Redwood: VB Studio canvas won't load after the 26A patch

 

The symptom

After extending a Redwood page in VB Studio, the Submit button appeared exactly where it should. It looked right, it was enabled, and clicking it did nothing. There was no error message, no spinner and no transaction created. Users assumed the system was slow and clicked again and again.

Why it happens

In Redwood pages built on Oracle JET, a button is only a visual component until something is wired to its click event. The button was placed on the page, but it had no ojAction event binding, so no action chain was connected to it. JET fires the event, and nothing is listening.

This is easy to miss when you copy a button from another page or rebuild a layout. The markup comes across, but the event mapping doesn't.

How I fixed it

1. Open the page in VB Studio and select the button in the Page Designer.
2. Go to the button's Events tab. If ojAction isn't listed, that's the problem.
3. Add a new event for ojAction and attach it to the action chain that submits the transaction. Create one if needed, or reuse the existing submit chain from the original page.
4. In the page source, confirm the button now has on-oj-action="[[$listeners.yourSubmitListener]]".
5. Preview, test the full submit, then publish the extension.

How to avoid it next time

• After copying any button, check its Events tab before you test anything else.
• Add "every action button has an ojAction listener" to your Redwood extension checklist.
• If a button "does nothing" with no error, check the event binding before suspecting security or the REST service.

Key takeaway

In Redwood, a button you can see is not a button that works. A silent failure with no error almost always means the event isn't wired, not that the back end failed.

Next in the series: a VB Studio canvas that won't load after the 26A patch, and why deleting the workspace was the fix.

How I used Oracle AI Agent Studio Agent Apps to turn reactive HR chat agents into proactive Employee and Manager workspaces.

Agents that wait to be asked

Our HCM Agents already answer HR questions through Ask Oracle. But a chat agent only helps when someone thinks to ask. Open onboarding tasks, overdue courses, leave awaiting approval and who on the team is off next month were spread across Journeys, Learning, Absence and the notifications inbox.

So I tried a different approach: let the AI gather everything first and tell people where they stand.

Two workspaces, one Home page

• Employee Concierge: what needs your attention, what is waiting on someone else, and how your leave has been used this year.
• Manager Concierge: a team snapshot, priority actions, upcoming absences, plus talent, pay and retention risk.

Both sit next to the existing agents on the Fusion Home page: Home > HCM Agents tab > Apps.

How it works

Step 1: Employee, start with the AI summary

The workspace opens with a plain-English summary of where you stand. Needs your attention lists the courses and journey tasks waiting on you. In progress shows requests waiting on someone else, such as leave awaiting approval.

Step 2: Employee, check your leave

Scroll down for your monthly leave pattern and leave by absence type for the year, with key insights in days or hours.

Step 3: Manager, get the team snapshot

The AI writes a short narrative of the team: size, roles, grades, tenure and location. Alongside it are priority actions, a one-click reminder to the team, pending items and upcoming absences.

Step 4: Manager, go deeper on talent and pay

Annual pay and retention risk for each person, plus performance rating and impact of loss. Any card expands to full screen.

Design choices that mattered

1. Summary first. One AI-written paragraph tells people where they stand before they read any table.
2. An overview, not a new transaction screen. Leave, learning and journeys are still done in their standard Fusion pages.
3. Same security as HCM. Employees see only their own data; managers see only their direct team.
4. Live data. The workspace reads the latest HCM data each time it opens.

What's done

Both workspaces are built, tested and documented with a quick-reference guide for employees and managers, ready for rollout.

What I learned

AI in HR isn't only about answering questions. It is about deciding what someone needs to see today and saying it in one sentence. The question changes from "what can I ask?" to "what should I do next?".

If you're building with Oracle AI Agent Studio, I'd love to hear how you're approaching Agent Apps. Leave a comment below.

See the full walkthrough on my site: Employee & Manager Concierge Workspaces.

Names, organisation, pay and location details in the screenshots are fictional (AI-generated) for illustration only.

Meeramaheswari Annadurai: Business Applications Principal, Oracle Fusion HCM and Enterprise AI