Oracle Fusion Analytics Implementation Planning Series: Phased Approach

Published July 3rd, 2023
Added to Implementation Guide July 24th, 2023

Introduction

Oracle Fusion Analytics (Fusion Analytics) is a family of prebuilt, cloud-native analytics services designed to deliver personalized insights for Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications.

overall

The Implementation Approach is the most critical Fusion Analytics implementation decision and affects all other planning topics.

This post is a Fusion Analytics Implementation Planning Series member and describes the phased implementation approach. The Fusion Analytics Implementation Guide and the Fusion Analytics Implementation Planning post reference it.

Based on experience working with hundreds of enterprise customers, Oracle recommends the accelerated phased rollout approach because it allows early feedback from business users, minimizes complexity, quickly provides administrators with end-to-end implementation experience, and provides a baseline for customization requirements. It has phases with small scopes and timelines measured in weeks. It involves several go-live dates introducing new users, content, features, customizations, and updates. It rolls out the implementation incrementally, gradually building upon prior successes that build trust, confidence, and a close working relationship with business users.

Topics The topics in this post are:

Phase Overview
Phase Sequencing
Phase Activities

Acronyms The following are used in this post.

Acronym	Meaning
OCI	Oracle Cloud Infrastructure
ERP	Enterprise Resource Planning
HCM	Human Capital Management
SCM	Supply Chain Management
CX	Customer Experience

Phase Overview

A phased implementation consists of two or more phases, an initial phase followed by one or more subsequent phases.

In the terminology of this post, phases contain a focus with one or more focus items.

Phase Focus

Focus

A phase focus defines the phase’s purpose. Examples include:

Deploy ready-to-use content.
Enable a Fusion Analytics feature.
Add a new Fusion Analytics subscription.

For best results, define a phase with a single focus.

Focus Item

A phase focus contains one or more focus items. Examples include:

Fusion Analytics application functional areas, e.g., ERP – General Ledger, HCM – Workforce Management.
Preview features such as new data source connectors.
A Fusion Analytics update release, e.g., 23R2.

Focus Category

A Focus Category groups phase focuses and focus items. Examples include:

Content
Expansion
Maintenance

Focus Table

The table below shows example focus categories, focuses, and focus items.

Table 2: Focus Categories, Focuses, and Focus Items
Category	Focus	Focus Item
Content	Deploy Content	Functional Area
	Customize Content	Functional Area
	Rollout Content	Functional Area
Expansion	Enable Feature	Feature
	Expand Subscription	Tenancy
Maintenance	Release Update	Release

Phase Sequencing

A phased implementation consists of two or more phases, an initial phase followed by one or more subsequent phases.

Initial Phase

The initial phase is crucial to the success of the implementation project. It is performed quickly, provides understanding and experience to the implementation team, and serves as the baseline for initial customization requirements.

For best results, the initial phase focuses on deploying ready-to-use content for a single focus item, i.e., an application functional area.

Completing the Initial Phase

If customizations to the ready-to-use content are required, perform a customization phase. Then, perform a rollout phase.

Subsequent Phases

Plan subsequent phases according to business and technical requirements.

If adding additional entitlements to existing subscriptions, perform an entitlement modification phase.

If a new product release is received, perform a maintenance phase.

Begin each application implementation by performing an initial phase. Continue implementing an application with deployment, customization, and rollout phases before implementing another or expanding Fusion Analytics with a new application subscription.

After performing an initial phase for an application, perform a customization phase, if necessary, and a rollout phase. For the remaining functional areas, phases are either iterative or cumulative.

An example iterative scenario is:

Deploy a functional area
Customize the functional area
Rollout the functional area

An example cumulative scenario is:

Deploy the remaining functional areas
Customize the remaining functional areas
Rollout the remaining functional areas

Take time to plan the sequence of subsequent phases.

Phase Activities

Phase activities vary by category and focus. Other posts in this series describe in detail the following activities.

Common Focus Activities

Plan
Prepare
Validate

Common Focus Activities, except for Rollout, Content, and Maintenance Phases

Migrate

Category Activities Content Activities

Configure: Configuring deployable content includes:

Data Configuration
Reporting Configuration
Security Configuration

Customize: Customizing content includes:

Data Augmentation
Semantic Model Extensions
Security Extensions

Rollout: Rolling out content to the business community includes

Train – train business users to use the system
Rollout – the go-live event
Adopt – Assist, support, and ensure business users successfully use the system.

Expansion Activities

Enable Features

Enable preview features within the system and create service requests to enable limited-availability features.

Expand Subscription Entitlements

Increase entitlements of existing Fusion Analytics applications and add additional Fusion Analytics application subscriptions, e.g., HCM, SCM.

Maintenance Activities

Release Update

Update a development/test instance with a new release before the update occurs in production.

Example Workflow

The example illustration shows an iterative, phased workflow. Shown is an initial phase, followed by a customization and rollout phase.
Subsequent phases are probable but not shown.

Accelerated Phased Oracle Fusion Analytics Approach