It’s been a week since we wrapped up the incredibly busy and successful Ascend 24 in Las Vegas. If you’re an Oracle user still pondering the value of the conference, the answer is a resounding yes! Ascend is a conference designed by and for users – a place where connections are made, and ideas are exchanged. This year, we saw a significant 13% increase in attendance compared to last year. More importantly, the conference achieved an impressive 90% onsite attendance rate, providing a solid platform for networking and idea-sharing.

Throughout the conference, our team presented two sessions, attended over 36 sessions, and met countless individuals at our booth. Some key takeaways from the conference are as follows:

• Migration of EBS to OCI – There are significant advantages to migrating to Oracle’s Cloud Infrastructure if you aren’t ready to move to Cloud ERP. Advantages include improved security and reliability via Oracle’s data centers and improved processing performance due to Oracle’s Autonomous Database.
• Generative AI—Numerous presentations from clients showed how they leverage Generative AI to improve processes in HCM and Finance and Internal Fraud security in Procurement. These presentations clarified that Oracle is gaining tremendous momentum in this area as it continually adds new capabilities with embedded AI in cloud apps.
• Maintaining and modernizing your Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) 12.2 instances for the future – The key points here are for users to be aware that effective July 1, 2024, release 12.2.7 will be set as the Error Correction Baseline. Therefore, users on a release before 12.2.7 must implement the latest RUP patch in alignment with Oracle Support. It is essential to leverage the latest RUP patch as a tech stack upgrade will come in the future, and all applications must be higher than 12.2.7 to adopt the tech stack upgrade. Lastly, the current minimum supported database version is 19c, which has exited Premier Support but has Extended Support ending in 2027. 23ai will be the next database version to be released, and clients on 19c will need to upgrade to a newer version as there is no direct upgrade available from 19c to 23ai.

Of the 36 sessions we attended, a number of these were Forums that promoted open discussion among the attendees on a wide variety of subjects ranging from Women in Tech to Application specific sessions to address User Issues and provide Oracle with what the User Community feels are the important items that need to be addressed. This is a notable example of Oracle not just reviewing the items identified in Customer Connect, but also speaking with the User Community about these issues to gain further understanding and prioritization and identify delivery windows for the improvements.

All in all, it was a great conference. If you know an OATUG Board member, thank them. We are looking forward to next year.