If Oracle customers don’t want to navigate a help line phone tree or wait an entire weekend for a response, they can try asking the Oracle Applications Customer Connect community, detailed in this post on Oracle's Voice of User Experience (VoX) blog.

1. Customer Connect: Oracle’s online community for Applications Cloud
customers
By Edith Mireles­Oracle on May 18, 2015
By Sarah Smart, Applications User Experience
When you have a question about Oracle Applications Cloud, where do you turn? If you don’t want to navigate a help
line phone tree or wait an entire weekend for a response, try asking the Oracle Applications Customer Connect
community.
What is Customer Connect?
Customer Connect is more like a forum than a help desk, a nontechnical version of Oracle Support. Members all over
the world can collaborate, share ideas, and ask questions of other Oracle Applications Cloud customers ­­ validating
their own user experiences ­­ and membership requires no more than being an approved customer.
"It is an exclusive community for members to connect with other members and discuss issues or share ideas. They
can also get exclusive previews and look at other areas they may have not purchased yet," said Senior Director
Katrine Haugerud, Oracle Applications Development, who initiated Customer Connect in 2012 at the request of a
handful of new Applications Cloud customers.
Despite its relative newness, the platform has also been open to Oracle’s key implementation partners and those who
have licensed cloud services since spring 2014. “Partners are really good collaborators with the community,"
Haugerud said. “I think [opening membership to partners] is a great addition.”
The Customer Connect home page puts forums, news, upcoming events, and even links to Oracle Support at

2. your fingertips.
How does Oracle leverage this community for user experience?
The platform offers special benefits to Senior Manager Gozel Aamoth, Applications User Experience, and her team.
When they want to recruit participants for an Oracle HCM Cloud usability lab, for example, they can contact the
applicable customers directly through Customer Connect without spamming the rest of the members. "No other forum
can generate so many cloud customers," she said. "I love that I can reach out to that specific group of users."
Updates and networking are also objectives of the platform. Members see an up­to­date calendar of upcoming UX
events, webinars showing new features, and so on. "Members know when they have the opportunity to hear from
Oracle product managers," Aamoth said.
They also can reach out to other members in their industry, for example, to set up their own network. "This is the
perfect way for customers to stay connected and understand what's happening with the release or product they own,"
Haugerud said.
How can a customer stay up­to­date on the latest Applications Cloud user experience news using Customer Connect?
Here’s just a sampling of some of the webinars you can access as a Customer Connect member:
Oracle Sales Cloud: The User Experience Strategy Going Forward
You have seen Release 7, Release 8, and Release 9. Now, find out what’s coming next in this session on our
vision for the Oracle Sales Cloud user experience going forward.
Oracle HCM Cloud: The User Experience Strategy Going Forward
The design philosophy of “Glance, Scan, Commit” is the language guiding our user experiences, and this session
will show you what’s in our mind’s eye about our UX roadmap.
Oracle ERP Cloud: The User Experience Strategy Going Forward
The Oracle Applications Cloud user experience design strategy is about simplicity, mobility, and extensibility, so
watch this presentation to discover its next evolution. We’ll discuss some highlights of Release 9, Release 10,
and a few more bells and whistles.
Oracle Cloud Extensibility: Making the Cloud Your Own
The Oracle Applications Cloud user experience design strategy is about simplicity, mobility, and extensibility, and
this session focuses on the last piece of that strategy ­­ in addition to our approach to PaaS4SaaS and user
experience.
How do I get connected?
Interested in leveraging the benefits of Customer Connect? Click here to register.
Category: Applications CloudTags: customer_connect customers hcm_cloud rep_cloudsales_cloud
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