Presented at Toronto Oracle Users Group meeting on Feb 26, 2014

1. Developing Customer Portal with
Oracle APEX: A Case Study
Chandra Movva
Synerz Technologies Inc.
&
Ed Kloosterboer
EastGen Inc.

2. Presenter Bio
• Ed Kloosterboer
• 32+ years exp. in Agri. industry
• United Breeders, Gecor & EastGen Inc.
• 16+ years exp. In IT
• Subject Matter Expert
• Field Systems Help Desk & System Admin.
• IT Manager, EastGen Inc.
• Implemented Field Web, Field Mobile Handhelds,
Member Login Access (MLA) a.k.a Customer Portal,
Field Mobile Tablets

3. Presenter Bio
• Chandra Movva
• Founder & President , Synerz Technologies Inc.
• Board and Exec. Member, TOUG
• 20+ Years of exp.
• Leadership
• IM/IT Consultant
• Developer & Architect
• Trainer
• Oracle, SQL, PL/SQL, Oracle Reports, Discoverer and APEX
• Presenter
• ODTUG APEXposed’13
• TOUG
• chandra.movva@synerz.com

4. About EastGen
• Agriculture Co-Operative with 8500
members/customers from Ontario to PEI
• Retail vertical
• Headquartered in Guelph, Ontario
• Products & Services
• Semen products
• Farm, Agri. and IMV products
• Artificial Insemination & Training services
• For more info. check out http://www.eastgen.ca

5. About Synerz Tech.
• Founded in 2001
• Headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
• Oracle Partner since 2006
• Services
• Software Licensing – Consulting and Resale
• Value Added Reseller (VAR) of Oracle, Microsoft, VMware, Symantec
etc.
• Database development, migration and integration
• DW & BI Reporting
• Enterprise web and mobile applications
• Project Management
• Training
• For more info. check out http://www.synerz.com

6. Agenda
• Overview
• Why Customer Portal?
• Solution Options
• Methodology
• Live Portal Demonstration
• Summary
• Q & A

7. Overview

8. EastGen Business & IT Environment
• Head Office System
• Oracle Forms and Reports 10g
• Field System (Web based)
• Oracle Designer 10g/PLSQL Cartridge
• Field System (Mobile)
• Progen System (.NET/SQL Server)
• PlanetPress – To generate and produce monthly statements
• Oracle 10g Release 2 – Dev, Test and Prod instances
• Oracle AS 10g Release 2 – Dev/Test, Prod instances
• Small IT team

9. Why Customer Portal

10. Business Case
• Driven by members/customers
• Request from Board of Directors,
delegates and are nothing but customers
• Business opportunity
• Competitive edge as none of the competitors offer
• Showcase products
• Ability to offer products and info online
• Target advertising by customer segmentation
• Facilitate customers to empower their staff by
providing access to portal
• Ordering and request for dispatch of technicians

11. Key Requirements
• Simple to use
• Reasonable response
• Minimal or No latency
• Easy to customize and maintain
• Fast deployment
• Avoid synchronization and/or replication
• Avoid/Minimize perpetual software licensing and
support costs

12. Solution Options

13. Solution Options
Oracle APEX
.NET
PHP
J2EE

14. Evaluation Criteria
• Application Type
• Query Information
• Application Size
• Small, Medium, Large
• Based on functionality, # of pages
• # of users
• Budget
• Capital
• Maintenance
• Timeline
• Security
• End user customization
• Ease of Maintenance with in-house skills

15. Chosen Solution & Why?
• Oracle APEX 3.2
• Leverage existing skills
• Familiar with SQL & PL/SQL
• Tight integration with Oracle DB
• RAD tool
• Declarative
• Easy to develop and deploy
• No additional software licensing costs

16. Methodology

17. Methodology
• Architecture
• 3 tier – Oracle DB, Oracle AS(HTTP Server), Web Browser
• Review Licensing
• Oracle 10g EE
• Concurrent users to Processor based
• Downgrade to SE one
• Oracle AS 10g EE
• Concurrent users to Processor based
• Estimate Performance and Sizing
• Hardware - # of CPUs
• # of users
• Anticipated performance bottlenecks, if any
• Bench Marking
• SDLC - Combination of Waterfall & Agile
• Agile – Phased approach with 3 phases/sprints
• Waterfall – Each phase comprised of analysis, design, construction, test and deploy

18. Methodology Cont’d
• Phased Approach
• Phase 1 –
• Core functionality – Security, Ordering products and services,
Account activity and Monthly statements etc.
• Custom corporate look and feel
• Pilot Implementation
• Get feedback and refine
• Go live
• Phase 2
• Mating Reports
• Price List
• Application Administration
• Phase 3 & beyond
• Targeted Marketing, etc.

19. Live Demonstration

20. Landing Page

21. Signup Page

22. Home Page

23. Ordering/Dispatch Page

24. Account Activity Page

25. Summary

26. Benefits
• Account info. and reports online 24 X 7
• Reduced call volume to Head Office
• Alternative for ordering services/supplies 24 X 7
• Reduced call volume to dispatch call centre
• Facilitated Targeted marketing based on customer
segmentation
• Self serve portal.
• Update account information – including address, phone#,
email address and various preferences resulted in reduced
call volume
• No overhead to handle username or password related
help desk support

27. Present Status
• 520 customers signed up
• Upgraded DB to 11g
• Upgraded to APEX 4.2 in 2013

28. Future Plans
• New development of Forms and Reports with
Oracle APEX
• Convert existing Oracle Forms/Reports based
applications to Oracle APEX as required.
• Additional features/functionality will be added
to Member/Customer Login Portal

29. info@synerz.com
@SynerzTech
https://www.facebook.com/SynerzTech
http://www.synerz.com/apex
Thank You