TEAM’s Collaborate 13 Recap

April 18, 2013

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Collaborate 13 has come to an end and we would like to reflect on our trip to the Denver summit. Aside from the surprise of snowy April weather, TEAM had many great announcements over the week and in case you missed them here they are:

Engineered to Work Together – TEAM Informatics WebCenter Sites Connector v. 1.1 for WebCenter Content

TEAM Informatics Announces Full Life-Cycle, Paper to Paperless Solution, with Gill Digital

TEAM Informatics Announces Growth in North American Public Sector with Continuing Success in Oracle WebCenter

These announcements reflect TEAM’s on-going strategy of providing solutions that get the most out of software, providing all-in-one solution packages, and growing in each vertical with each successful project. Our commitment to our customers is only strengthened by our commitment to Oracle technology.

TEAM also had 4 great presentations: (Click to see the Slideshares)

We thank everyone that attended and TEAM would like to add a special thank you to Todd Matthews from Starwood Hotels for his time and efforts in presenting with us.

It was a great event and we were happy to see so many attendees, customers and partners stop by our booth. Collaborate is not only a great event to meet potential customers and create opportunities, but also a forum to establish strategic partnerships with other vendors. We will see what the spring and summer months will bring and we are already looking ahead for Oracle OpenWorld in September!


WebCenter Sites Connector v.1.1 is Released!

April 10, 2013

By: Scott Olesen – Director of R&D

Our R&D team has been working diligently to improve the WebCenter Sites Connector and version 1.1 has arrived!TEAM WCsites Connector Box

The TEAM WebCenter Sites Connector allows you to leverage the Oracle WebCenter Content enterprise content management platform and deliver centrally-managed content to all your WebCenter Sites deployments. By utilizing the WebCenter Content platform behind WebCenter Sites you can simplify and automate the entire process of authoring, site design, content publishing and deployment, content targeting, site analytics and optimization, and user-generated content for your websites.

The newest features included in version 1.1 focus on scalability and compatibility with the latest WebCenter releases.  The replication rate from WebCenter Content to Sites can be fine-tuned to increase transfer rates during times of lower traffic or during batch loads. Administrators can also choose to perform the replication immediately or wait for the a scheduled time.

WebCenter Sites Connector features include:

  • Enables the Oracle-recommended enterprise content infrastructure to be utilized with WebCenter Sites
  • Full integration with WebCenter Content DAM renditioning
  • Integrated rules engine for easy mapping between WebCenter  Content items and WebCenter Sites attributes
  • Utilizes fully supported WebCenter APIs
  • Flexibility to extend it to map Site Studio webpages to Sites assets.

See the Product Specification Sheet.

Read the Press Release!

If you would like to combine the power of WebCenter Sites with WebCenter Content contact us today!


TEAM Collaborate13 Session Overview: #793 – Web-based Contract Management for Starwood Hotels – A Case Study using Oracle WebCenter

April 4, 2013

TEAM has 4 sessions this year at Collaborate13 in Denver, CO sharing our knowledge and experience to all Oracle developers/users/customers who wish to learn best practices of the WebCenter Suite. The following session is based on our successful project with Starwood Hotels (Sheraton, Westin, FourPoints, etc.) and is presented by Todd Matthews, Associate Director of  Legal and Global Information Management for Starwood and Jamileth Rojas, Account Manager for TEAM Informatics.

Abstract: Managing hundreds of hospitality properties around the world is a difficult task. Starwood Hotels had a need for a content system that allowed them to manage the myriad of documents related to property contract approval, storage and retrieval processes, as well as property life-history, showing all documents for all instances of a property plotted along the timeline – regardless of whether the hotel was company owned, managed, or franchised. TEAM Informatics, an Oracle Gold Partner specialized in WebCenter Content, has been working closely with Starwood for the last 9 months on the development of the system, which is now in production. Starwood and TEAM will be co-presenting an inside look at this successful WebCenter project.

  • Understand the challenges involved in contract and property life-cycle management.
  • Demonstrate a proven approach to utilizing WebCenter Content for management of these documents.
  • Share best practices for hospitality industry.

Catch this presentation Wednesday, April 10, 8:15 am – 9:15 am  Location: Mile High Ballroom 4D

If you would like to chat before/after/or at Collaborate anytime, please contact us here!


Join WebCenter Experts TEAM Informatics at Collaborate 2013 in Denver, CO.

April 2, 2013
 

 

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Collaborate13 is just around the corner, and we want to make sure you get the most out of your visit!

Want to learn how to connect WebCenter Sites to WebCenter Content?

Search WebCenter Content with the power of Google Search?

Upgrade to WebCenter Content 11g with on-demand development support?

Resolve all the questions you have about Oracle WebCenter by joining TEAM at Collaborate 2013 in Denver, CO. April 7th-11th. Stop by our booth #1377 for our product demonstrations and be sure to catch one of our 4 presentations on Oracle WebCenter from our certified experts:

  • WebCenter as a Cloud App on Exalogic – A Case Study on Virtualization and Performance
  • Dealing with ROT – Email Management using Oracle WebCenter Records
  • Web-based Contract Management for Starwood Hotels -
    A Case Study using Oracle WebCenter
  • Records Management for Technologists  

For scheduled times and locations look here. 

Collaborate 2013

April 7th-11th

Colorado Convention Center

Denver, CO

Set up a time to speak with members of TEAM at Collaborate.

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Content-enabling Your Insurance Business Using Oracle BPM and WebCenter Content

March 26, 2013

By: Raoul Miller – Enterprise Architect

TEAM has worked with a number of insurance companies over the years and the advantages of content-enabling these enterprises are numerous.  Many insurance organizations have grown through acquisition with the end result of having multiple parallel systems in place and a lot of complexity integrating them. This makes them ideal for deployment of SOA/BPM as an integration methodology and adding content and records management to this is a no-brainer (as the insurance industry is so document and record-driven).

bpm-diagram-1Last year, Oracle published a white paper (link) on how best to use their BPM (business process management) tools in an insurance industry setting.  I won’t restate all their reasons as to why the Oracle solution is a good fit – but suffice to say that the Oracle insurance business unit has a lot of experience in the area and solutions to meet the needs. However, what was missing from the white paper was the value and flexibility gained by adding WebCenter Content, Records, and Imaging to the mix – integrations on which TEAM is currently working with a number of customers. These integrations allow for secure upload of files from agents’ offices, scanning and uploading of paper forms and documents (using capture and distributed capture), migrating legacy images from mainframe systems to modern Oracle WebCenter Content systems, and users (for the first time) to truly search and retrieve content based on metadata and full text searches.

What TEAM brings to the table is experience and knowledge of content-enabling these processes to provide the best user experience internally and externally, while meeting all security, retention, and legal requirements.  This goes above and beyond the (with the greatest respect) “plumbing” of the solution and brings the experience of multiple deployments, case studies, and challenges to the table.  Most clients will only deploy these solutions once or twice in their career – we do this every day, and have been for over 14 years.

If you are an insurance company (or in a related business), are looking for guidance and assistance in deploying Oracle BPM and SOA within your organization, and want the specialized input of an Oracle Gold partner, please get in touch. We would be happy to discuss our long experience in the field and how we can get your systems fully content-enabled – meeting the challenges of making information available where and when it is needed while meeting all security and legal requirements.


Reblog: When ‘FREE’ costs more in the long run: Why WebCenter often costs less than SharePoint – despite the stunning license price difference

March 20, 2013

An interesting blog post by Oracle Ace, Dmitri Khanine, about the hidden costs of a SharePoint deployment from 3rd party applications, and why WebCenter can be the right choice – costing less in the long run.

“Here’re a few key areas where SharePoint clients are forced to rely on the outside vendors and expensive integration projects – to compensate for the lack of functionality:

  • Reporting, auditing and workflow. While SharePoint offers some basic functionality in these areas, it is vastly inadequate and almost all clients are forced to compliment SharePoint with a mix of 3rd party solutions – for each of these 3 areas
  • Digital Asset Management and Conversion – out of the box conversion to different formats on check in, image and video management and metadata extraction
  • Document capture and scanning support is not included with SharePoint while Oracle WebCenter fully supports scanning.
  • Record Management. SharePoint does not meet the DoD 5015.2 specification, a de-facto industry standard, and is lacking many important features”

-Dmitri Khanine
Credit to Dmitri Khanine

Read the full blog here

Read Oracle’s Whitepaper  “SharePoint 2010 Cost of Ownership: Expect the Unexpected. How Oracle WebCenter Lowers Cost for User Engagement Solutions”

If you would like to have TEAM build your WebCenter Roadmap and show you the cost savings, contact us today!


GSA Connector 2.2.1 is Out!

January 4, 2013

The Hoff Holding the Google Search Appliance

TEAM’s dedicated Product Team is incessantly working on improving the tools we create to help manage your unstructured data. For those who are unfamiliar with the Google Search Appliance (GSA), it is a rack-mounted device that provides indexing of your company’s documents while providing the familiar (yet customizable) Google Search interface to find them.

Five years ago, TEAM wanted to build the connection between Oracle WebCenter Content and the Google Search Appliance (which contains many out of the box connectors, but not for WCC). Soon after, TEAM released the first GSA Connector for Oracle WebCenter Content on the market, and it has been shaped, molded, updated, and tuned to today’s 2.2.1 version.

Some of the newest specs include: (See the Specification Sheet)

GSAConnector thumb2New Features

  • The connector can be configured to index a subset of your Oracle WebCenter Content repository using a configurable metadata filter.
  • Third party applications can now integrate with the GSA and GSA CS Connector using Universal Login. This is done using a pass-through key generated by an administrator.

Improvements

  • Late binding authorization speeds were increased by minimizing the number of security authorization checks.
  • The GSA Connector was updated to support the selection of any option for “Force secure connections when serving?” under GSA SSL Settings. Those three options are:
    • No (Don’t force.)
    • Use HTTPS when serving secure results, but not when serving public results.
    • Use HTTPS when serving both public and secure results.
    • Extended the Content Index Filter to handle more complex queries based on the WebCenter Content universal query syntax.

Issues Fixed

  • Fixed an issue where WebCenter Content was not correctly authenticating a user via ADSI when using the Universal Login.

Stay tuned for Version 3.0 due to come out this January!

If you would like more information on how TEAM can help you connect to and search for your content, please contact us!


Webcast Q&A: ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter

November 8, 2012

Last week we had a WebCast as part of Oracle’s WebCenter in Action webcast series, “ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter“, where customer Joe Lichtefeld from ResCare and Wayne Boerger & Doug Thompson from TEAM shared how Oracle WebCenter is powering and allowing ResCare to solve content lifecycle challenges, reduce compliance and business risks, and increase adoption of intranet as primary business communication tool.

In case you missed it, here’s a recap of the Q&A.

Joe Lichtefeld

Joe Lichtefeld, ResCare 

Q: Did you run into any issues in the deployment of the platform?
A: We experienced very few issues when implementing the content management and search functionalities. There were some challenges in determining the metadata structure. We tried to find a fine balance between having enough fields to provide the functionality needed, but trying to limit the impact to the contributing members.

Q: What has been the biggest benefit your end users have seen?
A: The biggest benefit to date is two-fold. Content on the intranet can be maintained by the individual contributors more timely than in our old process of all requests being updated by IT. The other big benefit is the ability to find the most current version of a document instead of relying on emails and phone calls to track down the “current” version.

Q: Was there any resistance internally when implementing the solution? If so, how did you overcome that?
A: We experienced very little resistance. Most of our community groups were eager to be able to contribute and maintain their information. We had the normal hurdles of training and follow-up training with implementing a new system and process. As our second phase rolled out access to all employees, we have received more positive feedback on the accessibility of information.

Wayne BoergerDoug Thompson

Wayne Boerger & Doug Thompson, TEAM Informatics

Q: Can you integrate multiple repositories with the Google Search Appliance?
A: Yes, the Google Search Appliance is designed to index lots of different repositories, from both public and internal sources. There are included connectors to many repositories, such as SharePoint, databases, file systems, LDAP, and with the TEAM GSA Connector and the Oracle Content Server. And the index for these repositories can be configured into different collections depending on the use cases that each customer has, and really, for each need within a customer environment.

Q: How many different filters can you add when the search results are returned? 
A: Presuming this question is about the filtering on the search results. You can add as many filters as you like and it can be done by collection or any number of other criteria. Most importantly, customers now have the ability to limit the returned content by a set metadata value.

Q: With the TEAM Sites Connector, what types of content can you sync?
A: There’s really no limit; if it can be checked into the content server, then it is eligible for sync into Sites.  So basically, any digital file that has relevance to a Sites implementation can be checked into the WC Content central repository and then the connector can/will manage it.

Q: Using the Connector, are there any limitations around where in Sites synced content can be used?
A: There are no limitations about where it can be used. When setting up your environment to use it, you just need to think through the different destinations on the Sites side that might use the content; that way you’ve got the right information to create the rules needed for the connector.

Please reach out to us to find out how TEAM can put YOUR unstructured data to work.  Read more on the WebCenter Sites Connector by TEAM.

ResCare Solves Content Lifecycle Challenges with Oracle WebCenter from Oracle WebCenter

Getting to Know: TEAM’s Free Custom Component Library

October 19, 2012

Dmitry Shtulman – Program Manager

By: Dmitry Shtulman – Program Manager

We recently announced our free custom component library for Oracle WebCenter Content, but it’s worth taking a few moments to provide some detail on how the library came about and its multi-purpose use at TEAM.  The idea behind the library dates back several years, but for the longest time it was the butt of internal jokes – “Custom component library?  Ha!  We’ve been talking about that for years, good luck getting it done!”  Despite the value we all knew it would bring it was just too difficult to find the time to implement it while we were heads-down on client work.  Finally, in November of last year, I resolved to pursue the implementation with the help of our AC Teams (look for a future blog on that concept!).

There are two views of the custom component library: internal and external. The internal view is comprised of a user interface built on top of our internal content server instance. The second is external and what you see here: a very select and ever-growing list of those components we deem suitable for public consumption. The internal user interface is built using a content server service that retrieves a list of custom components and displays them using an HCSP template.  The page allows users to sort and filter the list and quickly access each component’s readme file as well as additional key data.  The external view is built into our main .com site and exposes components that we think are generic enough and useful to a broader audience. Each month we use the internal library view to find the latest and greatest component to expose on our site. After whittling down the list to a choice few, we perform additional testing and validation on internal environments to narrow the list down to the component that eventually gets exposed. We go through this rigor to uphold our focus on quality over quantity.

The single biggest benefit of the internal view of the custom component library is that it helps answer the age-old question consultants have on each and every project – “has this been done before?” – shortly followed by “how?”  Having ready access to all of the components we’ve previously built prevents us from needing to re-invent the wheel on new projects and saves our customers money when we are able to easily repurpose existing code, concepts, and implementation approaches. This value also extends into the biggest benefit to the consumers of our external library view – they’re getting access to some of our best, tried and true component work. We’ve already had a number of existing and new client downloads since our recent announcement!

Although the planning, design, and coordination of the library involved our entire developer group, the primary charge was led by two of our team captains: Vedran Stanic – who gathered, reviewed and collated the components in our internal repository – and Brad Hickey – who built the interface within our internal repository for a more direct and intuitive end-user experience. The custom component library went live in April, and there are several improvements planned for a 2.0 version. In the meantime enjoy the fruits of our labor on our website’s component download page and be sure to check in every month for something new!


Webcast Series: Oracle WebCenter Content and Oracle WebCenter Imaging for Applications

October 17, 2012

Over the next three Thursdays Oracle is hosting webcasts (register and get more information here)  featuring Jamie Rancourt, Lance Shaw, and Sunthar Tharmalingam from Oracle’s product team to discuss how WebCenter Content and Imaging can add tremendous value to your business processes. Find out how to extend your vision and productivity.  This webinar series has the following topics:

Using Oracle WebCenter to Content-Enable Your Business Applications
Date: Thursday, October 18, 2012
Time: 10am PT / 1pm ET

Optimize AP Processing with Oracle WebCenter Imaging for Oracle Applications
Date: Thursday, October 25, 2012
Time: 10am PT / 1pm ET

Streamline Processes with Oracle WebCenter Content Management for Human Resources Applications
Date: Thursday, November 1, 2012
Time: 10am PT / 1pm ET

TEAM recently announced TEAM Cloud at Oracle OpenWorld, which allows you to deploy WebCenter from our private cloud on an engineered system; saving you time and money.  Read more about TEAM Cloud.

You can follow up with us after each webinar on twitter to ask questions about what you learned. Just follow @TEAMinformatics and direct message or mention our name in your tweet! You can also contact us directly to see how we can join YOUR team to make it happen.


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