A deep dive into how to plan your WebCenter project

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

2. 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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3. Visit our Booth
Visit us at booth #1280 (Next to Oracle)
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4. 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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5. Agenda
 WebCenter Overview
 WebCenter Content Case Study
 WebCenter Portal Case Study
 Unified Solution Tips & Tricks
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6. 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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7. 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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8. 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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9. WebCenter Overview: Content (ECM)
Version
Capture Index
Cleanse
Create
Filter
Publish
Retain
Archive Search
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10. 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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11. 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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12. 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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13. 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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14. Center of Excellence Breakdown
Executive Steering Committee
• Program Manager
• Enterprise, Infrastructure, Program Mgmt.
Solution, and Information Office
Architects
• Records Managers
Project 1 Project 2 Project 3
• Business Analysts • Business Analysts • Business Analysts
• Developers • Developers • Developers
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15. 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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16. 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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17. Tactical, Strategic, or Replaceable?
High
Replaceable
Email System
Legacy Imaging
Shared File Systems
Legacy Doc. Mgmt.
Web Applications
CRM Doc Store Web Content Mgmt.
Departmental
Repositories
ERP Doc Store
os no Cf o es a E
Media Library
Low Tactical
Low High
Consolidation ROI 17

18. 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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19. 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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20. Strategic Repository for you Enterprise
Enterprise Applications Infrastructure Content Applications
ERP System Email Servers Media Library
Media Library
ERP System Email Servers
CRM System Imaging System Web Content
Web Content
CRM System Imaging System
Web Applications
Web Applications
Direct SOA for
Specialized Enterprise Service Bus (core services)
Services
Oracle Strategic ECM System
BPM Document Capture Imaging & Process Management
(I/PM)
WebCenter Content
Document
Document Records
Records
Management
Management Management
Management
Oracle Database
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21. 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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22. 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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23. Federation Tools
Oracle Federated ECM Services
Universal Records Secure Enterprise
Management (URM) Search (SES)
Multiple Instances Multiple Instances
Tactical Systems
Tactical Systems
SharePoint
SharePoint
MS SQL DB Content
Repository
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24. 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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25. 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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26. 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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27. 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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28. Case Study: WebCenter Content: Public School
 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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29. 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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30. 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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31. 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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32. 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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33. 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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34. 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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35. Portal Goals
 Go from this:  To this:
Navigation
Social
Search
Transactions
Documents
Business
Intelligence
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36. Typical Portal Components
Global Chrome – Template – Navigation – Search – Corp. Identity
Useful
RSS
Links
Task Content Integration /
Task
Flow Task Flow
Flow
Portlets
Pagelet Third
Business Intelligence
Portlet Party
Polls News
Task Content Integration / Third
Flow Task Flow Party

37. Different Tools for Different Users
BUSINESS USER IT DEVELOPER
• Easily compose business • Broad choice of frameworks
solutions (ADF, Spring)
• Respond to business needs • Leverage business user
immediately assembled scenarios
• Surface enterprise applications • Build reusable components
to create custom mash-ups
• Robust management and
• Target mobile devices and rapid upgrade cycles
tablets
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38. 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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39. 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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40. 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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41. 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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42. 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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43. 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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44. Common Portal Components
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45. 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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46. Fusion Applications
Rich, Unified User
Experience
Enterprise
Application
Integration
Business
Process
Integration
Embedded
Analytics
Accounting &
Financial
Contextual E2.0 Mgmt Info
Services
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47. 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.html
 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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48. 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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49. 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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50. 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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51. 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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52. 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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53. 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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54. 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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55. 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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56. 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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57. Questions?
 The Company: http://bezzotech.com
 The Blog: http://bexhuff.com
 The Mail: info@bezzotech.com
 The Tweets: @bex
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