Oracle UCM Implementation Patterns

Implementation Patterns for Oracle Universal Content Management
Brian “Bex” Huff
Chief Software Architect

Agenda
Intro
Cover common UCM implementation patterns
Usually fall into one of 4 groups
Integrating with Technical Architecture
Integrating with Organizational Structure
Re-Branding UCM Interface
Building Custom Functionality

1) Integrating with Technical Architecture
Security Integrations
Storage Model
Content Enhancing Applications
Enterprise Applications
Scanning and Imaging

Security Integrations
Content management system manage content, not users!
Users should always be stored in a remote system
“Local” users only for development
LDAP, Active Directory
In 11g, all security is handled by WebLogic
Create connectors to LDAP system
Some issues with Active Directory

Storage Model
UCM needs a shared infrastructure for file storage
Clusters need to both point to the same resources
Filesystem (default)
Good for small web-centric content
Database / Oracle Secure Files (11g)
Good for business documents with a lot of block-level similarities
Hierarchical Storage Management
Combines fast disk, slow disk, and tapes for cost-effective storage
Sun SAM, with WORM capabilities
And many, many more!
UCM’s FIleStoreProvider can be customized to work with almost anything

Content “Enhancing” Applications
After creation and capture, the next value-add is “enhancement”
Annotation engines
Mark up documents with notes, redaction, highlighter
Translation
Manage changes to content, and which ones warrant translation
Controlled Thesaurus
Extract metadata, keywords, and fine related content

Enterprise Applications
E-Business Suite Adapter
Siebel Files Replacement
Peoplesoft Adapter
SOA Suite Connectors
Secure Enterprise Search
Oracle adding more all the time...

Scanning and Imaging
Imaging and Process Management connectors
Link records in your applications to attachments in UCM
EBusiness Suite, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft
Uses Oracle Application Extension Framework (AXF) to connect
Can also scan directly to UCM
Oracle Document Capture, Kofax Capture Export Connector
Read bar codes, OCR, and speed up content ingestion

2) Integrating with Organizational Structure
Metadata Model
Document Security Model
Content Profiles
BPM / Workflows
Folders and Desktop Contribution
Site Studio Web Pages

Metadata Model
Types, audiences, related products, keywords, actions, status
Keep it simple!!!
Don’t try to create the “prefect” taxonomy
You business changes too often
Your users’ needs are too many
A “growable” taxonomy is better than a “complete” taxonomy
Get to know UCM tools for “pruning” and maintaining your model

Document Security Model
Security comes in multiple parts:
Groups, Accounts, Rights, Roles, Users, and Access Control Lists
Groups/Accounts are collections of documents, not users!
Easily confused with “LDAP Group Membership” for users
Rights are abstract access rights to Groups/Accounts
Read / Write / Delete / Admin
Roles are containers of “Rights” for Groups only
Users are given Roles, and Account Rights directly
Usually by mapping to LDAP “Group” membership

Document Security Model, cont.
Access Control Lists
Users get direct control over who can do what with documents:
Bob can read, Sue can read/write, Joe can read/write/delete
Common recommendation: 2 dimensional group/account model
Groups for classification: Public, Internal, Secure
Accounts for department: Accounting, Sales, HR
VP of Sales can read Secure documents in Sales account...
... but cannot read Secure documents in HR account!
Complex security models can affect performance
Reduce ACL usage, focus on groups/accounts blend
Minimize the number of “buckets” to maximize performance

Content Profiles
Simplify the metadata model
You may require 100 metadata fields to describe all types of content
But... any one type may only need 10 fields
Profiles allows you to minimize the “clutter”
Can do much more than organize
Create “default” values on pages to minimize data entry
Minimize the number of values in drop-down lists
Block certain users from selecting certain values
Create “derived” values to store based on what they entered

Content Profiles, Before and After!

BPM and Workflows
Internal workflows
UCM has a built-in custom workflow engine
Works well, but not standards compliant
Good for simple content-centric workflows
External workflows
Many “enterprise” workflows require input from other systems
Also, may prefer standards-compliant metadata language
BPEL, BPM
UCM connects with external workflow engine via Web Services
Workflow can start in UCM, or a different enterprise application
Useful for “orchestrating” large processes

Folders and Desktop Contribution
Drag-and-drop interface to contribute via a desktop
UCM looks like a shared file system
Everybody understands them... BUT...
Folders don't really scale enterprise-wide
A structure makes sense to you...
But doesn't make sense to everybody!
Be sure not to rely too heavily on folders
Good for quick contribution
Also need "tagging" so others can find them
Make sure folders have reasonable metadata defaults
Use the “pop-up” feature in UCM 11g to encourage additional tagging

Folders and Desktop Contribution, cont.

Site Studio Web Pages
Site Studio is the Web Content Management tool
Good for entire dot com web sites and intranet sites
Can eve “push” managed web content to existing web applications!
Site Studio for External Applications
Site Studio a great for content-centric web sites
For web forms, need additional applications: WebCenter, AJAX, etc.
Intranet pages have some of the best "bang for the buck"
I installed UCM... now what???
Intranet portal sites good way to "get your hands dirty"
Get experience with basic security, workflow, metadata
Build the knowledge you team will need for bigger projects

3) Re-Branding UCM
Custom UI with Component Architecture
Custom UI with Site Studio
Custom UI with Remote Application

Custom UI with Component Architecture (CA)
CA is the “framework” that UCM is built upon
Code, resources, files, tables, components, and dynamic html
Java, HTML, XML, JavaScript, SQL, and IdocScript
From top to bottom, a Service Oriented Architecture
Every page delivered by UCM is assembled with CA
What SQL to call, what Java to run, rendered with which HTML template?
Can also call services directly and get back XML or JSON
If familiar with it, it’s the fastest way to modify the UI
New skins, new buttons, new data displayed on existing forms

Custom UI with Site Studio
Create a slimmed-down web form from scratch
Run a simplified search form, display results
Retrieve and display action items in a workflow
Perform check-ins, or display RSS feeds
Easy to place these forms on existing Site Studio pages
Can run “scriptable” services with IdocScript
Other services need a form post
Drawback: you need to create entire form
You cannot use a component to simply add one new field
Must build up the form yourself in plain HTML
Crops up if you want complex data entry / option lists

Custom UI with External App
Create a slimmed-down web form from scratch
Run a simplified search form, display results
Retrieve and display action items in a workflow
Perform check-ins, or display RSS feeds
Can use Web Services or other connectors
For Java, use RIDC connector to run web services / download files
For PHP/.NET/others, use SOAP Web Services
Can use SOAP with Java, but RIDC is simpler and has more power
Drawback: you lose a lot of context
Building a lot of pages from scratch
Metadata, security, workflow context must be determined

jQuery and Web-Oriented Architecture
Web-Oriented Architectures more lightweight that SOA
Pass IsJson=1 into any UCM service request, for JSON-formatted data!
Can be used to integrate with JavaScript frameworks like jQuery:
http://bezzotech.com/library.html
One gotcha: single-origin JavaScript policy in browsers
Dumbest. Security. Feature. Ever.
Can only make requests back to originating server
True mashups (like Google Maps) requires more flexibility
Doesn’t even add any security!!!
Remote applications need a proxy to “fool” the browser
Post to a proxy on the same server, instead of directly to UCM

4) Building Custom Functionality
Custom Behavior with Component Architecture
Custom Behavior in Remote Applications

Custom Behavior with Component Architecture
New services / modifications to existing services
Create additional life-cycles for the content
Execute custom code when specific “events” occur in UCM
content creation, deletion, modification
fairly easy to “plug-in” new code
What about 100% entirely new code? Where should it go?
If new code affects the life-cycle of a document, it should be in UCM
If not -- like a custom UI -- it makes no difference
Advantages to code built-in to UCM:
Similar to a “stored procedure” in a database
More context-sensitive, usually faster, gain benefits of security model

Custom Behavior in Remote Applications
Use UCM as a “unstructured content repository”
Create UI and most custom functionality in custom code
Implement content-centric code inside UCM as a component
Recommendations:
Use WebCenter / ADF if integrating with other Oracle Applications
Use lighter framework if creating front-facing dot com site
jQuery / Spring / AJAX a good blend for JEE applications

Fill out your session evaluation! Session: 112
Come visit Bezzotech in Booth #850
Near the Oracle Demo Pods
Come see a demo: Translation Management, Enterprise Storage
Three other talks today (Wednesday):
9:15am, Fusion Applications UX: Transforming Work into Insight
10:30am, Top 10 Security Vulnerabilities in Web Applications
1:00pm, Creating and Maintaining an International Web Site
My Company: http://bezzotech.com
My Blog: http://bexhuff.com
My Self: [email_address]
Questions?

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Oracle UCM Implementation Patterns

by Brian Huff

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