Search Results

Search found 25 results on 1 pages for 'enriched'.

Page 1/1 | 1 

• What is A Keyword Enriched Article? - And is it Important For Your Business?

  Surely many of you will have the idea about the term "Key word Enriched Article" but certainly many of you will be unfamiliar with this term. So I will try to share my knowledge with you people in simple words. In a simple word we can say articles which contain keywords or key phrases which match the words type in any search engine are Key word Enriched Articles.

  Read the article

• How can I set an image for background of GUI interface?

  - by enriched

  hey everyone, im having some troubles displaying the background image for a GUI interface in java. Here is what i have at the moment, and with current stage of code it shows default(gray) background. import javax.swing.*; import java.awt.event.*; import java.util.Scanner; import java.awt.*; import java.io.File; import javax.imageio.ImageIO; import java.awt.image.BufferedImage; import java.io.IOException; ////////////////////////////////// // 3nriched Games Presents: // // MIPS The Mouse!! // ////////////////////////////////// public class mipsMouseGUI extends JFrame implements ActionListener { private static String ThePDub = ("mouse"); //the password JPasswordField pass; JPanel panel; JButton btnEnter; JLabel lblpdub; public mipsMouseGUI() { BufferedImage image = null; try { //attempts to read picture from the folder image = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResource("/mousepics/mousepic.png")); } catch (IOException e) { //catches exceptions e.printStackTrace(); } ImagePanel panel = new ImagePanel(new ImageIcon("/mousepics/neonglowOnwill.png").getImage()); setIconImage(image); //sets icon picture setTitle("Mips The Mouse Login"); setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE); pass = new JPasswordField(5); //sets password length to 5 pass.setEchoChar('@'); //hide characters as @ symbol pass.addActionListener(this); //adds action listener add(panel); //adds panel to frame btnEnter = new JButton("Enter"); //creates a button btnEnter.addActionListener(this);// Register the action listener. lblpdub = new JLabel(" Your Password: "); // label that says enter password panel.add(lblpdub, BorderLayout.CENTER);// adds label and inputbox panel.add(pass, BorderLayout.CENTER); // to panel and sets location panel.add(btnEnter, BorderLayout.CENTER); //adds button to panel pack(); // packs controls and setLocationRelativeTo(null); // Implicit "this" if inside JFrame constructor. setVisible(true);// makes them visible (duh) } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent a) { Object source = a.getSource(); //char array that holds password char[] passy = pass.getPassword(); //characters array to string String p = new String(passy); //determines if user entered correct password if(p.equals(ThePDub)) { JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Welcome beta user: USERNAME."); } else JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "You have enter an incorrect password. Please try again."); } public class ImagePanel extends JPanel { private BufferedImage img; public ImagePanel(String img) { this(new ImageIcon(img).getImage()); } public ImagePanel(Image img) { Dimension size = new Dimension(img.getWidth(null), img.getHeight(null)); } public void paintComponent(Graphics g) { g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, null); } } }

  Read the article

• Can you recommend a good Idea Management System?

  - by Tedi

  I'm trying to find a good (and cheap) Idea Management System for a non-profit project. I've browsed lot of good options which cost a lot of money. They are probably worth but we're planning to run this as a non-profit project, so unfortunately money investment is not the key strenght. Basically what we want to run is a platform where users can propose ideas that are voted, commented and enriched by the rest of the community. Thanks.

  Read the article

• Enterprise Mobile Apps

  - by Sahil Malik

  SharePoint 2010 Training: more information This is one of those rare occasions when I get to write about what I’m working on in my consulting life. I’m a very lucky guy, I get to work on some very tough and challenging solutions for clients around the world. In working on such problems, I face the best challenges which help me be a better consultant. A better consultant is a better trainer. There is no substitute for real world experience. As an example, Winsmarts started working on a product with Din ERP that would bring ERP functionality into SharePoint. Not influenced by marketecture, and the only driver being success at customer, as an architect for this endeavor, I experimented with and decided against technologies such as Silverlight. We subsequently invested heavily in JavaScript when the prevalent browser was still IE6. It wasn’t easy to create an amazing amount of functionality in JavaScript, but over time we enriched the product and today we have a very compelling Read full article ....

  Read the article

• Partner case - ISE (Germany) - IDS brings light into Investment Controlling with Exadata

  - by Javier Puerta

  (Original post in German: IDS bringt mit Exadata Licht ins Investmentcontrolling) "The amount of data that IDS GmbH (Analysis and Reporting Services) has to cope with daily, is enormous: at the subsidiary of Allianz SE all the services are around Investment Controlling.The company needed an extensible data warehouse solution in which all the data could be merged together, harmonized and enriched. Finally IDS decided for Exadata to be as optimal solution, specifically the Oracle Exadata Database Machine. The implementation was carried out jointly with the Oracle Platinum Partner ISE, who took over the technical and advisory support part and will be IDS´ preffered consultant in any further Exadata development. See how Exadata is used and why this investment has paid off for IDS, by watching watching the following video (in German)"

  Read the article

• Using jQuery to Dynamically Insert Into List Alphabetically

  - by Dex

  I have two ordered lists next to each other. When I take a node out of one list I want to insert it alphabetically into the other list. The catch is that I want to take just the one element out and place it back in the other list without refreshing the entire list. The strange thing is that when I insert into the list on the right, it works fine, but when I insert back into the list on the left, the order never comes out right. I have also tried reading everything into an array and sorting it there just in case the children() method isn't returning things in the order they are displayed, but I still get the same results. Here is my jQuery: function moveNode(node, to_list, order_by){ rightful_index = 1; $(to_list) .children() .each(function(){ var ordering_field = (order_by == "A") ? "ingredient_display" : "local_counter"; var compA = $(node).attr(ordering_field).toUpperCase(); var compB = $(this).attr(ordering_field).toUpperCase(); var C = ((compA > compB) ? 1 : 0); if( C == 1 ){ rightful_index++; } }); if(rightful_index > $(to_list).children().length){ $(node).fadeOut("fast", function(){ $(to_list).append($(node)); $(node).fadeIn("fast"); }); }else{ $(node).fadeOut("fast", function(){ $(to_list + " li:nth-child(" + rightful_index + ")").before($(node)); $(node).fadeIn("fast"); }); } } Here is what my html looks like: <ol> <li ingredient_display="Enriched Pasta" ingredient_id="101635" local_counter="1"> <span class="rank">1</span> <span class="rounded-corners"> <span class="plus_sign">&nbsp;&nbsp;+&nbsp;&nbsp;</span> <div class="ingredient">Enriched Pasta</div> <span class="minus_sign">&nbsp;&nbsp;-&nbsp;&nbsp;</span> </span> </li> </ol>

  Read the article

• We Convert your PSD into Xhtml

  - by Aditi

  From last few months we have been receiving a lot of inquires for  Psd into Xhtml projects, while we were majorly focusing on custom WordPress, Magento, Drupal & Joomla Projects. Now we are offering PSD into Xhtml/CSS service at an affordable price looking at its demand. We also will cater PSD into any CMS, like wordpress, Drupal, Magento or Joomla. Our custom services will continue as it is. It is very convenient to get your design converted by our Xhtml & CSS experts. We assure 24 hour delivery time. At JustSkins, we have a structured conversion model that works well for any kind of potentially enriched web business solution. Our customized slicing guidelines, besides, W3C approved XHTML and CSS code naming conventions makes us stand distinct from the competitors. Why Should You Let us do it for you? W3C Compliant HTML/XHTML and CSS Codes Well Structured and Written Code. Clean and Hand Coded Mark up no use of WYSIWYG. We offer Fast turn around timeDesign converted into Xhtml/CSS just in one business day. Multi- Browser Accessible Websites Cross-Platform Support. Excellent Customer Service. Affordable We at JustSkins are team of efficient programmers with vast experience in templating for   content management systems (CMS),  Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and other Open Source technologies. Contact us today for your requirement!

  Read the article

• Master Data Management – A Foundation for Big Data Analysis

  - by Manouj Tahiliani

  While Master Data Management has crossed the proverbial chasm and is on its way to becoming mainstream, businesses are being hammered by a new megatrend called Big Data. Big Data is characterized by massive volumes, its high frequency, the variety of less structured data sources such as email, sensors, smart meters, social networks, and Weblogs, and the need to analyze vast amounts of data to determine value to improve upon management decisions. Businesses that have embraced MDM to get a single, enriched and unified view of Master data by resolving semantic discrepancies and augmenting the explicit master data information from within the enterprise with implicit data from outside the enterprise like social profiles will have a leg up in embracing Big Data solutions. This is especially true for large and medium-sized businesses in industries like Retail, Communications, Financial Services, etc that would find it very challenging to get comprehensive analytical coverage and derive long-term success without resolving the limitations of the heterogeneous topology that leads to disparate, fragmented and incomplete master data. For analytical success from Big Data or in other words ROI from Big Data Investments, businesses need to acquire, organize and analyze the deluge of data to make better decisions. There will need to be a coexistence of structured and unstructured data and to maintain a tight link between the two to extract maximum insights. MDM is the catalyst that helps maintain that tight linkage by providing an understanding about the identity, characteristics of Persons, Companies, Products, Suppliers, etc. associated with the Big Data and thereby help accelerate ROI. In my next post I will discuss about patterns for co-existing Big Data Solutions and MDM. Feel free to provide comments and thoughts on above as well as Integration or Architectural patterns.

  Read the article

• Executable Resumes

  - by Liam McLennan

  Over the past twelve months I have been thinking a lot about executable specifications. Long considered the holy grail of agile software development, executable specifications means expressing a program’s functionality in a way that is both readable by the customer and computer verifiable in an automatic, repeatable way. With the current generation of BDD and ATDD tools executable specifications seem finally within the reach of a significant percentage of the development community. Lately, and partly as a result of my craftsmanship tour, I have decided that soon I am going to have to get a job (gasp!). As Dave Hoover describes in Apprenticeship Patters, “you … have mentors and kindred spirits that you meet with periodically, [but] when it comes to developing software, you work alone.” The time may have come where the only way for me to feel satisfied and enriched by my work is to seek out a work environment where I can work with people smarter and more knowledgeable than myself. Having been on both sides of the interview desk many times I know how difficult and unreliable the process can be. Therefore, I am proposing the idea of executable resumes. As a journeyman programmer looking for a fruitful work environment I plan to write an application that demonstrates my understanding of the state of the art. Potential employers can download, view and execute my executable resume and judge wether my aesthetic sensibility matches their own. The concept of the executable resume is based upon the following assertion: A line of code answers a thousand interview questions Asking people about their experiences and skills is not a direct way of assessing their value to your organisation. Often it simple assesses their ability to mislead an interviewer. An executable resume demonstrates: The highest quality code that the person is able to produce. That the person is sufficiently motivated to produce something of value in their own time. That the person loves their craft. The idea of publishing a program to demonstrate a developer’s skills comes from Rob Conery, who suggested that each developer should build their own blog engine since it is the public representation of their level of mastery. Rob said: Luke had to build his own lightsaber – geeks should have to build their own blogs. And that should be their resume. In honour of Rob’s inspiration I plan to build a blog engine as my executable resume. While it is true that the world does not need another blog engine it is as good a project as any, it is a well understood domain, and I have not found an existing blog engine that I like. Executable resumes fit well with the software craftsmanship metaphor. It is not difficult to imagine that under the guild system master craftsmen may have accepted journeymen based on the quality of the work they had produced in the past. We now understand that when it comes to the functionality of an application that code is the final arbiter. Why not apply the same rule to hiring?

  Read the article

• XAML RadControls Q1 2010 Official

  Q1 2010 release focuses on strengthening 3 main aspects of RadControls for Silverlight and RadControls for WPF: Ensuring first-class performance for all data-centric controls through various techniques, Enhancing and polishing RadControls themes Providing highly advanced, enterprise-level features, especially for the data visualization controls  We know that performance is crucial for line-of-business applications. Therefore, we always make sure that RadControls can help you achieve unmatched performance and this has always been our number one priority. RadControls achieve unbeatable performance through UI and Data Virtualization, Data Sampling and built-in Load On Demand features. Several of the major controls in the bundles have been enhanced with UI virtualization support Scheduler, CoverFlow and Book. As a part of Q1 2010 we also want to bring an unparalleled visual richness to your applications. To achieve that we have done a major rework of all our themes. We used a uniform templating approach across all controls, streamlined naming conventions for resources and delivered a much more consistent look of the controls along the way. RadControls for WPF bundle has been enriched with two new controls Map and Book.   Another new control has been included in the Q1 2010 release. However, it continues to be in a CTP stage. This is the Transition control. We decided that this is the better way to proceed as we will need some more input from our community on how exactly to develop this control further. Therefore, we will be regularly blogging on the development progress so that we can clearly indicate the direction, in which the control is evolving and gather your feedback on whether this is the best direction. Our Charting controls for Silverilght and WPF have been advanced with major new features such as Data Sampling, Zooming and Scrolling, Automatic SmartLables positioning, Sorting and Filtering and many more. The new built-in paging of the GridView control now allows you to page through your data, thus resulting in an event faster and more responsive grid that can easily handle enormously large datasets. Did you know that DotNetSlackers also publishes .net articles written by top known .net Authors? We already have over 80 articles in several categories including Silverlight. Take a look: here.

  Read the article

• Summit 2014 Registration Is Open

  - by KemButller

  Attention Oracle (employees) Field Team and Oracle JD Edwards Partners REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN for Oracle's 5th Annual JD Edwards Summit - Monday, January 27th through Friday, January 31st, 2014, in Broomfield, Colorado. The theme of this year's Summit is "Success Through Continued Innovation”.  Our goals are to update you on our current and future product roadmap, new products, selling strategies for new prospects, growing the footprint in our JD Edwards install base, as well as providing a venue for networking.  The JD Edwards Summit is to the selling and servicing community what COLLABORATE is to the user community.  This is a MUST ATTEND event if you recommend, sell, implement and/or support the JD Edwards product, whether you are new to JD Edwards or a seasoned pro, an executive, account executive, in presales or in consulting.  The Summit promises a content-rich and unique networking experience for all attendees. Highlights include:  Monday afternoon kicks off the Summit with a variety of workshops as well as an afternoon preview of the Sponsor Showcase.  Start your networking at the Summit kickoff party Monday evening. Tuesday morning features several informative keynotes in the Summit General Assembly followed by key messages delivered in Super Sessions in the afternoon, focused on each of the JD Edwards community audiences. The educational offerings continue on Wednesday and Thursday with over 90 breakout sessions on topics spanning technology, applications (core JD Edwards, Edge, Fusion), Sales, Presales and Implementation. Friday concludes with new workshops for the implementation community.A Attendees will be enriched with numerous opportunities to network with fellow partners and Oracle throughout the week.  Consider bringing your team and using this venue to hold your own organization kickoff meeting prior to or post Summit. Contact Sheila Ebbitt (Sheila.ebbitt@oracle-DOT-com) for further assistance with your planning.  Attendees will be charged a Summit fee of US$ 250. Online registration cut-off is January 17, 2014. All registration requests after that time will be processed on-site at the event with an attendee fee of US$ 500. Please contact Rene Chapman (rene.chapman@oracle-DOT-com) for information on sponsorship opportunities. For further details on the JD Edwards Summit including agenda, workshops, educational sessions, lodging,  sponsors and Summit registration, click here! Register now! This is going to be an awesome event! John Schiff Vice President JD Edwards Business Development 

  Read the article

• The Next Wave of PeopleSoft Capabilities for the Staffing Industry Is Here

  - by Mark Rosenberg

  With the release of PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 in January this year, we introduced substantial new capabilities for our Staffing Industry customers. Through a co-development project with Infosys Limited, we have enriched Oracle's PeopleSoft Staffing Solution with new tools aimed at accelerating and improving the quality of job order fulfillment, increasing branch recruiter productivity, and driving profitable growth. Staffing industry firms succeed based on their ability to rapidly, cost-effectively, and continually fill their pipelines with new clients and job orders, recruit the best talent, and match orders with talent. Pressure to execute in each of these functional areas is even more acute on staffing firms as contingent labor becomes a more substantial and permanent part of the workforce mix. In an industry that creates value through speedy execution, there is little room for manual, inefficient processes and brittle, custom integrations, which throttle profitability and growth. The latest wave of investment in the PeopleSoft Staffing Solution focuses on generating efficiency and flexibility for our customers. Simplicity To operate profitably and continue growing, a Staffing enterprise needs its client management, recruiting, order fulfillment, and other processes to function in harmony. Most importantly, they need to be simple for recruiters, branch managers, and applicants to access and understand. The latest PeopleSoft Staffing Solution set of enhancements includes numerous automated defaulting mechanisms and information-rich dashboard pagelets that even a new employee can learn quickly. Pending Applicant, Agenda management, Search, and other pagelets are just a few of the newest, easy-to-use tools that not only aggregate and summarize information, but also provide instant access to applicants, tasks, and key reports for branch staff. Productivity The leading firms in the Staffing industry are those that can more efficiently orchestrate large numbers of candidates, clients, and orders than their competitors can. PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 delivers productivity boosters that Staffing firms can leverage to streamline tasks and processes for competitive advantage. For example, we enhanced the Recruiting Funnel, which manages the candidate on-boarding process, with a highly interactive user interface. It integrates disparate Staffing business processes and exploits new PeopleTools technologies to offer a superior on-boarding user experience. Automated creation of agenda items and assignment tasks for each candidate minimizes setup and organizes assignment steps for the on-boarding process. Mass updates of tasks and instant access to the candidate overview page (which we also expanded), candidate event status, event counts, and other key data enable recruiters to better serve clients and candidates. Lower TCO Constructing and maintaining an efficient yet flexible labor supply chain can be complicated, let alone expensive. Traditionally, Staffing firms have been challenged in controlling their technology cost of ownership because connecting candidate and client-facing tools involved building and integrating custom applications and technologies and managing staff turnover, placing heavy demands on IT and support staff. With PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2, there are two major enhancements that aggressively tackle these challenges. First, we added another integration framework to enable cost-effective linking of the Staffing firm’s PeopleSoft applications and its job board distributors. (The first PeopleSoft 9.1 Feature Pack released in March 2011 delivered an integration framework to connect to resume parsing providers.) Second, we introduced the teaming concept to enable work to be partitioned to groups, as well as individuals. These two capabilities, combined with a host of others, position Staffing firms to configure and grow their businesses without growing their IT and overhead expenditures. For our Staffing Industry customers, PeopleSoft Financials and Supply Chain Management 9.1 Feature Pack 2 is loaded with high-value tools aimed at enabling and sustaining a flexible labor supply chain. For more information, contact [email protected] or [email protected].

  Read the article

• Part 9: EBS Customizations, how to track

  - by volker.eckardt(at)oracle.com

  In the previous blogs we were concentrating on the preparation tasks. We have defined standards, we know about the tools and techniques we will start with. Additionally, we have defined the modification strategy, and how to handle such topics best. Now we are ready to take the requirements! Such requirements coming over in spreadsheets, word files (like GAP documents), or in any other format. As we have to assign some attributes, we start numbering all that and assign a short name to each of these requirements (=CEMLI reference). We may also have already a Functional person assigned, and we might involve someone from the tech team to estimate, and we like to assign a status such as 'planned', 'estimated' etc. All these data are usually kept in spreadsheets, but I would put them into a database (yes, I am from Oracle :). If you don't have any good looking and centralized application already, please give a try with Oracle APEX. It should be up and running in a day and the imported sheets are than manageable concurrently!  For one of my clients I have created this CEMLI-DB; in between enriched with a lot of additional functionality, but initially it was just a simple centralized CEMLI tracking application. Why I am pointing out again the centralized method to manage such data? Well, your data quality will dramatically increase, if you let your project members see (also review and update) "your" data.  APEX allows you to filter, sort, print, and also export. And if you can spend some time to define proper value lists, everyone will gain from. APEX allows you to work in 'agile' mode, means you can improve your application step by step. Let's say you like to reference a document, or even upload the same, you can do that. Or, you need to classify the CEMLIs by release, just add this release field, same for business area or CEMLI type. One CEMLI record may then look like this: Prepare one or two (online) reports, to be ready to present your "workload" to the project management. Use such extracts also when you work offline (to prioritize etc.). But as soon as you are again connected, feed the data back into the central application. Note: I have combined this application with an additional issue tracker.  Here the most important element is the CEMLI reference, which acts as link to any other application (if you are not using APEX also as issue tracker :).  Please spend a minute to define such a reference (see blog Part 8: How to name Customizations).   Summary: Building the bridge from Gap analyse to the development has to be done in a controlled way. Usually the information is provided differently, but it is suggested to collect all requirements centrally. Oracle APEX is a great solution to enter and maintain such information in a structured, but flexible way. APEX helped me a lot to work with distributed development teams during the complete development cycle.

  Read the article

• ArchBeat Link-o-Rama for 2012-08-30

  - by Bob Rhubart

  Next Generation Mobile Clients for Oracle Applications & the role of Oracle Fusion Middleware | Manish Palaparthy Manish Palaparthy examines some of Oracle's mobile applications, and takes a look at the underlying technology. Master Data Management: A Foundation for Big Data Analysis | Manouj Tahiliani "Businesses that have embraced MDM to get a single, enriched and unified view of Master data by resolving semantic discrepancies and augmenting the explicit master data information from within the enterprise with implicit data from outside the enterprise like social profiles will have a leg up in embracing Big Data solutions. This is especially true for large and medium-sized businesses in industries like Retail, Communications, Financial Services, etc that would find it very challenging to get comprehensive analytical coverage and derive long-term success without resolving the limitations of the heterogeneous topology that leads to disparate, fragmented and incomplete master data." — Manouj Tahiliani Architect Day: Boston - Agenda Update Here's the latest updated information on the session schedule and content for Oracle Technology Network Architect Day in Boston, MA on September 12, 2012. Registration is open, but seating is limited. OTN Architect Day: Boston is being held on Wednesday September 12, 2012, 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m., at the Boston Marriott Burlington, One Burlington Mall Road, Burlington, MA 01803. Integrating Coherence & Java EE 6 Applications using ActiveCache | Ricardo Ferreira The seamless integration between Oracle Coherence and Oracle WebLogic Server "provides a comprehensive environment to develop applications without the complexity of extra Java code to manage cache as a dependency," explains Ricardo Ferreira, "since Oracle provides a DI (Dependency Injection) mechanism for Coherence, the same DI mechanism available in standard Java EE applications. This feature is called ActiveCache." Ricardo shows you how to configure ActiveCache in WebLogic and your Java EE application. Cloud Infrastructure has a new standard from the DMTF "Unlike a de facto standard where typically one vendor has change control over the interface, and everyone else has to reverse engineer the inner workings of it, [Cloud Infrastructure Management Interface (CIMI)] is a de jure standard that is under change control of a standards body. One reason the standard took two years to create is that we factored in use cases, requirements and contributed APIs from multiple vendors. These vendors have products shipping today and as a result CIMI has a strong foundation in real world experience." Oracle GoldenGate 11g Release Launch Webcast- September 12 The new release of Oracle GoldenGate 11g is now available for major databases and platforms. Register for this webcast and live Q&A with product experts to learn about the solution's new features. September 12, 2012. 8:00am AM and 10:00AM PT. Speakers: Doug Reid (Director, Product Management, Oracle GoldenGate), Irem Radzik (Director, Product Marketing, Oracle Data Integration Products) Thought for the Day "[When] asking skilled architects…what they do when confronted with highly complex problems… [they] would most likely answer, 'Just use Common Sense.' [A] better expression than 'common sense' is 'contextual sense'—a knowledge of what is reasonable within a given context. Practicing architects through eduction, experience and examples accumulate a considerable body of contextual sense by the time they're entrusted with solving a system-level problem…" — Eberhardt Rechtin (January 16, 1926 – April 14, 2006) Source: SoftwareQuotes.com

  Read the article

• #OOW 2012: Big Data and The Social Revolution

  - by Eric Bezille

  As what was saying Cognizant CSO Malcolm Frank about the "Futur of Work", and how the Business should prepare in the face of the new generation  not only of devices and "internet of things" but also due to their users ("The Millennials"), moving from "consumers" to "prosumers" :  we are at a turning point today which is bringing us to the next IT Architecture Wave. So this is no more just about putting Big Data, Social Networks and Customer Experience (CxM) on top of old existing processes, it is about embracing the next curve, by identifying what processes need to be improve, but also and more importantly what processes are obsolete and need to be get ride of, and new processes put in place. It is about managing both the hierarchical and structured Enterprise and its social connections and influencers inside and outside of the Enterprise. And this does apply everywhere, up to the Utilities and Smart Grids, where it is no more just about delivering (faster) the same old 300 reports that have grown over time with those new technologies but to understand what need to be looked at, in real-time, down to an hand full relevant reports with the KPI relevant to the business. It is about how IT can anticipate the next wave, and is able to answers Business questions, and give those capabilities in real-time right at the hand of the decision makers... This is the turning curve, where IT is really moving from the past decade "Cost Center" to "Value for the Business", as Corporate Stakeholders will be able to touch the value directly at the tip of their fingers. It is all about making Data Driven Strategic decisions, encompassed and enriched by ALL the Data, and connected to customers/prosumers influencers. This brings to stakeholders the ability to make informed decisions on question like : “What would be the best Olympic Gold winner to represent my automotive brand ?”... in a few clicks and in real-time, based on social media analysis (twitter, Facebook, Google+...) and connections link to my Enterprise data. A true example demonstrated by Larry Ellison in real-time during his yesterday’s key notes, where “Hardware and Software Engineered to Work Together” is not only about extreme performances but also solutions that Business can touch thanks to well integrated Customer eXperience Management and Social Networking : bringing the capabilities to IT to move to the IT Architecture Next wave. An example, illustrated also todays in 2 others sessions, that I had the opportunity to attend. The first session bringing the “Internet of Things” in Oil&Gaz into actionable decisions thanks to Complex Event Processing capturing sensors data with the ready to run IT infrastructure leveraging Exalogic for the CEP side, Exadata for the enrich datasets and Exalytics to provide the informed decision interface up to end-user. The second session showing Real Time Decision engine in action for ACCOR hotels, with Eric Wyttynck, VP eCommerce, and his Technical Director Pascal Massenet. I have to close my post here, as I have to go to run our practical hands-on lab, cooked with Olivier Canonge, Christophe Pauliat and Simon Coter, illustrating in practice the Oracle Infrastructure Private Cloud recently announced last Sunday by Larry, and developed through many examples this morning by John Folwer. John also announced today Solaris 11.1 with a range of network innovation and virtualization at the OS level, as well as many optimizations for applications, like for Oracle RAC, with the introduction of the lock manager inside Solaris Kernel. Last but not least, he introduced Xsigo Datacenter Fabric for highly simplified networks and storage virtualization for your Cloud Infrastructure. Hoping you will get ready to jump on the next wave, we are here to help...

  Read the article

• Gartner PCC: A Shovel & Some Ah-Ha's

  - by kellsey.ruppel

  When Gartner Vice President and leading analyst Whit Andrews kicked off the Gartner Portals, Content & Collaboration Summit on Monday, March 12 at the Gaylord Palms in Orlando, FL by bringing a shovel to the stage, eyebrows raised and a few thoughts went through my head. Either this guy plans to go help the construction workers outside construct that new pool at the Gaylord or he took a wrong turn and is at the wrong conference. Oh and how did he get that shovel through airport security? As Whit explained more his objective became more clear…take everything anyone has ever told you about portals and throw it out the window, as portals have evolved and times they are most certainly changing. The future Web is here, available not only on browsers but also via a broad spectrum of access points, including automobiles, consumer electronics and more and more mobile devices. Not merely prevalent, the future Web is also multimedia-driven and operates in real time, driven by mobility, social media, streaming video and other dynamic services. Applications and user experiences are in the midst of an evolution — from the early, simple mobile Web models to today’s Web 2.0 mobile apps and, ultimately, to a world of predominantly Web apps. Additionally, cloud services will forever change how portals and user experience are designed, built, delivered, sourced and managed. So what does this mean for you? Today’s organizations need software that will enable them to not just do their jobs, but to do it in a way that is familiar and easy for them.  What does this mean for IT? Use software and technology as an enabler, not as a roadblock. Overall, we had a great week in Orlando learning about how to improve the user experience, manage content explosion, launch social initiatives, transition to mobile environments and understand cloud and SaaS options.  We had some great conversations throughout the conference and at the Oracle booth. Lots of demonstrations were given of Oracle WebCenter Sites and Oracle Social Network. And as Christie mentioned earlier this week, our Vice President of Product Management and Strategy for WebCenter Loren Weinberg presented on the topic of customer engagement and talked about how organization’s relationships with their customers have fundamentally changed today and the resulting impact that has on their priorities.  Loren also talked about the importance of customer engagement, why that matters now more than ever, and what you can do to help your company or organization succeed in this new world. The question asked in every keynote and session was a simple one: What is your “ah-ha” moment? I personally had quite a few, some of which I’ve captured below. 70% of internal social initiatives eventually fail. By 2014, refusing to communicate with consumers via social media will be as harmful as ignoring emails/phone calls is today. Customer engagement = multi-channel + social & interactive + personal & relevant + optimized. If people choose to talk about your product/company/service, it's because it's remarkable. -- Seth Godin's keynote (one of the highlights of the conference!) The Web will become the primary method used for delivering content and applications to mobile devices. By 2015, 20% of smart phone users worldwide will conduct commerce using context-enriched services on a weekly basis.  86% of customers will pay more for a better customer experience. 6 P's of Quality User Experience. Product. Enabled by: People, Patterns, Process, Profit, Priorities. Did you attend the Gartner Summit? What were your ah-ha moments?

  Read the article

• Oracle Announces New Oracle Exastack Program for ISV Partners

  - by pfolgado

  Oracle Exastack Program Enables ISV Partners to Leverage a Scalable, Integrated Infrastructure to Deliver Their Applications Tuned and Optimized for High-Performance News Facts Enabling Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and other members of Oracle Partner Network (OPN) to rapidly build and deliver faster, more reliable applications to end customers, Oracle today introduced Oracle Exastack Ready, available now, and Oracle Exastack Optimized, available in fall 2011 through OPN. The Oracle Exastack Program focuses on helping ISVs run their solutions on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud -- integrated systems in which the software and hardware are engineered to work together. These products provide partners with a lower cost and high performance infrastructure for database and application workloads across on-premise and cloud based environments. Leveraging the new Oracle Exastack Program in which applications can qualify as Oracle Exastack Ready or Oracle Exastack Optimized, partners can use available OPN resources to optimize their applications to run faster and more reliably -- providing increased performance to their end users. By deploying their applications on Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud, ISVs can reduce the cost, time and support complexities typically associated with building and maintaining a disparate application infrastructure -- enabling them to focus more on their core competencies, accelerating innovation and delivering superior value to customers. After qualifying their applications as Oracle Exastack Ready, partners can note to customers that their applications run on and support Oracle Exadata Database Machine and Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud component products including Oracle Solaris, Oracle Linux, Oracle Database and Oracle WebLogic Server. Customers can be confident when choosing a partner's Oracle Exastack Optimized application, knowing it has been tuned by the OPN member on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud with a goal of delivering optimum speed, scalability and reliability. Partners participating in the Oracle Exastack Program can also leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready and Oracle Exastack Optimized applications to advance to Platinum or Diamond level in OPN. Oracle Exastack Programs Provide ISVs a Reliable, High-Performance Application Infrastructure With the Oracle Exastack Program ISVs have several options to qualify and tune their applications with Oracle Exastack, including: Oracle Exastack Ready: Oracle Exastack Ready provides qualifying partners with specific branding and promotional benefits based on their adoption of Oracle products. If a partner application supports the latest major release of one of these products, the partner may use the corresponding logo with their product marketing materials: Oracle Solaris Ready, Oracle Linux Ready, Oracle Database Ready, and Oracle WebLogic Ready. Oracle Exastack Ready is available to OPN members at the Gold level or above. Additionally, OPN members participating in the program can leverage their Oracle Exastack Ready applications toward advancement to the Platinum or Diamond levels in the OPN Specialized program and toward achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status. Oracle Exastack Optimized: When available, for OPN members at the Gold level or above, Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide direct access to Oracle technical resources and dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments so OPN members can test and tune their applications to deliver optimal performance and scalability on Oracle Exadata Database Machine or Oracle Exalogic Elastic Cloud. Oracle Exastack Optimized will provide OPN members with specific branding and promotional benefits including the use of the Oracle Exastack Optimized logo. OPN members participating in the program will also be able to leverage their Oracle Exastack Optimized applications toward advancement to Platinum or Diamond level in the OPN Specialized program. Oracle Exastack Labs and ISV Enablement: Dedicated Oracle Exastack lab environments and related technical enablement resources (including Guided Learning Paths and Boot Camps) will be available through OPN for OPN members to further their knowledge of Oracle Exastack offerings, and qualify their applications for Oracle Exastack Optimized or Oracle Exastack Ready. Oracle Exastack labs will be available to qualifying OPN members at the Gold level or above. Partners are eligible to participate in the Oracle Exastack Ready program immediately, which will help them meet the requirements to attain Oracle Exastack Optimized status in the future. Guidelines for Oracle Exastack Optimized, as well as Oracle Exastack Labs will be available in fall 2011. Supporting Quotes "In order to effectively differentiate their software applications in the marketplace, ISVs need to rapidly deliver new capabilities and performance improvements," said Judson Althoff, Oracle senior vice president of Worldwide Alliances and Channels and Embedded Sales. "With Oracle Exastack, ISVs have the ability to optimize and deploy their applications with a complete, integrated and cloud-ready infrastructure that will help them accelerate innovation, unlock new features and functionality, and deliver superior value to customers." "We view performance as absolutely critical and a key differentiator," said Tom Stock, SVP of Product Management, GoldenSource. "As a leading provider of enterprise data management solutions for securities and investment management firms, with Oracle Exadata Database Machine, we see an opportunity to notably improve data processing performance -- providing high quality 'golden copy' data in a reduced timeframe. Achieving Oracle Exastack Optimized status will be a stamp of approval that our solution will provide the performance and scalability that our customers demand." "As a leading provider of Revenue Intelligence solutions for telecommunications, media and entertainment service providers, our customers continually demand more readily accessible, enriched and pre-analyzed information to minimize their financial risks and maximize their margins," said Alon Aginsky, President and CEO of cVidya Networks. "Oracle Exastack enables our solutions to deliver the power, infrastructure, and innovation required to transform our customers' business operations and stay ahead of the game." Supporting Resources Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Oracle Exastack Oracle Exastack Datasheet Judson Althoff blog Connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, OPN on YouTube, or OPN on Twitter

  Read the article

• Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite Now Available

  - by chung.wu

  Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite is now available. The management suite combines features that were available in the standalone Application Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite and Application Change Management Pack for Oracle E-Business Suite with Oracle's market leading real user monitoring and configuration management capabilities to provide the most complete solution for managing E-Business Suite applications. The features that were available in the standalone management packs are now packaged into Oracle E-Business Suite Plug-in 4.0, which is now fully certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. This latest plug-in extends Grid Control with E-Business Suite specific management capabilities and features enhanced change management support. In addition, this latest release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite also includes numerous real user monitoring improvements. General Enhancements This new release of Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite offers the following key capabilities: Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control Support: All components of the management suite are certified with Oracle Enterprise Manager 11g Grid Control. Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Discovery, Cloning, and User Monitoring that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. This feature improves the setup and configuration time to be up and operational. Lifecycle Automation Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite provides a centralized view to monitor and orchestrate changes (both functional and technical) across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite systems. In this latest release, it provides even more control and flexibility in managing Oracle E-Business Suite changes.Change Management: Built-in Diagnostic Ability: This latest release has numerous major enhancements that provide the necessary intelligence to determine if the product has been installed and configured correctly. There are diagnostics for Customization Manager, Patch Manager, and Setup Manager that will validate if the appropriate patches, privileges, setups, and profile options have been configured. Enhancing the setup time and configuration time to be up and operational. Customization Manager: Multi-Node Custom Application Registration: This feature automates the process of registering and validating custom products/applications on every node in a multi-node EBS system. Public/Private File Source Mappings and E-Business Suite Mappings: File Source Mappings & E-Business Suite Mappings can be created and marked as public or private. Only the creator/owner can define/edit his/her own mappings. Users can use public mappings, but cannot edit or change settings. Test Checkout Command for Versions: This feature allows you to test/verify checkout commands at the version level within the File Source Mapping page. Prerequisite Patch Validation: You can specify prerequisite patches for Customization packages and for Release 12 Oracle E-Business Suite packages. Destination Path Population: You can now automatically populate the Destination Path for common file types during package construction. OAF File Type Support: Ability to package Oracle Application Framework (OAF) customizations and deploy them across multiple Oracle E-Business Suite instances. Extended PLL Support: Ability to distinguish between different types of PLLs (that is, Report and Forms PLL files). Providing better granularity when managing PLL objects. Enhanced Standard Checker: Provides greater and more comprehensive list of coding standards that are verified during the package build process (for example, File Driver exceptions, Java checks, XML checks, SQL checks, etc.) HTML Package Readme: The package Readme is in HTML format and includes the file listing. Advanced Package Search Capabilities: The ability to utilize more criteria within the advanced search package (that is, Public, Last Updated by, Files Source Mapping, and E-Business Suite Mapping). Enhanced Package Build Notifications: More detailed information on the results of a package build process. Better, more detailed troubleshooting guidance in the event of build failures. Patch Manager:Staged Patches: Ability to run Patch Manager with no external internet access. Customer can download Oracle E-Business Suite patches into a shared location for Patch Manager to access and apply. Supports highly secured production environments that prohibit external internet connections. Support for Superseded Patches: Automatic check for superseded patches. Allows users to easily add superseded patches into the Patch Run. More comprehensive and correct Patch Runs. Removes many manual and laborious tasks, frees up Apps DBAs for higher value-added tasks. Automatic Primary Node Identification: Users can now specify which is the "primary node" (that is, which node hosts the Shared APPL_TOP) during the Patch Run interview process, available for Release 12 only. Setup Manager:Preview Extract Results: Ability to execute an extract in "proof mode", and examine the query results, to determine accuracy. Used in conjunction with the "where" clause in Advanced Filtering. This feature can provide better and more accurate fine tuning of extracts. Use Uploaded Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate uploaded extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access extracts that have been uploaded. Allows customer to reuse uploaded extracts to provision new instances. Re-use Existing (that is, historical) Extracts in New Projects: Ability to incorporate existing extracts in new projects via new LOV fields in package construction. Leverages the Setup Manager repository to access point-in-time extracts (snapshots) of configuration data. Allows customer to reuse existing extracts to provision new instances. Allows comparative historical reporting of identical APIs, executed at different times. Support for BR100 formats: Setup Manager can now automatically produce reports in the BR100 format. Native support for industry standard formats. Concurrent Manager API Support: General Foundation now provides an API for management of "Concurrent Manager" configuration data. Ability to migrate Concurrent Managers from one instance to another. Complete the setup once and never again; no need to redefine the Concurrent Managers. User Experience Management Enhancements Application Management Suite for Oracle E-Business Suite includes comprehensive capabilities for user experience management, supporting both real user and synthetic transaction based user monitoring techniques. This latest release of the management suite include numerous improvements in real user monitoring support. KPI Reporting: Configurable decimal precision for reporting of KPI and SLA values. By default, this is two decimal places. KPI numerator and denominator information. It is now possible to view KPI numerator and denominator information, and to have it available for export. Content Messages Processing: The application content message facility has been extended to distinguish between notifications and errors. In addition, it is now possible to specify matching rules that can be used to refine a selected content message specification. Note this is only available for XPath-based (not literal) message contents. Data Export: The Enriched data export facility has been significantly enhanced to provide improved performance and accessibility. Data is no longer stored within XML-based files, but is now stored within the Reporter database. However, it is possible to configure an alternative database for its storage. Access to the export data is through SQL. With this enhancement, it is now more easy than ever to use tools such as Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition to analyze correlated data collected from real user monitoring and business data sources. SNMP Traps for System Events: Previously, the SNMP notification facility was only available for KPI alerting. It has now been extended to support the generation of SNMP traps for system events, to provide external health monitoring of the RUEI system processes. Performance Improvements: Enhanced dashboard performance. The dashboard facility has been enhanced to support the parallel loading of items. In the case of dashboards containing large numbers of items, this can result in a significant performance improvement. Initial period selection within Data Browser and reports. The User Preferences facility has been extended to allow you to specify the initial period selection when first entering the Data Browser or reports facility. The default is the last hour. Performance improvement when querying the all sessions group. Technical Prerequisites, Download and Installation Instructions The Linux version of the plug-in is available for immediate download from Oracle Technology Network or Oracle eDelivery. For specific information regarding technical prerequisites, product download and installation, please refer to My Oracle Support note 1224313.1. The following certifications are in progress: * Oracle Solaris on SPARC (64-bit) (9, 10) * HP-UX Itanium (11.23, 11.31) * HP-UX PA-RISC (64-bit) (11.23, 11.31) * IBM AIX on Power Systems (64-bit) (5.3, 6.1)

  Read the article

• Five Key Strategies in Master Data Management

  - by david.butler(at)oracle.com

  Here is a very interesting Profit Magazine article on MDM: A recent customer survey reveals the deleterious effects of data fragmentation. by Trevor Naidoo, December 2010   Across industries and geographies, IT organizations have grown in complexity, whether due to mergers and acquisitions, or decentralized systems supporting functional or departmental requirements. With systems architected over time to support unique, one-off process needs, they are becoming costly to maintain, and the Internet has only further added to the complexity. Data fragmentation has become a key inhibitor in delivering flexible, user-friendly systems. The Oracle Insight team conducted a survey assessing customers' master data management (MDM) capabilities over the past two years to get a sense of where they are in terms of their capabilities. The responses, by 27 respondents from six different industries, reveal five key areas in which customers need to improve their data management in order to get better financial results. 1. Less than 15 percent of organizations surveyed understand the sources and quality of their master data, and have a roadmap to address missing data domains. Examples of the types of master data domains referred to are customer, supplier, product, financial and site. Many organizations have multiple sources of master data with varying degrees of data quality in each source -- customer data stored in the customer relationship management system is inconsistent with customer data stored in the order management system. Imagine not knowing how many places you stored your customer information, and whether a customer's address was the most up to date in each source. In fact, more than 55 percent of the respondents in the survey manage their data quality on an ad-hoc basis. It is important for organizations to document their inventory of data sources and then profile these data sources to ensure that there is a consistent definition of key data entities throughout the organization. Some questions to ask are: How do we define a customer? What is a product? How do we define a site? The goal is to strive for one common repository for master data that acts as a cross reference for all other sources and ensures consistent, high-quality master data throughout the organization. 2. Only 18 percent of respondents have an enterprise data management strategy to ensure that data is treated as an asset to the organization. Most respondents handle data at the department or functional level and do not have an enterprise view of their master data. The sales department may track all their interactions with customers as they move through the sales cycle, the service department is tracking their interactions with the same customers independently, and the finance department also has a different perspective on the same customer. The salesperson may not be aware that the customer she is trying to sell to is experiencing issues with existing products purchased, or that the customer is behind on previous invoices. The lack of a data strategy makes it difficult for business users to turn data into information via reports. Without the key building blocks in place, it is difficult to create key linkages between customer, product, site, supplier and financial data. These linkages make it possible to understand patterns. A well-defined data management strategy is aligned to the business strategy and helps create the governance needed to ensure that data stewardship is in place and data integrity is intact. 3. Almost 60 percent of respondents have no strategy to integrate data across operational applications. Many respondents have several disparate sources of data with no strategy to keep them in sync with each other. Even though there is no clear strategy to integrate the data (see #2 above), the data needs to be synced and cross-referenced to keep the business processes running. About 55 percent of respondents said they perform this integration on an ad hoc basis, and in many cases, it is done manually with the help of Microsoft Excel spreadsheets. For example, a salesperson needs a report on global sales for a specific product, but the product has different product numbers in different countries. Typically, an analyst will pull all the data into Excel, manually create a cross reference for that product, and then aggregate the sales. The exact same procedure has to be followed if the same report is needed the following month. A well-defined consolidation strategy will ensure that a central cross-reference is maintained with updates in any one application being propagated to all the other systems, so that data is synchronized and up to date. This can be done in real time or in batch mode using integration technology. 4. Approximately 50 percent of respondents spend manual efforts cleansing and normalizing data. Information stored in various systems usually follows different standards and formats, making it difficult to match the data. A customer's address can be stored in different ways using a variety of abbreviations -- for example, "av" or "ave" for avenue. Similarly, a product's attributes can be stored in a number of different ways; for example, a size attribute can be stored in inches and can also be entered as "'' ". These types of variations make it difficult to match up data from different sources. Today, most customers rely on manual, heroic efforts to match, cleanse, and de-duplicate data -- clearly not a scalable, sustainable model. To solve this challenge, organizations need the ability to standardize data for customers, products, sites, suppliers and financial accounts; however, less than 10 percent of respondents have technology in place to automatically resolve duplicates. It is no wonder, therefore, that we get communications about products we don't own, at addresses we don't reside, and using channels (like direct mail) we don't like. An all-too-common example of a potential challenge follows: Customers end up receiving duplicate communications, which not only impacts customer satisfaction, but also incurs additional mailing costs. Cleansing, normalizing, and standardizing data will help address most of these issues. 5. Only 10 percent of respondents have the ability to share data that was mastered in a master data hub. Close to 60 percent of respondents have efforts in place that profile, standardize and cleanse data manually, and the output of these efforts are stored in spreadsheets in various parts of the organization. This valuable information is not easily shared with the rest of the organization and, more importantly, this enriched information cannot be sent back to the source systems so that the data is fixed at the source. A key benefit of a master data management strategy is not only to clean the data, but to also share the data back to the source systems as well as other systems that need the information. Aside from the source systems, another key beneficiary of this data is the business intelligence system. Having clean master data as input to business intelligence systems provides more accurate and enhanced reporting.  Characteristics of Stellar MDM When deciding on the right master data management technology, organizations should look for solutions that have four main characteristics: enterprise-grade MDM performance complete technology that can be rapidly deployed and addresses multiple business issues end-to-end MDM process management with data quality monitoring and assurance pre-built MDM business relevant applications with data stores and workflows These master data management capabilities will aid in moving closer to a best-practice maturity level, delivering tremendous efficiencies and savings as well as revenue growth opportunities as a result of better understanding your customers.  Trevor Naidoo is a senior director in Industry Strategy and Insight at Oracle. 

  Read the article

• Augmenting your Social Efforts via Data as a Service (DaaS)

  - by Mike Stiles

  The following is the 3rd in a series of posts on the value of leveraging social data across your enterprise by Oracle VP Product Development Don Springer and Oracle Cloud Data and Insight Service Sr. Director Product Management Niraj Deo. In this post, we will discuss the approach and value of integrating additional “public” data via a cloud-based Data-as-as-Service platform (or DaaS) to augment your Socially Enabled Big Data Analytics and CX Management. Let’s assume you have a functional Social-CRM platform in place. You are now successfully and continuously listening and learning from your customers and key constituents in Social Media, you are identifying relevant posts and following up with direct engagement where warranted (both 1:1, 1:community, 1:all), and you are starting to integrate signals for communication into your appropriate Customer Experience (CX) Management systems as well as insights for analysis in your business intelligence application. What is the next step? Augmenting Social Data with other Public Data for More Advanced Analytics When we say advanced analytics, we are talking about understanding causality and correlation from a wide variety, volume and velocity of data to Key Performance Indicators (KPI) to achieve and optimize business value. And in some cases, to predict future performance to make appropriate course corrections and change the outcome to your advantage while you can. The data to acquire, process and analyze this is very nuanced: It can vary across structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data It can span across content, profile, and communities of profiles data It is increasingly public, curated and user generated The key is not just getting the data, but making it value-added data and using it to help discover the insights to connect to and improve your KPIs. As we spend time working with our larger customers on advanced analytics, we have seen a need arise for more business applications to have the ability to ingest and use “quality” curated, social, transactional reference data and corresponding insights. The challenge for the enterprise has been getting this data inline into an easily accessible system and providing the contextual integration of the underlying data enriched with insights to be exported into the enterprise’s business applications. The following diagram shows the requirements for this next generation data and insights service or (DaaS): Some quick points on these requirements: Public Data, which in this context is about Common Business Entities, such as - Customers, Suppliers, Partners, Competitors (all are organizations) Contacts, Consumers, Employees (all are people) Products, Brands This data can be broadly categorized incrementally as - Base Utility data (address, industry classification) Public Master Reference data (trade style, hierarchy) Social/Web data (News, Feeds, Graph) Transactional Data generated by enterprise process, workflows etc. This Data has traits of high-volume, variety, velocity etc., and the technology needed to efficiently integrate this data for your needs includes - Change management of Public Reference Data across all categories Applied Big Data to extract statics as well as real-time insights Knowledge Diagnostics and Data Mining As you consider how to deploy this solution, many of our customers will be using an online “cloud” service that provides quality data and insights uniformly to all their necessary applications. In addition, they are requesting a service that is: Agile and Easy to Use: Applications integrated with the service can obtain data on-demand, quickly and simply Cost-effective: Pre-integrated into applications so customers don’t have to Has High Data Quality: Single point access to reference data for data quality and linkages to transactional, curated and social data Supports Data Governance: Becomes more manageable and cost-effective since control of data privacy and compliance can be enforced in a centralized place Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) Just as the cloud has transformed and now offers a better path for how an enterprise manages its IT from their infrastructure, platform, and software (IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS), the next step is data (DaaS). Over the last 3 years, we have seen the market begin to offer a cloud-based data service and gain initial traction. On one side of the DaaS continuum, we see an “appliance” type of service that provides a single, reliable source of accurate business data plus social information about accounts, leads, contacts, etc. On the other side of the continuum we see more of an online market “exchange” approach where ISVs and Data Publishers can publish and sell premium datasets within the exchange, with the exchange providing a rich set of web interfaces to improve the ease of data integration. Why the difference? It depends on the provider’s philosophy on how fast the rate of commoditization of certain data types will occur. How do you decide the best approach? Our perspective, as shown in the diagram below, is that the enterprise should develop an elastic schema to support multi-domain applicability. This allows the enterprise to take the most flexible approach to harness the speed and breadth of public data to achieve value. The key tenet of the proposed approach is that an enterprise carefully federates common utility, master reference data end points, mobility considerations and content processing, so that they are pervasively available. One way you may already be familiar with this approach is in how you do Address Verification treatments for accounts, contacts etc. If you design and revise this service in such a way that it is also easily available to social analytic needs, you could extend this to launch geo-location based social use cases (marketing, sales etc.). Our fundamental belief is that value-added data achieved through enrichment with specialized algorithms, as well as applying business “know-how” to weight-factor KPIs based on innovative combinations across an ever-increasing variety, volume and velocity of data, will be where real value is achieved. Essentially, Data-as-a-Service becomes a single entry point for the ever-increasing richness and volume of public data, with enrichment and combined capabilities to extract and integrate the right data from the right sources with the right factoring at the right time for faster decision-making and action within your core business applications. As more data becomes available (and in many cases commoditized), this value-added data processing approach will provide you with ongoing competitive advantage. Let’s look at a quick example of creating a master reference relationship that could be used as an input for a variety of your already existing business applications. In phase 1, a simple master relationship is achieved between a company (e.g. General Motors) and a variety of car brands’ social insights. The reference data allows for easy sort, export and integration into a set of CRM use cases for analytics, sales and marketing CRM. In phase 2, as you create more data relationships (e.g. competitors, contacts, other brands) to have broader and deeper references (social profiles, social meta-data) for more use cases across CRM, HCM, SRM, etc. This is just the tip of the iceberg, as the amount of master reference relationships is constrained only by your imagination and the availability of quality curated data you have to work with. DaaS is just now emerging onto the marketplace as the next step in cloud transformation. For some of you, this may be the first you have heard about it. Let us know if you have questions, or perspectives. In the meantime, we will continue to share insights as we can.Photo: Erik Araujo, stock.xchng

  Read the article

• How I understood monads, part 1/2: sleepless and self-loathing in Seattle

  - by Bertrand Le Roy

  For some time now, I had been noticing some interest for monads, mostly in the form of unintelligible (to me) blog posts and comments saying “oh, yeah, that’s a monad” about random stuff as if it were absolutely obvious and if I didn’t know what they were talking about, I was probably an uneducated idiot, ignorant about the simplest and most fundamental concepts of functional programming. Fair enough, I am pretty much exactly that. Being the kind of guy who can spend eight years in college just to understand a few interesting concepts about the universe, I had to check it out and try to understand monads so that I too can say “oh, yeah, that’s a monad”. Man, was I hit hard in the face with the limitations of my own abstract thinking abilities. All the articles I could find about the subject seemed to be vaguely understandable at first but very quickly overloaded the very few concept slots I have available in my brain. They also seemed to be consistently using arcane notation that I was entirely unfamiliar with. It finally all clicked together one Friday afternoon during the team’s beer symposium when Louis was patient enough to break it down for me in a language I could understand (C#). I don’t know if being intoxicated helped. Feel free to read this with or without a drink in hand. So here it is in a nutshell: a monad allows you to manipulate stuff in interesting ways. Oh, OK, you might say. Yeah. Exactly. Let’s start with a trivial case: public static class Trivial { public static TResult Execute<T, TResult>( this T argument, Func<T, TResult> operation) { return operation(argument); } } This is not a monad. I removed most concepts here to start with something very simple. There is only one concept here: the idea of executing an operation on an object. This is of course trivial and it would actually be simpler to just apply that operation directly on the object. But please bear with me, this is our first baby step. Here’s how you use that thing: "some string" .Execute(s => s + " processed by trivial proto-monad.") .Execute(s => s + " And it's chainable!"); What we’re doing here is analogous to having an assembly chain in a factory: you can feed it raw material (the string here) and a number of machines that each implement a step in the manufacturing process and you can start building stuff. The Trivial class here represents the empty assembly chain, the conveyor belt if you will, but it doesn’t care what kind of raw material gets in, what gets out or what each machine is doing. It is pure process. A real monad will need a couple of additional concepts. Let’s say the conveyor belt needs the material to be processed to be contained in standardized boxes, just so that it can safely and efficiently be transported from machine to machine or so that tracking information can be attached to it. Each machine knows how to treat raw material or partly processed material, but it doesn’t know how to treat the boxes so the conveyor belt will have to extract the material from the box before feeding it into each machine, and it will have to box it back afterwards. This conveyor belt with boxes is essentially what a monad is. It has one method to box stuff, one to extract stuff from its box and one to feed stuff into a machine. So let’s reformulate the previous example but this time with the boxes, which will do nothing for the moment except containing stuff. public class Identity<T> { public Identity(T value) { Value = value; } public T Value { get; private set;} public static Identity<T> Unit(T value) { return new Identity<T>(value); } public static Identity<U> Bind<U>( Identity<T> argument, Func<T, Identity<U>> operation) { return operation(argument.Value); } } Now this is a true to the definition Monad, including the weird naming of the methods. It is the simplest monad, called the identity monad and of course it does nothing useful. Here’s how you use it: Identity<string>.Bind( Identity<string>.Unit("some string"), s => Identity<string>.Unit( s + " was processed by identity monad.")).Value That of course is seriously ugly. Note that the operation is responsible for re-boxing its result. That is a part of strict monads that I don’t quite get and I’ll take the liberty to lift that strange constraint in the next examples. To make this more readable and easier to use, let’s build a few extension methods: public static class IdentityExtensions { public static Identity<T> ToIdentity<T>(this T value) { return new Identity<T>(value); } public static Identity<U> Bind<T, U>( this Identity<T> argument, Func<T, U> operation) { return operation(argument.Value).ToIdentity(); } } With those, we can rewrite our code as follows: "some string".ToIdentity() .Bind(s => s + " was processed by monad extensions.") .Bind(s => s + " And it's chainable...") .Value; This is considerably simpler but still retains the qualities of a monad. But it is still pointless. Let’s look at a more useful example, the state monad, which is basically a monad where the boxes have a label. It’s useful to perform operations on arbitrary objects that have been enriched with an attached state object. public class Stateful<TValue, TState> { public Stateful(TValue value, TState state) { Value = value; State = state; } public TValue Value { get; private set; } public TState State { get; set; } } public static class StateExtensions { public static Stateful<TValue, TState> ToStateful<TValue, TState>( this TValue value, TState state) { return new Stateful<TValue, TState>(value, state); } public static Stateful<TResult, TState> Execute<TValue, TState, TResult>( this Stateful<TValue, TState> argument, Func<TValue, TResult> operation) { return operation(argument.Value) .ToStateful(argument.State); } } You can get a stateful version of any object by calling the ToStateful extension method, passing the state object in. You can then execute ordinary operations on the values while retaining the state: var statefulInt = 3.ToStateful("This is the state"); var processedStatefulInt = statefulInt .Execute(i => ++i) .Execute(i => i * 10) .Execute(i => i + 2); Console.WriteLine("Value: {0}; state: {1}", processedStatefulInt.Value, processedStatefulInt.State); This monad differs from the identity by enriching the boxes. There is another way to give value to the monad, which is to enrich the processing. An example of that is the writer monad, which can be typically used to log the operations that are being performed by the monad. Of course, the richest monads enrich both the boxes and the processing. That’s all for today. I hope with this you won’t have to go through the same process that I did to understand monads and that you haven’t gone into concept overload like I did. Next time, we’ll examine some examples that you already know but we will shine the monadic light, hopefully illuminating them in a whole new way. Realizing that this pattern is actually in many places but mostly unnoticed is what will enable the truly casual “oh, yes, that’s a monad” comments. Here’s the code for this article: http://weblogs.asp.net/blogs/bleroy/Samples/Monads.zip The Wikipedia article on monads: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monads_in_functional_programming This article was invaluable for me in understanding how to express the canonical monads in C# (interesting Linq stuff in there): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/wesdyer/archive/2008/01/11/the-marvels-of-monads.aspx

  Read the article

• Variant Management– Which Approach fits for my Product?

  - by C. Chadwick

  Jürgen Kunz – Director Product Development – Oracle ORACLE Deutschland B.V. & Co. KG Introduction In a difficult economic environment, it is important for companies to understand the customer requirements in detail and to address them in their products. Customer specific products, however, usually cause increased costs. Variant management helps to find the best combination of standard components and custom components which balances customer’s product requirements and product costs. Depending on the type of product, different approaches to variant management will be applied. For example the automotive product “car” or electronic/high-tech products like a “computer”, with a pre-defined set of options to be combined in the individual configuration (so called “Assembled to Order” products), require a different approach to products in heavy machinery, which are (at least partially) engineered in a customer specific way (so-called “Engineered-to Order” products). This article discusses different approaches to variant management. Starting with the simple Bill of Material (BOM), this article presents three different approaches to variant management, which are provided by Agile PLM. Single level BOM and Variant BOM The single level BOM is the basic form of the BOM. The product structure is defined using assemblies and single parts. A particular product is thus represented by a fixed product structure. As soon as you have to manage product variants, the single level BOM is no longer sufficient. A variant BOM will be needed to manage product variants. The variant BOM is sometimes referred to as 150% BOM, since a variant BOM contains more parts and assemblies than actually needed to assemble the (final) product – just 150% of the parts You can evolve the variant BOM from the single level BOM by replacing single nodes with a placeholder node. The placeholder in this case represents the possible variants of a part or assembly. Product structure nodes, which are part of any product, are so-called “Must-Have” parts. “Optional” parts can be omitted in the final product. Additional attributes allow limiting the quantity of parts/assemblies which can be assigned at a certain position in the Variant BOM. Figure 1 shows the variant BOM of Agile PLM. Figure 1 Variant BOM in Agile PLM During the instantiation of the Variant BOM, the placeholders get replaced by specific variants of the parts and assemblies. The selection of the desired or appropriate variants is either done step by step by the user or by applying pre-defined configuration rules. As a result of the instantiation, an independent BOM will be created (Figure 2). Figure 2 Instantiated BOM in Agile PLM This kind of Variant BOM  can be used for „Assembled –To-Order“ type products as well as for „Engineered-to-Order“-type products. In case of “Assembled –To-Order” type products, typically the instantiation is done automatically with pre-defined configuration rules. For „Engineered- to-Order“-type products at least part of the product is selected manually to make use of customized parts/assemblies, that have been engineered according to the specific custom requirements. Template BOM The Template BOM is used for „Engineered-to-Order“-type products. It is another type of variant BOM. The engineer works in a flexible environment which allows him to build the most creative solutions. At the same time the engineer shall be guided to re-use existing solutions and it shall be assured that product variants of the same product family share the same base structure. The template BOM defines the basic structure of products belonging to the same product family. Let’s take a gearbox as an example. The customer specific configuration of the gearbox is influenced by several parameters (e.g. rpm range, transmitted torque), which are defined in the customer’s requirement document.  Figure 3 shows part of a Template BOM (yellow) and its relation to the product family hierarchy (blue).  Figure 3 Template BOM Every component of the Template BOM has links to the variants that have been engineeried so far for the component (depending on the level in the Template BOM, they are product variants, Assembly Variant or single part variants). This library of solutions, the so-called solution space, can be used by the engineers to build new product variants. In the best case, the engineer selects an existing solution variant, such as the gearbox shown in figure 3. When the existing variants do not fulfill the specific requirements, a new variant will be engineered. This new variant must be compliant with the given Template BOM. If we look at the gearbox in figure 3  it must consist of a transmission housing, a Connecting Plate, a set of Gears and a Planetary transmission – pre-assumed that all components are must have components. The new variant will enhance the solution space and is automatically available for re-use in future variants. The result of the instantiation of the Template BOM is a stand-alone BOM which represents the customer specific product variant. Modular BOM The concept of the modular BOM was invented in the automotive industry. Passenger cars are so-called „Assembled-to-Order“-products. The customer first selects the specific equipment of the car (so-called specifications) – for instance engine, audio equipment, rims, color. Based on this information the required parts will be determined and the customer specific car will be assembled. Certain combinations of specification are not available for the customer, because they are not feasible from technical perspective (e.g. a convertible with sun roof) or because the combination will not be offered for marketing reasons (e.g. steel rims with a sports line car). The modular BOM (yellow structure in figure 4) is defined in the context of a specific product family (in the sample it is product family „Speedstar“). It is the same modular BOM for the different types of cars of the product family (e.g. sedan, station wagon). The assembly or single parts of the car (blue nodes in figure 4) are assigned at the leaf level of the modular BOM. The assignment of assembly and parts to the modular BOM is enriched with a configuration rule (purple elements in figure 4). The configuration rule defines the conditions to use a specific assembly or single part. The configuration rule is valid in the context of a type of car (green elements in figure 4). Color specific parts are assigned to the color independent parts via additional configuration rules (grey elements in figure 4). The configuration rules use Boolean operators to connect the specifications. Additional consistency rules (constraints) may be used to define invalid combinations of specification (so-called exclusions). Furthermore consistency rules may be used to add specifications to the set of specifications. For instance it is important that a car with diesel engine always is build using the high capacity battery.  Figure 4 Modular BOM The calculation of the car configuration consists of several steps. First the consistency rules (constraints) are applied. Resulting from that specification might be added automatically. The second step will determine the assemblies and single parts for the complete structure of the modular BOM, by evaluating the configuration rules in the context of the current type of car. The evaluation of the rules for one component in the modular BOM might result in several rules being fulfilled. In this case the most specific rule (typically the longest rule) will win. Thanks to this approach, it is possible to add a specific variant to the modular BOM without the need to change any other configuration rules.  As a result the whole set of configuration rules is easy to maintain. Finally the color specific assemblies respective parts will be determined and the configuration is completed. Figure 5 Calculated Car Configuration The result of the car configuration is shown in figure 5. It shows the list of assemblies respective single parts (blue components in figure 5), which are required to build the customer specific car. Summary There are different approaches to variant management. Three different approaches have been presented in this article. At the end of the day, it is the type of the product which decides about the best approach.  For „Assembled to Order“-type products it is very likely that you can define the configuration rules and calculate the product variant automatically. Products of type „Engineered-to-Order“ ,however, need to be engineered. Nevertheless in the majority of cases, part of the product structure can be generated automatically in a similar way to „Assembled to Order“-tape products.  That said it is important first to analyze the product portfolio, in order to define the best approach to variant management.

  Read the article

• Using an alternate search platform in Commerce Server 2009

  - by Lewis Benge

  Although Microsoft Commerce Server 2009's architecture is built upon Microsoft SQL Server, and has the full power of the SQL Full Text Indexing Search Platform, there are time however when you may require a richer or alternate search platform. One of these scenarios if when you want to implement a faceted (refinement) search into your site, which provides dynamic refinements based on the search results dataset. Faceted search is becoming popular in most online retail environments as a way of providing an enhanced user experience when browsing a larger catalogue. This is powerful for two reasons, firstly with a traditional search it is down to a user to think of a search term suitable for the product they are trying to find. This typically will not return similar products or help in any way to refine a larger dataset. Faceted searches on the other hand provide a comprehensive list of product properties, grouped together by similarity to help the user narrow down the results returned, as the user progressively restricts the search criteria by selecting additional criteria to search again, these facets needs to continually refresh. The whole experience allows users to explore alternate brands, price-ranges, or find products they hadn't initially thought of or where looking for in a bid to enhance cross sell in the retail environment. The second advantage of this type of search from a business perspective is also to harvest the search result to start to profile your user. Even though anonymous users may routinely visit your site, and will not necessarily register or complete a transaction to build up marketing data- profiling, you can still achieve the same result by recording search facets used within the search sequence. Below is a faceted search scenario generated from eBay using the search term "server". By creating a search profile of clicking through Computer & Networking -> Servers -> Dell - > New and recording this information against my user profile you can start to predict with a lot more certainty what types of products I am interested in. This will allow you to apply shopping-cart analysis against your search data and provide great cross-sale or advertising opportunity, or personalise the user experience based on your prediction of what the user may be interested in. This type of search is extremely beneficial in e-Commerce environments but achieving it out of the box with Commerce Server and SQL Full Text indexing can be challenging. In many deployments it is often easier to use an alternate search platform such as Microsoft's FAST, Apache SOLR, or Endecca, however you still want these products to integrate natively into Commerce Server to ensure that up-to-date inventory information is presented, profile information is generated, and you provide a consistant API. To do so we make the most of the Commerce Server extensibilty points called operation sequence components. In this example I will be talking about Apache Solr hosted on Apache Tomcat, in this specific example I have used the SolrNet C# library to interface to the Java platform. Also I am not going to talk about Solr configuration of indexing – but in a production envionrment this would typically happen by using Powershell to call the Commerce Server management webservice to export your catalog as XML, apply an XSLT transform to the file to make it conform to SOLR and use a simple HTTP Post to send it to the search enginge for indexing. Essentially a sequance component is a step in a serial workflow used to call a data repository (which in most cases is usually the Commerce Server pipelines or databases) and map to and from a Commerce Entity object whilst enforcing any business rules. So the first step in the process is to add a new class library to your existing Commerce Server site. You will need to use a new library as Sequence Components will need to be strongly named to be deployed. Once you are inside of your new project, add a new class file and add a reference to the Microsoft.Commerce.Providers, Microsoft.Commerce.Contracts and the Microsoft.Commerce.Broker assemblies. Now make your new class derive from the base object Microsoft.Commerce.Providers.Components.OperationSequanceComponent and overide the ExecuteQueryMethod. Your screen will then look something similar ot this: As all we are doing on this component is conducting a search we are only interested in the ExecuteQuery method. This method accepts three arguments, queryOperation, operationCache, and response. The queryOperation will be the object in which we receive our search parameters, the cache allows access to the Commerce Server cache allowing us to store regulary accessed information, and the response object is the object which we will return the result of our search upon. Inside this method is simply where we are going to inject our logic for our third party search platform. As I am not going to explain the inner-workings of actually making a SOLR call, I'll simply provide the sample code here. I would highly recommend however looking at the SolrNet wiki as they have some great explinations of how the API works. What you will find however is that there are some further extensions required when attempting to integrate a custom search provider. Firstly you out of the box the CommerceQueryOperation you will receive into the method when conducting a search against a catalog is specifically geared towards a SQL Full Text Search with properties such as a Where clause. To make the operation you receive more relevant you will need to create another class, this time derived from Microsoft.Commerce.Contract.Messages.CommerceSearchCriteria and within this you need to detail the properties you will require to allow you to submit as parameters to the SOLR search API. My exmaple looks like this: [DataContract(Namespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/microsoft-multi-channel-commerce-foundation/types/2008/03")] public class CommerceCatalogSolrSearch : CommerceSearchCriteria { private Dictionary<string, string> _facetQueries;   public CommerceCatalogSolrSearch() { _facetQueries = new Dictionary<String, String>();   }     public Dictionary<String, String> FacetQueries { get { return _facetQueries; } set { _facetQueries = value; } }   public String SearchPhrase{ get; set; } public int PageIndex { get; set; } public int PageSize { get; set; } public IEnumerable<String> Facets { get; set; }   public string Sort { get; set; }   public new int FirstItemIndex { get { return (PageIndex-1)*PageSize; } }   public int LastItemIndex { get { return FirstItemIndex + PageSize; } } }  To allow you to construct a CommerceQueryOperation call within the API you will also need to construct another class to derived from Microsoft.Commerce.Common.MessageBuilders.CommerceSearchCriteriaBuilder and is simply used to construct an instance of the CommerceQueryOperation you have just created and expose the properties you want set. My Message builder looks like this: public class CommerceCatalogSolrSearchBuilder : CommerceSearchCriteriaBuilder { private CommerceCatalogSolrSearch _solrSearch;   public CommerceCatalogSolrSearchBuilder() { _solrSearch = new CommerceCatalogSolrSearch(); }   public String SearchPhrase { get { return _solrSearch.SearchPhrase; } set { _solrSearch.SearchPhrase = value; } }   public int PageIndex { get { return _solrSearch.PageIndex; } set { _solrSearch.PageIndex = value; } }   public int PageSize { get { return _solrSearch.PageSize; } set { _solrSearch.PageSize = value; } }   public Dictionary<String,String> FacetQueries { get { return _solrSearch.FacetQueries; } set { _solrSearch.FacetQueries = value; } }   public String[] Facets { get { return _solrSearch.Facets.ToArray(); } set { _solrSearch.Facets = value; } } public override CommerceSearchCriteria ToSearchCriteria() { return _solrSearch; } }  Once you have these two classes in place you can now safely cast the CommerceOperation you receive as an argument of the overidden ExecuteQuery method in the SequenceComponent to the CommerceCatalogSolrSearch operation you have just created, e.g. public CommerceCatalogSolrSearch TryGetSearchCriteria(CommerceOperation operation) { var searchCriteria = operation as CommerceQueryOperation; if (searchCriteria == null) throw new Exception("No search criteria present");   var local = (CommerceCatalogSolrSearch) searchCriteria.SearchCriteria; if (local == null) throw new Exception("Unexpected Search Criteria in Operation");   return local; }  Now you have all of your search parameters present, you can go off an call the external search platform API. You will of-course get proprietry objects returned, so the next step in the process is to convert the results being returned back into CommerceEntities. You do this via another extensibility point within the Commerce Server API called translatators. Translators are another separate class, this time derived inheriting the interface Microsoft.Commerce.Providers.Translators.IToCommerceEntityTranslator . As you can imaginge this interface is specific for the conversion of the object TO a CommerceEntity, you will need to implement a separate interface if you also need to go in the opposite direction. If you implement the required method for the interace you will get a single translate method which has a source onkect, destination CommerceEntity, and a collection of properties as arguments. For simplicity sake in this example I have hard-coded the mappings, however best practice would dictate you map the objects using your metadatadefintions.xml file . Once complete your translator would look something like the following: public class SolrEntityTranslator : IToCommerceEntityTranslator { #region IToCommerceEntityTranslator Members   public void Translate(object source, CommerceEntity destinationCommerceEntity, CommercePropertyCollection propertiesToReturn) { if (source.GetType().Equals(typeof (SearchProduct))) { var searchResult = (SearchProduct) source;   destinationCommerceEntity.Id = searchResult.ProductId; destinationCommerceEntity.SetPropertyValue("DisplayName", searchResult.Title); destinationCommerceEntity.ModelName = "Product";   } }  Once you have a translator in place you can then safely map the results of your search platform into Commerce Entities and attach them on to the CommerceResponse object in a fashion similar to this: foreach (SearchProduct result in matchingProducts) { var destinationEntity = new CommerceEntity(_returnModelName);   Translator.ToCommerceEntity(result, destinationEntity, _queryOperation.Model.Properties); response.CommerceEntities.Add(destinationEntity); }  In SOLR I actually have two objects being returned – a product, and a collection of facets so I have an additional translator for facet (which maps to a custom facet CommerceEntity) and my facet response from SOLR is passed into the Translator helper class seperatley. When all of this is pieced together you have sucessfully completed the extensiblity point coding. You would have created a new OperationSequanceComponent, a custom SearchCritiera object and message builder class, and translators to convert the objects into Commerce Entities. Now you simply need to configure them, and can start calling them in your code. Make sure you sign you assembly, compile it and identiy its signature. Next you need to put this a reference of your new assembly into the Channel.Config configuration file replacing that of the existing SQL Full Text component: You will also need to add your translators to the Translators node of your Channel.Config too: Lastly add any custom CommerceEntities you have developed to your MetaDataDefintions.xml file. Your configuration is now complete, and you should now be able to happily make a call to the Commerce Foundation API, which will act as a proxy to your third party search platform and return back CommerceEntities of your search results. If you require data to be enriched, or logged, or any other logic applied then simply add further sequence components into the OperationSequence (obviously keeping the search response first) to the node of your Channel.Config file. Now to call your code you simply request it as per any other CommerceQuery operation, but taking into account you may be receiving multiple types of CommerceEntity returned: public KeyValuePair<FacetCollection ,List<Product>> DoFacetedProductQuerySearch(string searchPhrase, string orderKey, string sortOrder, int recordIndex, int recordsPerPage, Dictionary<string, string> facetQueries, out int totalItemCount) { var products = new List<Product>(); var query = new CommerceQuery<CatalogEntity, CommerceCatalogSolrSearchBuilder>();   query.SearchCriteria.PageIndex = recordIndex; query.SearchCriteria.PageSize = recordsPerPage; query.SearchCriteria.SearchPhrase = searchPhrase; query.SearchCriteria.FacetQueries = facetQueries;     totalItemCount = 0; CommerceResponse response = SiteContext.ProcessRequest(query.ToRequest()); var queryResponse = response.OperationResponses[0] as CommerceQueryOperationResponse;   // No results. Return the empty list if (queryResponse != null && queryResponse.CommerceEntities.Count == 0) return new KeyValuePair<FacetCollection, List<Product>>();   totalItemCount = (int)queryResponse.TotalItemCount;   // Prepare a multi-operation to retrieve the product variants var multiOperation = new CommerceMultiOperation();     //Add products to results foreach (Product product in queryResponse.CommerceEntities.Where(x => x.ModelName == "Product")) { var productQuery = new CommerceQuery<Product>(Product.ModelNameDefinition); productQuery.SearchCriteria.Model.Id = product.Id; productQuery.SearchCriteria.Model.CatalogId = product.CatalogId;   var variantQuery = new CommerceQueryRelatedItem<Variant>(Product.RelationshipName.Variants);   productQuery.RelatedOperations.Add(variantQuery);   multiOperation.Add(productQuery); }   CommerceResponse variantsResponse = SiteContext.ProcessRequest(multiOperation.ToRequest()); foreach (CommerceQueryOperationResponse queryOpResponse in variantsResponse.OperationResponses) { if (queryOpResponse.CommerceEntities.Count() > 0) products.Add(queryOpResponse.CommerceEntities[0]); }   //Get facet collection FacetCollection facetCollection = queryResponse.CommerceEntities.Where(x => x.ModelName == "FacetCollection").FirstOrDefault();     return new KeyValuePair<FacetCollection, List<Product>>(facetCollection, products); }    ..And that is it – simply a few classes and some configuration will allow you to extend the Commerce Server query operations to call a third party search platform, whilst still maintaing a unifed API in the remainder of your code. This logic stands for any extensibility within CommerceServer, which requires excution in a serial fashioon such as call to LOB systems or web service to validate or enrich data. Feel free to use this example on other applications, and if you have any questions please feel free to e-mail and I'll help out where I can!

  Read the article

• ASP.NET Creating a Rich Repeater, DataBind wiping out custom added controls...

  - by tonyellard

  So...I had this clever idea that I'd create my own Repeater control that implements paging and sorting by inheriting from Repeater and extending it's capabilities. I found some information and bits and pieces on how to go about this and everything seemed ok... I created a WebControlLibrary to house my custom controls. Along with the enriched repeater, I created a composite control that would act as the "pager bar", having forward, back and page selection. My pager bar works 100% on it's own, properly firing a paged changed event when the user interacts with it. The rich repeater databinds without issue, but when the databind fires (when I call base.databind()), the control collection is cleared out and my pager bars are removed. This screws up the viewstate for the pager bars making them unable to fire their events properly or maintain their state. I've tried adding the controls back to the collection after base.databind() fires, but that doesn't solve the issue. I start to get very strange results including problems with altering the hierarchy of the control tree (resolved by adding [ViewStateModeById]). Before I go back to the drawing board and create a second composite control which contains a repeater and the pager bars (so that the repeater isn't responsible for the pager bars viewstate) are there any thoughts about how to resolve the issue? In the interest of share and share alike, the code for the repeater itself is below, the pagerbars aren't as significant as the issue is really the maintaining of state for any additional child controls. (forgive the roughness of some of the code...it's still a work in progress) using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Text; using System.Data; using System.Web; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; [ViewStateModeById] public class SortablePagedRepeater : Repeater, INamingContainer { private SuperRepeaterPagerBar topBar = new SuperRepeaterPagerBar(); private SuperRepeaterPagerBar btmBar = new SuperRepeaterPagerBar(); protected override void OnInit(EventArgs e) { Page.RegisterRequiresControlState(this); InitializeControls(); base.OnInit(e); EnsureChildControls(); } protected void InitializeControls() { topBar.ID = this.ID + "__topPagerBar"; topBar.NumberOfPages = this._currentProperties.numOfPages; topBar.CurrentPage = this.CurrentPageNumber; topBar.PageChanged += new SuperRepeaterPagerBar.PageChangedEventHandler(PageChanged); btmBar.ID = this.ID + "__btmPagerBar"; btmBar.NumberOfPages = this._currentProperties.numOfPages; btmBar.CurrentPage = this.CurrentPageNumber; btmBar.PageChanged += new SuperRepeaterPagerBar.PageChangedEventHandler(PageChanged); } protected override void CreateChildControls() { EnsureDataBound(); this.Controls.Add(topBar); this.Controls.Add(btmBar); //base.CreateChildControls(); } private void PageChanged(object sender, int newPage) { this.CurrentPageNumber = newPage; } public override void DataBind() { //pageDataSource(); //DataBind removes all controls from control collection... base.DataBind(); Controls.Add(topBar); Controls.Add(btmBar); } private void pageDataSource() { //Create paged data source PagedDataSource pds = new PagedDataSource(); pds.PageSize = this.ItemsPerPage; pds.AllowPaging = true; // first get a PagedDataSource going and perform sort if possible... if (base.DataSource is System.Collections.IEnumerable) { pds.DataSource = (System.Collections.IEnumerable)base.DataSource; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataView) { DataView data = (DataView)DataSource; if (this.SortBy != null && data.Table.Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Table.Rows; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataTable) { DataTable data = (DataTable)DataSource; if (this.SortBy != null && data.Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.DefaultView; } else if (base.DataSource is System.Data.DataSet) { DataSet data = (DataSet)DataSource; if (base.DataMember != null && data.Tables.Contains(base.DataMember)) { if (this.SortBy != null && data.Tables[base.DataMember].Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Tables[base.DataMember].DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Tables[base.DataMember].DefaultView; } else if (data.Tables.Count > 0) { if (this.SortBy != null && data.Tables[0].Columns.Contains(this.SortBy)) { data.Tables[0].DefaultView.Sort = this.SortBy; } pds.DataSource = data.Tables[0].DefaultView; } else { throw new Exception("DataSet doesn't have any tables."); } } else if (base.DataSource == null) { // don't do anything? } else { throw new Exception("DataSource must be of type System.Collections.IEnumerable. The DataSource you provided is of type " + base.DataSource.GetType().ToString()); } if (pds != null && base.DataSource != null) { //Make sure that the page doesn't exceed the maximum number of pages //available if (this.CurrentPageNumber >= pds.PageCount) { this.CurrentPageNumber = pds.PageCount - 1; } //Set up paging values... btmBar.CurrentPage = topBar.CurrentPage = pds.CurrentPageIndex = this.CurrentPageNumber; this._currentProperties.numOfPages = btmBar.NumberOfPages = topBar.NumberOfPages = pds.PageCount; base.DataSource = pds; } } public override object DataSource { get { return base.DataSource; } set { //init(); //reset paging/sorting values since we've potentially changed data sources. base.DataSource = value; pageDataSource(); } } protected override void Render(HtmlTextWriter writer) { topBar.RenderControl(writer); base.Render(writer); btmBar.RenderControl(writer); } [Serializable] protected struct CurrentProperties { public int pageNum; public int itemsPerPage; public int numOfPages; public string sortBy; public bool sortDir; } protected CurrentProperties _currentProperties = new CurrentProperties(); protected override object SaveControlState() { return this._currentProperties; } protected override void LoadControlState(object savedState) { this._currentProperties = (CurrentProperties)savedState; } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue("")] [Localizable(false)] public string SortBy { get { return this._currentProperties.sortBy; } set { //If sorting by the same column, swap the sort direction. if (this._currentProperties.sortBy == value) { this.SortAscending = !this.SortAscending; } else { this.SortAscending = true; } this._currentProperties.sortBy = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(true)] [Localizable(false)] public bool SortAscending { get { return this._currentProperties.sortDir; } set { this._currentProperties.sortDir = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(25)] [Localizable(false)] public int ItemsPerPage { get { return this._currentProperties.itemsPerPage; } set { this._currentProperties.itemsPerPage = value; } } [Category("Status")] [Browsable(true)] [NotifyParentProperty(true)] [DefaultValue(1)] [Localizable(false)] public int CurrentPageNumber { get { return this._currentProperties.pageNum; } set { this._currentProperties.pageNum = value; pageDataSource(); } } }

  Read the article

• how to use kml file in my code..

  - by zjm1126

  i download a kml file : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2"> <Document> <Style id="transGreenPoly"> <LineStyle> <width>1.5</width> </LineStyle> <PolyStyle> <color>7d00ff00</color> </PolyStyle> </Style> <Style id="transYellowPoly"> <LineStyle> <width>1.5</width> </LineStyle> <PolyStyle> <color>7d00ffff</color> </PolyStyle> </Style> <Style id="transRedPoly"> <LineStyle> <width>1.5</width> </LineStyle> <PolyStyle> <color>7d0000ff</color> </PolyStyle> </Style> <Style id="transBluePoly"> <LineStyle> <width>1.5</width> </LineStyle> <PolyStyle> <color>7dff0000</color> </PolyStyle> </Style> <Folder> <name>Placemarks</name> <open>0</open> <Placemark> <name>Simple placemark</name> <description>Attached to the ground. Intelligently places itself at the height of the underlying terrain.</description> <Point> <coordinates>-122.0822035425683,37.42228990140251,0</coordinates> </Point> </Placemark> <Placemark> <name>Descriptive HTML</name> <description><![CDATA[Click on the blue link!<br/><br/> Placemark descriptions can be enriched by using many standard HTML tags.<br/> For example: <hr/> Styles:<br/> <i>Italics</i>, <b>Bold</b>, <u>Underlined</u>, <s>Strike Out</s>, subscript_subscript, superscript^superscript, <big>Big</big>, <small>Small</small>, <tt>Typewriter</tt>, <em>Emphasized</em>, <strong>Strong</strong>, <code>Code</code> <hr/> Fonts:<br/> <font color="red">red by name</font>, <font color="#408010">leaf green by hexadecimal RGB</font> <br/> <font size=1>size 1</font>, <font size=2>size 2</font>, <font size=3>size 3</font>, <font size=4>size 4</font>, <font size=5>size 5</font>, <font size=6>size 6</font>, <font size=7>size 7</font> <br/> <font face=times>Times</font>, <font face=verdana>Verdana</font>, <font face=arial>Arial</font><br/> <hr/> Links: <br/> <a href="http://earth.google.com/">Google Earth!</a> <br/> or: Check out our website at www.google.com <hr/> Alignment:<br/> <p align=left>left</p> <p align=center>center</p> <p align=right>right</p> <hr/> Ordered Lists:<br/> <ol><li>First</li><li>Second</li><li>Third</li></ol> <ol type="a"><li>First</li><li>Second</li><li>Third</li></ol> <ol type="A"><li>First</li><li>Second</li><li>Third</li></ol> <hr/> Unordered Lists:<br/> <ul><li>A</li><li>B</li><li>C</li></ul> <ul type="circle"><li>A</li><li>B</li><li>C</li></ul> <ul type="square"><li>A</li><li>B</li><li>C</li></ul> <hr/> Definitions:<br/> <dl> <dt>Google:</dt><dd>The best thing since sliced bread</dd> </dl> <hr/> Centered:<br/><center> Time present and time past<br/> Are both perhaps present in time future,<br/> And time future contained in time past.<br/> If all time is eternally present<br/> All time is unredeemable.<br/> </center> <hr/> Block Quote: <br/> <blockquote> We shall not cease from exploration<br/> And the end of all our exploring<br/> Will be to arrive where we started<br/> And know the place for the first time.<br/> <i>-- T.S. Eliot</i> </blockquote> <br/> <hr/> Headings:<br/> <h1>Header 1</h1> <h2>Header 2</h2> <h3>Header 3</h3> <h3>Header 4</h4> <h3>Header 5</h5> <hr/> Images:<br/> <i>Remote image</i><br/> <img src="http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/googleSample.png"><br/> <i>Scaled image</i><br/> <img src="http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/googleSample.png" width=100><br/> <hr/> Simple Tables:<br/> <table border="1" padding="1"> <tr><td>1</td><td>2</td><td>3</td><td>4</td><td>5</td></tr> <tr><td>a</td><td>b</td><td>c</td><td>d</td><td>e</td></tr> </table> <br/>]]></description> <Point> <coordinates>-122,37,0</coordinates> </Point> </Placemark> </Folder> <Folder> <name>Google Campus - Polygons</name> <open>0</open> <description>A collection showing how easy it is to create 3-dimensional buildings</description> <Placemark> <name>Building 40</name> <styleUrl>#transRedPoly</styleUrl> <Polygon> <extrude>1</extrude> <altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode> <outerBoundaryIs> <LinearRing> <coordinates> -122.0848938459612,37.42257124044786,17 -122.0849580979198,37.42211922626856,17 -122.0847469573047,37.42207183952619,17 -122.0845725380962,37.42209006729676,17 -122.0845954886723,37.42215932700895,17 -122.0838521118269,37.42227278564371,17 -122.083792243335,37.42203539112084,17 -122.0835076656616,37.42209006957106,17 -122.0834709464152,37.42200987395161,17 -122.0831221085748,37.4221046494946,17 -122.0829247374572,37.42226503990386,17 -122.0829339169385,37.42231242843094,17 -122.0833837359737,37.42225046087618,17 -122.0833607854248,37.42234159228745,17 -122.0834204551642,37.42237075460644,17 -122.083659133885,37.42251292011001,17 -122.0839758438952,37.42265873093781,17 -122.0842374743331,37.42265143972521,17 -122.0845036949503,37.4226514386435,17 -122.0848020460801,37.42261133916315,17 -122.0847882750515,37.42256395055121,17 -122.0848938459612,37.42257124044786,17 </coordinates> </LinearRing> </outerBoundaryIs> </Polygon> </Placemark> <Placemark> <name>Building 41</name> <styleUrl>#transBluePoly</styleUrl> <Polygon> <extrude>1</extrude> <altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode> <outerBoundaryIs> <LinearRing> <coordinates> -122.0857412771483,37.42227033155257,17 -122.0858169768481,37.42231408832346,17 -122.085852582875,37.42230337469744,17 -122.0858799945639,37.42225686138789,17 -122.0858860101409,37.4222311076138,17 -122.0858069157288,37.42220250173855,17 -122.0858379542653,37.42214027058678,17 -122.0856732640519,37.42208690214408,17 -122.0856022926407,37.42214885429042,17 -122.0855902778436,37.422128290487,17 -122.0855841672237,37.42208171967246,17 -122.0854852065741,37.42210455874995,17 -122.0855067264352,37.42214267949824,17 -122.0854430712915,37.42212783846172,17 -122.0850990714904,37.42251282407603,17 -122.0856769818632,37.42281815323651,17 -122.0860162273783,37.42244918858723,17 -122.0857260327004,37.42229239604253,17 -122.0857412771483,37.42227033155257,17 </coordinates> </LinearRing> </outerBoundaryIs> </Polygon> </Placemark> <Placemark> <name>Building 42</name> <styleUrl>#transGreenPoly</styleUrl> <Polygon> <extrude>1</extrude> <altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode> <outerBoundaryIs> <LinearRing> <coordinates> -122.0857862287242,37.42136208886969,25 -122.0857312990603,37.42136935989481,25 -122.0857312992918,37.42140934910903,25 -122.0856077073679,37.42138390166565,25 -122.0855802426516,37.42137299550869,25 -122.0852186221971,37.42137299504316,25 -122.0852277765639,37.42161656508265,25 -122.0852598189347,37.42160565894403,25 -122.0852598185499,37.42168200156,25 -122.0852369311478,37.42170017860346,25 -122.0852643957828,37.42176197982575,25 -122.0853239032746,37.42176198013907,25 -122.0853559454324,37.421852864452,25 -122.0854108752463,37.42188921823734,25 -122.0854795379357,37.42189285337048,25 -122.0855436229819,37.42188921797546,25 -122.0856260178042,37.42186013499926,25 -122.085937287963,37.42186013453605,25 -122.0859428718666,37.42160898590042,25 -122.0859655469861,37.42157992759144,25 -122.0858640462341,37.42147115002957,25 -122.0858548911215,37.42140571326184,25 -122.0858091162768,37.4214057134039,25 -122.0857862287242,37.42136208886969,25 </coordinates> </LinearRing> </outerBoundaryIs> </Polygon> </Placemark> <Placemark> <name>Building 43</name> <styleUrl>#transYellowPoly</styleUrl> <Polygon> <extrude>1</extrude> <altitudeMode>relativeToGround</altitudeMode> <outerBoundaryIs> <LinearRing> <coordinates> -122.0844371128284,37.42177253003091,19 -122.0845118855746,37.42191111542896,19 -122.0850470999805,37.42178755121535,19 -122.0850719913391,37.42143663023161,19 -122.084916406232,37.42137237822116,19 -122.0842193868167,37.42137237801626,19 -122.08421938659,37.42147617161496,19 -122.0838086419991,37.4214613409357,19 -122.0837899728564,37.42131306410796,19 -122.0832796534698,37.42129328840593,19 -122.0832609819207,37.42139213944298,19 -122.0829373621737,37.42137236399876,19 -122.0829062425667,37.42151569778871,19 -122.0828502269665,37.42176282576465,19 -122.0829435788635,37.42176776969635,19 -122.083217411188,37.42179248552686,19 -122.0835970430103,37.4217480074456,19 -122.0839455556771,37.42169364237603,19 -122.0840077894637,37.42176283815853,19 -122.084113587521,37.42174801104392,19 -122.0840762473784,37.42171341292375,19 -122.0841447047739,37.42167881534569,19 -122.084144704223,37.42181720660197,19 -122.0842503333074,37.4218170700446,19 -122.0844371128284,37.42177253003091,19 </coordinates> </LinearRing> </outerBoundaryIs> </Polygon> </Placemark> </Folder> <Folder> <name>LineString</name> <open>0</open> <Placemark> <LineString> <tessellate>1</tessellate> <coordinates> -112.0814237830345,36.10677870477137,0 -112.0870267752693,36.0905099328766,0 </coordinates> </LineString> </Placemark> </Folder> <Folder> <name>GroundOverlay</name> <open>0</open> <GroundOverlay> <name>Large-scale overlay on terrain</name> <description>Overlay shows Mount Etna erupting on July 13th, 2001.</description> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/etna.jpg</href> </Icon> <LatLonBox> <north>37.91904192681665</north> <south>37.46543388598137</south> <east>15.35832653742206</east> <west>14.60128369746704</west> </LatLonBox> </GroundOverlay> </Folder> <Folder> <name>ScreenOverlays</name> <open>0</open> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_dynamic_top</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/dynamic_screenoverlay.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="0" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="0" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="1" y="0.2" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_dynamic_right</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/dynamic_right.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="1" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="1" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>Simple crosshairs</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <description>This screen overlay uses fractional positioning to put the image in the exact center of the screen</description> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/crosshairs.png</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="0.5" y="0.5" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="0.5" y="0.5" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0.5" y="0.5" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="0" xunits="pixels" yunits="pixels"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_absolute_topright</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/top_right.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="1" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="1" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_absolute_topleft</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/top_left.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="0" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="0" y="1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_absolute_bottomright</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/bottom_right.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="1" y="-1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="1" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> <ScreenOverlay> <name>screenoverlay_absolute_bottomleft</name> <visibility>0</visibility> <Icon> <href>http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/bottom_left.jpg</href> </Icon> <overlayXY x="0" y="-1" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <screenXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <rotationXY x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> <size x="0" y="0" xunits="fraction" yunits="fraction"/> </ScreenOverlay> </Folder> </Document> </kml> and my code is : function initialize() { if (GBrowserIsCompatible()) { var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById("map_canvas")); var center=new GLatLng(39.9493, 116.3975); map.setCenter(center, 13); var geoXml = new GGeoXml("SamplesInMaps.kml"); <!--Place KML on Map --> map.addOverlay(geoXml); } } but ,i don't successful ,, do you know how to do this.. thanks

  Read the article

1