Oracle OpenWorld: Oracle Mobile

Mobile has a lot of requirements.  You have to support bring your own device, support multiple form factors, and take into account integration and security.  Any mobile foundation needs to take all this into account.

• 93% of enterprises are concerned with data

Oracle’s moble strategy is built on the following:

1. Build your own apps
2. Use Oracle’s mobile apps
3. Secure everything

Oracle has a LOT of mobile apps in their entire set of product suites.  But you still need to consider the functionality that comes out of the box, it’s compliance with your policies, and the release cycle. That could lead you to build your own with some overlap in functionality.

Oracle’s Mobile Platform lets you Develop, integrate, secure, and deploy/manage mobile apps. WebLogic Server is key to this.  The Mobile Suite lets you use a mobile application framework where development occurs in Eclipse or another IDE of your choice.

As you will see below, Oracle Mobile is a foundational set of tools, SDK’s etc. Other business units within Oracle are using the foundation to create their applications.

How Does the E-Business Suite Use Mobile Services

EBS is buildig a lot of mobile applications on iOS and Android.  These apps include approvals, expenses, timecards, and iProcurement.  The apps will be part of the base license so there is no additional license need.

Development Strategy:

• MAF platform for App Development
  • Use standard UI components
  • Use MAF security infrastucture
  • Use EBS Ui components
  • It also includes some extensions to EBS server or reuse of things like security services, data services, and app security components
• REST/SOAP services infrastructure for Data
• Mobile Foundation for common metadata
• Minimal setup time for administrators

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The EBS mobile development lifecycle

They showed a diagram but it translates to this:

• Identify and create services
• Deploy the services
• Define app security artifacts
• develop the MAF app
• Deploy the app itself

You can call the EBS services or go through the integration layer like Oracle Fusion Middleware.   Even if you use this approach, it will still be secure with the need to authenticate and create a session before anything else can be done.

Future Direction

• EBS Mobile SDK
  • Reusable UI components for customers and partners
• Enterprise deployment options like customization and branding
• Enhanced app security infrastructure
  • push security policies from the server to the client application
  • It’s available today but want to broaden the scope and functionality
• Enhanced mobile foundation
  • things like a push notification framework

Key take aways

• EBS Mobile means Seamless integration with MAF
• The services infrastructure is ready. REST and SOAP is ready to go.
  • SOAP in version 12.1
  • REST in version 12.2

Deloitte Case Study with Mobile

Deloitte built a mobile app for the shop floor that allows you to get around kiosks etc.  This gives you some nice pluses like getting around having to install wifi vs just use a phone network.  You can also deploy iOS and Android devices.   Deloitte’s vision includes the idea that you use this app for multiple ERP integrations.

Using Oracle Mobile Platform, they create a mobile solution.  Key needs:

• Easy to use
• Scalable solution in performance and ability to add functionality
• High performance – no latency
• Leverage standard Oracle functionality and nomenclature
• Support multiple devices

The solution has four major modules:

1. Dispatch list
   1. view reports
   2. view work orders
   3. report time, production, scrap, etc.
2. Transactions
   1. shipping and receiving
   2. complete tasks and move orders
3. Inquiry
   1. view on hand quantities
   2. view item details
   3. review material transactions
4. Request
   1. Run any report label request, or concurrent program

If you create the above functionality then you will need some tools / software.

• Oracle Fusion Middleware SOA suite
• Oracle Mobile platform
• Oracle enginenered systems / Exadata
• EBS

He then showed a live demo of a custom shop floor application with EBS as the backend.  It was a pretty snappy applications.  The UI was decent but the focus was definitely on just getting the job done. i was surprised the overall set of functionality that allowed the user to do quite a few reports, transfers, transcations, etc. Future releases will include a camera based bar code scanner.

More enhancements:

• Support latest version of EBS
• Support bar code scanning
• Cache transactions so the shop floor continues working if EBS is down
• GPS integration: app can derive current location and tell you that you are in the right place on the floor
• Image capture / view attachment
• Lot serial enabled transactions