Oracle Fusion Analytics Implementation Series: Adopting and Expanding

August 25, 2023 | 11 minute read
Krithika Raghavan
Director, Oracle Analytics
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Redwood

Published August 25, 2023.
Updated August 28th, 2023 with the Expansion section.

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

Included in Fusion Analytics are:

  • A library of ready-to-use metrics and dashboards for faster collaboration.
  • An extensible, Oracle-managed data platform with ready-to-use data extraction pipelines.
  • An extensible, Oracle-managed semantic data model.
  • An extensible, Oracle-managed security framework that leverages the security components in Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications.

This post is a member of the Implementing Oracle Fusion Analytics Series. With a tailored set of guidelines and best practices, the series helps ensure a smooth onboarding process for your users and the optimal use of resources. It provides best practices, recommendations, links to reference material, and compliments and supplements the Implementing Fusion Analytics guide and Administering Fusion Analytics documentation.

Note: This post is a work in progress. It is updated frequently with new content.

Implementing Fusion Analytics

Adopting

Organizations today face the fundamental challenge of modernizing their analytics platform while looking for ways to compete more effectively and develop innovative solutions for their customers. Adopting Fusion Analytics is a multilayered process that extends beyond implementation. It requires organization-wide attention, including executive support, clear business goals, and a comprehensive readiness plan.

Adoption refers to the journey by which Fusion Analytics is accepted and used by all business users. It is critical to an implementation’s success, as even the best-planned implementation fails if it is not adopted. It is essential because first impressions of Fusion Analytics and your department’s ability to support it set the tone for adoption. During adoption, new business users become aware of the new implementation, try it out, understand its value, and begin to use it.

Adoption Framework

To expand this section and read more about Measuring Adoption, Onboarding Business Users, Boosting User Retention, Enhancing User Communication, and Providing Excellent User Support:

Adoption 1

Adoption is not a one-time event but an ongoing process you must plan for and measure.

Measuring Adoption

It is essential to measure adoption immediately after going live and over time. After onboarding users, monitor their usage. Use the prebuilt visualizations to analyze and gauge their usage patterns. If necessary, determine courses of action to align these patterns to your goals. Standard measures include the number of active users over different periods and frequently accessed visualizations.

About User Tracking

The Usage Tracking functionality in Fusion Analytics enables administrators to track user-generated queries. It comes prebuilt with database tables, extraction procedures, a subject area, and a visualization workbook. Service administrators have access to the subject area and read-write access to the workbook for generating reports and visualizations to analyze usage data.

Analyze Usage Data

There are several ways to access and analyze the usage data.

Use the Prebuilt Workbook

The recommended and easiest method is to use the prebuilt workbook. It is accessible via the Fusion Analytics and Oracle Analytics Cloud menus.

Fusion Analytics Menu

  • Sign in using the Fusion Analytics URL (ending with /oax).
  • From the menu, navigate to Projects > Shared Folders > Common > Usage Tracking
  • Click on the Usage Tracking workbook.

Oracle Analytics Cloud Menu

  • Sign in using the Oracle Analytics Cloud URL (ending with /dv).
  • From the menu, navigate to Catalog > Shared Folders > Common > Usage Tracking
  • Click on the Usage Tracking workbook.

Usage Tracking Workbook

The workbook has three visualizations. The Overview is shown above.

It is prebuilt with a Login Name filter that defaults to all users, a Date filter that defaults to the current date, and displays data for one year. You can also create custom expression filters.


Weekly Usage

The Weekly visualization is shown above. It is prebuilt with a Date filter that defaults to the current date and displays data for the last three months. You can also create custom expression filters.


User Usage

The User visualization is shown above. It is prebuilt with a User filter that defaults to all users, a Date filter that defaults to the current date, and displays data for the last three months. You can also create custom expression filters.


Create Custom Content

In Oracle Analytics Cloud, create a new workbook or analysis or duplicate and customize the prebuilt workbook.

Use the prebuilt subject area named Common - Usage Tracking.

Usage Subject Area

Data elements that can be used to summarize are shown above, e.g., Year, Quarter, Department, Supervisor.


Onboarding Business Users

Onboarding

Integrating and sponsoring new business users and helping them become productive is essential for success, especially during their first opportunities to understand how Fusion Analytics meets their needs. Support them in the production environment with training, communication, and issue resolution via your support team.

Adoption is increased by intentionally and thoughtfully guiding each new business user through the onboarding experience. For each of them, a few features make it stand out. These enable them to leverage data and contribute to the data-driven organization.

Recommendations
  • Carefully create individualized user experiences that drive adoption.  

Boosting User Retention

Retention refers to retaining motivated and productive users who are using the system actively on a daily/ weekly basis. Even as your new business users complete onboarding, it is a good time to remain vigilant and avoid assuming everything is okay. Look at adoption and retention as ongoing processes through the lens of “ongoing”. You want users to continually see the value of the Fusion Analytics implementation and, better yet, see even more value from it as time passes.

Adoption 2

To boost retention, focus on providing valuable content, building strong relationships, and creating a positive user experience. If the content presented to them does not entice them, a user loses interest in the implementation over time and abandons it.  

Recommendations.
  • Provide ongoing training and development.
  • Recognize users and offer rewards and incentives for usage and adoption.
  • Solicit user feedback.
  • Set up feedback mechanisms with the users to retain them. Ask what they want to see next to enhance their productivity and the data-driven culture in the organization. As part of soliciting feedback, iterate and make improvements that improve reports, customizations, additional data, etc.
  • Provide internal “Office Hours” where success and new knowledge are demonstrated.  

Enhancing User Communication

User communication is critical during the adoption phase. No matter how much training you have provided, prepare for many questions and issues to arise during this period.

Communications

Recommendations
  • Make an extra effort to communicate with users.
  • Communicate any updates on issues or schedule changes via previously identified channels.
  • Manage messages to users carefully.
  • Ensure users can easily provide feedback, find frequently asked questions, and ask new questions.
  • Establish a clear and concise method for users to request help.
  • Consider:
    • Internal office hours
    • A community for learning
    • Lunch and learn sessions
  • Align with the best practices within your organization and utilize them. 

Providing Excellent User Support

Excellent support is critical to successfully adopting and maximizing the value of your Fusion Analytics implementation. Even after going live, implementations have their share of teething challenges – process changes, people issues, etc. Together, your internal support team and Oracle Support address issues to ensure Fusion Analytics runs smoothly.

Adoption 3   

Recommendations.
  • Ensure users know whom to turn to for help.
  • Listen actively and give users your full attention.
  • Be patient and empathetic, as learning a new application can be frustrating.
  • Communicate clearly and effectively with users about their issues. Use simple language and avoid technical jargon.
  • Be responsive. Users need timely and efficient support. Respond to their inquiries as quickly as possible and keep them updated on the status of their issues.
  • Go above and beyond what is expected. Offer additional resources and information, and make sure users are delighted. A little extra effort goes a long way in building adoption.

Redwood Expanding

Expand Fusion Analytics capabilities to a larger group of users and additional business units.

To expand this section and read more about Increasing the Number of Licensed Users, Adding Additional Fusion Analytics Applications, and Activating an Expansion Order:

Increasing the Number of Licensed Users

Add Users

Based on requirements, review the current user licenses and contact an Oracle sales representative to place an order to increase the number of user licenses.


Adding Additional Fusion Analytics Applications

Add Applications

Connect your business with cross-departmental analytics by adding additional Fusion Analytics application subscriptions for other departments. For example, a Fusion Analytics subscription for Human Capital Management can be added to an existing Enterprise Resource Planning subscription.

All Fusion Analytics applications leverage and share:

  • The same set of services - new Fusion Analytics instances are not required.
  • A single, prebuilt analytics data and semantic model.
  • A single data pipeline foundation.
  • A single data schema in the Autonomous Data Warehouse.

Good data and analytics lead to good business decisions, but data silos result in poor outcomes and even more disconnects between departments. Finance needs headcount from Human Resources, Sales needs inventory information from Logistics, and Product Development needs customer satisfaction information from Customer Service.

Based on requirements, contact an Oracle sales representative to place an order for one or more of these Fusion Analytics applications:

  • Enterprise Resource Planning
  • Human Capital Management
  • Supply Chain Management
  • Customer Experience

Activating an Expansion Order

Offerings

After an order for adding or modifying subscriptions is processed, an email is sent asking to activate the Expansion order.

Note: Do not use the Activate link in the email to activate the Expansion order.

Instead, follow these steps.

  • Sign in to the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure environment domain.
  • Navigate to Analytics & AI > Fusion Analytics Warehouse.
  • On the Instances page, click the instance Display Name for which you want to update the subscriptions.
  • On the instance details page, click Update Offerings.
  • On the Fusion Analytics Warehouse Details page:
    • Verify that the changes to your subscriptions match the order.
    • Type in UPDATE to confirm changes to the offerings.
    • Click Save Changes.

Redwood Call to Action

Explore and learn more about Fusion Analytics by visiting these links to the Fusion Analytics community, blogs, and documentation.

Implementing Oracle Fusion Analytics Series

Fusion Analytics Community

Fusion Analytics Blogs

Administering Fusion Analytics

Implementing Fusion Analytics

Redwood

Dayne Carley

Krithika Raghavan

Director, Oracle Analytics


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