Mia Urman@miaurman

miaurman@oraplayer.com

Moving Forward with

Oracle Forms

What Now? What Next?

Who am I

Mia UrmanCEO, OraPlayer - Oracle Development Expert

• Oracle Development Geek for 14 years.

• 7 years at Oracle as a senior support analyst and local product manager of Forms and ADF.

• CEO and Founder of OraPlayer - Addressing Oracle Forms modernization challenges encountered at blue chip customers. Including: ADF Integration, Forms to Mobile, Cloud and SOA.

• Leader of the ilOUG Oracle Developer Group and presenter of Oracle tools at international conferences OOW, Kscope, UKOUG …

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

NOW – Forms Today

• HUGE Forms investment

• Trained developer pool

• Mission critical, complex systems

• Best development tool for OLTP Systems - Desktop

• Low maintenance, stable system for over 10 years

• Mostly undocumented systems

• VERY fast productive development

“Oracle Forms remains a viable

and valuable technology asset for

mainstream IT strategies, but has

limited scope in next-generation”

Gartner: Modernization and Migration Strategies for Oracle Forms Nov. 2011

http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1-

198LN9P&ct=120208&st=sb

“Oracle has no plan to discontinue support of Oracle Forms.”

“…continue to leverage their existing investments for many years

while offering a path to incrementally move to Java EE,

at their own pace.”

Oracle Application Development Tools SOD , March 2012http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/issue-archive/2010/toolssod-3-129969.pdf

State of the Union

Then Next ….

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

Clean UpDon’t Migrate/Upgrade What you Don’t

Use• 10 Year old system – Are any modules obsolete?

• Review usage of the system

• What forms are now obsolete?

• What reports are not run?

• Do we will use PLL / OLBs?

• Remove dead code - PITSS

• Delete multiple copies of same sources

• Merge forms that perform similar tasks

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

Why Upgrade Your Forms?

Ensure support (C/S de-supported 2004/10g Dec. 2011)

Certification – New browsers, O/S, Java versions

New features - SOA, REUI, JavaScript

Strategic Middleware - Runs on WebLogic

Upgrade is Seamless from 10g to 11g

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

Forms Look and Feel Modernization

Toolbar and navigation

Look and Feel Project

Color / Font / Size

Prompts / Titles

Images

Frames

OLB, templates for visual standards

Yes - Java in Forms!Java Beans

– Java Bean Area - layout object on canvas

– Use custom trigger to get and set properties

PJC – Portable Java Component– Change default behavior/properties of objects

Java Classes – Run webservices– Run Java code in forms triggers

– Java importer – PLSQL java wrapper

JavaScript– Interact with objects in the browser page - Maps

Java Beans & PJCs

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

Hybrid Options• Living Side By Side

Forms running alongside new technologies

• Visual IntegrationCreate a common UI –Forms & ADF/APEX/Java

• Process / Service IntegrationRun common business logic DB/Events

• InnovationRun Forms business process from new environments -OraPlayer

Forms & External Apps Living In Harmony

Form System External System

Security / Management

Web.show_doc

ument

Common

Bus Logic

AQ

Messages

web.javascript_ev

al_expr

What is Visual Integration?Portal \ Unified Desktop \ Dashboards

Concept

• Integrating Oracle Forms and Other Technologies Into a single user experience

• One point of access - SSO

• Customized based on users business needs

Implementation• iFrames

• Javascipt

Process / Service IntegrationShare Forms Business Logic – SOA / BPM

Concept

• Reuse the business logic locked inside your Forms –

Separate GUI from business logic

Implementation• Decoupling – Remove and Centralize bus logic to DB - Pitts

• Events – Use AQ events for messaging

CLEAN UP

UPGRADE

MODERNIZE

INTEGRATE

INNOVATE!

Game Plan: Leverage your EXISTING investment

Web Desktop Mobile Office

Database Web Services Legacy Systems Applications Unlimited

Oracle Development Today Web Services Cloud

Web Services

Exposing Oracle Forms

Web Desktop Mobile OfficeWeb Services Cloud

Understand the Business Process

Record & Deploy Scenario

Create ADF Mobile App

Define Task Flow

Run Your Mobile App!

Don’t run Forms on mobile

Run your BUSINESS on the mobile

See Demo

Same Forms Business Logic

Multiple UIsADF Mobile

Innovation By Migration

Things to Consider

This is a PROJECT. No silver bullet Need a business reason to redevelop

Need thorough understanding of the Forms application

No tool can re-write your business logic

Need deep knowledge of the new technologies

UI implications – HTML vs Applet

Investigate 3rd party tools for migration assistance

Benefits of Migration› No Oracle Forms maintenance/licenses› Fully portable system› No applet, full HTML client› Larger developer pool

“Forms isn’t dead it just smells funny”Francois Degrelle

www.oracleformsinfo.com

Moving Forward Considerations For Modernization Projects

Asses Your RequirementsWhat systems do we need to integrate with? UI requirements?

What platforms do we need to deploy to?

Understand Your Existing SystemWhere does the business logic sit today?

What functionality is duplicated in other systems?

Do we have documentation? Developer resources?

Define Timeline and Budget

Decide on Implementation MethodIntegrate, Migrate, 3rd party solution

Summary

Clean up Forms environment – unused, dead code

Upgrade to Latest version – Forms 11gR2

Modernize Look and Feel - Incorporate Java

elements

Chose right tool for the jobRefactor code to the DB

Systems on common infrastructure Weblogic –

SSO

Slowly evolve teams and systemsStart thinking about system INNOVATION – ADF

Mobile

Use OraPlayer to move systems to the next

generation platforms / environments without

Questions?

Vote on the OTN Oracle forum poll“If a mobile option was available for Oracle Forms to ADF

Mobile, would you be interested in the solution?”

https://forums.oracle.com/forums/poll.jspa?pollID=316

Mia Urman (Me ) miaurman@oraplayer.com

@miaurman

Oracle Forms Homepage

Forms Community Blogwww.oracleformsinfo.com

OraPlayer

www.OraPlayer.com @oraplayer

PJC Master sitehttp://forms.pjc.bean.over-blog.com/

Forms Look and Feel Projecthttp://fdtool.free.fr/LAF/doc/Oracle_Forms_Look_and_Feel_project.htm

PITSSwww.pitss.com @pitssamerica

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