Oracle Applications Platform empowers developers to extend Fusion applications

Enterprises sometimes struggle to find software that helps them adapt to rapidly changing business dynamics, industry trends, and customer needs. Even Oracle Fusion, the industry’s most-comprehensive suite of cloud-based business applications, can’t automate every unique enterprise process.

But now Oracle is giving partners and customers the ability to build custom versions of Oracle Cloud applications with the same user experience, highly performant underlying infrastructure, robust functionality, and embedded security.

The new Oracle Applications Platform puts into the hands of enterprise developers the same powerful tools Oracle uses internally to build financial, supply chain, manufacturing, HR, and a host of other cloud applications, Oracle Executive Vice President Steve Miranda said Wednesday at Oracle CloudWorld in Las Vegas.

Users can tap the same award-winning Redwood UX design assets that provide an elegant and intuitive user experience. And with the familiar look and feel comes familiar functionality: intelligent search, a self-learning recommendation engine for incorporating business objects, a conversational engine for voice interfaces, and telemetry services that deliver real-time feedback on application performance and integrity.

Enterprise developers, partner consultancies, and ISVs can use existing Oracle low-code development environments packaged into the new platform to enhance their Oracle Cloud applications with bespoke features and industry-specific capabilities—without having to compromise on functionality, top-tier security, and a consistent user experience.

In that sense, Oracle Applications Platform “is really a combination of best-in-class tools,” Miranda said, including both Oracle Visual Builder and Oracle APEX for building powerful back-end functionality and elegant front-end interfaces.

And by opening up the design elements, Oracle is truly changing the game, he said.

“We provide you our Redwood templates,” Miranda said. “All of the beautiful look and feel you saw behind me—page templates, components—allow you to design those extension applications and have it look exactly like the Fusion apps because they in fact are the exact tools and components that we use to build our applications.”

The platform also provides APIs to integrate with Oracle Fusion Cloud applications for a full end-to-end data flow, he said.

Early candidates

Companies already are extending their Oracle Cloud applications to solve challenges unique to their businesses. For example, Carvana, the online company that revolutionized sales of preowned cars, worked with Oracle partner Inspirage to create Carli, a custom solution that tracks vehicle repair costs in near real time across more than 18 US inspection centers.

Carvana used Oracle platform-as-a-service development tools—including Oracle Visual Builder—that are now part of Oracle Applications Platform to build Carli and integrate the solution with Oracle Cloud Financials. Carvana employed custom design tools for its user interface because Redwood UX assets weren’t available at the time of the project.

Keurig Dr Pepper also took advantage of Oracle Visual Builder to launch three support sites, two of which were customer-facing. Developers were able to enhance the online experience for customers looking for support materials across the company’s large portfolio of coffeemaker products, said Peter Shaw, a Keurig Dr Pepper solutions architect, at Oracle CloudWorld.

“We’re able to deliver applications that are much more rich and meet the needs of the business today,” Shaw said about the Oracle development studio.

The beverage and coffeemaker giant is now eager to adopt Oracle Applications Platform for future upgrades to the project. “We’re really looking forward to migrating over to Redwood, the next-gen UI,” Shaw said.

Oracle Applications Platform’s new design capabilities and services will also be a boon for Oracle partners, from global systems integrators to regional consultancies, Miranda said.

Innovating at the speed of change

Oracle customers and partners can start building as soon as they like, as Oracle Applications Platform is now part of every Fusion environment—immediately available to every customer.

The platform, Miranda said, advances a larger vision within Oracle: innovating with speed.

“What we want to enable as your partner is your ability to unlock opportunities and adjust quickly, regardless of what the change is,” Miranda said, “because as we’ve just found out over the last couple of years, it’s really impossible for anybody to predict what the next couple of years will be like.”

Only one thing is for certain, he added. “It’s going to change, and that speed of change is going to continue and get faster and faster.”