Looking to capitalize on the mobile wave could mean many improvements from an existing business strategy. Today, everyone is constantly connected and wants to engage with businesses when and where they choose, whether on the web or via mobile or social channels. For customers and partners, mobility could mean improved user experience with value added services. Mobility increases productivity for employees with availability of timely information to make informed decisions as well as streamlining of business processes. It could reduce support costs and streamline customer support. Adding mobile channels can also result in innovation and new sources of revenue.

Solutions for Mobile Integration

There are several approaches to solutions for mobile integration of which we will consider two.

·Mobile Service Enablement Organizations looking to control the end-to-end user experience from the enterprise application all the way to the mobile front-end, pick this approach.

·API Management This solution allows organizations to expose existing business assets as application programming interfaces or APIs for consumption by external third parties.

There are two ways to developing an enterprise mobile strategy with SOA -- controlling the end-to-end integration experience from the enterprise to the hand held, or exposing enterprise assets through APIs for third parties to build out mobile solutions. Oracle SOA Suite has offerings for mobile-enablement and API management that address both strategies. An integral part of Oracle Mobile Platform, Oracle SOA Suite can address the myriad of mobile integration challenges, whether they reside on premise or in the Cloud.

Security, management, runtime enablement are all key aspects of service integration that serve as the solution for mobile service enablement. API Management on the other hand leverages service integration to manage APIs internally, but it involves a bit more to actually manage the APIs externally as assets that are available for consumption – it involves managing the external lifecycle of the APIs ensuring adoption and fostering a developer community among third parties.

In this three part blog series, we will delve into the details of Mobile Service Enablement and API Management so you can consider your strategy for enterprise mobile enablement. Meanwhile, you can explore more on the new Oracle Mobile Suite which can aid you with either strategy by visiting oracle.com/mobile. And here's where you can find more or Oracle SOA Suite: oracle.com/soa

Who’s writing and managing your social media channels? Because whoever that is, THEY are the public voice of your brand. They are your image. They’re the ones building relationships and forming bonds.

Who’s commenting on, liking and sharing your posts, seemingly everyone except your own employees? Are your people really that indifferent to the company and its products?

Much handwringing goes on over who should be allowed to speak for a brand on social. The result of said handwringing (and social policies the length of which rival omnibus bills of Congress) is that employees are not engaging around the brand on social at all. If that’s what you were going for, congrats!

Your social marketing is in the hands of your brand community managers, and the employees extending and amplifying the brand on their personal social channels. Do you trust them? Or are your days and nights spent stressing about controlling them?

Community Managers

For our purposes let’s take this to mean anyone contributing to or managing the actual brand-owned social channels. If they are all of the below, back off and trust them.

• Intimately knows and represents the audience
• Can get answers to questions, like now
• Knows what’s genuinely cool about your brand
• Has a human personality and recoils at corporate jargon
• Cares about thrilling customers
• Unceasingly creative and quick thinking
• Calm, with great judgment
• Master of the tech tools
• Ever-curious researcher and curator
• Confident and autonomous
• Literate

Employees

Employees might be the greatest wasted natural social marketing resource of our time. Why have they built a wall between their personal social and the brand they work for? Because they’re scared to death.

When social policies are vague, malleable, and based largely on “eh…it depends,” any intelligent employee will choose to socially stay as far away from the brand as they can. There is NO incentive to engage and tons of risk in doing so. Safe + easy is an unbeatable combo.

Do you think your employees are so determined to help you on their personal social channels…for free…that they’re willing to curl up by the fire and read your social media usage policy? The shocking answer is…maybe! Over 50% of employees want to share news about their company. But just 45% of employers encourage employees to engage. It’s silly to not want employees to be active, engaged fans of their own company. So:

• Make it clear you want them to engage, it’s not a trap.
• Lay out a few big “don’ts” like competition bashing or violating confidentiality.
• Have them apply workplace common sense, nothing discriminatory, etc.
• Encourage them to put the good ol’“opinions are mine” on their profiles.
• Ask that they say nothing at all about the brand if they can’t say anything nice.
• Provide them with content that’s incredibly easy to share.
• Incentivize engagement. Give them the answer to “why should I?”
• Offer social training, especially for new employees.

That done, if you still can’t summon up the trust to let your Community Managers and employees market your brand on social, how is it you trust them to work there at all?

@mikestiles
Photo: Piotr Dorabiala, stock.xchng

This notification describes vulnerabilities fixed in third-party components that are included in Oracle's product distributions.
Information about vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products can be found on Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts page.

This notification describes vulnerabilities fixed in third-party components that are included in Oracle's product distributions.
Information about vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products can be found on Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts page.

This notification describes vulnerabilities fixed in third-party components that are included in Oracle's product distributions.
Information about vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products can be found on Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts page.

The Top 10 tweets from @OTNArchBeat for the last seven days (February 18-24, 2014).

1. RT @biemond: #WebLogic 12.1.3 comes with a client javascript library so you can use WebSockets or auto fallback to Long Polling.
   Feb 20, 2014 at 02:59 PM
2. RT @rluttikhuizen: Chatting in the ACE room of the Weblogic Virtual Developer Day from #ofmForum with @lucasjellema @simon_haslam
   Feb 20, 2014 at 02:15 PM
3. RT @avioconsulting: AVIO Consulting Blog - It is Not "BPM vs. BPEL"
   Feb 18, 2014 at 03:45 PM
4. Architects from Planet Earth | OTN Architect Community Newsletter for Feb 2014
   Feb 20, 2014 at 08:15 AM
5. #GlassFish Monitoring and Management Virtual Event with @AdamBien - March 7 - 4:30pm GMT #LondonGUG
   Feb 24, 2014 at 11:22 AM
6. Altova #XMLSpy, testing custom functions in xsl transformations | @eelzinga #soasuite
   Feb 18, 2014 at 08:00 AM
7. #ADF Performance Tuning: Tips on How to Limit #ADFBC Memory Consumption | @FrankHouweling
   Feb 18, 2014 at 02:03 PM
8. 11g Resequencer Health Check | Shreenidhi Raghuram #soa #aia
   Feb 24, 2014 at 10:55 AM
9. Running Oracle Forms From #APEX: February @ODTUG Webinar Series | @MiaUrman
   Feb 18, 2014 at 12:08 PM
10. Podcast: Taking Charge - #SOA Governance Challenges - Part 4 (final) w/ @manelrosa @luisw19 et al.
    Feb 20, 2014 at 02:02 PM

Thought for the Day

"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone."

—Anthony Burgess, author of A Clockwork Orange
(February 25, 1917 – November 22, 1993)

Source: brainyquote.com

Oracle Database 12c can help you:

• Gain Agility and Save Money
• Cope with Data Explosion
• Lower Risk and Improve Productivity

Watch this video interview with Oracle architect, Tom Kyte, to learn more. 

Obviously today is a very big day for the NetBeans Platform and all its users around the world. Two new books have been published on Leanpub especially for users of the NetBeans APIs. (To understand what Leanpub is all about, watch this YouTube introduction.)

In the first book, which is a completed book on Leanpub, entitled "NetBeans Platform for Beginners" (361 pages!), the authors take you on a walk through all the key NetBeans APIs, together with many example exercises and a free set of samples available on GitHub, with an open discussion forum included. You'll be creating well architected and pluggable Java desktop applications before you're even fully aware of what you're doing.

What strikes me about this book is that it gives a very good weighting of the value of particular features of the NetBeans Platform. I.e., instead of spending pages and pages explaining things you don't actually need to know, it splits topics into sections entitled "Basic" and "Advanced". In that way you know the importance or the priority of the topics you're learning about. That's something I've missed in other books on the NetBeans Platform. For example, only very rarely do you need to use the CallbackSystemAction, hence that topic is stuck away in an advanced section, instead of confronting you with it right at the start of the Actions chapter.

By the end of the book, you'll have a really thorough understanding of what the NetBeans Platform wants to do for you and how your application maps to its idioms. 

The second book is, if anything, even more interesting. Its value proposition lies in your involvement with its writing. It is not a complete book. It is called "Exercises in Porting to the NetBeans Platform" and is far more in line with the intentions of Leanpub than the book above. The idea of Leanpub is that you should be publishing a book early and often, (and not only after page 361 like the book above). Like continuously. As soon as something is ready, it should be published, where "ready" means the first or second chapter is enough info for the reader to want to get started with it, like a serial novel.

In this particular case, it is the hope of the authors that readers get involved. Contribute small example applications that encompass a problem you're facing in porting to the NetBeans Platform. Then the authors will dedicate the next chapter of their book to your problem scenario.

The first chapter is also available for free to give you an idea of the aims of the book. It shows a small JSplitPane application, together with an outline of how to move it to NetBeans Platform idioms, together with free source code available on GitHub. The value of this book is that it shows you how to think in terms of NetBeans Platform idioms, i.e., it applies all the principles of the first book to porting scenarios that can easily be followed and learned from. On the feedback page of the second book, tell the authors what scenario the next chapter of the book should focus on.

All in all great news for the NetBeans Platform. Really comprehensive texts for getting started, also available bundled together at a reduced price as a "NetBeans Platform Starter Kit". 

Anyone out there read it and have opinions to share? Some pretty positive reviews are already available on the page, by Benno Markiewicz, Donald A. Evett, Michael W. Bishop, and Sean Phillips.

There is a brand new white paper available that will be of interest to anybody contemplating a database and/or application migration from AIX to Solaris. Simplify the Migration of Oracle Database and Oracle Applications from AIX to Oracle Solaris gives a good description of the steps involved in planning and executing a migration project, along with the benefits you can expect to achieve and a solid example of migration using Oracle Data Pump, complete with scripted steps.

Of course, if your migration will include moving up to Oracle Database 12c, don't forget to sign up for Mike's webcast on February 26!

Send your tweets @soacommunity #soacommunity and follow us at http://twitter.com/soacommunity

SOA & BPM Partner Community

For regular information on Oracle SOA Suite become a member in the SOA & BPM Partner Community for registration please visit www.oracle.com/goto/emea/soa (OPN account required) If you need support with your account please contact the Oracle Partner Business Center.

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• Cross domain SSO for browser based Web SSO flows
• Cross domain Web Services Security (WSS) for SOAP clients and servers via the WS-Trust protocol

Federation between services is based on trust which is established by exchanging

• X.509 certificates used for sign/verify and encrypt/decrypt the Federation messages
• Locations of the Federation services
• SAML 2.0 Metadata if supported by the partners, when SAML 2.0 Federation SSO is used

In this article, I will discuss about the various kinds of information one has to know in order to be able to set up a Federation agreement between OIF and remote partners, including:

• How to enable OIF/OSTS services
• SAML/OpenID Identifiers for OIF/OSTS
• SAML 2.0 Metadata
• Certificates
• Service endpoints

Enabling OIF / OSTS Services

OIF/OSTS Enablement

Out of the box, the OIF and OSTS components are disabled in the OAM server, and need to be enabled prior to using them. To enable OIF and/or OSTS, you will need to:

• Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole
• Navigate to Configuration -> Available Services
• Enable the components you need

To verify that OIF is correctly enabled, you can attempt to download OIF SAML 2.0 Metadata from
http(s)://oam-runtime-host:oam-runtime-port/oamfed/idp/metadata

OIF Services

After having turned on the OIF component, all OIF services are enabled:

• IdP
• SP
• SAML Attribute Authority
• SAML Attribute Requester

To selectively enable or disable those above services, use the OIF WLST command configureFederationService():

• Enter the WLST environment by executing:
  $IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh
• Connect to the WLS Admin server:
  connect()
• Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:
  domainRuntime()
• Execute the configureFederationService() command:
  configureFederationService(<SERVICE>, <true/false>)
• Replace <SERVICE> by idp, sp, attributeresponder or attributerequester
• Set true to enable the service or false to disable it
• For example, to disable the SAML Attribute Authority service, execute:
  configureFederationService("attributeresponder", "false")

SAML Issuer / OpenID Realm

When communicating via the SAML protocols, Federation servers identify themselves via the Issuer element in the SAML messages. This is also known as the Entity ID or the Provider ID. This identifier must be unique among partners so that one identifier references a single entity.

In the OpenID 2.0 protocol, the Relying Party or Service Provider can be identified via the Realm element.

OIF

During installation, the Provider ID used in SAML operations and the Realm used in OpenID 2.0 exchanges are set to:

• SAML Provider ID:
  http://oam-runtime-hostname:oam-runtime-port/oam/fed
• OpenID 2.0 Realm:
  http://oam-runtime-hostname:oam-runtime-port

To change the Provider ID, perform the following steps:

• Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole
• Navigate to Configuration -> Federation Settings
• Set the Provider ID to the desired value
• Note #1: the Succinct ID which is the SHA-1 hash of the Provider ID and used in SAML Artifact protocol will be re-generated
• Note #2: after resetting the Provider ID, you will need to notify all the existing partners of the change and redistribute SAML 2.0 Metadata if necessary
• Apply

OSTS

During installation, the Provider ID used in SAML Issuance Templates is set to:
http://oam-runtime-hostname:oam-runtime-port/oam/fed

• To change or retrieve the Provider ID from an Issuance Template, perform the following steps:
• Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole
• Navigate to Configuration -> Security Token Service Settings -> Token Issuance Templates
• Click on the desired SAML Issuance Template
• Click on the Issuance Properties tab
• The Provider ID is the Assertion Issuer property. Set the corresponding field to update the Provider ID for this SAML Issuance Template
• Apply

SAML 2.0 Metadata

The SAML 2.0 SSO protocol define the Metadata XML document which is used by Federation servers to publish all information the partners will need to be aware of in order to exchange SAML 2.0 messages.

The SAML 2.0 Metadata of a Federation server includes:

• The X.509 signing certificate to allow the remote partner to verify messages signed by the Federation server
• The X.509 encryption certificate to allow the remote partner to encrypt messages that only the Federation server will be able to decrypt
• Roles supported by the Federation server:
• IdP
• SP
• SAML Attribute Authority
• SAML Attribute Requester
• …
• Services for each of those roles
• SSO, Logout
• Type of SAML binding used to communicate with those services (HTTP-Redirect, HTTP-POST, Artifact, SOAP…)
• Location indicating the endpoint where a service is published
• ResponseLocation indicating the endpoint were a service is published for response messages

The OIF Metadata can be retrieved from the OAM Administration Console:

• Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole
• Navigate to Configuration -> Federation Settings
• Click on the Export Metadata button
• Save the file on your local computer

The OIF Metadata can also be retrieved by accessing a URL on the OAM/OIF runtime server:
http://oam-runtime-host:oam-runtime-port/oamfed/idp/metadata

Note: it is possible to generate OIF Metadata for specific signing and encryption keys by using the following URL (read my next article about Key Management in OIF/OSTS for more information)
http://oam-runtime-host:oam-runtime-port/oamfed/idp/metadata?signid=<SIGN_KEYENTRY_ID>&encid=<ENC_KEYENTRY_ID>

• The signid query parameter contains the key entry ID for the signing certificate. Replace <SIGN_KEYENTRY_ID>
• The encid query parameter contains the key entry ID for the encryption certificate. Replace <SIGN_KEYENTRY_ID>
• An example would be:
  http://oam.com/oamfed/idp/metadata?signid=osts_signing&encid=osts_encryption

Certificates

For SAML 2.0 partners not supporting the consumption of SAML 2.0 Metadata, or for SAML 1.1 partner or even STS partners, the administrator will need to provide the signing certificate and possibly the encryption certificate as standalone files.

The OIF/OSTS Settings section in the administration console lists the key entries used by the system (read my next article about Key Management in OIF/OSTS for more information)

To view the current key entries known to OIF/OSTS:

1. Go to the OAM Administration Console: http(s)://oam-admin-host:oam-admin-port/oamconsole
2. Navigate to Configuration -> Federation Settings / Security Token Service Settings
3. In the Keystore section, see the list of Key IDs, each representing a key entry in OIF/OSTS, and each referencing a key entry in the OAM Keystore (different key IDs can reference the same key entry in the OAM Keystore)

To retrieve the certificate file of a specific key ID, open a browser and use the following URL to generate the certificate in PEM format:

• For OIF:
  http://oam-runtime-host:oam-runtime-port/oamfed/idp/cert?id=<KEYENTRY_ID>
• The id query parameter contains the key entry ID for the certificate. Replace <KEYENTRY_ID>
• An example would be:
  http://oam.com/oamfed/idp/cert?id=saml-signing   
• For OSTS:
  http://oam-runtime-host:oam-runtime-port/sts/servlet/samlcert?id=<KEYENTRY_ID>
• The id query parameter contains the key entry ID for the certificate. Replace <KEYENTRY_ID>
• An example would be:
  http://oam.com/sts/servlet/samlcert?id=saml-signing

OIF Endpoints

This section will list the various endpoints published by OIF, some specific to a protocol, others protocol agnostic.

Note: it is important to access the OIF services via the public endpoints (load balancer, HTTP reverse proxy…) in order for HTTP cookies set in the browser to be sent back by the browser. In this list, only paths will be listed, not the public protocol/hostname/port.

SAML 2.0

The IdP SAML 2.0 endpoints are:

• SSO Service to receive AuthnRequest messages
• HTTP-Redirect binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20
• HTTP-POST binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20
• SOAP binding for ECP clients: /oamfed/idp/soap
• Artifact Service for SP to send SOAP ArtifactResolve messages during SSO Artifact: /oamfed/idp/soap
• Logout Service to receive LogoutRequest and LogoutResponse messages
• LogoutRequest:
• HTTP-Redirect binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20
• HTTP-POST binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20
• LogoutResponse
• HTTP-Redirect binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20
• HTTP-POST binding: /oamfed/idp/samlv20

The SP SAML 2.0 endpoints are:

• Assertion Consumer Service to receive SAML Assertions
• HTTP-POST binding: /oam/server/fed/sp/sso
• Artifact binding: /oam/server/fed/sp/sso
• Logout Service to receive LogoutRequest and LogoutResponse messages
• LogoutRequest:
• HTTP-Redirect binding: /oamfed/sp/samlv20
• HTTP-POST binding: /oamfed/sp/samlv20
• LogoutResponse
• HTTP-Redirect binding: /oamfed/sp/samlv20
• HTTP-POST binding: /oamfed/sp/samlv20

The SAML 2.0 Attribute Authority/Responder endpoints are:

• SOAP Service for SAML Attribute Requester to send SOAP Attribute Query messages: /oamfed/aa/soap

The SAML 2.0 Attribute Requester does not publish any endpoint.

SAML 1.1

The IdP SAML 1.1 endpoints are:

• SSO Service to start SAML 1.1 Federation SSO
• URL: /oamfed/idp/samlv11sso
• Query parameters (URL encode properly the query parameter values)
• providerid: indicates the SP partner name or SP Provider ID with which to start Federation SSO
• TARGET: indicates the value to send as the TARGET to the SP. Typically, this will contain the URL where the user should be redirected after the Federation SSO operation
• Artifact Service for SP to send SOAP ArtifactResolve messages during SSO Artifact: /oamfed/idp/soapv11

The SP SAML 1.1 endpoints are:

• Assertion Consumer Service to receive SAML Assertions
• URL: /oam/server/fed/sp/sso

The SAML 1.1 Attribute Authority/Responder endpoints are:

• SOAP Service for SAML Attribute Requester to send SOAP Attribute Query messages: /oamfed/aa/soapv11

The SAML 1.1 Attribute Requester does not publish any endpoint.

OpenID 2.0

The IdP OpenID 2.0 endpoints are:

• SSO Service to receive OpenID Authn Request messages from RPs
• URL: /oamfed/idp/openidv20
• Discovery Service where XRDS is published:
• URL: /oamfed/idp/openidv20

The SP OpenID 2.0 endpoints are:

• SSO Service to receive OpenID Authn Response messages from OPs
• URL: /oam/server/fed/sp/sso
• RP Realm: see SAML Issuer / OpenID Realm section about that identifier

Other Services

There are a few services that are protocol agnostic:

• IdP initiated SSO Service
• URL: /oamfed/idp/initiatesso
• Query parameters (URL encode properly the query parameter values)
• providerid: indicates the SP partner name or SP Provider ID with which to start Federation SSO
• returnurl: indicates where the user should be redirected after the Federation SSO operation
• SP initiated SSO
• URL: /oamfed/sp/initiatesso
• Query parameters (URL encode properly the query parameter values)
• providerid: indicates the IdP partner name or IdP Provider ID with which to start Federation SSO
• returnurl: indicates where the user should be redirected after the Federation SSO operation
• Test SP which allows you to test OIF/SP with a remote IdP partner
• URL: /oamfed/user/testspsso
• Note: prior to using this service, you must enable it via the configureTestSPEngine() command:
• Enter the WLST environment by executing:
  $IAM_ORACLE_HOME/common/bin/wlst.sh
• Connect to the WLS Admin server:
  connect()
• Navigate to the Domain Runtime branch:
  domainRuntime()
• Execute the configureTestSPEngine () command:
  configureTestSPEngine(<true/false>)
• Set true to enable the service or false to disable it
• For example, to enable the Test SP service, execute:
  configureTestSPEngine("true")

OSTS Endpoints

OSTS publishes SOAP endpoints based on how the Security Token Service is configured.

The Security Token Service -> Endpoints section in the OAM Administration Console lists the endpoints defined for OSTS and how they are protected by the OWSM Agent

For a given endpoint (for example /wss11user), the following URLs are published:

• Over SOAP 1.2: /sts/wss11user
• WSDL for operations over SOAP 1.2: /sts/wss11user?wsdl
• Over SOAP 1.1: /sts/wss11user/soap11
• WSDL for operations over SOAP 1.1: /sts/wss11user/soap11?wsdl

In the next article, I will discuss about PKI Key and Certificate management in OIF/OSTS
Cheers,
Damien Carru

Background on Document Publishing

As Larry discussed in his OVCS presentation, there are 3 main steps to Document Publishing. Our goal is to take live data from Agile PLM and generate a document with it.  We need to use these 3 steps to come up with the document.

Collect PLM Data

PLM Data are attributes you see in Web Client.  PLM Data includes Part Number, Part Description, other Title Block or Cover Page Fields, as well as tables like Change History, BOM, Affected Items, etc.  For Document Publishing, all of this PLM Data is exported as an XML file using SDK or Web Service calls.   

Collect Publishing Template

BI Publisher requires a Template to figure out how to use the PLM Data XML file.  For our sample programs, this template is stored as an attachment to an object in Agile PLM.  Users wanting to create templates must install BI Publisher Desktop and then create a Template in Microsoft Word.  Using the right tools is very important for the next step.

BI Publisher Creates a File

With the PLM Data XML file and a Publishing Template, BI Publisher can create an incredible variety of output documents.  Agile PLM has an internal copy of BI Publisher that we use in our samples.  In this sample, once a document is created it is attached back to Agile PLM.

Single Object Sample

The remainder of this document goes through setting up and running the single object sample script.  This script performs the 3 steps mentioned above that are required for Document Publishing.  The previous samples created a complex set of related objects and tended to confuse users.  The new sample is much less complex and offers flexible configuration options.

Running the Single Object Sample for the First Time

Do the following on a test or QA server.  Do not run any new program for the first time on your production server.  It will help if you have some experience with Agile PLM events and SDK programming, but that experience is not required.  Heed the instructions from Douglas Adams and Don't Panic!  If you think it worthwhile, keep your towel handy.  

Download the 9.3.1.2 Document Publishing Sample and extract DocumentPublishingSingleObject.groovy (in the DocumentGenerationJava folder within OAS or WLS folders).  Open the script in a text editor.  At the top of the script there are many variables to control document publishing.  There are 3 you must update to match your system:

1. TEMP_PATH - this must be a real folder on your server.  Talk to your System Administrator.  For Windows, a path like c:/temp/ is typical.  Note that the forward slashes work fine.  For Linux, the path is likely /tmp/.  Your System Administrator may want to give you a specific subdirectory.  The script will place temporary files into this directory in order to create documents.
2. TEMPLATEHOLDER - this must be a real Object in your Agile PLM system that will have the Template attached.  In the unmodified script, this is a Document called BIPUB-000002-TMP. 
   
3. FILTER - this must be a real ACS filter in your Agile PLM system.  We recommend keeping this filter at a minimum (just Page 1, 2, 3) for your first try.  In the unmodified script this is "Default Quality Change Request Filter".  The comment in the script mentions this is an API Name, but the full name works.
   

Install Word and BI Publisher Desktop.  If you are running 9.3.1.x or 9.3.2, use BIP Desktop 10g.  For 9.3.3, use BIP Desktop 11g.  This installation will add some menus into Word ADD-INS.  Don't worry about those for now.  Create a new file in Word, add some simple text (HELLO WORLD!), and save as the file as RTF (template.rtf).  Attach template.rtf to your TEMPLATEHOLDER in Agile PLM.

The next steps require administrator privileges to setup a new event to trigger the script by creating an Event Handler (the code), an Event (the trigger), and an Event Subscriber (telling Agile PLM which code to run against the trigger).  Open Java Client, select the Admin tab, open System Settings > Event Management and perform the next steps.  

• Open Event Handlers node, create a new Handler of type Script PX with a name (Test Doc Publishing).  In the script box, replace the contents with the script.  Note: one easy method is to return to the text editor with the script open, select all the contents (Ctrl A), Copy (Ctrl C), then return to Java Client in the Script box, select all and paste (Ctrl V).  Select Ok to complete creating the Event Handler.  

• Open Events node.  Create a new Event of Type Extend Actions Menu with a name like "Create Document."  Choose the class where you wish to trigger the Document Publish, for example all Quality Change Requests.  Select Ok.  

• Open the Event Subscribers node.  Create a new subscriber, skip down to Event and choose the new one "Create Document", then choose the new Event Handler "Test Doc Publishing", now select the generate button (123) next to Name, change Execution Mode to Synchronous, and select Ok.  You should now have an Event Subscriber called "Create Document Test Doc Publishing".

The Event system is setup, so now we need to trigger this process for the first time.

Return to Web Client and open an object of the class you selected when creating the Event, in this example a CAPA.  Make sure there is content in the CAPA Cover Page fields; the exported XML will only contain fields with values.  In order to see the results of the script, select the Attachments tab. 

Now trigger the event by selecting Actions Menu - "Create Document".  Within a minute, you should see 2 attachments, a PDF and XML, with the Object Number as the filename.  The PDF will contain the simple text (HELLO WORLD!), while the XML file will contain the dynamic contents of the object.

Congratulations!  You have completed the first step to creating a real document.  If the documents never showed up, proceed to the Troubleshooting section.  If the documents appeared, move on to the next section.

Improving the Template to create a Real Document 

The next step is to improve the template with references to the Agile PLM attributes using BI Publisher Desktop.  When you installed BI Publisher Desktop, a Tutorial document (Template Builder for Word Tutorial.doc) was added to the installation directories (C:\Program Files (x86)\Oracle\BI Publisher\BI Publisher Desktop\Template Builder for Word\doc).  I recommend you read that document, but the following steps should get you through some basics.

If you skipped the step to install BI Publisher Desktop, please download and install the software now.  The screen caps below are from BIP 11g.  Earlier versions look a little different but have the same capabilities.

Download the Object XML file to your computer using Get on the Attachments tab.  Return to Word and open template.rtf.  In Word, select the BI Publisher tab to open the ribbon for BI Publisher.  In the middle of the ribbon there is an open folder icon with the words "Sample XML" underneath.  Click on Sample XML, select the Object XML file you downloaded, then select Ok.  After a short time, Word should popup a message "Data loaded successfully."  

Next select the Field button on the ribbon to open the Field dialog. This dialog will show all the XML tags that were loaded.  Select each of the tags you want to add and then select the Insert button.  

Add static text and format the text and tags using normal Word features.  Save the RTF file.  BIP has a preview feature, so select the PDF button to generate a preview of the data in your template.  Continue to alter the template, save and preview until you are happy with the results.

Return to Agile PLM web client and replace the Template RTF file on your Template Holder with your new one.  This can be done using Check Out / Check In or by delete / add.  

Run Create Document to regenerate the PDF file on your object.  You should see the same results as using Preview in Word.

Congratulations - you are done learning how to use the single object Document Publishing script!!  Next steps are to review the BI Publisher guides and learn more about what you can do in BI Publisher to create a real document for your company.

Good luck and Happy Publishing!

Script Configuration and Extensions

This script has many options for configuration stored as variables in the class Global.  A few are mentioned here to make you aware of them.  Change these options in the Event Handler directly or in the text editor to replace in the Event Handler.

• Disable attaching XML file by setting ATTACH_XML to NO.
• Disable sending debug messages to Weblogic logs by setting DEBUG to NO.
• Change whether the script checks in new versions of Documents or adds new Documents by changing ATT_NEW_ROW.
• DOCUMENT_FILENAME and DOCUMENT_FILENAME_DESC.  Edit these variables to change the filename and file description.  Review the getKeyValue function in the script for other available constants. 
  
• DYNAMIC_ATTRIBUTES.  If this is set to Yes, the script will read the template holder, filter, and output format from the Object attributes.  The published whitepaper uses Dynamic Attributes.

Since this is simply a Java program, you also have many options to improve it.  One example is if you plan to implement many Document Publishing use cases but don't want to use Dynamic Attributes.  You could add a case statement to pick the Template and Filter based on object type.  Otherwise you will need to simply copy the Event Handler multiple times to support the different cases.

The SDK call used by our sample is exportWXMLData.  The Web Service call is loadXMLData.  For integration programmers, the XSD schema for each object class is retrieved using SDK exportWXMLSchema or Web Service loadXMLSchema.

Troubleshooting 

Troubleshooting issues can be challenging.  Below is a basic introduction to get you started.

Fixing Problems on First Run with an empty template 

First, did you change the Variables to valid information?  The TEMP_PATH must exist on the server, the TEMPLATEHOLDER must be a valid object with the Template RTF file, and the FILTER must exist in Admin > System Settings > Agile Content Service > Filters.  Remember that the Export calls need this Filter to determine what content to output.  

You can correct the script information directly in the Event Handler screen, or edit in your text editor and replace the entire text in the Script section of the Handler and save the changes.  

Make sure you actually attached an empty or very simple template.rtf as described to the TEMPLATEHOLDER.  If any of this was wrong and is now corrected, go try Actions > Create Document again.

More General Troubleshooting 

If the path, template, and filter are all correct, we need to explore more ways to see where this process could have failed, including the Event Handler Monitor and Server Logs.

In Admin you should still have the Event Subscriber open (Create Document Test Doc Publishing).  Select the tab "Monitor" on this Subscriber.  You will see a list of all the times the Subscriber has been invoked.  You should be able to see whether the Handler completed or threw an error message.  Double click on a row to open it.  If needed, switch tabs by clicking on General Information and back to Monitor tabs, then double click a row to open it.   Even if the Handler completed, it could have still thrown messages into the Weblogic console or logs.

The script as shipped prints Debug information into the Server Logs.  Re-establish your friendship with the System Admin and get direct access to the Logs.  Review the latest information and start correcting any reported errors. When building out Document Publishing demos, our pre-sales team often runs the App Server in a CMD console so the messages appear immediately. If you are still having issues, review the log messages and try to correct the reported problems.

BI Publisher Compatibility

As referenced earlier, 9.3.3 uses a different version of BI Publisher (11g) than earlier Agile PLM versions.  We do recommend you use the compatible version of BIP.  However, some customers have installed BIP 11g to build templates that they try to run on Agile PLM 9.3.1 or 9.3.2.  If you need to run BIP 11g Desktop to develop templates for 9.3.1 or 9.3.2, you must open Options > Options > Build and select Backward Compatible radio button in the Form field size section.  Any existing tags will be setup incorrectly, so Insert new tags throughout your template before using the template.  If your template is built incorrectly, you will get errors creating a final document.

BIP 10g and 11g also use different class paths.  Since our script calls BIP directly, you will need to change the path statements to run the script on 9.3.2 or 9.3.1.  We added both statements to the script, so make sure to uncomment the 10g and comment out the 11g statements for the older version.  If the wrong class path is used, you will see errors in the log.

// Import statements for BI Publisher 10G embedded in Agile PLM 9.3.2 and lower. Uncomment for Agile PLM 9.3.2 and lower.
// import oracle.apps.xdo.template.FOProcessor;
// import oracle.apps.xdo.template.RTFProcessor;
// import oracle.apps.xdo.XDOException;

// Import statements for BI Publisher 11G embedded in Agile PLM 9.3.3 and higher.  If running 9.3.2 or lower, comment out these lines.
import oracle.xdo.template.FOProcessor;
import oracle.xdo.template.RTFProcessor;
import oracle.xdo.XDOException;

Thanks go out to Bob Schwartz and Larry Recht in our Pre-Sales team for helping improve this script and communicate this great functionality to our customers.

By Anke Mogannam - Originally featured in Talent Management Excellence Essentials

Today’s compensation and talent management professionals are looking strategically at the role of performance-driven rewards as a key lever for engaging and retaining top performers. There are numerous strategies for creating a high-performance culture, and today’s technological advances have created major opportunities for looking at compensation structures differently than in the past. 

Historically, companies had fairly narrow boundaries for compensation plans. The major levers were the merit increase for base pay and bonuses for achievement of goals. While these are still primary, compensation departments are looking more broadly at other variable pay mechanisms that take into account business performance in addition to employee performance.

The most basic example of this type of reward mechanism is to tie a portion of an employee’s compensation to the company’s financial performance measures, such as sales or revenue at company, division, or even departmental levels. This is an easily available metric that all employees understand. The issue is that the linkage of employee work to this particular measure might not be clear-cut.

Variable reward programs can be part of risk management and thought of as profit insurance. When a company has lower than expected profits, variable compensation budgets are reduced to mitigate any shareholder impact. This is not punitive, as the shareholders have based their investment on the performance of the company and employee actions are directly linked to this performance. On the flip side, when the company’s profits exceed targets, the bonus pool is deepened and employees reap the benefits of the linkage between their performance and the exceptional results.

Other business success metrics being linked to employee compensation include customer satisfaction, customer retention, and customer support. These get a bit trickier to map to individual levels, yet they are critical to a company’s success.

Savvy businesses are also looking at other incentives to retain top performers. Grants of stock options and full value shares, education and other development activities, and spot bonuses are also being factored into differentiated compensation plans. Interestingly, top talent rarely leaves a company for compensation reasons alone.

The more tightly aligned the high-performance culture, the more complex the compensation scenarios. Compensation professionals must look at multiple types of measures for various roles in the company. This is further complicated when factoring in commensurate incentives across geographic and regulatory boundaries.

This complexity makes it hard—if not impossible—to keep up with all the potential incentive and regulatory parameters with manual processes and spreadsheets. In large organizations, the process is so complex it is common to find “leakage” in compensation. For example, by the time some businesses get their compensation budgets approved, the compensation pools do not reflect the reality of the staff currently in place.

In order to mitigate the risk of these complexities, the entire performance and compensation process should have a strong technology underpinning. Without a strong talent technology platform, companies end up with static goals and performance documents that are not modified based on changing business conditions and are not reviewed until the next performance cycle.

In addition, the talent calibration process relies on a single view of organization talent. Without a strong technology solution, talent reviews become a lengthy and costly manual process. The solution is also critical to move the calibrated performance assessment data into the compensation technology process.

Given the extraordinary complexity of global compensation plans, flexible and highly configurable technology is essential to manage the process in a way that enables focus on top performers. The technology should take the “heavy lifting” off of the compensation team with regards to compensation rule definition and editing, employee eligibility, and transparency into process and practice in any organization across the globe.

Considerations for the technology platform should include a review of how compensation rules and calculations are created, edited, and implemented. This will be absolutely critical in order to administer a complex compensation landscape. Additionally, the system should be capable of dynamically calculating employee eligibility. Since employees might be eligible for multiple plans - and it is certain that employees will transfer between departments and geographies - eligibility can change along with these transitions.

To use metrics from the finance and customer support systems, consideration should be given to whether the compensation system can use the input system to calculate variable pay. For example, if employees are compensated based on financial results for their division, the compensation engine must calculate the proper compensation based on the data passed from the finance system.

Finally, the company might consider whether the system can accommodate a single consolidated view of compensation budgets. This is a radical departure from the manual spreadsheetdriven process that requires the compensation team to compile multiple disparate spreadsheets. As employees transfer within the organization, leave the company, or get hired, manual processes make it difficult to react and change the budgets accordingly.

Because the budgets are a challenge to keep updated, there is a high likelihood of budget leakage, where monies are not controlled tightly and are then not available to use on the top talent. Many existing systems are limited in that they require companies to standardize their compensation plans, which force the plans to conform to existing rules. An effective compensation management technology should be designed to handle the increasing level of complexity of all the different existing and emerging compensation plans (variable pay and pay for performance) and tools (such as options, restricted stock units, phantom stock, and short- and long-term incentive plans).

By leveraging the right technologies, companies can ensure they take advantage of the best talent insurance available. Companies then can focus executive-level time and attention on compensation philosophy and strategy, acquire reliable market pay data, hire a top-notch compensation team, and train managers to execute on the compensation rules. Creative cash and noncash incentives and disproportionately distributing them to your highest performers and highest-potential employees is not only good talent management, it is good business. 

Anke Mogannam brings more than 16 years of marketing and human capital management experience in the technology industries to her role at Oracle where she is part of the Human Capital Management applications marketing team. In that role, Anke drives content marketing, messaging, go-to-market activities, integrated marketing campaigns, and field enablement.

Prior to joining Oracle, Anke held several roles in communications, marketing, HCM product strategy and product management at PeopleSoft, SAP, Workday and Saba. 

There is a lot of focus on advanced management tools in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (EMCC) for Oracle Applications at Collaborate14!

For the purposes of this article, "Oracle Applications" refers to Fusion Applications, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne. The cornerstone of Oracle’s strategy for managing their Applications is Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and the Application Management Suites (AMS). AMS allows customers to achieve a high level of application performance, introspection, and availability, while reducing the costs associated with managing these Applications. There are a number of sessions that showcase these products at Collaborate14, including:

There is a lot of focus on advanced management tools in Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (EMCC) for Oracle Applications at Collaborate14!

For the purposes of this article, "Oracle Applications" refers to Fusion Applications, E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, Siebel, and J.D. Edwards EnterpriseOne. The cornerstone of Oracle’s strategy for managing their Applications is Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control and the Application Management Suites (AMS). AMS allows customers to achieve a high level of application performance, introspection, and availability, while reducing the costs associated with managing these Applications. There are a number of sessions that showcase these products at Collaborate14, including:

Note that Monday's Workshop environments for the hands-on portion are provided by Apps Associates, an Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c "Specialized" partner. These environments are provisioned using an Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform. More about Apps Associates is at www.appsassociates.com and info about their AWS Test Drive Labs is at www.appsassociates.com/awslabs

Finally, one sure place that you can always get the latest information is at our Kiosk #7 “Total Control for Oracle Applications” located in the Applications area of the Oracle Demogrounds. Be sure to stop by the kiosk to speak with our Application management experts.

We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!

Dear partners,

We have a great cast coming up in March and I would like to invite you to join David Callaghan, Senior Vice President Oracle EMEA Alliances and Channels, and his studio guests for the next broadcast of the ‘In Touch’ PartnerCast. We will broadcast on Monday 31st March 2014 from 10:30am UK/ 11:30 CET.

This cast is set to be a busy one as David and his studio guests discuss the following hot topics and latest news from Oracle:

• Platform as a Service
• Infrastructure as a Service
• Oracle Exastack
• Java
• ISV

Ali Hopkins, Vice President Oracle Sales & Strategy,Technology Solutions will also be updating us on the Oracle suggested product combinations that can drive your revenue stream in our new feature: Smart Combos Corner. For more information on Smart Combos, please click here.

We will also be hearing from Rich Geraffo, Senior Vice President, Oracle Global Alliances & Channels, in his exclusive video update for you, the ‘In Touch’ viewers. You can find out more about Rich here.

Plus, we are pleased to announce that David will be joined by Managing Director of inforsacom Informationssysteme GmbH, Rüdiger Rath, to share his experiences and best practices of working with Oracle.

YOU CAN NOW REGISTER FOR THE CAST HERE:

To add event to your calendar, please click here.

With lots of studio guests joining David, why not get in touch on Twitter using the hashtag #DCpickme or by emailing emea-intouch_WW@oracle.com to get your questions featured in the cast!

To find out more information and to watch previous episodes on-demand, please visit our webpage here.

See you there!

Oracle PartnerNetwork

We actually have THREE patches for you:

1. Oracle SQL Developer 4.0.1
2. Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler
3. Oracle REST Data Services, formerly Oracle APEX Listener, 2.0.6

Bug Fixes, Mostly

SQL Developer had a few dozen or so bugs that have been addressed. A few major fixes of note include the new ASH/AWR stuff not working when connected to RAC instances, and the debugger being busted when trying to use watches.

The latest and greatest

The Modeler had it’s fair share of bugs of course. But we also sneaked in a couple of new features

You can now skip partitions and triggers on your Oracle Data Dictionary imports, remove objects from your SubViews, and improved mouse+click+zooming in the diagrams.

Useful when importing tables with THOUSANDS of partitions

Introducing Oracle REST Data Services

Bridging the innerwebs and your data

Oracle REST Data Services (formerly known as Oracle APEX Listener) is a J2EE-based alternative for Oracle HTTP Server (OHS) and mod_plsql.

We think the new name is more descriptive and accurate. There’s no requirement to be an APEX user to have use for REST Data Services. And the word ‘listener’ has a very strong connotation already with the Database Listener. And it’s all about the REST

So get your updates!

This notification describes vulnerabilities fixed in third-party components that are included in Oracle's product distributions.
Information about vulnerabilities affecting Oracle products can be found on Oracle Critical Patch Updates and Security Alerts page.