This document summarizes Oracle's update policy for Oracle Applications Cloud. It provides details on the different types of quarterly, monthly, and exception updates. Quarterly updates are mandatory and include fixes and enhancements. They are applied to non-production environments on the 1st Friday of designated months and production environments two weeks later. Monthly updates are optional and allow more frequent updates. Exception updates require approval and put environments on different update schedules.

1. November 2016
Oracle Applications Cloud
Fusion Applications Update Policy

2. Contents
Overview .......................................................................................................................................3
PriorTo Go Live.............................................................................................................................3
OnceYou Go Live..........................................................................................................................3
Software and Hardware UpdateTypes............................................................................................3
Quarterly Updates......................................................................................................................4
Vertex Updates (Tax and Address Files) ....................................................................................5
Infrastructure Updates ...............................................................................................................5
National Language Support (NLS) Updates..............................................................................6
Monthly Updates (Optional)......................................................................................................6
Exception Updates.....................................................................................................................8
Additional Update Information......................................................................................................8
Planned Outages ........................................................................................................................8
Exceptions to Update Practices .................................................................................................8
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)............................................................................................9

3. 3
Overview
We periodically provide software and hardware updates for your environments to:
• Address reported issues
• Introduce new functionality prior to the next scheduled release
This document describes update policies and practices that apply to all Fusion Applications Cloud
customers.
PriorTo Go Live
If your business is not live and not in production, consider requesting the Concurrent Maintenance option
to keep your production and non-production environments at the same update level.
The benefits of keeping your environments at the same update and release level during your initial
implementation using concurrent maintenance are:
• Updates are applied to all environments at the same time.
• Setup and extensibility can be easily migrated from a non-production environment to your
production environment.
• Fulfillment of environment refresh requests is easier to schedule and fulfill because the source and
target environments are at the same update level. (A prerequisite for environment refresh requests
is that source and target environments are at the same update level.)
You’ll need to plan your Concurrent Maintenance end date for the last day of the month prior to your go-
live month. For more information about Concurrent Maintenance, see My Oracle Support article Doc ID
1646394.1.
OnceYou Go Live
If your business is live on Oracle Applications Cloud, updates are applied to your environments on a
predefined schedule – they are first applied to non-production environments and then to production
environments two weeks later, depending on the type of update.This gives you time to test the updates,
and identify and report any issues before the updates are applied to your production environment.
Software and Hardware UpdateTypes
We provide the following software and hardware updates:
• Quarterly Updates
• Vertex Updates (Tax and Address Files)
• Infrastructure Updates
• National Language Support (NLS) Updates
• Monthly Updates (optional)
• Exception Updates
Most of these updates are mandatory and applied automatically.
You’ll receive communication about these updates via the standard notification process.

4. 4
Quarterly Updates
Quarterly Updates address the following:
• Customer- and internally-reported issues with Oracle Applications Cloud
• Oracle Fusion Middleware and OracleTransactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) issues.The
Oracle Fusion Middleware updates are sometimes referred to as P4FA updates
• New functional enhancements that need to be provided prior to the next release
After most customers have upgraded to the next release, we will stop providing Quarterly Updates for a
previous release. Any additional updates for the previous release will be accommodated through the
Exception Update process.
Note: If your country requires Payroll Statutory Updates, you may be placed on the monthly update schedule
to ensure compliance with the required updates. Additional communications will be sent when a statutory
update is required.
Mandatory or Optional Mandatory
Delivery Schedule
Non-production environments: First Friday of February, May, August, and
November. Exception is the Middle East, where the update is applied on
Thursday.
Production environments: Third Friday of February, May, August, and
November. Exception is the Middle East, where the update is applied on
Thursday.
Planned Outage Times
All times are US Pacific Time.
• Middle East: Thursday 10:00 – 19:00
• Asia Pacific /Sydney: Friday 05:00 – 14:00
• Asia Pacific/Singapore: Friday 05:00 – 14:00
• Europe: Friday 13:00 – 22:00
• Americas: Friday 19:00 – Saturday 04:00
Your outage times are based on the country defined in your Cloud
Services agreement and communicated via My Services.
Documentation
Review the specific pillar Functional Update documents by accessing My Oracle
Support article Doc ID 1603154.1.

5. 5
Vertex Updates (Tax and Address Files)
Vertex Updates occur monthly and apply to US and Canada tax rates, calculations, and address
validations. If your business operates outside of the US and Canada, you’ll receive these updates because
you may need to validate US and Canadian addresses for employees or trading partners who have
residences or businesses there.
Mandatory or Optional Mandatory
Delivery Schedule
Non-production environments: 18th of each month.
Production environments: 25th of each month.
Planned Outage Times No outage required
Documentation
The Vertex Calculation Guide is updated as needed and accessible from My
Services for US and Canada Payroll customers only.
Infrastructure Updates
We provide database and hardware updates periodically to keep your environments optimized.
Mandatory or Optional Mandatory
Delivery Schedule Typically quarterly or as needed
Planned Outage Times
Outage times can happen on the 2nd
or 4th
weekend of any month but are
typically applied once a quarter. End times will vary based on the scope of the
updates. You will be sent a notification when there is one scheduled.
Your outage times are based on the data center in which you are hosted and
communicated via My Services. For example, if you’re an Asia Pacific customer,
but your environment is hosted by a US data center, this update outage will most
likely coincide with the US Update time.
If scheduled, all times are US Pacific Time.
Documentation Documentation not necessary

6. 6
National Language Support (NLS) Updates
If your environment includes languages other than English, we provide updates to language packs.
These updates:
• Address customer- and internally-reported issues with an existing translated form, report, or
user interface
• Introduce new translated strings based on functionality delivered in an earlier update
Mandatory or Optional Mandatory
Delivery Schedule
You will receive NLS Updates automatically for all language packs installed. These
will be applied to your environments with the Quarterly or Monthly Updates.
Planned Outage Times
Outage times begin as defined for Quarterly or Monthly Updates. End times will
vary depending upon the scope of the updates.
Documentation Documentation not necessary
Monthly Updates (Optional)
You might need Monthly Updates if:
• You have a product that requires frequent updates due to statutory requirements or feature
updates, such as Payroll or Learn.
• Your software is not yet in production, and you want more frequent updates.
• You required an Exception Update. This requires you to take monthly updates until the end of the
quarter. See the following section, “Exception Updates” for more information.
• You want updates more frequently than quarterly. You can request to receive monthly updates for
a multiple number of quarters.

7. 7
Mandatory or Optional Optional
Delivery Schedule
Non-production environments: First Friday of each month. Exception is the
Middle East, where the update is applied on Thursday.
Production environments: Third Friday of each month. Exception is the
Middle East, where the update is applied on Thursday.
Planned Outage Times
All times are US Pacific Time.
• Middle East: Thursday: 10:00 – 19:00
• Asia P acific/Sydney: Friday 05:00 – 14:00
• Asia Pacific/Singapore: Friday 05:00 – 14:00
• Europe: Friday 13:00 – 22:00
• Americas: Friday 19:00 – Saturday 04:00
Your outage times are based on the country defined in your Cloud
Services agreement and communicated via My Services.
Documentation
Review the Monthly Update documents. You can find the link to the specific Monthly
Update documents by accessing My Oracle Support article Doc ID 1603154.1.
For detailed steps on how to file a Service Request (SR), refer to the Submitting a
Cloud Service Request article on My Oracle Support (Doc ID 2120276.1). You’ll be
prompted to answer questions that are specific to this Cloud service.
To request monthly updates that aren’t associated with a reported issue, you’ll need to log an SR at least 10
days prior to the first Friday of the month in which you want to make a change.
When you create the SR, specify the following values:
Name Value
Problem Summary Monthly Update Request
Problem Description Monthly Update Request
Choose the Cloud tab.
Service Type Oracle Fusion Product for which you are logging the
SR
Problem Type Hosting Services
Question 1 I have a question about upgrades, updates,
maintenance…
Question 2 Monthly Updates

8. 8
Answer all questions in the template as is appropriate for your request. You will need to provide a start and
end date (Month/Year). January, April, July, and October are the only months eligible as an end month.
Once you reach your end date, quarterly updates are applied from that point forward. If you want to change
the end date, submit a new SR.
Requesting optional monthly updates will impact the available dates for scheduling environment refreshes or
require that an existing refresh be rescheduled. For more information, refer to Oracle Applications Cloud –
Environment Refresh Service Entitlement article on My Oracle Support (Doc ID 2015788.1)
Exception Updates
You’ll need an Exception Update when you encounter an unexpected problem that disables a
business-critical process and no workaround exists.You must raise the exception request through the
SR you opened when you initially reported the problem. We approve exception requests on a case-by-
case basis.
Several criteria must be met to request and receive an Exception Update, including:
• A resolution is available
• No workaround exists or you believe that a proposed workaround is not acceptable
• You submitted an update to the existing SR explaining how the reported problem hampers a
key business process and how deferral to the next Update would negatively impact the
affected business process
If you are approved to receive an Exception Update, Oracle Support will explain the type of update you
will receive and the timing for applying it.
Keep in mind that an Exception Update introduces:
• Differences in update levels between your environments.You may need to reschedule any
Environment Refresh that is planned.
• Additional potential outages due to the following:
• Additional updates required to complete the original Exception Update request
• Monthly Updates until the next Quarterly Update. (After you start receiving Exception
Updates, you will receive Monthly Updates until the next Quarterly Update.)
All Exception Updates are included in the next Monthly and Quarterly Updates. You will be required to
accept Monthly Updates until the next Quarterly Update is applied. Detailed information about required
Updates will be provided through the Service Request you created to report the issue.
Additional Update Information
Planned Outages
Outage times are defined to minimize disruption to your business.My Services will send you advance
notification with outage details, including impacted environment and outage start and end dates.
If you have an implementation partner, add them as a notification contact in My Services, so they can
receive notices of your outages and can plan their work accordingly. For more information, see
Managing Contacts for Service Notifications.
Exceptions to Update Practices
We make every attempt to limit update-related outages and exceptions to the update schedule defined in

9. 9
this document. However, there may be an occasional need to vary from this schedule for various reasons,
such as:
• Unscheduled, emergency updates to address a critical problem affecting all customers
• Extending a planned outage time for an update
We will make every attempt to forecast these special cases and provide you with advance notifications.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s)
 Why can’t I opt out of taking the Quarterly Updates?
Because we need to ensure all customers have the latest code updates and functionality, Quarterly
Updates are mandatory.
 Why do the non-production and production environments get Quarterly and Monthly Updates two
weeks apart?
This gives you time to perform testing before changes are introduced to your production
environment. If your business is not yet live in production, the Concurrent Maintenance option allows
your environments to be updated together on the non-production schedule, to keep them in
synch for critical implementation activities. For more information about Concurrent Maintenance,
review the following My Oracle Support article Doc ID 1646394.1.
 How do I know what is included in the Quarterly Updates to create a testing plan?
Review the following articles on My Oracle Support:
• Oracle Fusion Applications Known Issues and Update Documents Doc ID 1603154.1
• Functional Readmes for FusionTransactional Business Intelligence (OTBI) Updates Doc ID
1573674.1
• What's New documents included in Release Readiness content for each service
(https://cloud.oracle.com/en_US/readiness)
 Why can’t I request a specific downtime for when updates are applied?
Because it’s critical to time updates when the Oracle Applications Cloud Operations team is available
in your environment’s time zone, there are predefined downtime windows for all updates.You can find
additional details for each update type in the Software and Hardware Update Types section in this
document.
 How do I know what update region is assigned for my environments?
The region is automatically assigned based on the country identified in your Cloud Services
agreement.
 What do I do if an update does not address my reported issue?
Update the specific Service Request (SR) in My Oracle Support, indicating that the issue was not
resolved after the application of the update. Provide details of any changes in error messages or
symptoms and screenshots as appropriate.
 Does the update outage schedule still apply if my environment has more than one Cloud Services
(for example, HCM and Sales)?
Yes.You will receive updates for all Cloud Services at the same time. If you receive an Exception
Update that requires an outage, your entire environment will be brought down and there will be no

10. 10
access to any of your applications during the outage period.
 How do Exception Updates affect a request for an Environment Refresh?
An Environment Refresh can only be performed when both the production and non-production
environments are at the same update level. If you are not using Concurrent Maintenance, an
Environment Refresh can only be scheduled during the period after the production environment has
received the Quarterly Updates (the third Friday of February, May, August, and November) and up
until the next Quarterly Updates are applied to non-production environments (the first Friday of
February, May, August, and November). For more details, see Environment Doc ID 2015788.1.
If you receive an Exception Update, your non-production environments will typically be updated
differently than your production environment and an Environment Refresh cannot be performed.
Oracle Support will identify the impact of Exception Updates on a scheduled Environment Refresh. We
will not apply Exception Updates to synch up environments for an Environment Refresh.
 How will I know that my environments are at the same levels for an Environment Refresh?
After you submit an Environment Refresh request, Oracle Support will determine whether or not your
environments are at the same update level and can receive an Environment Refresh on the date you
request. If necessary, Support will identify the date on which your environments should be updated to
the same level so that you can reschedule your Environment Refresh.
 How will I know if the update process changes?
This document will be updated as changes occur and will be communicated via the My Services and
Customer Connect.
 Can I request Exception Updates or Monthly Updates because I always want the latest available
fixes applied to my environments?
Exception Updates are only approved on a case-by-case basis when you have a previously
documented issue that is severely impacting a key business process with no workaround.You can find
additional details in the Exception Updates section in this document.
Monthly Updates let you receive updates monthly, rather than quarterly. No additional approvals are
required.

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0115
Oracle Applications Cloud – Update
Policy November 2016
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