The document summarizes portlets and related technologies used at Oakland University. It describes the MySAIL portal environment including uPortal, CAS, databases, and development tools used. It provides an overview of Apereo sponsored portlets and how to create custom portlets. It highlights several portlets developed at OU to integrate with student information systems and provide services like financial aid status, course schedules, grades, and a bus tracker. It discusses using portlets to deliver content and link to other campus systems through single sign-on.

1. Oakland University
Portlet Showcase
Aaron Grant
Senior Applications ArchitectDave DerderianJava
Developer Analyst

2. Who we are...
We are the full-time staff that
supports MySAIL at Oakland
University in Rochester,
Michigan.
We have 4 student
developers that help us out.
Also we have used Unicon for
developing and
implementing projects.

3. Our MySAIL Environment
uPortal 4.0.12
20,000+ Students
CAS 3.5
PostgreSQL 9.2
Tomcat 7
OpenJDK 7
RedHat Enterprise Linux 6
Build Tools:
Maven, Ant, and Groovy

4. MySAIL Desktop View

5. MySAIL Mobile View

6. Portlet Overview
Portlets are a small
application that a
portal can use to
offer end users a
richer experience.
Apereo Sponsored Portlets
These portlets have been through the
incubation process and emerged as sponsored
projects.
● Announcements Portlet
● Basic LTI Portlet
● Bookmarks Portlet
● Calendar Portlet
● Email Preview Portlet
● Jasig Widget Portlets
● News Reader Portlet
● Notifications Portlet
● Sakai connector Portlet
● Simple Content Management Portlet
● Weather Portlet

7. Portlet Overview
Also you can make your own!
mvn archetype:generate -
DarchetypeGroupId=org.jasig.portlet.archetype -
DarchetypeArtifactId=jsr286-archetype
This creates a basic Java webapp with the basics of
what a portlet needs to work within the portal.

8. Our Mission
MySAIL 2009
● Making students’ lives easier
● Single-Sign On
● One Stop Shop
MySAIL 2014
● Same mission but expanding
● Addressing Retention Issues
● Mobile, Mobile, Mobile!

9. Oakland’s Portlets
We either start from the
Maven archetype or use
existing Apereo portlets
that might fit our
needs.
http://github.com/jasig
● Financial Aid Portlet
● Search Portlet
● Courses Portlet
● Grades Portlet
● My Details Portlet
● Progress to Degree Portlet
● Advising Suite
● Calendar Portlet
● Bear Bus Tracker Portlet
● Sail Mail Portlet
● Content Management Portlets

10. Financial Aid Portlet
● Integrates with Banner
● Small Database Load
o Only hit once
● Incorporates JSON
o JSON.simple
o http://code.google.com/p/json-simple/
o No AJAX / JSTL variable
● UI done through HTML / CSS / JS
o No experience of JSP/JSTL required
o Dynamic / jQuery NoConflict

12. Search Portlet Extended
● Incorporates Custom Google Search
● Separate tab for search results
● Same search used on oakland.edu

16. Courses Portlet
● Displays Course Schedule, Midterm Grades,
and Final Grades
● Originally created by the Apereo Foundation
and the University of Wisconsin - Madison
● Student can select on a class room and it
displays which academic building
Integration with Google Maps

17. Courses Portlet
● Modified API
o Extra information for courses
o Tie into Calendar Portlet
● Custom Desktop View
● Custom Mobile View
● Custom Footer (Mobile / Desktop)
● Bookstore Integration
● Links into other major OU services
o Webmail / Moodle

27. My Details
● Displays student specific information
o Degree (BS / BA / etc)
o Undergraduate / Graduate Level
o Catalog Term
o College (Arts & Sciences / Computer Science / etc)
 Link to Advising web page
o Major
o Oakland University Student Number
● We will be adding graduation information
soon to this portlet to let student know
where they are at after applying to graduate

28. My Details Desktop View

29. My Details Mobile View

30. Progress To Degree
● Displays student's completed / incomplete
courses
● Displays multiple course information
o Grades
o GPA (overall / term / category)
o Credits (total / left to graduate)
● Migrated into Courses Portlet
o Apereo's Version / Not OU
● Banner Tie-in
● Custom Mobile View

35. Advising Suite
Oakland over the last year has been building an
advising suite for academic advisors.
● Allows advisors to search for students
● View current and historic schedules / grades
● Allows advisors to run degree audits and
what-if analysis
● Collection of resources

37. Calendar Portlet
Courses Integration
Calendar Portlet shipped with uPortal
● Creates custom calendar feed
● Integrates directly with Courses Portlet API
● Displays students class schedule
o Date
o Location
o Description
● iCal feed available for download

39. Bus Tracker Portlet

40. Sail Mail (Email Preview)
● Apereo's Email Preview Portlet
● Oakland's custom skin
● Oakland's custom settings
o Only uses Oakland email

42. Email Preview and Inbox

43. Read Email from Portlet

44. CMS Portlet Implementation
● Mostly used as quick links
o Oakland Services
o Academic Information
o Campus Information
● Uses Single Sign-On Links into SSB (Self
Service Banner 8.x)
o Oakland used this extension from Evergreen State
College to SSB to allow for CAS (Apereo’s Central
Authentication Service integration with SSB.
o https://wiki.jasig.org/display/UPC/CASifying+Bann
er+Self+Serve
● Banner XE comes with CAS integration!

45. Oakland Services and Academic Resources

47. Background Configuration

48. Where to Next?
Aaron Grant
asgrant@oakland.edu
David Derderian
dmderde2@oakland.edu