Oracle UPK was the main tool used to facilitate training, onboarding and user support for Oracle EBS. But Oracle UPK’s premier support ends December 31, 2022 as described here, which is problematic because Oracle has assured EBS customers that their systems will continue to be supported and enhanced through at least 2031. In the meantime, your workforce will continue to need support in using EBS.
If you used Oracle UPK for the rollout of EBS and subsequently with major updates, there are some important questions to understand about the sunsetting of Oracle UPK:
- Does your IT department know that continued use of UPK may present security issues?
- Did you know that UPK’s last major update (12.1) was in 2014 and the final service pack was in 2019?
- Does it make sense to use UPK on your application projects, Oracle or otherwise?
- Does UPK work well with non-Oracle applications, particularly cloud-based?
- CRITICAL: What do you do with your current UPK content?
- What should be considered when assessing alternative digital adoption solutions?
We’ve provided some guidance to those questions which is summarized here.
Oracle EBS and Java Forms – a digital adoption tool nightmare
There are a number of tools vying to be your replacement for UPK. Important considerations and capabilities are discussed in the above mentioned resources. However, for Oracle EBS, a hugely important factor in assessing a UPK replacement tool is:
DOES IT WORK WITH JAVA FORMS?
To know whether your UPK alternative has the necessary Java Forms recognition, you need to test the tool to see if recorded steps accurately:
- capture the name of the control
- capture the type of control (whether it is a text field, list, option button, etc.)
- capture the action area (the rectangle the control occupies)
- also, were any steps not captured?
We’ve been told by some of our existing and prospective customers that some of the digital adoption tools they are considering don’t work with Java Forms. If your UPK alternative tool cannot capture Java Forms, you’ll be dead in the water or, at best, in a constant state of work-around, adding time and cost, resulting in an inferior experience and making it difficult to maintain the digital adoption content and outputs.
Try Before You Buy
The best way to judge if your UPK alternative tool works or not is to TRY BEFORE YOU BUY. If the digital adoption tool provider won’t or can’t let you do this, that’s a RED FLAG.
We believe validating a solution before you buy is key, not just for replacing UPK but for many other reasons such as how it fits your model of change management, learning & development, project management and how well it can fit with the rest of your application landscape.
We walk our talk and will let you try before you buy. If you are interested in learning more, please complete the form below.
We know Oracle UPK
We developed UPK, we supported UPK and we sold UPK. Now we’ve brought that experience and expertise to Epilogue Opus, the best alternative to UPK. The following key Epilogue team members have between 10-20 years of experience with UPK, before and after Oracle acquired it.
- Mark Overton – CTO, former Product & Engineering for Oracle UPK and led UPK’s initial development
- Tom Casillas – Director of Operations, former Lead Technical Support for UPK
- Bob O’Neill – SVP Sales, former Director of Sales Operations for UPK
We have organized some additional resources to help you understand our product, Opus, as a UPK alternative here.
Lastly, we have a bulk converter that will allow you to keep your existing UPK content and convert it to our product, Opus, where it will be fully editable, with the same output types. No need to lose your investment in the content you believe still has value. Just click on the image for a 1 minute demo of how this is done.
