delivering fixed content to oracle portal doug daniels & ken barrette quest software
TRANSCRIPT
Delivering Fixed Content to Oracle PortalDoug Daniels & Ken BarretteQuest Software
Agenda Why is fixed content important? Issues in delivering fixed content Case Study Solution to the problem Questions & answers
Common Questions Can’t we save money by not mailing
statements to customers? How can I get the reports from my production
apps to my remote users faster? How can we leverage the information in our
legacy applications? Couldn’t we just make all this available via the
Web?
Portal Deployment Issues Resistance to change Freshness & relevance of content Getting the content to the portal Maintaining necessary security Intranet? Extranet? Both?
Successful Portals Save Real $$$
Give Them What They Need… Fixed Content
– Financial Reports– HR Records– Customer
Statements– Invoices– Purchase Orders– Bills of Material– Sales Reports– …
From…– ERP, CRM & other
packaged apps– Mainframe– COLD systems
Fixed Content Matters Represents a point in time Document is currency of a transaction Cannot & should not be modified Subject to regulatory controls Distributed to different users, located
anywhere
How Can You Get it to Your Portal?
Technical Issues Modifications to the source application Format conversion Content processing Security integration Synchronization Version storage Client software requirements Bandwidth considerations
User Requirements Can’t take forever to download
– Reports can be hundreds or thousands of pages
Still may want to print it– Should look like the printed page
Can I do more than just view it?– Efficient search & extract of information– Turn static content into data for analysis– Enable workflow & collaboration– I only want to see my “favorite” reports– Let me know when a new one is available
Why not just… Convert everything to HTML or PDF?
– What about security? – What if there are thousands of pages? – How do you plan to store multiple versions?
Implement a new application with a web front-end?– Do you have the time and/or budget for a large, risky project
like that? Build a data warehouse and give users ad-hoc access
through the portal?– Do you really need all users with ad-hoc query access?– Some of this content should be dynamically retrieved– Creates another dependency on an already expensive project
See our White Paper for more on this topic.
Case Study Large Government Agency
– Mainframe reports• Logistics data, Bills of Lading, Parts manifests
– Multiple geographic locations each with separate legacy systems
– Information from one system needed to get distributed to users in another location
– Strict security requirements– Print and electronic distribution requirements
Proposed Solution Database Aggregation
– Conduct complex queries to aggregate data– Store in a single Oracle database – Publish to the portal
The Problem– Failure in any of the queries meant information
was unavailable– Variety of systems and distributed network
made the process error-prone
Proposed Solution Environment
Consolidated BOL Data
Deliver BOL DATA to Portal
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Potential Problem
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Ideal Solution Deliver Reports, not
Data Accept output from
any application No modifications to
source applications No applets or
controls Multiple version
storage Page-at-a-time
delivery
Oracle Portal Integration
Single Sign On integration
Supports Internet standards
Page-level security Data extraction Collaboration Notification Personalization
Consolidated Query Issue Resolved by Direct Report Distribution
Consolidated BOL Reports
Deliver BOL Reports to Portal
The Vista Plus SuiteVista Plus Forms Automatically generate formatted business documents
Vista Plus Output ManagerCentral management and processing of print jobs and printers
ERP Interfaces Integrates with application security models
Vista PlusEnterprise report delivery, archiving & viewing
J2EE Application Server
Access Management (Single Sign On)
Web-based Report Viewer
Report Warehouse
Oracle E-Business
Suite
Legacy Production
Apps
Enterprise Output & Fixed
Content
Enterprise Portal Integration
Snapping in the Vista Portlet
The Vista Oracle Portlet
Result: Fixed Content Consolidation from any source
Other Considerations
JSR 168 Portlet API Spec – In final review, due September 2003
OASIS WSRP (Web Services for Remote Portlets)
Oracle Portal Partner
The Result More reasons to use the portal Single source of consolidated content Leverages existing security Extends useful life of legacy applications Rich functionality for end-users Intranet & extranet capable foundation
