Using Oracle Digital Assistant, Oracle Journeys and Oracle Guided Learning together

October 21, 2024 | 12 minute read
Chris Supangat
Principal Product Management, Guided Learning, Customer Success Services
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Views expressed are my own. All opinions are own. The opinions expressed here belong solely to me and may not reflect the views of Oracle Corporation.

Coming out of Oracle CloudWorld 2024, it was clear for our customers that providing integrated user assistance as their clients and employees use their applications, was a key priority in ensuring business success. While I am primarily a Principal Product Manager for Oracle Guided Learning (so account for any biases in this), I am also an avid listener and learner to the potential of all tools and have tried to provide my balanced thoughts of how you could use these solutions together.

Why User Assistance is extremely important even if you have the best and cleanest application

Applications are becoming more simple and intuitive, catering to the ongoing improvements and accessibility for its users. At the same time, we also see adoption gaps in the first time and ongoing use of applications. Often in the product management space, we will turn to enhancements in UI/UX to address adoption challenges to a degree of success. There are however, the presence of ongoing user generated errors as they navigate the system. This may come from user generated prompts that lead to the appearance of HTTP Status Codes (such as 400 – Bad Request, 404 – Not Found or 408 – Request Timeout) after completing processes prohibits completions or from a result of changes in business process and policy. What is clear is user errors slow down productivity and encourages frustration and satisfaction. 

There is also the common provision of self-service, allowing for users to self-resolve their issues by following the right documentation and training materials.

What types of embedded user help are available?

Traditionally, intranet or websites have been used to maintain a list of Self-Help articles or point to the appropriate documentation to provide users with self-service help outside the need to contact the service center.

For better more immersive user experiences, organizations are turning to Chatbots, AI Assistants and Digital Adoption Platforms to provide assistance when the user needs it. Oracle pays special attention to these by providing our clients with the choice to utilize the Oracle Digital Assistant (Chatbot), AI Agents, Oracle Journeys (Employee Experience Platform) and Oracle Guided Learning (our Digital Adoption Platform) to allow our clients to provide help to their clientele (customers, suppliers and employees).  

The vast variety of solutions available has caused confusion in part of how they can be utilized together and below contains a few definitions and an example use case of how these tools can be utilized together.


 

Oracle Digital Assistant

Oracle Digital Assistant delivers a complete AI platform to create conversational experiences for business applications through text, chat, and voice interfaces. A Digital Assistant allows for users to enter conversational prompts (via Web, Mobile, Message or Voice) to be processed and an generated response to be prompted back in relation to the enquiry. Data is sourced from existing databases and knowledge bases within an application or set of applications. Responses and outputs are usually generated in text format but can be conditioned to extend into a suggested actions and embed links and/or guide users across a process. The Digital Assistant is usually opened and actioned upon a user taking action and clicking upon the Digital Assistant.
 

                                                                               

Image Example: On my home page, I press on the chatbot interface and that opens the Digital Assistant Panel. I ask it to help me update my contact details and it provides a response with a link that takes you to the specific page in Fusion
 

Oracle Guided & Contextual Journeys

Oracle Guided and Contextual Journeys are a set of features built into Oracle ME’s Employee Experience Platform that allows administrators to embed assistance content into the application page. Guided Journeys allow URLs, Videos, Documents to be placed into banners or specific buttons on a page, that a user can click on, when more information is needed. Contextual Journey’s allows customization of the Journey to show to specific roles and/or specific employees in teams. Guided and Contextual Journeys is usually opened and actioned upon a user taking action and clicking upon a 'Guide Me' button or Banner or component the help is embedded on. Analytics for Journeys can be configured within Oracle Fusion Intelligence Warehouse.
 

Image Example: in HCM Goals and Performance, clicking on the Banner title Understand Performance and Check-In opens up a tab on the right hand side with an embedded video

Oracle Guided Learning

Oracle Guided Learning is a Digital Adoption Platform (DAP) that acts as an overlay ontop of your applications, where guidance and assistance content is deployed. Guided Learning allows administrators to initiate guidance in a variety of formats (e.g. Navigational Tours, How to complete a process, embedded communications and surveys, business rules via validation and concise contextual guidance from smart tips and beacons). Guidance can be architected in a personalized manner and only shown based on criteria’s and conditions (such as time, role, user, language and other behaviours) and follow users across pages and applications (not just Oracle). Analytics for Oracle Guided Learning is provided on an application, content and user level found in the Oracle Guided Learning console with little to no configuration. Like Guided Journeys, you are able to embed content (links, images, videos, documents) etc. in your Guided Learning pop ups.  

Image Example: In Self-Service Procurement, Guided Learning has disabled clicking on Office Supplies, when I hover over Office Supplies I get a message which prompts me to click on Create Non-Catalog Request and upon opening this, I get an automated pop-up with instructions on what to enter into the field

For ease of comparison there is a short table below that lists the differences between the solutions
 

User Assistance Solutions

 

Oracle Digital Assistant

Oracle Guided Journeys

Oracle Guided Learning (OGL)

Compatible and embedded within Oracle Applications

Y

Y

Y

Compatible with non- Oracle Applications

Y

N

Y

Analytics

Configured within Oracle Analytics Cloud

Templates from Oracle Fusion Intelligence Warehouse

Comes part of Oracle Guided Learning in management Console

Help Output

Conversational – mainly text based

Self-Serve -
mainly content based

Self-Serve -
mainly content based

How do users initiate help

Click on Digital Assistant

Click on Guided Journeys component

Proactive opens in front of user, upon mouse hover and through clicking on Help Panel

Format of users help

Text based suggestions

Also can be configured to take you to destination page and guided through process

Documentation, videos, images and other links

Navigational step by step as user goes through process/pages
 

Documentation, videos, images and other links

Keyword search via Widget

 

Personalization

Outputs are conditional on user prompts

Can be contextualized by role and team member

Can be contextualized by role, language, specific user. Help can be time bound and based on specific user interactions

 

How can I use these solutions together? Considerations for using each solution.

The main point of this blog is not to simply explain the differences, but to also suggest ways these solutions can be utilized in harmony together. Here are a few considerations when considering what type of user assistance, you want to deploy:

  1. Understand your users learning preferences
    All users have different preferences in how they consume and seek information. Some prefer having entire libraries of documentation they can source through, some prefer concise answers, some video or instructional content. As an administrator, it is important to understand your different user groups and how they consume this content.  

     
  2. Understand the problem areas that may require different types of user assistance
     
    Not all help has to be delivered in the same way for the same circumstances.
    1. For example, a user may be in need for answers to a specific question and thereby want to articulate this via a Chat or Search interface.
    2. If a user is starting a process, they may need the context in how to apply this and thereby a video explainer could be very helpful as well as step-by-step instructions for first time completion.
    3. A user may be filling out a form and not need an entire document to read through to find the right fields to populate, and may just need a concise, short statement and/or explanation on what to populate in that field.

Consider what types of user assistance tools are needed to provide to your users at that particular point in time.

  1. Understand your maintenance effort for each solution and whether users will take this up
    As obvious as it sounds, we need to consider how we can incorporate the maintenance of each user assistance solution in ensuring content and each platform is kept current to meet the expectations of your users.

    For a Digital Assistant, do you have the data sources, knowledge bases and technical skills to integrate and source each particular response correctly? Does the suggested responses help your users and what is the point where time (due to user prompts) actually results in diminishing returns?

    For an AI Assistant (provided by a vendor), does it have the learning capabilities that can not only track how users interact with a tool, but your own business processes and policies? Again, with any conversational based interface, what is the point of diminishing returns?

    For Journeys, content may be easy to create and deploy but consider whether users will take action to initiate (is it obvious to click on a banner to receive help?) Is the type of content I’m embedding suited to the needs of my users?

    For Oracle Guided Learning do I have the capabilities and skills to learn how to personalize and initiate guidance based on a variety of circumstances*? Do I have the understanding to know where guidance should appear and how to join different types of guidance flows together?

    *It should be noted, you don’t have to apply personalized conditions to use OGL content, You can simply set it to appear to all users across all processes on all pages if that is your use case.

Here's an approach of how I would use the solutions together

Here’s a few examples of where these solutions could be used together. This could differ from how you would utilize these tools and there may be different use cases you have but I hope this provides a use case of potential deployment.

Use Case 1: For user onboarding - to a new application, process, or feature.

  • Use Oracle Guided Journeys and embed your core pieces of documentation, introductory videos and or instructions into various banners and panels setup on certain pages
  • Have the Oracle Digital Assistant up and ready to answer any specific user ‘how to’ or ‘where to’ questions.
  • Use Oracle Guided Learning for:
    • Auto-loading messages to welcome the new user to the system
    • Provide orientation tours through system navigation and core processes
    • Make users aware of Oracle Guided Journeys content + Digital Assistant
    • Provide subtle contextual assistance next to certain fields upon populating form
    • Have a set of translated content in other languages to support global diverse workforce
    • I would also extend and integrate Oracle Guided Learning and Oracle Digital Assistant so when a user prompts a question into the Digital Assistant, for the response to provide an option to open Guided Learning (see example below).



Image Example: Upon searching for an expense policy in the Oracle Digital Assistant, the suggested action prompts me to open Expense which initiates an Expense Report (from Oracle Guided Learning)

Use Case 2: For business process and policy management and change.

  • Use Oracle Journeys on the specific pages the policy affects and embed a banner that highlights a specific change – e.g. New Policy available. You can then embed the policy link into the banner and/or link to your hosting document.
  • Condition and configure your Digital Assistant to point to the updated policy location on a new link
  • Use Oracle Guided Learning:
    • Initiate proactively the change by having a message open when the user enters the system AND/OR place a beacon to draw users attention and upon hover attach the policy information (see example below)
    • Put conditional validation on form fields to prevent users from proceeding through the fields unless they read and abide by a new policy/process


Image Example: Upon coming to the expenses page, Guided Learning’s auto-load messages pop up and alert to a new policy/process change

All in all, our key message is that Oracle is here to not only help your system redesign but how your clients (employees, customers and suppliers) engage with your applications, processes and people.
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To learn more about Oracle Guided Learning please visit our website: https://www.oracle.com/education/guided-learning/

 

Chris Supangat

Principal Product Management, Guided Learning, Customer Success Services

Chris is a former marketer, and current technology enthuaist and evangelist, exploring the impact of technology on people, processes and systems. He currently works in the Product Management space for Guided Learning, Oracle's Digital Adoption Platform, helping to accelerate cloud success, adoption, change and training.

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