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Archive for the ‘Integrations’ Category

iPad general thoughts..

June 28, 2011

Last night on the couch, whilst watching TV I came across the above add or a very similar one for the iPad.
Now in the UK, iPads & tablets for me are still really classed as a cool gadget & fun toy to play with and until the end of last year I hadn’t seen them being used. Of course you`ll see a CEO carrying one, you or a work colleague may have one but if you’re in the UK the likely hood that you’ll be given one for work or have a business case to justify one is probably very rare..
(If not please tell me I’d love to know how you use yours).

In the US however it seems to be a completely different story.
All the meetings I attend I see at least 5 iPads come out.. (Yes, there is poor me with the classic notepad). And these people are actually using them to type, hand-write, or dictate notes, share and brainstorm ideas, share agendas, access documents. It’s not only in meetings but I’ve also seen a number of corporations like Medtronic invest in iPads; enabling their employees to gain fast access to documents & presentations securely whilst on the move.

Over the last couple of months I have seen a switch in attitude in the UK with the iPad well not only iPad but mobility on a whole and a need for cross device compliant application – it will be interesting to see how the market changes and to see how prevalent ipads/tablets will be within business. Fishbowl Solutions are already ahead of the competition investing time into their mobility solutions for E2.0 ECM, WebCenter and although I can see the majority of the market is in the US it is coming to EMEA and the rest of the world.

If you’re interested in Mobility solutions and what Fishbowl has to offer get in touch.

Posted in Content Management, Enterprise 2.0, Integrations, Mobile, UCM, UX, WCM, Web 2.0, WebCenter | 1 Comment »

Content in the Enterprise – Still Searching? Start Finding.

June 27, 2011

Fishbowl Solutions recently conducted a webinar in which we discussed our Google Search Appliance (GSA) Connector for Oracle Universal Content Management (Oracle UCM). We had a great turnout for the event with over 100 registrants and 80 attendees. The high-level of interest made it apparent to us that enterprise search continues to be an issue within organizations. These issues are typically user-driven, and the frustrations center around not being able to quickly and easily find the information they need to do their jobs. However, the bigger and more concerning issue is the inability for users to find information in those systems where they have been directed to store their documents, spreadsheets, images, PDFs, and any other content resulting from their job tasks. Those systems where contribution is relatively easy, but consumption can be arduous, and well, frustrating. Those systems are Enterprise Content Management systems.

Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems provide the most value when content can be easily found, accessed, and shared from within them. Devoid of these traits however, users start storing content on their desktops, external storage devices, file shares and the like. Quite often, this leads to outright ECM system avoidance, which can quickly manifest into decreased collaboration and knowledge sharing as well as increased security concerns. So frankly, this all starts with search. If the native or 3^rd-party search system does not perform as users expect, providing them with accurate, relevant search results and links to content items they know exist in the system, avoidance will indeed ensue and widespread ECM adoption will not be achieved.

When it comes to search, one size does definitely not fit all. There are currently over 12 enterprise search systems on the market today, and some of these are specialized offerings that fit within specific verticals. All ECM systems include some level of search functionality, but 3^rd-party vendors like Google have found that ECM users want other options. Take Oracle UCM for example. It comes with native search capabilities provided by OracleTextSearch, which leverages the powerful Oracle 11g database. However, to achieve the desired level of satisfaction, organizations may find that a lot of administration is necessary to manage the index of the database. Furthermore, the user experience leaves a little to be desired. So, what are organizations looking for when it comes to the search functionality within Oracle UCM? Based on the questions asked and the follow up conversations we had, these 4 qualities were most important:

Easy to use – does not required a skilled knowledge worker to perform searches
Results are accurate and relevant
Customizable or can be “tuned” to meet organizational needs (Single-Sign-On integration, etc.)
Limited administration

The Google Search Appliance delivers on all of these and more. It truly takes the power of Google.com and brings it within the firewall, providing organizations with the world’s most popular search engine for searching content across their websites, intranets, portals and file servers. Fishbowl’s GSA Connector for Oracle UCM extends these capabilities to UCM users by providing them with an alternative for searching the content server and any UCM-based website. Fishbowl Solutions is ready to help your organization stop searching for information and start finding it. We offer a GSA Connector Jumpstart Package which includes the GSA Connector software component plus 40 hours of consulting services. Fishbowl is also a Google Enterprise Partner, so we can provide you with the GSA device and help you install, configure, and start using it.

For more information, please explore the following GSA Connector pages on Fishbowl’s website:

You can also contact us directly at 952-465-3426 or sales@fishbowlsolutions.com.

Posted in 11g, Content Management, Enterprise Search, Integrations, tips, UCM | 2 Comments »

Using WebCenter and Oracle Coherence Together – Discussion and How To

March 9, 2011

Sample WebCenter Portal with Coherence Based Search Sequestering

I recently sat down with one of Fishbowl’s WebCenter Certified Implementation Specialists, Andy Weaver to chat about WebCenter PS3 and Oracle Coherence.

Billy: What is Oracle Coherence and how does it relate to Oracle WebCenter?

Andy: Oracle Coherence is a distributed caching infrastructure that we are using to facilitate communication between multiple weblogic applications. It relates to webcenter in that we use it to dynamically load and store cross portal data. We then use this data to ensure that the data created in one application is in sync – in real time – with the data in all the other applications sharing that infrastructure.

Billy: What advantages does this way of development provide you?

Andy: This allows for real-time data sync. It is terribly easy to use. We don’t need to worry about databases or file systems or anything like that. The transfer between the application and the data cache is very simple, clean and transparent process. This makes for much speedier and elegant coding. Without Coherence we would have had to set up a new database schema or at least a new table in a schema that was in common or at least available to all the other applications, then create all the connections to that database, then write or instantiate all the data access layers for each application. Comparatively, using coherence is faster, better, stronger – just like a daft punk song.

(more…)

Posted in 11g, Collaboration, Content Management, Enterprise 2.0, Integrations, Portal, tips | 1 Comment »

2011 ECM E2.0 & Information Management Trends

February 2, 2011

Over the last 3 months you have no doubt witnessed a host of crystal-ball gazing blogs, papers and general punditry. The prediction papers and chest thumping was a virtual flood of pontification.

Instead of joining the fray, we sat back and read. A LOT! We collected articles, blogs, reports, and snippets from all over the web. We read the very well known, and the not so well known.

Then we gathered the text together and analyzed it. We researched 2010 search trends. We looked at 2010 hiring trends. We looked at stories and data. The result is in a free report we have made available (link on the image – registration required and greatly appreciated).

We found that amidst all the theory and conjecture 6 key trend themes emerged that were common to all of the material. These were

The socializing of business processes
The Cloud as infrastructure
Mobility for information
Renewed focus on User Experience
Analytics and Search for navigating the information flood
Operational Efficiency

We delve deep into each of these themes to explore them and tease out what they’re about. We tied them to hiring trends – evidence of real $$$ investment by organizations. We mashed them up against Google keyword search trends – evidence of what users are curious about and interested in.

All in all it is an exciting report that represents not just the voice of Fishbowl, but rather the combined voice of the industry ecosystem.

Please download this free report and share it with your colleagues, customers and constituents. And then let us know what you thought of it.

Posted in Content Management, Context, Enterprise 2.0, Integrations, Mobile, Portal, Semantic Web, WCM, Web 2.0 | 2 Comments »

UCM and Massive Storage

January 28, 2011

Oracle UCM 11g made huge strides in the high-volume ingestion and storage capability. If you’re looking at highly transactional, high-volume scanning, or large migration of content off of shared directories into UCM then you need to read this post!

The enhanced web app architecture combined with the file store provider (part of UCM) means that you can achieve extremely fast and high volume checkins / storage. Oracle published a good benchmarking report on the 11g capabilities in late 2010 (link PDF warning). The levels run from 11million items ingested per day (200KB pdf, txt & MS doc) to 23million items per day (4kb pdf,txt &ms doc) with UCM cpus staying below 64% at the high end and Database cpus staying below 59% at the high end. That means that UCM is now effectively an I/O limited enterprise content management system. This is a huge advance over 10g or legacy Stellent levels.

Of course this presupposes that your file storage architecture can also handle the volume. This is where the File Store Provider (aka “FSP”) comes in. (documentation link) The FSP acts as a location broker that, based on criteria that you define, puts files in the network accessible location you designate. This means that you can have files stored in the Database, on NAS/SAN, or on the default vault/weblayout file system directory structure OR ANY COMBINATION OF ALL THREE. To users / applications storing content in UCM the persistent URL location of the document stays the same. UCM interprets the location of the file against the defined FSP “partitions” (aka storage devices) where the binaries are located and serves them up to the requestor (again, either a user or application or service).

Because FSP is criteria driven, you can change storage locations with a metadata update. That means you can define a new FSP “partition”, tie its criteria to a metadata value, update the metadata of the content batch you want to move into the new location and you’re off to the races.

So I’ve made several assumptions here.
1) you want to take content or attachments from some application (e.g. BI Publisher, ERP system like EBS, PSFT or Siebel) and store those in UCM.
2) you have a lot of content coming from that system and need to store it in UCM quickly and without killing your default UCM vault and weblayout directory limits

Oracle has productized adapters for some applications and partner organizations like us at Fishbowl Solutions have built bespoke integrations for others (PSFT Financials, EBS). These still require the file store providers to be defined so that the content coming from those apps can be efficiently stored but also secured and (ideally) resurfaced for other applications too (like WCM reports and dashboards).

Posted in 11g, Content Management, Integrations | 3 Comments »