WebCenter Content & Portal Methodology Deep Dive with Case Studies

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WebCenter 101: Web Development Techniques, WebCenter Architecture and Real World Solutions Jason Clarkin Brian “Bex” Huff

description

A deep dive into how to plan your WebCenter project

Transcript of WebCenter Content & Portal Methodology Deep Dive with Case Studies

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WebCenter 101: Web Development Techniques, WebCenter Architecture and Real World Solutions

Jason ClarkinBrian “Bex” Huff

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Speakers

Jason Clarkin• President, Bezzotech• WebCenter consultant and architect for 12+ years

Brian “Bex” Huff• Chief Software Architect, Bezzotech• Former developer on WebCenter product line

Visit Slideshare for the most recent version of this presentation:• http://www.slideshare.net/bexmex

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Visit our Booth

Visit us at booth #1280 (Next to Oracle)

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Other Sessions of Interest

Case Study: How one of the largest school districts in the country is going digital (Content and Portal)

• Mon, Apr 8, 2013 (5:00 PM – 6:00 PM)• Mile High Ballroom 4D

Integrating ADF Mobile with WebCenter (Portal and Content)• Wed, Apr 10, 2013 (11:00 AM - 12:00 PM) • Mile High Ballroom 4C *

Save the Planet! Or, at least streamline and reduce paper through Workflow & Digital Signatures.

• Wed, April 10 (4:15 pm - 5:15 pm)• Mile High Ballroom 4D

Seamless Integrations between Site Studio and WebCenter Sites• Thu, Apr 11, 2013 (11:00 AM - 12:00 PM)• Mile High Ballroom 4D

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Agenda

WebCenter Overview

WebCenter Content Case Study

WebCenter Portal Case Study

Unified Solution Tips & Tricks

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Portals and Content

WebCenter Portal: A single place where users can interact with the content, systems, people, and processes that they need to do their jobs

• Portals do not organize the information – they generally reveal when information is not organized

• Used mainly for intranets, and extranets

WebCenter Content: addresses content integrity and eliminates manual processes related to unstructured content

• Drives content on intranets, extranets, and web sites

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WebCenter Overview

The User Engagement Platform for Social Business

• One Integrated Product Suite -Sites, Portal, Social, Content

• Transforming Organizations to Social Business - Improve Business Agility, Increase Customer Loyalty, Enhance User Productivity, Seamless Access to the Right Information

• Architected together to Connect People and Information -Desktop/Mobile/Tablet, Search, Gadgets, Application Integration, SaaS/Cloud

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WebCenter Overview: Content (ECM)

ECM focuses on “unstructured” information• Emails, Microsoft Office documents, videos, web sites

Covers the entire life cycle• Capture it, define it, tag it• Find it, convert it, deliver it• Use it, re-use it, enrich it• Secure it, retain it, destroy it

Improves communication efficiency

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WebCenter Overview: Content (ECM)

PublishRetain

Filter

Search

Create

Capture

VersionIndex

Cleanse

Archive

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WebCenter Content: A Pragmatic Strategy

Movement beyond “point solutions” • Avoid department-centric solutions• Think strategically about enterprise interoperability• Act tactically to address specific needs

Its not just about technology• Its about a culture of information sharing.• It’s about dedication to a “single source of truth”

Its about making content manageable!

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Strategic vs Tactical ECM

Strategic ECM systems• Enterprise-wide• Infrastructure level• Used for Active, Transactional, and Historical data

Tactical ECM systems• Makes one specific department better at one thing• Leads to content silos• Remember: these exist for a very good reason!

A pragmatic strategy must support both

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Steps in Pragmatic ECM

1. Create a “Center of Excellence”

2. Asses your environment

3. Assess your business needs

4. Consolidate content into strategic repositories

5. Federate control to tactical repositories

6. Bring structured and unstructured strategies together

7. Plan for the future

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1) Create a “Center of Excellence”

Multi-departmental group• Stay close to the needs of the users.• Requires support from senior executives.

Information sharing is a political mine field• There is job security in hoarding information.• People do not want to change their habits, or lose control of their data.

Necessary for enterprise-wide initiatives• Without executive buy-in, ECM will not be widely adopted.

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Center of Excellence Breakdown

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Project 1 Project 2 Project 3

Executive Steering Committee

Program Mgmt. Office

• Business Analysts• Developers

• Program Manager• Enterprise, Infrastructure, Solution, and Information Architects

• Records Managers

• Business Analysts• Developers

• Business Analysts• Developers

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2) Assess Your Environment

Determine number of unstructured systems• Could number in the hundreds!• Label as strategic, tactical, or replaceable

Examples:• Shared file systems and FTP servers• Digital Archives• Department specific content / collaboration systems• Legacy websites and web applications• Enterprise Apps: Siebel, Lotus Notes• Hosted systems: Salesforce.com, Gmail, Facebook

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Label Existing Systems

Strategic:• ECM systems with the features you need• Easy interoperability

Tactical:• Insufficient for a strategic infrastructure.• Too useful to replace.• Not cost-effective to re-implement required features.

Replaceable:• Not many features: low cost, low complexity

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Tactical, Strategic, or Replaceable?

17Consolidation ROI

Eas

e of

C

onso

lida

tion

Shared File Systems

Legacy Imaging

HighLow

Low

High

ERP Doc Store

Email System

Web Applications

CRM Doc Store

DepartmentalRepositories

Web Content Mgmt.

Tactical

Replaceable

Legacy Doc. Mgmt.

Media Library

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3) Assess Your Business Needs

Design based on current state, and future goals• What are the pain points?• Automation? Auditing? Access?

Design multiple solutions• Bare minimum (cheapest)• Best practice (expensive)• Goldilocks (just right!)

Design a sensible deployment plan• Proof of concepts for some of the trickier integrations• Phase 1: vanilla system that works, minimal customization• Phase 2: custom deployments and integrations• Phase 3: roll-out to prove business value• Phase 4: expand to meet other business needs

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4) Consolidate Strategic Repositories

Migrate from replaceable into strategic system• High-value content in one central repository for easy re-use• Significantly reduces cost and complexity

Extend strategic repository to other applications• Active: Web applications, portals• Transactional: Imaging and process management• Historical: email archives, digital archives

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Strategic Repository for you Enterprise

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ERP SystemERP SystemERP SystemERP System

CRM SystemCRM SystemCRM SystemCRM System

Email ServersEmail ServersEmail ServersEmail Servers

Web ApplicationsWeb ApplicationsWeb ApplicationsWeb Applications

Enterprise Applications Infrastructure Content Applications

Media LibraryMedia LibraryMedia LibraryMedia Library

Imaging SystemImaging SystemImaging SystemImaging System Web ContentWeb ContentWeb ContentWeb Content

Enterprise Service Bus (core services)

WebCenter Content

Imaging & Process Management (I/PM)

DocumentManagement

DocumentManagement

RecordsManagement

RecordsManagement

BPM Document Capture

Oracle Strategic ECM System

Direct SOA forSpecializedServices

Oracle Database

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Consolidation Tools

Enterprise Service Bus• Server to server orchestration with BPEL workflows

Enterprise connectors, managed attachments• For EBS, PeopleSoft, and Siebel

Standards-compliant ECM interfaces • CMIS, JSR 170, RSS, WebDAV

Custom Integrations• SOAP, Archiving Services, Java API

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5) Federate to Tactical Repositories

Tactical systems exist for a reason!• Helps one department do their tasks more efficiently• Too useful to eliminate, too expensive to consolidate

Pragmatic ECM does not punish tactical systems• It offers federation tools to extend the repository• Helps makes your content manageable

Get control over content, wherever it is• Centralized policies, federated repositories

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Federation Tools

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Oracle Federated ECM Services

SharePointSharePointSharePointSharePoint

MS SQL DBMS SQL DB

Multiple Instances

Tactical SystemsTactical SystemsTactical SystemsTactical Systems

ContentContentRepositoryRepository

Multiple Instances

Universal RecordsManagement (URM)

Secure EnterpriseSearch (SES)

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Federation Tools

Universal Records Management• Custom “adapters” run in remote systems• Enforces retention and destruction policies

Secure Enterprise Search• Single, secure place to search for content anywhere• Group and display results differently, depending on the user

WebCenter Portal• Use as a front-end to hard to use back-end systems• Pagelet Producer (Ensemble), Business Mashups• Use existing or custom portlets

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6) Unify Your Strategies

Blurred line: unstructured vs. structured content

Unstructured apps need structured content• Should consume structured services

Structured apps need unstructured content• Should consume unstructured content services

Extract structure from unstructured content• Keywords, metadata, taxonomy, controlled thesaurus

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Unification Tools

Imaging and Process Management• Brings scanned images to enterprise apps

Business Intelligence Publisher• Generate reports, put into ECM, then on web sites

Siebel Files Replacement

Business Analytics and Data Mining Tools• Imagine data mining your email archives…

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7) Plan for the Future

Need 3-year plans for ECM

Technology is changing rapidly• New tools, new integrations, new migrations• Consolidation may be a better option in the future.

Content is being created faster and faster• Need to frequently assess storage and findability

Think strategically, implement tactically

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Public School

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One of the largest school districts in the country:• 600 public school facilities in a major metropolitan area.• 100’s of Facility Projects each year• Terabytes of data being generated and stored…somewhere

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: The Challenge

Document distribution to General Contractors

Manually intensive workflow process 

Multiple sets of the same document living on desktops, file shares, personal computers

Unable to find the documents. 

External departments didn’t had access to some of the key documents like floor plans, emergency plans etc. 

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Solution Overview

Centralize the Repository• File Systems• E-Business Suite• Primavera

Develop an Enterprise Metadata Model• Core Metadata• Shared “Generic” Metadata

Provide Interfaces that work for users, instead of creating more work

• Desktop Integration Suite• Websites• Portals

Develop an agile workflow solution

Content Migration

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Project Hurdles

Clearly defining previously manual workflows

User Adoption Getting over the “Change”

Normalizing User Data• Internal Users• External Users

Syncing Metadata Across Applications

Content Migration

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Project Outcomes

1 Central Repository for Content• Single “Source of Truth” for Users and Applications

Automation of Manual Workflow Steps• Emailing, FTP'ing, Snail Mailing

Web-viewable Plans, Drawings, Spreadsheets on Mobile devices in the field

External Users (Contractors, Architects, PM’s, etc.) being able to submit and review important project documents

Consolidation of more than 3 Terabytes of Content

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WebCenter Overview: Portal

A portal application integrates information, people, and processes across organizational boundaries

Tools:• Documents, Pages, Wikis, Mashups• Reports, Search, Email, Discussions• Personalization, Collaboration, Activity Streams• Application Integration, Security

The three A's still apply:• Automation, Access, Auditing• Each feature in the portal should do one of them!

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Portals and Content

Portal: A single place where users can interact with the content, systems, people, and processes that they need to do their jobs

Portals do not organize the information – they generally reveal when information is not organized

Content Management: addresses content integrity and eliminates manual processes related to unstructured content

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Portal Goals

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Navigation

Documents

Social

Business Intelligence

Transactions

Search

Go from this: To this:

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Global Chrome – Template – Navigation – Search – Corp. Identity

PortletsThird Party

Business Intelligence Portlet

Content Integration / Task Flow

Content Integration / Task Flow

Pagelet

Polls Task Flow

RSS Task Flow

News Third Party

Useful Links Task Flow

Typical Portal Components

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Different Tools for Different Users

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BUSINESS USER USER IT DEVELOPERIT DEVELOPER

• Easily compose business solutions

• Respond to business needs

immediately

• Surface enterprise applications to

create custom mash-ups

• Target mobile devices and tablets

• Broad choice of frameworks

(ADF, Spring)

• Leverage business user

assembled scenarios

• Build reusable components

• Robust management and

rapid upgrade cycles

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WebCenter Portal Approach

A portal can be used to make almost anything• Implementation plans vary significantly

1.Determine the type of portal

2.Determine audience and business needs

3.Determine technical needs

4.Determine user experience needs

5.Roll out in phases

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1) Determine Type of Portal

Executive Dashboard• Business intelligence, reporting

Collaboration• Blogs, wikis, enterprise search

Intranet• Content, navigation, maps, people

Self-service• Commonly used forms

Enterprise Integrations• SOA, ReST, Business Mashups

Web publishing• Not usually the best use of a portal

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2) Determine Audience and Business Needs

Define audience, and key players• External Customers• External Partners• Internal Employees• Executives

All have different goals, agendas, and success criteria• Users: want all content and apps in one place• IT: wants a system that's easy to scale, fits with current infrastructure• Business: wants better channels to customers, partners, with clear ROI

Gather needs on every major area• Processes, Features, Content• Define Vision, and final metrics for success• Workflow, Security, and Resource planning

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2) Determine Audience and Business Needs, cont.

Who ultimately will be using the portal?• What roles do they play?• Will they require training, or incentives to use it?

What does the audience need?• What information do they need to find more quickly?• What content do we wish to “push” to the audience?• What processes do we need to make simpler?

What do we need to integrate with?• Security, workflow, enterprise applications

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3) Determine Technical Needs

Based on business needs, determine technical requirements• Business to Customers Dot Com site

• Internet Site: portal not fully utilized, usually overkill

• Business to Business• External partners? Need an extranet portal!

• Business to Employee• Intranet Portal

Content and application inventory• What do we need, and how do we connect to it?• Can we use an pre-built portlet, or an existing API?• Good excuse for a POC or two…

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3) Determine Technical Needs, cont.

Resource inventory• What skillsets do we have, and what do we need?• Will we need training, or a partner to help us build it?• Be sure to onboard people only once you know you can keep them busy!

Evaluation of tools• Do the existing portlets satisfy your needs?• Security, performance, managability of portal?

Design a plan to achieve success criteria• Quality assurance, user acceptance testing• Post go-live support and administrative maintenance

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Common Portal Components

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4) Determine User Experience Needs

Gather company logos, colors, generate style guide• Ensure creative resources understand the business reason for specific

features

Design information architecture• For content-centric portals, navigation and labels are critical• Ensure users are comfortable with structure and design

Follow usability patterns for proper UX• Good idea: follow Oracle UX functional design patterns• Bad idea: let developers do whatever they want!

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Fusion Applications

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Embedded Embedded AnalyticsAnalytics

Rich, Unified User Rich, Unified User ExperienceExperience

Enterprise Enterprise Application Application IntegrationIntegration

Contextual E2.0 Contextual E2.0 ServicesServices

Business Business Process Process

IntegrationIntegration

Accounting & Accounting & Financial Financial Mgmt InfoMgmt Info

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Use Design Patterns for Advanced UX

Oracle spent a lot of time & money on enterprise UX• How should we display a person in an org chart?• How should we display complex graphs and patterns?• Where do users eyeballs go first on a page?

ADF Functional Design Patterns• http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/topics/ux/applications/gps-1601227.ht

ml

Even if you don’t use ADF, same rules apply• Every pattern has been tested in a lab for maximum effectiveness• Don’t violate a pattern without a great excuse

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5) Roll Out in Phases

Not always possible, but it has lower risk

A portal’s usefulness is directly dependent on the number of other applications it replaces

• Lots of pressure to GO BIG, or not at all• Better to find a way to get success metrics with smaller systems• Then add new systems as you win converts

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Case Study: Fortune 200 Company

Global E-Commerce site for one of their divisions

Portal integrated multiple enterprise applications• E-Business Suite• Enterprise Search• Product Information Management• Oracle Access Manager (OAM)• Oracle Internet Directory (OID)• Active Directory (internal employees)• Custom administrative portlets• Oracle WebCenter Content

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Case Study: WebCenter Portal: The Challenge

Localization• Ensure users only saw products available in their locale• Ensure users saw the right content for that product

Enterprise Application Integration• EBS integration: SOA, API, or data dump?

Back-end administrative dashboards• Create email templates, events, course materials

E-Commerce Site• Inventory, prices per locale, or per specific contract• Navigation, hierarchy, and product suggestion critical

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Case Study: WebCenter Portal: Solution Overview

Portal was used to create administrator dashboards

Portal used to connect to EBS• Custom apps used AJAX to call back to a custom servlet

Content was rendered and cached• Custom RIDC calls for maximum flexibility/performance• Smaller sites could have use Content Presenter

Custom Portal/Content spiders for enterprise search• Needed to avoid performance issues with multilingual site• Need one collection per locale, not all content is translated

Secure every application with OAM/OID• Sync Active Directory to OID to get SSO for the site

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Project Hurdles

Existing EBS system could not handle the entire load• SOA / API / dynamic queries could not be supported for whole site

Global search-engine optimization• Must have 100% control over the URLs: tough with Portals

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Case Study: WebCenter Content: Project Outcomes

For EBS, used Portal to get data dump of most content• E-Commerce used direct calls

Custom Apache/Portal integration for friendly URLs• Translate a URL to a page/section• Custom servlet to do the redirect without changing URL

Launched on time and (barely) under budget• Customers/partners loved the new look and feel

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Tips: Get the Most of Existing Functionality

Avoid custom code when possible

Make customizations future-proofed

Many OOTB, pre-built portlets

Many OOTB UCM components that you’ve never have heard of

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Tips: Integration Best Practices

Avoid “tight” integrations• Never connect client apps directly to back end enterprise apps• Middleware is there for a reason!

Lightweight integrations are usually best• Exceptions for performance and managability• Need cost-benefit analysis before doing anything tightly coupled

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Tips: Security and SSO

Portal and Content support most SSO applications• But: beware of home-built SSO solutions!• Never as safe as the creators would think• Easy to integrate with some systems, impossible with others

Focus on a growable security model

Use security to secure, not organize!

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The Company: http://bezzotech.com

The Blog: http://bexhuff.com

The Mail: [email protected]

The Tweets: @bex

Questions?