Collaborate 2014 presentation, a deep dive into Oracle WebCenter tips & traps in five common areas: metadata, contribution, consumption, security, and integrations.

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WebCenter Deployment Patterns
Prepared by:
Brian “Bex” Huff
Chief Software Architect
Bezzotech
5 Tips to Try,
5 Traps to Avoid!

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Agenda
■ Intro
■ Top 10 reasons ECM projects fail
▪ AIIM Survey
■ Tips and traps in 5 areas:
▪ Metadata
▪ Contribution
▪ Consumption
▪ Security
▪ Integrations
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Intro
■ You installed WebCenter CONTENT
■ Now what???
■ What “big things” do you need to do right?
■ What “big things” should you avoid?
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Top 10 Reasons ECM Projects Fail
■ 10) Poorly defined business case (16%)
■ 9) Failed to think of benefits and issues outside of our
business unit (16%)
■ 8) Low user acceptance due to poor design or clumsy
implementation (18%)
■ 7) Failed to address taxonomy and metadata concerns (19%)
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Top 10, cont.
■ 6) Excessive "scope creep“ (20%)
■ 5) Underestimated the effort to distill and migrate content
(21%)
■ 4) Uneven usage due to poor procedures and lack of
enforcement (29%)
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Top 10, cont.
■ 3) Project derailed by internal politics (30%)
■ 2) Lack of knowledge or training among our internal staff
(32%)
■ 1) Underestimated process and organizational issues (44%)
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Metadata
■ ECM systems are not Google!
▪ We are looking for the document, not just some document
▪ Relevant information not always stored in the document
— Author, date, intended audience, security level
— Crawling the document does not get you this
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Metadata is like a tax...
■ Contributors are burdened to aid consumers
■ Value is in proportion to the benefits provided
■ But, nobody agrees on how much is too much!
■ To little, and the consumers go elsewhere
▪ Like direct phone calls, and emails
■ Too much, and contributors will go elsewhere
▪ Like store important files in DropBox
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Other Important Uses
■ Lifecycle Management
▪ Records management, archives, 3rd party integrations
■ Workflow triggers
▪ Trigger external processes based on metadata
▪ Eg: creator, cost, department
■ External Identifiers
▪ PO #, Customer #, work order #
▪ Tip: avoid storing state of remote systems in metadata, just IDs
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Metadata Questions
■ How will people search for this information?
▪ By date? By author? By project? By client?
▪ Search by project, get back 20 documents
— Filtering by Title or Description should be sufficient
▪ Search by project, get back 200 documents
— Probably need sub-categorization
■ What information about this document is not obvious within
the document itself?
▪ Data about data
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Metadata Traps
■ Overly complex metadata model
▪ Too many fields, not relevant to all users
▪ Inconsistent use of metadata fields, values
■ Fields that are too narrow in their use
▪ Fields that are very similar, yet are not combined
— Contract ID, Start Date, Reference ID, etc.
▪ Why add a field when a similar one exists?
— Need to make hard choices
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Metadata Traps, cont.
■ Trying to get it “perfect” the first time
▪ Enterprise-wide analysis paralysis
▪ You will not get it right the first time!
▪ You must expect the metadata model to change!
■ Not having a process to incorporate feedback
▪ You need processes in place to know when to change!
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Metadata Tips
■ #1 goal is broad user acceptance!
▪ Must engage your users, have them understand the value
▪ Training, threats, enticements can fail or backfire
▪ Even the best contributors will be fatigued after 5 fields
■ Why?
▪ Bad metadata is sometimes worse than no metadata
▪ If only half the users follow the rules, can you trust your search
results?
▪ If you can’t trust the search results, will you bother to use the
system?
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Metadata Tips, cont.
■ Content Profiles simplify the metadata model
▪ You may require 100 metadata fields to describe all 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
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Content Profiles, Before and After
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Metadata Tips
■ Make a “growable” taxonomy
▪ Better than a “complete” taxonomy
▪ Start, get feedback, prune, iterate!
■ Add only fields that have proven value
■ Get to know UCM tools
▪ Framework Folders for batch metadata updates
▪ Archiver for batch metadata updates
▪ Custom DB reports to find unused / repeated fields
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Think in Metadata “Facets”
■ Orthogonal “types” of metadata that allows you to drill down
■ General (Title, Subject, Description)
■ Creator (Author, Department)
■ Audience (Internal/External, General/Tech)
■ Digital Rights (Distribution, Cost)
■ Language (Native Language, Translations)
■ Formats (Native Format, Alternate Formats)
■ Dates (Start, End, Active, Creation, Expiration)
■ Location (Division, Customer, Country)
■ Management & Control (Security, Retention, Project)
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Contribution Traps
■ Folders!
▪ Tough to scale a folders-based model enterprise-wide
▪ Organizational structure is highly subjective
■ Folders_g versus FrameworkFolders
▪ Check which one is required for the features you need!
■ Fearing customizations
▪ Everybody uses CONTENT differently
▪ A custom UI can can aid user adoption
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Contribution Tips
■ New 11.1.1.8 User Interface
▪ Simplified ADF front-end
▪ Easy integration with Cloud & Mobile
■ Framework Folders
▪ Desktop integrated version available since Patch Set 5
■ Content Folios
▪ Used instead of Folders
▪ Lightweight “Case Management”
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Contribution Tips, cont.
■ Use Content Tracker
▪ Keep stats on “most popular authors”
▪ Nothing like a little competition to aid adoption!
■ Check-Out-And-Open
▪ One-click editing from the web browser
▪ Some issues with HTTPS and IE, but fixable
■ Desktop Integration Suite
▪ Drag-and-drop into folders
▪ Folders have default metadata
▪ Metadata pop-ups to fill in critical metadata
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Folders and Desktop Integration
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Contribution Tips, cont.
■ 3rd Party: CVision PdfCompressor
▪ Does OCR, and compresses PDFs about 50%
▪ Compatible with Capture and Content
▪ Great for importing old documents into the system
■ 11.1.1.8 DesktopTag Component
▪ Allows you to “tag” office docs with custom properties
▪ Date, revision, author, source repository
▪ Used to track content back to the original repository
▪ http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E29542_01/doc.1111/e26694/desktopt
ag.htm
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Custom Schema Option Lists
■ Schema is a highly powerful tool for generating option lists
■ Option lists can be filtered based on users
▪ Localization
▪ “Pick-lists” in a content profile
■ StandardSchemaSecurityFilter
▪ Put a dSecurityGroup and dDocAccount in the table
▪ On “search” page, option visible to users with “Read” access
▪ On “check-in”, visible to users with “Write” access
▪ Extensible for more complex rules
— Like “IsEnabled”
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Simplified ADF-Based “Content UI”
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Content UI
■ Officially known as “Content UI”
▪ Existing UI will be referred to as the “Native UI”
■ Streamlined for greater efficiency
▪ Modeled after consumer web design with zero-training
requirement
▪ Document Libraries, Favorites, Access Control Lists
▪ Streamlined search results, and document viewer
■ Currently, no administration or configuration pages
▪ Will be added with future patches
■ 11.1.1.8 and later only!
▪ Requires FrameworkFolders
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Content UI Setup
■ Content UI is an optional install
▪ Can run it and “Native” UI at the same time
■ Install on a separate middleware home and domain
▪ Content UI will be patched more frequently than Content Server
▪ New features being added quickly
▪ Recent example: February patch has custom skins!
■ Architecture
▪ Session replication is NOT recommended, for performance
reasons (ADF session state is ~5 MB per user)
▪ Use sticky sessions with failover
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Customizing ADF UI
■ Can use WLST or Metadata Services to customize
▪ WLST for small changes, skinning requires ADF code
■ Change the title text (must be done here):
▪ updateWccAdfConfig(appName='Oracle WebCenter Content -
Web UI', customBrandingTitle = 'ACME')
■ Change the URL to the page logo:
▪ updateWccAdfConfig(appName='Oracle WebCenter Content -
Web UI', customBrandingLogo = '<image url>')
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Custom ADF UI Skin
■ Now exposed through Metadata Services (MDS)
▪ Built-in ADF customization layer
■ Download WebUI application’s EAR file and skin
▪ <WCCUI_ARTIFACTS_DIR>/WccAdf.ear
▪ <WCCUI_ARTIFACTS_DIR>/WccAdfStandardSkin.jar
■ With JDeveloper 11.1.2.x create application from WccAdf.ear
▪ Ensure all required libraries are present
▪ Change context root to wcc
▪ Optionally disable CSS class name compression in web.xml
▪ Set RIDC connection to your CS in connection.xm
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Custom ADF UI Skin, cont.
■ Create new skin: custom-wcc-skin.css
▪ Add WccAdfStandardSkin.jar as a library to the project
▪ Create new skin file extending wcc-skin.desktop
▪ Remove skin libraries from weblogic-application.xml
▪ Set new skin as the default in adf-config.xml
■ Override styles/selectors in the new skin file
▪ Review comments in wcc-styles.css for tips on what to modify
■ Test your skin
▪ Run the application in Embedded WLS server
▪ When you modify the skin, reload the page (no restart needed)
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Deploying Custom Skin
■ Upload and replace the existing custom skin file –
<WCCUI_ARTIFACTS_DIR>/WccCustomSkin.jar
■ Change the application’s skin using WLST
▪ updateWccAdfConfig(appName='Oracle WebCenter Content -
Web UI', skinFamily='custom-wcc-skin')
■ Restart Web UI’s managed server to see new UI
■ If needed, switch back to original skin:
▪ updateWccAdfConfig(appName='Oracle WebCenter Content -
Web UI', skinFamily='wcc-skin')
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Customization Limitations
■ Currently limited to customizing skin
■ In future releases, will support additional customization
▪ Custom buttons, custom Java Code
■ Might be different than “pure MDS”
▪ MDS can be used to customize everything, but!
▪ MDS is very difficult to debug
■ Need a customized UI right now?
▪ Only option: crack open & edit the EAR file
▪ Add a button to launch external JSP/HCST page
▪ Code in 2 places to keep EAR modifications to a minimum
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Consumption Traps
■ “If you build it, they will come!”
■ Spent a million bucks on a CMS, and the item with the most
hits is the cafeteria menu...
■ Assuming it will work like Google
▪ People spend big bucks on internet SEO
▪ Very few think about intranet SEO
▪ Content must be findable to be reusable
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Folders is also a Trap!
■ Need a department-wide organizational structure
▪ Think of it like a branded website...
■ Top 2-3 level: strictly controlled hierarchy
▪ Ensure it makes sense to people outside the department
■ Next 2-3 levels, flexible but with some structure
▪ Categories and sub-categories
▪ Broad terms and narrow terms
▪ Date-based folders
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Consumption Tips
■ Have an actual editor / publisher
▪ Somebody needs to care that content is reusable
▪ Software enables people: it doesn’t replace them!
▪ If everybody cares, great! If not, put somebody in charge!
■ Create targeted Portal / Site Studio pages
▪ Department portals, quick contribution, what’s new lists, etc.
■ Focus on how your audience looks for information
▪ Search? Browse? Call? Email?
▪ Make it easy for them, with a bit of training
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Consumption Tips, cont.
■ Faceted searches
▪ Built-in to Oracle Text 11g, customizable metadata fields
▪ DrillDownFields=dDocType,dSecurityGroup
■ Oracle Text “Controlled Thesaurus”
▪ Search common term and related terms at the same time
— IE, hospital and ‘provider,’ dog and ‘canine’
▪ Use the ctxload.exe utility to load custom list of terms
▪ Use the RT(term) to find mates of related terms
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Mobile UI for Easy Consumption
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Mobile Features
■ Optimized app for smartphone and tablet
■ Support iOS and Android
■ Search, Browse, View, Download
■ Take important documents offline
■ Initial release supports general mobile use cases
▪ Search, Browse & View, Favorites, Download for offline access
▪ Email links to documents or w/ attachments
■ Future release will add more support:
▪ Upload New Documents, Checkout / Checking, Workflows
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Mobile Limitations
■ Only works with 11.1.1.8 and new UI
▪ Therefore, FrameworkFolders and not Folders_g
▪ Therefore, Portal not simultaneously supported
▪ But, Portal 11.1.1.9 should be out “very soon”!
■ Workarounds
▪ Portal 11.1.1.8 has its own Mobile interface
▪ Mobile web versus mobile app
▪ Data entry is still tricky
■ Fishbowl Solutions mobile app
▪ Not dependent on Folders at all, highly customizable
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Cloud Interface
■ Oracle Documents Cloud Service
▪ https://cloud.oracle.com/documents
▪ Not yet available...
■ “Content UI”, accessible outside your firewall
▪ Can “push” to cloud with one click
▪ Users can edit cloud documents
▪ Manual “pull” back to your internal repository
▪ Works with Desktop Integration Suite as well
■ Encrypted documents, simple file sharing
▪ IT departments will prefer this to DropBox
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Security Traps
■ Access Control Lists
▪ Popular, easy, but sloooooow
▪ Use sparingly, or run Exalogic!
▪ New UI uses a lot of ACLs, which could be a problem
■ Security should not be used to organize!
▪ Do you really need that other security group???
▪ Do you really need highly granular security???
▪ Or are you just mapping your org chart?
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Security Traps, Cont.
■ Windows!
▪ Active Directory integrations tricky with 11g
▪ LDAP works fairly well
▪ Single Sign On can take several week to properly tune
■ Cloud!
▪ How much data is in DropBox or Oracle’s cloud?
▪ Are they encrypted?
▪ Oracle no longer sells IRM, you need something custom
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Security Tips
■ Two 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
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Security Tips, cont.
■ Loosen up contribution access
▪ Use workflows to control important docs
▪ Place in highly secure group only when absolutely required
■ Content Tracker
▪ “Trust, but verify” security
■ Use proven single sign on solutions
▪ Active Directory
— Takes some time to get SSO fully operational
▪ Oracle Access Manager
— Some issues with applets
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Integration Traps
■ Standards!!!
▪ CMIS, WebDAV, JSR170, etc.
▪ Very narrow pipe: you always replace them!
■ BPM/BPEL Workflows instead of EBS/PeopleSoft
▪ Sometimes native workflow APIs work better
■ Performance
▪ Load test, get metrics, use caches
■ Security
▪ Make sure other system understand WebCenter security!!!
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Integration Tips
■ RIDC
▪ Lightweight Java connector
▪ May need to set IntradocServerPort on 11g
■ SOAP / SOA
▪ 11g standard, great for ESBs
■ Content Presenter Task Flows for Portal
▪ Works great with Site Studio templates...
▪ Tricky to get working with ADF templates
■ IFRAMEs
▪ Cheap and cheesy, but sometimes enough!
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Integration Tips, cont.
■ jQuery and Web-Oriented Architecture
▪ Put IsJson=1 into any URL
▪ Use jQuery, ExtJS, YUI to render with 100% JavaScript
▪ http://bezzotech.com/library.html
■ Sometimes need to “trick” browsers with AJAX
▪ Single-Origin AJAX policy
▪ Use mod_proxy with Apache to bypass it
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Integration Tips, cont.
■ Two web-service endpoints
▪ http://server.com/cs/
— Standard Interface
▪ http://server.com/_dav/cs
— Legacy Basic HTTP interface (WebDAV, SOAP)
■ Can perform a login through _dav interface
▪ http://server.com/_dav/cs/idcplg?IdcService=PING_SERVER&Is
Json=1
■ Get back the JSESSIONID
▪ Put it in the cookie, or in the URL to “magically” log in
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Integration Tips, cont.
■ WebCenter Business Mashups
■ Enterprise Document Capture
▪ URL to trigger a scan, and check it in!
■ Application specific connectors
▪ E-Business Suite, Siebel, Peoplesoft
▪ Secure Enterprise Search
▪ BPEL, SOA Suite for “orchestration”
■ Managed Attachments
▪ Still need IPM installed even if not used
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Integration Tips, cont.
■ Oracle Forms Recognition
▪ Find the 20% of forms that you process 80% of the time
▪ Pre-define those classes up-front
▪ Other classes will be automatically added over time
▪ Supervised Learning for better results
▪ Like ODC, highly customizable with Macros
■ PeopleSoft: attend this session for more tips:
▪ 505: Delivering value with PeopleSoft and WebCenter Content
Imaging integration!
▪ Thursday, 8:30 AM, San Polo 3502
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Questions?
■ My Company:
▪ http://bezzotech.com
▪ Booth 1350 on Main Street
■ My Blog: http://bexhuff.com
■ My Tweets: @bex
■ My Self: bex@bezzotech.com
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