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Mark Polly

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Creating Managed Pages in WebSphere Portal 8: First Look

by on May 16th, 2012

I’ve starting playing with IBM WebSphere Portal 8 (see Installing Part 1 and Installing Part 2) and the first task I attempted was to create a new page.  If you haven’t heard, WebSphere Portal 8 includes a new feature called Managed Pages. With this feature, you can create Projects to hold changes to Portal, such as new pages, new content, modified content, etc and publish them at one time.  My goal was to create a new page using a project without reading the documentation.

So the first thing to notice after you log on – as the administrator in my case – is the upper right area in the default theme.

It shows that we are looking at a published site as the screen shot shows.  Next to that is an Edit Mode link.  To make changes to the site, we need to jump into edit mode by clicking the link.

When in Edit mode, we see an expanded window at the top of our page, which lets us work on that page of our site.  You can see a screen shot below:

 

Edit mode window

(more…)

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Posted in Development, News, Technical, WebSphere Portal | No Comments »

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Understanding IBM Worklight

by on May 14th, 2012

IBM’s new Worklight software is a what we call a Mobile Enterprise Application Platform (MEAP).  MEAPs allow you to create exciting mobile applications by integrating multiple existing web and service applications.   Using this approach you can easily deploy one integrated application to multiple platforms and multiple device types.  In fact, IBM Worklight allows you to deliver your applications in four different ways:

  • Browser based – using HTML 5, CSS and Javascript
  • Hybrid Web – consists of web code executed in a native app – the Worklight Shell, which makes your app downloadable
  • Hybrid Native – uses the downloadable app and native language on the device to go beyond the browser capabilities
  • Native App – a pure native app that integrates with backend services

Portions of Worklight are based on the open source PhoneGap tooling which is very popular for creating native applications.

The picture here comes from one of Perficient’s Mobility presentations and shows a generic MEAP platform. Mobile Enterprise Applications Platform diagramThe idea is that the MEAP system enables integration across disparate systems and delivers that integration to a variety of mobile devices.

In the MEAP space, there are several competitors, including Antenna Software, IBM Worklight, Kony, Vervio and others.

IBM Worklight has four main components:

  • Studio – this is the IDE developers use to create Worklight applications.  It is Eclipse-based.
  • Server – this is a highly scalable, Java-based server which acts as a gateway between enterprise apps, external services and the corporate infrastructure.
  • Device Runtime Components – these are client-side APIs that expose device specific capabilities to your mobile application.
  • Console – this is a web-based application that allows you to manage and monitor the platform.

IBM is working hard to deliver Worklight solutions across its platforms.   I commented recently on the use of Worklight with WebSphere Portal.  You can see a demo of Worklight delivering an IBM Cast Iron solution here.  I’m looking forward to diving into Worklight to help our client’s take advantage of this new technology.

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Posted in Development, Mobile, WebSphere Portal | No Comments »

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Installing WebSphere Portal 8 Part 2

by on May 11th, 2012

Well, if you a regular reader of our blog, you’ll know that I started my WebSphere Portal installation (see Installing WebSphere Portal 8) but forgot to check the system requirements.  So I stopped when Installation Manager told be that Windows Server 2003 was not supported.  Well I got a couple of comments that basically said, come on you baby, just go ahead and install it on Windows Server 2003 Server, it’ll probably work.

So I restarted the install. Never mind that I didn’t have enough memory (RAM, not mine).  I accepted the defaults and entered an ID and password for my portal/websphere administrator.  The fixpacks started to download and as I mentioned before, our network seemed slow, so I closed out my remote connection and decided to check back at a later time to see if the install worked.

Ok, the install finished.  Installation manager wanted to know if I wanted to install a profile or run portal. Since I had not read the documentation too thoroughly, I assumed that a WebSphere profile was created, so I chose to just start Portal.  It seemed that Portal was already started, so I simply opened the browser and navigated to  the correct portal page:  http://____:10039/wps/portal.  In the screen shot you can see the initial portal screen loaded.

I checked the logs and didn’t see any major issues there.  Overall, the installation went very smoothly.  Except for the initial worries about disk space, operating system and memory requirements, I went through the rest of the process without a hitch.

So I’m going to start playing with Portal 8 and see how it goes.

 

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Posted in News, WebSphere Portal | 1 Comment »

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Installing IBM WebSphere Portal 8

by on May 7th, 2012

I’ve started experimenting with the new IBM WebSphere Portal 8 (Enable version).  My first adventure that I’d like to share with you was downloading and installing this new version.  I’ve installed previos versions of Portal many, many times starting with version 5.0.  So I jumped onto the IBM website, found the install images and started up the download.

First, the download is bigger than in previous versions.  In previous versions, I downloaded 6 images for a total of around 4gb.  With this version, I had to download 10 images (2 for IBM Installation Manager, 3 for WebSphere, and 5 for Portal Enable) that took up almost 7gb.  I uncompressed all the files into one directory as required, which I called Portal8.

I was installing this on a VMWare server running Windows 2003, which I previously used.  That server had 20gb allocated to it. Well, with Windows taking several gb and the downloaded images expanding to over 8gb, I was under the recommended available disk size for the installation (8gb).  As you’ll see in reading the rest of this port, at this point I should have gone back and checked the system requirements closer.  But I was too excited to start the installation, and unfortunately it takes longer to request a change to VM disk space than I was willing to wait.  I knew that I could run the install from a network drive, but our network seemed really slow for these VMs.

To try to get enough disk space for the install, I decided to install just IBM Installation Manager (IIM) first (146mb on disk), then remove the IIM installation software, which included zip files for all the supported operating systems. On a side note, it would be nice to not have to download all that extra software for Linux, Solaris, zOS, etc. when all I want is a Windows version!  I ended up deleting just enough to get me the available space I needed.

After installing IIM, I had to point to the repository configurations for WebSphere, Portal, and Enable using IIM’s preferences dialog.  Each repository configuration is in a file in the main directory for these components.

I started the installation through IIM, selected WAS, Portal, and Portal Enable to install, and then selected the WAS fixpacks to install from a list IIM presented to me. Funny thing is, IIM showed me fixpacks for all operating systems, not just the one I was running.

Once I deciphered what was targeted for Windows, I clicked next and encountered my first real problem.  I got this message: “A supported operating system was not detected.”

I immediately went to the info center to look at the system requirements.  Sure enough, Windows 2003 is no longer supported.  Windows 7, Windows 2008, and Windows Vista Enterprise are the only versions supported in WebSphere Portal 8.   I guess I should have read the requirements more closely!  (Yes, I’m laughing at me too.)

So its back to square one.  I’ll request an updated VM from my IT people.  This time, I’ll get more disk space along with the correct operating system.  I’ll also make sure they add more memory as the Info Center says that 4GB is now the minimum amount.

Just so you don’t get stuck in this same situation, I’ve summarized the new requirements here.Requirements chart

For the update to this post, where I actually installed Portal 8, see Part 2!

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Posted in Best Practices, News, Technical, WebSphere Portal | 5 Comments »

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WebSphere Portal 8 has finally arrived!

by on May 2nd, 2012

IBM formally posted WebSphere Portal v8 information on their website: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/websphere/portal/.  With this new version, IBM is expanding their portal-based suites to address both customer experiences and employee experiences.  IBM Web Experience V8.0 is targeted toward your extranet audience, while IBM Intranet Experience Suite V8.0 is targeted toward employees.  In addition to these suites, IBM continues to offer the standalone WebSphere Portal Server product.

IBM has put a lot of time and money into improving WebSphere Portal over the past 10 years and v8 continues that trend.  The following updates are major enhancements to the new version:

  • Better integration with IBM Web Content Management:  WCM is truly becoming a integrated part of WebSphere Portal.  New features include Managed Pages where Portal Pages are tied directly to WCM site areas.  The new version creates WCM site areas and content when a new portal page is created.  Portal pages can be included with WCM projects so they can go through approval workflows and get published through the syndication process.
  • A new optimized theme.  Portal themes have been undergoing constant changes in the past versions.  I’m hoping that this latest version is really optimized.
  • New Community Pages that integrate IBM Connections more closely into WebSphere Portal.  When creating a community page, you can specify which Connections community is associated with that page and both Connections and WCM will understand that context.
  • OpenID authentication which lets you use external systems like Facebook to authenticate users.
  • Web analytics overlays allow you to see usage analytics right on your pages without having to generate reports.
  • New installation process using IBM’s Installation Manager.  This feature promises easier and faster installs of the portal servers.

You can see all the new features on this page: What’s new in IBM WebSphere Portal V8.  Thanks to Kenio Carvalho for pointing me to the official IBM Announcement Letter which tells us that you will be able to download the new version starting May 4.

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Posted in News, WebSphere Portal | 2 Comments »

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IBM Worklight and WebSphere Portal

by on May 1st, 2012

IBM recently purchased Worklight to add to its portfolio for mobile devices (see our blog post).  You can see the details of IBM’s acquisition here.  Worklight is a an HTML 5 based product that provides nice integration from your mobile device to your website.

Mobile is a hot topic in the portal world. However, mobilizing portal presents significant challenges.  Screen size is an issue because most portals aggregate multiple content and applications into a single page.  With our mobile device we want to integrate its features into our portal, such as the camera or GPS.   Providing full functionality to mobile devices takes lots of planning and new technologies.

Worklight is a product that provides a hybrid approach to mobile applications.  Hybrid is where you still run your application on the web server, but through HTML5 you can access some of the native features of the device.  This hybrid approach can be a huge benefit to portals because you don’t have to duplicate all its functionality in a native application.

IBM’s Web Experience Factory can use Worklight to quickly develop mobile portal applications that can take advantage of this hybrid model.  Over on the IBM Web Experience Factory blog, Jonathan Booth has posted some screen shots of a hybrid real estate portal.  In this example, he accesses the portal through his mobile phone and sees a nice mobile interface.  Using his phone’s camera, he can take a picture of a property and load it to portal.  Worklight Sample

The original real estate sample that Jonathan shows was built using PhoneGap.  Now we can use Worklight and Web Experience Factory to rapidly build the same application.

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Posted in Mobile, News, WebSphere Portal | No Comments »

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Total Economic Impact of IBM’s Exceptional Web Experience

by on May 1st, 2012

Forrester recently released a study on the Total Economic Impact of IBM’s Exceptional Web Experience solutions.  You can obtain a copy of the full report here after you register.  The study was commissioned by IBM and they did have some input into the study, but the analysis was completed by Forrester.

In the study, Forrester interviewed four actual customers and built a ‘composite’ company on which to develop the TEI.  The resulting composite company was modelled as a large state-based health services provider with greater than $7B in revenue and 3.5M customers.

As you might expect, the study concludes that there is a big ROI of 96% from the examined solution.  This translates into a payback of less than one year.  Benefits come from a variety of both hard and soft sources:

  • Call Center
  • Online appointments
  • Online bill payment
  • Paper mail
  • Online sales
  • Improved document management
  • Customer retention
  • IT cost avoidance

You can read the study for full details.  It is well presented and supported by solid calculations that take into account all potential costs and benefits.

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Posted in Best Practices, Healthcare, News, WebSphere Portal | No Comments »

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Healthcare Portals – Perficient’s Health BI

by on May 1st, 2012

Perficient’s outstanding Healthcare team just posted a video on YouTube that highlights our Health BI portal offering.  You can view the video right here in this blog post.YouTube Preview Image

This system is based on Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and provides very dynamic insight into your Healthcare data.  It is designed for physicians, nurses, hospitals, MCOs, IDMs, ACOs, HIEs, etc.; so it covers a broad range of end users.  The flexible archtecture lets you start small and grow the system as you need it or you can start large and get larger.

At the heart of the system is the ability to pull data from a variety of systems and then using a robust rules engine to present data in an intelligent way.  Unlike some other business intelligence systems that focus on data from their own systems, Perficient’s HealthBI system pulls data from a wide range of systems, including McKesson, GE, EPIC, AllScripts and more.

In terms of measures, the rules engines provides over 600 key performance indicators (KPIs).  These KPIs cover the broad range of measures, including meaningful use, accountable care, operations, finance, JCO, etc.  The system has been ONC certified for Meaningful Use measures and reports for stages 1, 2 and 3.

Using SharePoint’s analytics capabilities, Health BI presents reports and dashboards to see trends over time, by physician, healthcare plans, locations, etc.  You can drill down into the data shown to see underlying data and potentially identify root causes of problems.

Role-based access and security are important parts of any portal and the Health BI portal is no different.  Users have role-based access to the system, so nurses have different views than administrators who have different views than physicians.

I encourage you to look at this innovative healthcare portal and explore the many capabilities demanded in the marketplace today.

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Posted in Healthcare, Microsoft SharePoint, News | No Comments »

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Google Drive to compete with Dropbox, Box and others

by on April 25th, 2012

Google just announced its cloud storage service called Drive that offers 5 GB of free storage, mobile access (except iOS, but coming), and integration with Google Docs. Drive is the latest entry in a growing market of cloud storage providers.  My colleague Michael Porter recently posted a story about VMWare’s plans to create a private enterprise version of cloud storage.

Google Drive seems to be similar to many other services, but it does offer some nice extras such as a search feature.  You can search for your files using a variety of attributes (name, owner, etc) and even perform searches on images or scanned files.  Drive also recognizes 30 file formats, so you can view a Photoshop file without having Adobe Photoshop on your PC.  With its integration with Google Docs, you can upload files to Drive and then collaborate on them with others using Google Docs.

So, now there are cloud storage services from Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, DropBox, SugarSync, Amazon and others.  PCWorld put together the comparison chart shown here that summarizes the major features of each service.  Cloud Storage Services

I’ve used every service listed except SkyDrive and now Google Drive.  I really like the integration of DropBox with apps on my iOS devices, but it would be better if I could sync any of my folders.  I like SugarSync because I can sync any folder on my Mac and I have 50 GB of free storage, but its not integrated with my mobile apps like DropBox.  Box is ok, but it lacks a good Mac client, so I don’t use it much. I’m going to give Google Drive a try when they come out with support for iOS devices.

 

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Posted in collaboration, Mobile, News, sharing | 2 Comments »

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Social Networking Snitches

by on April 20th, 2012

I recently heard on the news that some employers were asking job seekers to provide their Facebook ID and password so the company could see what they were posting.  To me that’s outrageous.  I don’t have anything to hide from my own posts, but who knows what some of my friends might put on my wall.

A new phenomenon (or maybe not so new) is the social network “snitch”.  This is a person with whom you are connected that takes your posts and sends them to your company, especially if you post something negative or derogatory.  In an article online at the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the author discusses this issue in “HR Struggling with Facebook Snitches“.  The focus of the article is to help the HR people figure out what to do when a snitch presents something from a fellow employee.

Philadelphia attorney Eric Meyer is quoted as saying he was shocked by the number of HR professionals who have already had to deal with this issue.  For the HR person, there are legal issues that come into play here as some of the comments may be protected by the National Labor Relations Act when employees are acting in concert.

This is certainly an issue that HR should address with some practical thinking and policies.  If the comment is not serious and doesn’t put somebody in harm’s way, then most of these should be ignored, says Joey Price, an HR consultant.  Still, a recent survey indicated that 60% of the companies did not have in place a social media policy.  If you have a policy, make sure you take into account the “snitch” issue.

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Posted in Best Practices, News, sharing, Social Business | No Comments »

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