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Enterprise Portals: Do We (Still) Need Them? Charles Anderson, ERP Suites

December 2013. Enterprise Portals: Do We (Still) Need Them? Charles Anderson, ERP Suites. AGENDA. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne What is and is not “supported”? What Do These Portals Have In Common? Common Scenarios for Traditional Portal Implementations

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Enterprise Portals: Do We (Still) Need Them? Charles Anderson, ERP Suites

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  1. December 2013 Enterprise Portals: Do We (Still) Need Them?Charles Anderson, ERP Suites

  2. AGENDA • Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • What is and is not “supported”? • What Do These Portals Have In Common? • Common Scenarios for Traditional Portal Implementations • Alternative Scenarios You Might Consider… • Questions to Ask Yourself / Your Business Before You Act • Questions for me? 2

  3. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • In the beginning we had one option: • IBM WebSphere Portal • “E1 Collaborative Portal” • Along comes Oracle: • Oracle Portal 10g • Portal 11g is not certified for support with E1 • EnterpriseOne Tools 8.98 introduces: • Oracle WebCenter Spaces • Later branded “WebCenter Portal: Spaces” • New Name as of 11.1.1.8 “WebCenter Portal”

  4. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • LICENSING DISCLAIMER: • Consult your Oracle Software Investment Guide and CONTACT *your* Oracle Sales Representatives concerning ALL licensing questions and issues. • I do not work for Oracle and do not receive a commission from Oracle based on anything I say today or have said in the past. They’re welcome to send me a check in the future, however. I’ll consider that good will but will remain totally and completely objective. Honest. • Product names can and do change, licensing is not my specialty, safe harbor, safe harbor, safe harbor*. • *Typing / Saying “Safe Harbor” three times means you can’t harbor against me.

  5. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • IBM WebSphere Portal is… • “A set of software tools that enables companies to build and manage web portals. It provides a single access point to web content and applications, while delivering differentiated, personalized experiences for each user. • The basic package includes a web server, WebSphere Application Server, LDAP directory, IBM DB2 database, development tools, web site templates and other essential site management tools such as a configuration wizard. • In addition, some editions of WebSphere Portal include limited entitlements to Lotus Web Content Management, Lotus Quickr document management, Lotus Sametime instant messaging, and Lotus Forms electronic forms. For WebSphere Portal Enable for z/OS, WebSphere Application Server and IBM DB2 database must be purchased separately.” • Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebSphere_Portal

  6. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

  7. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • WebCenter Spaces is… • “A closed source application built on WebCenter Framework and Services that offers a prebuilt project collaboration solution. • It can be compared with solutions like Microsoft Sharepoint and Atlassian Confluence. • There are limited mechanisms to extend this application.” • Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oracle_WebCenter

  8. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

  9. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Does This Look Familiar?

  10. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne How About This? (Trivia: OAM is used here too)

  11. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • Web Portal Design Expectations: • Set them at a REASONABLE and ATTAINABLE level. • Reasonable = Within confines of packaged / off-the-shelf software. • Attainable = Within confines of your immediately available skill set or or one for which your budget will allow.

  12. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • What you think your e-commerce / web portal will look like:

  13. Portals and JD Edwards EnterpriseOne • What your e-Commerce / Web Portal Will probably look like*: *At least initially. I kid, but remember what you put into it you will likely get out.

  14. Common Scenario… • For This Session We’ll Create a Fictional Company: • “I <3 Portals, Inc.” • I <3 Portals has decided they need a portal. • Based on discussions with consultants, industry peers and Oracle support, it’s determined their best course of action is to install Oracle WebCenter Spaces to satisfy this requirement. • “I <3 Portals” has licensed EnterpriseOne 9.1 Financials, Sales Order Management, Procurement, Human Capital Management, various self service modules, Oracle Technology Foundation, One View Reporting Foundation, etc.

  15. Common Scenario… • As part of the initial EnterpriseOne rollout, I <3 Portals has decided to implement WebCenter Portal Spaces for the following: • Customer Self Service (CSS) • Employee Self Service • Sales Force Inquiry and Reporting • Business Requirements: • Single Sign-On utilizing LDAP (OID, MSAD) user credentials. • Customers should be able to place orders, check on status of orders, etc. • Employees should be able to update their personal information, complete new employee on-boarding process and participate in annual benefits enrollment. • The Global Sales Force should be able to check on availability of product inventory (I <3 Portals T-Shirts), run interactive and batch inquiries and retrieve report output (PDF format).

  16. Common Scenario… • The initial setup goes well. • “I <3 Portals” has chosen to work with a trusted business partner with many implementations and upgrades under their belt. However, every implementation is unique in some way… • The IT organization at “I <3 Portals” is “right sized” with a mix of experience ranging anywhere from junior level system administrators and help desk staffers to more senior level DBA’s, Business Analysts and software developers. • As such, some things such as the database are placed on Linux (DBA preference) while others on Windows (higher level of experience on the part of the system administrators.) • The developers have no prior experience with developing custom applications for portal technologies (this does not detract from their love of all things portal.)

  17. Common Scenario… • The following are installed on multiple Oracle Linux 6 and Windows 2008 R2 virtual machines running on VMWare vSphere: • Oracle Database Standard Edition 11g R2 (for EnterpriseOne data) & Enterprise Edition 11g R2 (limited use for certain FMW related metatdata, OID, etc.) - Oracle Linux 6 • E1 Enterprise Server with Tools 9.1.3.x - Oracle Linux 6 • WebLogic Server 10.3.6 - Oracle Linux 6 • F5 BigIP virtual appliance for load balancing web servers • Deployment Server - Windows 2008 R2 • Oracle BI Publisher Enterprise for E1 DAD (JDBC) and One View Reporting - Windows 2008 R2 • Oracle WebCenter Portal Spaces - Windows 2008 R2 • Oracle Access Manager 11g - Windows 2008 R2 • Oracle Identity Management 11g (OID) - Oracle Linux 6

  18. Common Scenario… • Installed components (cont.): • The “I <3 Portals” CSO has mandated that no application servers will be directly accessible from the Internet. Thus, there is an additional requirement. • A Reverse Proxy will therefore be installed in a DMZ, protected on both sides by at least one firewall. • Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g WebTier (HTTP Server, Web Cache) will act as the reverse proxy. • Appropriate firewall rules will be enabled to allow access to the middle tier on the I <3 P internal network. • All connections to the Reverse Proxy will be SSL enabled.

  19. Common Scenario… • The install team (CNC, DBA, etc.) follow “Best Practices” to implement the required portal solution. • They leverage past experience, up to date documentation, Oracle Support, independent 3rd party blogs (OAM SSO accessed through a reverse proxy with virtual hostname, WebCenter configuration for the same, terminating SSL at the reverse proxy, etc.) • Make no mistake, it is a complicated solution, but not an unmanageable one.

  20. Common Scenario… • The testing team isn’t so lucky. They’ve run into a few snags. • 1. The Print Queue Center “portlet" doesn’t function as expected. • 2. Testers are unable to retrieve PDF’s via WSJ as an attempted workaround to the Print Queue center portlet problem. • 3. There is inconsistent behavior with E1 portlets, even when only one portlet is displayed on the screen at a time. • 4. The overall site design seems a bit too complicated for simple access to standard and custom developed FDA apps. • 5. Performance issues with the Portal with light user load. • 6. Some functionality behaves differently on the portal than it does on the standard E1 Web Client.

  21. Common Scenario… • Of the currently documented issues, items 1 and 2 appear to be E1 Tools code related and SR’s are placed with Oracle. • Items 3 and 5 on the issues list appear to be configuration related and are sent to the implementation team for review. • Items 4 and 6 are discussed in meetings between the implementation team, business analysts and developers.

  22. Common Scenario… • The following items on the issue list are discovered to be “working as designed” based on Oracle’s implementation of the WSRP specification. • Retrieval of PDF is not possible if the INTERNAL hostname of the E1 JAS “Provider” is not the same as the EXTERNAL hostname the end-user sees in their browser’s address bar. • A workaround must be implemented. Options considered are: • Implementing a custom developed solution to email report output to the end-user upon job completion. This does not solve the problem for times when the end-user wants to retrieve previously submitted job output. • Archive all job output to a third party document management system and require users to retrieve their output that way. Delays can be inherent in this solution and there is extra cost and support burden to support it.

  23. Common Scenario…Alternatives • But are there other less obvious solutions to the problem? • Do we really need this portal in the first place? • If we take an alternate approach, can we meet all of the business requirements while retaining some or most all of the investment in the well designed portal architecture?

  24. Common Scenario…Alternatives • As usual, the answer is “It Depends…*” • *They teach this in Consulting 101.

  25. Common Scenario…Alternatives • There ARE other options. But…are they “better”? • Did you know the latest Tools Releases support rendering of E1 Portlets *within* the standard E1 Web Client? It’s true - no portal server required. • Many custom portlets are nothing more than launch pads to the application. If you’re not displaying information to the user from the launch pad, why are you using a portlet in the first place? • E1 Pages brings a robust page management system to the table. iFrames are supported, as are graphically represented “menus” of options, represented as a workflow or just a single button if necessary. • Parameterized URL’s can be used in connection with SSO (Oracle Access Manager in this case) and linked to from ANY web page or portal (SharePoint, etc.)

  26. E1 Pages • Simplify the user experience. • Eliminate unnecessary portal page click-through’s.

  27. Common Scenario…Alternatives • Another solution keeps WebCenter in place, but replaces the E1 portlets with links to each application via a Parameterized URL. • By adding the JAS instance as an OAM enabled instance rather than as a WSRP registered provider means users will NOT be double prompted for E1 application access from the portal. • ALL functionality will be available to the end-user as you’re BYPASSING the WSRP registration process when using Parameterized URL’s as embedded links on portal pages.

  28. Common Scenario…Alternatives • No globally right or wrong answer exists for every situation. • However, again, “it depends” on the requirements. • WebCenter is capable of MUCH more than simple portal pages as made available by the Spaces application. • …But your requirements may dictate nothing more than portlets and simple links (documentation, external links, custom apps embedded in iFrames).

  29. Common Scenario…Alternatives • It’s generally a better idea to implement a SEPARATE mobile application rather than try to force a desktop focused web application onto mobile devices. • E1 Mobile Apps (utilizes BSSV Server) makes a LOT of sense in many use cases where a traditional portal server would be installed. • However, don’t forget there is a development curve there.

  30. Questions to Ask… • Do we need a portal? • No really, do we need a portal? • Why do we still think we need a portal? • Didn’t that guy at INFOCUS say something about portal projects and almost certain disaster?

  31. When Implementations Go Bad… Building a portal often feels like building a MONSTER. Don’t let this happen to you or your project…

  32. QUESTIONS? • E-mail: canderson@erpsuites.com 32

  33. April 7-11, 2014 The Venetian and Sands Expo Center Las Vegas, Nevada QuestDirect.org/COLLABORATE Attend COLLABORATE 14 to hear high-level, strategic education for the JD Edwards audience. Register through Quest to receive exclusive JD Edwards updates, materials and networking events. Registration OPEN! Early Bird rates end February 12, 2014.

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