By: Brandon Prasnicki | Technical Architect

If you search the Oracle knowledgebase on how to upgrade your existing Oracle WebCenter Content (WCC), Imaging, or Portal instance from 11g to 12c, your options are to do an in-place upgrade or to migrate the entire repository using Oracle WebCenter Content supported tools.  However, if an upgrade consists of new hardware (on-premise), new cloud Infrastructure (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud Platform etc), upgraded operating systems (Microsoft Windows or Linux) along with database upgrade (Oracle Database 12c), the only supported method is to use these supported migration tools.  To move the content from one machine to the next, this process consists of the following:

1. Install 12c on the new environment
2. Create the 12c schemas with RCU
3. Create and configure the 12c domain
4. Migrate the WCC configurations with CMU and Archiver
5. Migrate the WCC content with Archiver

While this is a straightforward approach, the question becomes:  Is this feasible?

The answer to that question is:  It depends.

With any upgrade project, TekStream Solutions evaluates the scope of the upgrade and migration and makes recommendations on the appropriate approach.  Here is a high-level outline of starting points considered during the TekStream QuickStream process:

1. Is the repository small? This supported methodology is a good approach and alternative for instances that do not hold a lot of content.  We have seen situations for implementations that leverage WCC as a backend for implementations like Portal where the content repository isn’t very large.  For this, the supported methodology is a decent alternative.
2. Are there opportunities to decommission old Enterprise Content Management Systems? Sometimes there is an opportunity to also mix in and decommission old content repositories. Examples include old shared filesystems not currently managed by any enterprise content management systems (CMS), or even little-used old CMS systems where, depending on the customer license structure, the ROI of rolling into an Oracle WebCenter Content (WCC) instance makes sense during the time of upgrade.  Examples of this include but are not limited to Adobe and Documentum etc.  For this, TekStream utilizes a proprietary utility called “Content Loader” to handle WCC delta migrations, and merge deprecated CMS application content.
3. Is the repository large? For very large repositories, Tekstream uses a cost-effective approach called the “out of place” in-place upgrade which eliminates the need to migrate the content.  The ‘supported’ Oracle approach simply is not feasible, as repositories with millions of content items would take months and maybe even years to migrate.  Examples of implementations that include large repositories include Digital Asset Management (DAM), Records Management (RM) and even some regular Content Management repositories.   When Oracle states this “out of place” in-place upgrade is not a supported approach, they are strictly referring to all the ‘gothchas’ that can occur.  The support team members at Oracle are not the consultants to handle such an approach.  That is where TekStream solutions come in to guide and implement the upgrade to a successful outcome.
   1. Have we seen ‘gotchas’ in this approach? Certainly.  Every version and situation has its nuances.  TekStream’s QuickStream process digs deeper into identifying unique customer situations to account for during a migration.  Tekstream has proven to handle these challenges and deliver successful implementations.  Our background expertise performing these upgrades before has proven vital to customer success.
   2. Could a customer do this approach by themselves? Honestly, probably not.  We are here to guide you through this approach and avoid the pitfalls that can occur.  We have been through this before, and are here to guide and deliver a successful upgrade.

TekStream Solutions makes sure that the system is migrated, upgraded and in a clean, working, and supported state at the completion of the project.   This approach has proven to save customers a lot of time and money.  TekStream also offers extended support and is an Oracle Managed Services provider to give customers great peace of mind and frees up internal resources for more demanding in-house projects.

Want to learn more about Oracle 12c WebCenter upgrades? Contact us today!

TekStream’s extension to Oracle’s Application eXtension Framework (AXF) provides enhanced customizations surrounding Invoice Reporting using Business Activity Monitor (BAM), auditing of user actions, and QuikTrace of BPEL process instance.   With the introduction of the 12c upgrade available with release 12.2.1.3 TekStream discovered that two of its reporting components were highly impacted by paradigm changes in 12c.   TekStream has gone through multiple iterations of 12c upgrade and has incorporated the necessary reporting enhancements to provide the functionality of the 11g release to its 12c counterpart.  This paper highlights the enhancements to the package to bring it on line with 12c.

BAM Dashboards:

The Business Activity Monitoring component of the SOA solution was significantly improved in the 12c release.  So significantly in fact that it precluded an upgrade path from 11g.   In the official upgrade procedures solutions incorporating this component are instructed to stand up an 11g version for BAM and slowly introduce a 12c version as all of the nuances of the new release are learned such that alternatives can be made.  In addition to a different dashboard component the layered introduction of ‘Business Queries’ and ‘Business Views’  add new elements to the solution that have to be solved before a dashboard can be constructed.  TekStream has done the necessary homework to bring the 11g based system directly online during the upgrade within a new InvoiceAnalytics package to save our customers the effort of introducing an interim solution during the process.  With TekStream’s 12c AXF upgrade we accommodate replacement dashboards, new 12c objects that are introduced with the release as well as upgrade of the 11g BAM data.  Clients will regain functionality (albeit with new upgraded BAM dashboards and underlying components) immediately after going online with 12c.  They will have direct replacements to the ‘Assigned Invoices’, ‘Invoice Aging’, and ‘Invoices’ reports and can use these with all of the 12c enhancements.

QuikTrace:

TekStream’s Audit and Reporting package ships with a component labeled QuikTrace which in addition to global Worklist views to locate all active invoices also provided technical tracing capability not available in AXF.   Technical staff can use key data points to find a record within the SOA composite execution stack for those records not active in a worklist and traceable via the global Worklist view.  The capability was based on an 11g primitive ‘ora:setCompositeInstanceTitle’ which on a per composite level allowed for the population of the title field which was then searchable via the Enterprise Manager (em).  The Audit and Reporting package allows for the searching based on Imaging Document ID, Invoice Number, Purchase Order Number, Supplier Name, and a customizable business key.

With 12c Oracle has changed their paradigm for a more efficient flow trace primitive ‘oraext:setFlowInstanceTitle’ which migrates the search element to a new single element SCA_FLOW_INSTANCE.title per composite flow.  To maintain the same functionality of the 11g system it is necessary to encapsulate all designed search elements into a single location.   TekStream has incorporated this into the Audit and Reporting package to offer the same functionality to its client base.

Upgrading AXF Clients:

For AXF clients with the reporting package we have the elements to bring you back online with the features that you are accustomed.    These will be available as soon as you bring AXF back up on 12c.

For AXF clients without the reporting package be assured that TekStream can get you to a 12c Audit and Reporting point as well.  We understand the 12c data and can pull together the data objects for functional dashboards and can introduce those QuikTrace touchpoints into the 12c based composites for that feature capability.

Want to learn more about Invoice Reporting using Business Activity Monitor? Contact us today!

[pardot-form id=”16747″ title=”Blog- John Schleicher – TekStream AXF 12c Upgrade Special Components”]

WebCenter Enterprise Capture 12c was released in late 2015 and with it came the addition of several key new features.  This article explores several of the significant improvements and new features offered by the newest product version.

1.     Release Processes

One of the new features added in WebCenter Enterprise Capture is the concept of release processes in the client profiles.  In 11g, each capture client profile had a single specified process that it was sent to upon release.  In configuration, you could define which process the profile mapped to (a specific Conversion, Recognition or Commit profile), but only one could be specified.  In WebCenter Enterprise Capture 12c, the ability to define multiple release processes was added.  This allows a greater amount of flexibility in the capture workflows that can be created by allowing a user to route a batch to one of any number of predefined processors.  This also reduces the number of capture profiles to be configured because a single profile can be used to route to any number of post-processors.

To choose which release process will be used for a particular batch, a user simply selects from the predefined options in the Release drop down menu.

Figure 1 Example of a “Commit” release process

2.     Unlock feature

In Capture 11g, there was no built in ability to unlock a batch.  Administrators would have to configure a specific “unlock batch” client profile but the process was not intuitive to the end users.  This resulted in many abandoned locked batches and unnecessary work for system administrators.  In WEC 12c, the Unlock feature is included OOTB and available from every capture profile.  This makes unlocking batches simple.

Figure 2 Unlock batch button

3.     Attachment Types

One of the new features of WEC 12c is the support for attachments and attachment types.  Administrators can define attachment types for a workspace.  Additional documents can be added to a batch as attachments of the main documents.  Separate workflow and commit paths can be defined for attachments.

4.     External document conversion

Another useful feature of WEC 12c is the support of the use of external conversion programs for document conversion.  In the definition for a Conversion Job, there is now the ability to specify External Conversion including a program and command line parameters to be used.

A common pain point felt by users of WEC 11g was that the outside in conversion engine used by WEC often struggled when trying to convert pdfs with embedded fonts.  A workaround was to use the Ghostscript conversion engine to convert the documents instead of the native outside in.  However, this was only able to be accomplished with documents imported via email. With the new ability to specify an external conversion engine in the document conversion processor, the need to have a custom script to do conversions goes away and it can be used for all documents regardless of the ingestion method.

5.     Desktop client

With the upgraded version comes an upgraded capture client with a lot of new features.  First and foremost, the client is no longer a java applet but instead is a desktop client with a standalone installer.  While the client does use java, the required libraries now come packaged within the client itself.  The benefit here is two-fold.  First, there is no prerequisite to have a certain version of java installed.  Second, there is no longer a dependency on a browser that supports java applets.  Most modern browser versions such as Firefox and Chrome no longer support java applets.  Internet explorer does support java but requires many setup steps to work correctly.  All this hassle goes away in WEC 12c with the introduction of a desktop client.

6.     Metadata search

One of the newly introduced features of the 12c client is the ability to search for a document within a batch based on metadata.  To use this feature, users enable the “Find Document” option from the batch menu.  Then a search box appears allowing users to search through all the metadata fields in a batch to find matches.

Figure 3 Find Document batch menu option

Figure 4 Metadata search pane

7.     View document in native application

Finally, Capture 12c has added the ability to view non-image documents in their native applications.  This includes pdfs, word documents, emails, etc.

To use this features, simply right click on the document and choose “View document in associated application” from the menu.

Figure 5 View document in native application

Contact TekStream for help upgrading to WebCenter Enterprise Capture 12c to make use of these and other great features.

[pardot-form id=”15997″ title=”Blog- Karla Broadrick – New features in WebCenter Enterprise Capture 12c”]

Taking Advantage of Oracle Process Cloud Service Advanced Features

How to Minimize Future Development by Building Reusable Common Processes

By: Courtney Dooley | Content Developer

When you look at few of your business processes do you see any similarities?  Do the same individuals approve different process requests?  Are documents processed and archived in a similar manner?  Oracle Process Cloud has multiple ways to reuse development and minimize future development and maintenance efforts.

QuickStart Applications

1. Overview

QuickStart Applications are pre-defined applications intended as a starting point for particular type of process.  To create a new QuickStart Application, simply click the Create button from the PCS Composer homepage, and choose the option “QuickStart App”.  The QuickStart Apps page will open displaying all available QuickStart templates, including QuickStart templates that come with the Process Cloud Service.

A QuickStart Master Template can be created from any Oracle Process Cloud Application.  Converting an application to a QuickStart Master Template allows you to restrict modifications to specific elements of the application or select the option “Allow Advanced View” which gives users creating a QuickStart Application the ability to edit all elements of the new application.  This may be necessary as Form elements and process flow are not available in the controlled modification options.

2. Development Tips

When developing a QuickStart Application it is important to remember that various individuals in different departments may use this template.

• Keep elements general – rather than using a role of IT Supervisor use Supervisor. Generalizations will reduce the effort to customize an application to a specific need.
• Use application variables as often as possible – The application name can be retrieved and displayed as the form title rather than setting a static form title.

FormTitle.value = data.getParameter(‘app.name’);

• Leave application elements configurable – If you have an element that requires specific values that will change for each application, put in a placeholder or leave the values empty for QuickStart Application creators to modify.
• Keep it simple – the more complex a QuickStart Master Template is, the less likely it will be used as it may be difficult to alter to fit the needs of various business processes.

3. Ideal Use Cases

These QuickStart Applications work best when they are created as a starting point.  A fully developed QuickStart application will limit its versatility and may cause additional development efforts to both remove unwanted elements as well as creating the missing functionality that is needed.

QuickStart Master Templates that will require minimal maintenance long term will make useful QuickStart Applications.  Keep in mind that multiple applications maybe created from this template, and if the QuickStart Master Template requires an update, so will every application created from it.

Cloned Applications

1. Overview

Any Application within Process Cloud can be cloned to create a new application.  This will create a new application from the last published version of the Original application.  All elements within the cloned application will be the same as the original including elements which are not editable such as process ID and form name.

2. Development Tips

If the application being developed is likely to be cloned for other purposes, the following tips will help minimize confusion between applications.

• Set process instance title – since process ID is not an editable value, and process tracking information can only be filtered by process ID and not application name, specify the process title in the predefined variables to include the application name.

• Name application elements generically – Process name unlike ID is editable; however Form, Integration, and Decision names cannot be modified. Keeping naming conventions generic will help minimize confusion when used in other applications.

3. Ideal Use Cases

Production Applications which need to be slightly modified for a separate business process is ideal for this option.  Developers can save hours of work starting with a fully functional Application which may need minor changes to fit the need of a new process.

Called Applications

1. Overview

Called applications can minimize application maintenance, development, and troubleshooting when created and used wisely.  Called applications should contain message start processes with defined inputs and outputs that link data between applications.  When a called application is deployed, a web service URL is supplied for other application to integrate with.  This allows common processes to be referenced rather than duplicated in multiple applications.

2. Development Tips

When developing Called Applications, it’s important to develop inputs and outputs that will meet the needs of any application calling it.

• Naming inputs and outputs – When a developer sets up the connection to the called application, the inputs and outputs should be easy to understand what values should be passed.

• Application Name – Naming the application appropriate to the process will help other developers know which application has the process they need to reference.

3. Ideal Use Cases

Sub-processes that will be used within multiple applications are ideal for this option.  Processes which may have a sequence of service calls or decisions allow for maintenance to be done in a single location rather than updating multiple applications.  Below are a couple of examples of great uses for this option.

• Archiving Content – attachments that may need folders located or created prior to moving the attachments to those folders or have metadata assigned to those content items.
• Management Approval Process – a process with a specific series of approvals which will not change based on the form or content being approved.
• Concurrent Processes – A process that can be executed concurrently with its originating process. The called application can be invoked at the beginning of the originating process and the output received at a later point in the originating process.  The called application in this case may have a timed event which will wait until a specific date to complete.

So as you can see, Process Cloud offers many ways to start new development by reusing existing applications.  By developing applications that can be used in multiple business processes, you can reduce the time spent not only developing new applications but maintaining old ones as well.

Contact Us for more tips and tricks for developing smart Oracle Process Cloud Applications!

[pardot-form id=”15726″ title=”Blog – Ways to Reuse Your Development – Courtney Dooley”]