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 - |
Self-Serve - |
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 |
Documentation, videos, images and other links |
Navigational step by step as user goes through process/pages Documentation, videos, images and other links |
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:
Consider what types of user assistance tools are needed to provide to your users at that particular point in time.
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.
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.
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 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.