Experience and Best Practices from Integrating and Implementing a Intranet Portal at Unitrin/Kemper Insurance (BUS-S07 2011)

Session: BUS-S07
Experience and Best Practices from
Integrating and Implementing a Intranet Portal
at Unitrin/Kemper Insurance
© Unitrin 2011
Smarter software for a
Smarter Planet.
Daniel Jaffa | Application Architect | Unitrin
Dave Jacob | Managing Partner | Davalen
* Join the Twitter conference by following @PortletFactory and using #ibmexperience
© IBM Corporation

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Agenda
• Meet Kemper, A Unitrin Business
• Meet Davalen – An IBM Premier Business Partner
• Background of Business Need
• Why WebSphere Portal?
• Solution Architecture and Environment
• Project Plan
• Implementation Team
• Technical Solutions
• A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent – Scenarios
• Technical Challenges
• Next Steps
• Questions and Answers
• More Information
© IBM Corporation
IBM Exceptional Web Experience Conference 2011 - Americas

3
Meet Kemper Meet Kemper,
A Unitrin Business
• Kemper – A Unitrin Business
– Kemper markets and sells automobile, homeowners and other personal
lines property and casualty insurance.
– Kemper® became part of the Unitrin family through an acquisition of renewal
rights of the personal lines business of Lumbermans Mutual Casualty Company
and its affiliates. Today, Kemper is a registered trademark of Unitrin ,
Inc. Unitrin, Inc. (NYSE:UTR) is a $2 billion company.
• Presenter: Daniel Jaffa
– Application Architect with Unitrin family for six years.
– Responsible for providing architecture solutions and support for Unitrin’s
P&C lines of business over its portal architecture.
– Worked over 14 years with web based applications in several Fortune
500 companies.
© Unitrin 2011

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Meet Davalen – IBM Premier Business Partner
• Davalen: An IBM Premier Business Partner since 1993
– Specializing blend of system architecture, mentoring, and agile implementation
assistance for WebSphere Portal, Lotus Domino, Retail and Enterprise Search, and
Web Content Management.
– Creator of IBM Licensed WebSphere Portlet Factory Application Development
Course: WPC52.
• Presenter: Dave Jacob, Managing Partner
– Held a number of key management positions with EDS and Data General.
– Certified by IBM as an architect, consultant, and trainer in most IBM development
technologies including RAD, Domino, and Portlet Factory.
– Davalen Project Manager for Kemper
© IBM Corporation

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Background of Business Need
• Kemper sells a variety of property and casualty insurance
products through independent insurance agents.
• Agent interaction is an imperative aspect of the Kemper
business model
– check on the status of policies, renewals, and servicing additional insurance
requirements, satisfy the needs and requests of clients
• Develop a new portal based agency system (AgentInside℠)
using IBM WebSphere Portal
– Improved access to key information and data: Integrate Rating Application,
Billing Application, Claim Inquiry, Enterprise Content Management
– Improve customer service and client retention
– Reduce cost
– Ease of Use for Independent Agents
© Unitrin 2011

6
Why WebSphere Portal?
• To Satisfy Current Needs:
– Replace aging “Custom” Portal Applications
• Major Site Agent Inside is over 10 years old
• Each new functionality is new WebSphere application
• Showing its age
– Reduce growing WebSphere “Sprawl”
– Rapid business problem to IS solution
– Kemper has moved to System Oriented Architecture
(SOA) architecture, plan on using Portal as front end
to Services
– Develop once use multiple times
– Cost controls
© Unitrin 2011

7
Solution Architecture
and Environment
• Portal is our front end to Enterprise
Service Bus (ESB).
• All communication with the Bus is via Java
Messaging Service (JMS).
• Portlet applications can be built without
use of the ESB but can not be shared with
other parts of the enterprise.
• Currently have four virtual portals
running but AgentInside will be first
Internet facing portal.
© Unitrin 2011

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Implementation Team
• Project Manager, Kemper
• Project Manager, Davalen
• Branding Team - Look and Feel
– Davalen
– Kemper
– Independent Agents
• Business Logic Team
– Davalen
• Services Team
– Kemper
– Davalen
© Unitrin 2011

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Project Plan
• Training
• High Level Architecture
• Theme work done by Davalen
• Portlet work done by Davalen
• Services work done by Kemper
– Services already existed, used LJO to connect to Services
• Integration work done by Kemper
• Debugging and Support by Kemper, Davalen
• Project handoff by Davalen
© Unitrin 2011

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Technical Solution
• IBM WebSphere Portal v6.1.5 running in WebSphere v7.0
on Windows 2003 Server
• Security through CA Siteminder
• IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory v7.0
– 15 Portlets
– Product Launcher Portlet (PLP) – Links to legacy systems
– Integrated Link Portlets (ILP) – Dynamic PLPs
– SunOne LDAP
– UDB Relational Database
• Rapid Application Development (RAD) for Service Layer
© Unitrin 2011

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A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent - Scenarios
• Customer Search
• Document Search
• Launching Legacy Applications
• Look and Feel
© Unitrin 2011

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A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent
Scenario 1: Customer Search
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 1: Customer Search - Before

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Scenario 1: Customer Search - Before

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Scenario 1: Customer Search - After

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© Unitrin 2011

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© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search - Before
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search - Before
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search - After
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search - After
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy
Systems
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy Systems- Before
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy Systems- After
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 4: Look and Feel
© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 4: Look and Feel - Before
© Unitrin 2011

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Technical Challenges
• WebSphere Portal version 6.1.5 vs. 7.0?
– Made the decision to move to 6.1.5 due to 7.0 just being released
– Thought that issues with 7.0 would be greater than issues with
6.1.5
– Currently looking into moving to 7.0 before our production roll
• WebSphere Portlet Factory vs. Portal DOJO versions.
– Portlets worked inside on WebSphere Portlet Factory but failed to
work correctly deployed to our Development server
– Thought it was due to difference in Dojo between WPF and Portal
Dojo theme.
– Issue: We updated our Portal but did not update out Theme with
the correct Dojo version (Hint - always update Theme’s when
updating portal version)
© Unitrin 2011

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Next Steps…
• Go Live!
• Investigate Web Content Management
• Refine Search capabilities
• Expand AgentInside to encompass Consumer website
• Additional small releases
– Moving WebSphere Applications into Portal Applications
– Convenience for our Agents
– Updating our user experience more often than once every ten years
– Content, Content, Content
© Unitrin 2011

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For More Information about this Project
• At Event: Davalen, Booth #112
• Website
– www.Davalen.com
• Contact Information
– Davalen: (800) 827 – 8451, info@Davalen.com
– Unitrin: Daniel Jaffa, djaffa@unitrin.com
© IBM Corporation
* Join the Twitter convo by following @PortletFactory and
using #ibmexperience

37
We Value Your Feedback!
Please complete the session survey for this session:
• www.ibmconf.com
Session Title: Experience and Best Practices from Integrating
and Implementing a New Portal at Unitrin/Kemper Insurance
Session Code: BUS-S07
Presented By: Daniel Jaffa, Application Architect, UNITRIN
DJaffa@unitrin.com
Dave Jacob, Managing Partner, Davalen
djacob@Davalen.com
Showcase Booth #112
© IBM Corporation

38
For More Information
• IBM Customer Experience Suite, WebSphere Portal and Web Content
Manager Software and Solutions
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/info/customerexperience/
http://www-3.ibm.com/software/genservers/portal/
• WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager Information Center
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/portal/proddoc.html
• WebSphere Portal Business Solutions Catalog
https://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog/home_full.xsp?fProduct=WebSphere%20Portal
© IBM Corporation

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Adobe, the Adobe logo, PostScript, and the PostScript logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States,
and/or other countries.
Kemper is a registered trademark of Unitrin, Inc. AgentInside is a service mark of Kemper Independence Insurance Company.
Java and all Java-based trademarks are trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both.
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