation services.
Oracle Cloud HCM 25B Release Highlights
Global Human Resources – Redwood Experience
- Flexible Shift Durations: You can now define work and break durations in any number of minutes, rather than in fixed 15-minute intervals. For example, set durations like 25 minutes or 7 hours 15 minutes. These more precise definitions can be used in workforce schedules, regardless of break rounding validations.
- Add Notes During Employment Changes: While using the Redwood Add Assignment and Local and Global Transfer processes, users can now enter additional notes. This allows for more detailed documentation of employment changes directly within the transaction.
Benefits – Redwood Enhancements
- New Business Rules for Benefits Pages: Benefit administrators now have access to new business rules that streamline functionality across benefit pages. These improvements provide more flexibility and enhance the overall self-service experience.
- Hide Post-Enrollment Region: You now have the option to hide the post-enrollment region within self-service enrollment pages, helping simplify user navigation.
- Control Self-Service Groupings: Select which self-service groupings should appear on the self-report a life event page to customize and optimize the user experience.
Compensation – Redwood Enhancements
- Save Guided Flow Pages: You can now save Redwood Salary and Individual Compensation compact guided flow pages, enabling HR users to resume or reference entries with greater ease.
- Business Rules for Plan Exclusions: It’s now possible to exclude individual compensation plans and options using business rules. Previously, this was only achievable through plan access or eligibility settings, offering more flexibility for plan configuration.
Payroll – Redwood Enhancements
Enhanced Logging for Issue Investigation: Enhanced logging capabilities are now available to help investigate issues in payroll processes that might be difficult to identify using traditional tools.
Extend Payroll Activity Center with VB Studio: Using Oracle Visual Builder Studio, you can now extend Payroll Activity Center pages by customizing which attributes and regions appear on the summary, milestone overview, and milestone detail pages.
Oracle Recruiting Cloud
- Restricted Access to Career Sites Configuration: Administrators can now grant users access to the Career Sites Configuration page without giving them full access to Setup and Maintenance. These users will now see a Career Sites Configuration quick action.
- Use Citizenship in Fast Formulas: Candidate citizenship information can now be used as conditions in fast formulas during candidate selection processes, adding a new level of logic to recruitment automation.
Talent Management
- View Skills for Role Readiness and Mastery: On the Role Guide detail page, you can now view the skills required to be ready for a role and those needed to master it. This supports better talent development and succession planning.
- AI-Suggested Roles in Opportunity Marketplace: Within the Opportunity Marketplace, employees can now explore AI-suggested roles based on positions and view their full details in the Explore tab, enabling informed career mobility.
Time and Labor
- Customize Actions on Redwood Timecards: Through Visual Builder Studio, you can now hide the Save and Save and Close actions on Redwood Timecards for all users, allowing for a cleaner and more controlled UI experience.
- View Shift Info on Generated Timecards: When timecards are generated from schedule hours—either by managers or workers—read-only shift information is now visible on the timecards, improving transparency and accuracy.
Absence Management
- Break Time Calculation Accuracy: Absence calculations have been enhanced to accurately factor in break time. Breaks are now considered only if the entire shift (including break) falls within the worker’s availability time range.
- New Time Attribute: Absence Reason: A new Absence Reason time attribute has been introduced, allowing organizations to capture specific reasons for absences directly within the timecard interface.
Technical Enhancements and Reporting
- Benefits – Enrollments Real Time Subject Area: A new attribute, Rate Overridden through Date, is now available under Participant Rate Value in Benefits – Enrollments Real Time. This allows for more detailed and accurate reporting on enrollment adjustments.
Oracle Transactional Business Intelligence (OTBI)
OTBI is Oracle’s real-time, self-service analytics solution. The 25B update enhances OTBI capabilities in the following areas:
- Compensation: Improved visibility into compensation strategies, cost tracking, and plan effectiveness.
- Recruiting: Enhanced ability to analyze candidate pipelines, recruiter performance, and hiring outcomes.
- Workforce Planning: Real-time data insights help HR and business leaders make informed talent and budgetary decisions.
Navigating Quarterly Updates with Confidence
Organizations only have a short two-week window to test, validate, and go live after each Oracle Cloud quarterly release. Without the right strategy, this can introduce risk to mission-critical HR and payroll operations.
How Kovaion Supports Your Oracle Cloud HCM 25B Readiness
At Kovaion, we specialize in helping organizations manage quarterly updates with speed and confidence. As a certified Oracle Partner, we provide:
- Impact Analysis to identify which processes are affected
- Redwood Enablement & Configuration to activate new features
- Test Execution Support for validating business-critical functions
- Post-Update Optimization to refine system usability and performance
Our experts ensure that your system remains compliant, fully optimized, and aligned with your evolving business needs—without disrupting day-to-day operations.
Final Thoughts
The Oracle Cloud HCM 25B release introduces a host of enhancements that not only simplify HR administration but also empower employees through smarter tools and improved experiences. From Redwood UI features to advanced analytics and configuration capabilities, this update is packed with value.
Stay ahead of change with Kovaion. Let our team guide you through a successful 25B rollout—seamless, secure, and efficient.
Ready for Oracle Cloud HCM 25B?
Let Kovaion be your trusted partner for a smooth transition to Oracle 25B! Contact us today for a tailored update readiness plan.
