Search Results

Search found 245 results on 10 pages for 'assessment'.

Page 7/10 | < Previous Page | 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Next Page >

  • Multiple Class in JDO Query

    - by Dan Delgado
    Hello, I'm currently developing in GAE and I have to query like this using JDO: SELECT table1.column1, table2.column2 FROM table1, table2 WHERE table1.column1 = table2.column1; I tried this one but it won't work: String query = "select from "+Assessment.class.getName()+ "a, "+ Project.class.getName()+" p where a.projectId == p.id && p.owner=='"+owner+"'"; Is this valid or this really isn't supported yet? If this is valid, why is it not working then? If it isn't, what should I do to make this work? Thank you!

    Read the article

  • Opinions about Dabo

    - by driverate
    Has anyone used Dabo lately? How does it rate vs Boa Constructor, etc? I'm writing a new Python database app and Dabo looks promising, but what's the real-world scoop on it? Is it used by many developers? It's not talked about very much here on SO, or anywhere, as far as I can tell. I'm just a little concerned that the support community might be too small, or the possibility that writers might decide to throw in the towel. What is your assessment of Dabo?

    Read the article

  • What is the role of asserts in C++ programs that have unit tests?

    - by lhumongous
    Greetings, I've been adding unit tests to some legacy C++ code, and I've run into many scenarios where an assert inside a function will get tripped during a unit test run. A common idiom that I've run across is functions that take pointer arguments and immediately assert if the argument is NULL. I could easily get around this by disabling asserts when I'm unit testing. But I'm starting to wonder if unit tests are supposed to alleviate the need for runtime asserts. Is this a correct assessment? Are unit tests supposed to replace runtime asserts by happening sooner in the pipeline (ie: the error is caught in a failing test instead of when the program is running). On the other hand, I don't like adding soft fails to code (eg: if(param == NULL) return false;). A runtime assert at least makes it easier to debug a problem in case a unit test missed a bug. Thanks!

    Read the article

  • How to assess the risk of a java version upgrade?

    - by Roy Tang
    I'm being asked to assess whether we can safely upgrade the java version on one of our production-deployed webapps. The codebase is fairly large and we want to avoid having to regression test everything (no automated tests sadly), but we've already encountered at least one problem during some manual testing (XmlStringReader.getLocalName now throws an IllegalStateExeption when it just used to return null) and higher-ups are pretty nervous about the upgrade. The current suggested approach is to do a source compare of the JDK sources for each version and assess those changes to see which ones might have impact, but it seems there's a lot of changes to go through (and as mentioned the codebase is kinda large). Is it safe and easier to just review the java version changes for each version? Or is there an easier way to conduct this assessment? Edit: I forgot to mention the version upgrade being considered is a minor version upgrade, i.e. 1.6.10 to 1.6.33

    Read the article

  • "Dereference" var in C#

    - by chris12892
    I have some code in C# that uses a structure as such: ArrayList addrs = new ArrayList(); byte[] addr = new byte[8]; while (oneWire.Search_GetNextDevice(addr)) { addrs.Add(addr); } In this example, every element in the ArrayList is the same as the last device that was found because it would appear as though addr is passed out by reference and I am simply copying that reference into the ArrayList. Is there any way to "Dereference" addr to only extract it's value? It's also possible my assessment of the situation is incorrect, if that appears to be the case, please let me know Thanks!

    Read the article

  • SIM to OIM Migration: A How-to Guide to Avoid Costly Mistakes (SDG Corporation)

    - by Darin Pendergraft
    In the fall of 2012, Oracle launched a major upgrade to its IDM portfolio: the 11gR2 release.  11gR2 had four major focus areas: More simplified and customizable user experience Support for cloud, mobile, and social applications Extreme scalability Clear upgrade path For SUN migration customers, it is critical to develop and execute a clearly defined plan prior to beginning this process.  The plan should include initiation and discovery, assessment and analysis, future state architecture, review and collaboration, and gap analysis.  To help better understand your upgrade choices, SDG, an Oracle partner has developed a series of three whitepapers focused on SUN Identity Manager (SIM) to Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) migration. In the second of this series on SUN Identity Manager (SIM) to Oracle Identity Manager (OIM) migration, Santosh Kumar Singh from SDG  discusses the proper steps that should be taken during the planning-to-post implementation phases to ensure a smooth transition from SIM to OIM. Read the whitepaper for Part 2: Download Part 2 from SDGC.com In the last of this series of white papers, Santosh will talk about Identity and Access Management best practices and how these need to be considered when going through with an OIM migration. If you have not taken the opportunity, please read the first in this series which discusses the Migration Approach, Methodology, and Tools for you to consider when planning a migration from SIM to OIM. Read the white paper for part 1: Download Part 1 from SDGC.com About the Author: Santosh Kumar Singh Identity and Access Management (IAM) Practice Leader Santosh, in his capacity as SDG Identity and Access Management (IAM) Practice Leader, has direct senior management responsibility for the firm's strategy, planning, competency building, and engagement deliverance for this Practice. He brings over 12+ years of extensive IT, business, and project management and delivery experience, primarily within enterprise directory, single sign-on (SSO) application, and federated identity services, provisioning solutions, role and password management, and security audit and enterprise blueprint. Santosh possesses strong architecture and implementation expertise in all areas within these technologies and has repeatedly lead teams in successfully deploying complex technical solutions. About SDG: SDG Corporation empowers forward thinking companies to strategize their future, realize their vision, and minimize their IT risk. SDG distinguishes itself by offering flexible business models to fit their clients’ needs; faster time-to-market with its pre-built solutions and frameworks; a broad-based foundation of domain experts, and deep program management expertise. (www.sdgc.com)

    Read the article

  • Now It’s Personal (Although It Should Always Be): Campus Recruitment

    - by user769227
    One of the things that I think is important and I want our Campus Recruitment Team here at Oracle to be known for is outstanding customer service. When I say customer service, I mean both students and hiring managers should feel they have had a great experience in our campus hiring process. I think one of the keys to providing outstanding customer service is being able to provide as best as we can a personalised experience where the students who are interviewing with us feel like individuals in our process and not just part a ‘campus drive’. In the campus world this can be challenging at times especially in countries where there is high volume hiring. It can be tricky to create a personal experience when you are hiring for a large number of open graduate roles at one time. I think Campus Recruitment is one of the areas in the recruitment industry that is just waiting for a change. We have all seen the proliferation of Social Media in Recruitment over the past 4-6 years. Every Recruiter has a LinkedIn account or uses Twitter or G+ or FB, etc… and some individuals and organisations do it really well. Even in Campus Hiring there is great Social Media initiatives where companies reach out to students and talk to them. However one thing that has not really changed (and this is a generalisation) is the campus hiring interview process. Do these words inspire enthusiasm to you: “Group Interview, Assessment Centre, On-Campus Drive, Off-Campus Drive, etc...” I don’t know about you but to me these words don’t really sound very personal or individual to students. It almost conjures up images of a factory production line or those long queues you see where the person behind the counter says ‘take a number’. Campus Recruitment has come a long way don’t get me wrong – companies can share data with and talk to students in so many different ways now it really has become a much more transparent and open process. There are some times such as at IIT’s in India where it really is a bit old school in terms of interviewing with students running from company to company interviewing on campus over the course of a few days but I want students talking to Oracle to have as great an experience as possible (the outcome of getting a job or not is separate to the customer experience). As students, what are your thoughts? Do you feel like ‘just a number’ when you are interviewing or is there ways that companies can make the process more personalised. Let us know your thoughts. If you are interviewing with Oracle and have questions, want to talk to us or want to know what it is like working here – email us and we will help where we can. If you can’t reach your local Recruiter in your region email me at [email protected] and I will put you in touch with the appropriate person.

    Read the article

  • Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    I will be presenting a session on “Scrum for TFS2010” not once, but twice! If you are going to be at the Aberdeen Partner Group meeting on 27th April, or DDD Scotland on 8th May then you may be able to catch my session. Credit: I want to give special thanks to Aaron Bjork from Microsoft who provided me with most of my material He is a Scrum and Power Point genius. Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010 Synopsis Visual Studio ALM (formerly Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) and Team Foundation Server (TFS) are the cornerstones of development on the Microsoft .NET platform. These are the best tools for a team to have successful projects and for the developers to have a focused and smooth software development process. For TFS 2010 Microsoft is heavily investing in Scrum and has already started moving some teams across to using it. Martin will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even asses your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. Come and see Martin Hinshelwood, Visual Studio ALM MVP and Solution Architect from SSW show you: How to successfully gather requirements with User stories How to plan a project using TFS 2010 and Scrum How to work with a product backlog in TFS 2010 The right way to plan a sprint with TFS 2010 Tracking your progress The right way to use work items What you can use from the built in reporting as well as the Project portals available on from the SharePoint dashboard The important reports to give your Product Owner / Project Manager Walk away knowing how to see the project health and progress. Visual Studio ALM is designed to help address many of these traditional problems faced by teams. It does so by providing a set of integrated tools to help teams improve their software development activities and to help managers better support the software development processes. During this session we will cover the lifecycle of creating work items and how this fits into Scrum using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server. If you want to know more about how to do Scrum with TFS then there is a new course that has been created in collaboration with Microsoft and Scrum.org that is going to be the official course for working with TFS 2010. SSW has Professional Scrum Developer Trainers who specialise in training your developers in implementing Scrum with Microsoft's Visual Studio ALM tools. Ken Schwaber and and Sam Guckenheimer: Professional Scrum Development Technorati Tags: Scrum,VS ALM,VS 2010,TFS 2010

    Read the article

  • Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010

    - by Martin Hinshelwood
    I will be presenting a session on “Scrum for TFS2010” not once, but twice! If you are going to be at the Aberdeen Partner Group meeting on 27th April, or DDD Scotland on 8th May then you may be able to catch my session. Credit: I want to give special thanks to Aaron Bjork from Microsoft who provided me with most of my material He is a Scrum and Power Point genius. Updated 9th May 2010 – I have now presented at both of these sessions  and posted about it. Scrum for Team Foundation Server 2010 Synopsis Visual Studio ALM (formerly Visual Studio Team System (VSTS)) and Team Foundation Server (TFS) are the cornerstones of development on the Microsoft .NET platform. These are the best tools for a team to have successful projects and for the developers to have a focused and smooth software development process. For TFS 2010 Microsoft is heavily investing in Scrum and has already started moving some teams across to using it. Martin will not be going in depth with Scrum but you can find out more about Scrum by reading the Scrum Guide and you can even asses your Scrum knowledge by having a go at the Scrum Open Assessment. You can also read SSW’s Rules to Better Scrum using TFS which have been developed during our own Scrum implementations. Come and see Martin Hinshelwood, Visual Studio ALM MVP and Solution Architect from SSW show you: How to successfully gather requirements with User stories How to plan a project using TFS 2010 and Scrum How to work with a product backlog in TFS 2010 The right way to plan a sprint with TFS 2010 Tracking your progress The right way to use work items What you can use from the built in reporting as well as the Project portals available on from the SharePoint dashboard The important reports to give your Product Owner / Project Manager Walk away knowing how to see the project health and progress. Visual Studio ALM is designed to help address many of these traditional problems faced by teams. It does so by providing a set of integrated tools to help teams improve their software development activities and to help managers better support the software development processes. During this session we will cover the lifecycle of creating work items and how this fits into Scrum using Visual Studio ALM and Team Foundation Server. If you want to know more about how to do Scrum with TFS then there is a new course that has been created in collaboration with Microsoft and Scrum.org that is going to be the official course for working with TFS 2010. SSW has Professional Scrum Developer Trainers who specialise in training your developers in implementing Scrum with Microsoft's Visual Studio ALM tools. Ken Schwaber and and Sam Guckenheimer: Professional Scrum Development Technorati Tags: Scrum,VS ALM,VS 2010,TFS 2010

    Read the article

  • SQLOS and Cloud Infrastructure sessions at PASS Summit 2012

    - by SQLOS Team
    The SQL Pass Summit 2012, the largest yet, is in full swing. Here's a summary of the sessions this week on cloud infrastructure and SQLOS topics. Some of these were today, and you can catch the recordings. One more session takes place on Friday covering SQL Server solution patterns in Windows Azure VMs... Also, catch Thursday's keynote with Quentin Clark which will feature a cool IaaS demo!   SQL Server in Windows Azure VM Sessions CLD-309-A SQLCAT: Best Practices and Lessons Learned on SQL Server in an Azure VM Steve Howard, Arvind Ranasaria - Wednesday 11/6 10:15 This session looked at some best practices to optimize Networking, Memory, Disk IO and high availability based on lessons learned during SQLCat work with customer deployments. Well worth catching the recording.   SQL Server in Azure VM patterns: Hybrid Disaster Recovery, data movement and BI Guy Bowerman, Peter Saddow, Michael Washam, Ross LoForte - Friday 11/9 9:45 Rm 613 [Note: In the guides this has an outdated title.] This session has a focus on SQL Server Azure VM solutions. Starting with the basics and then going deeper into: - New features in the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit 8.0 to help plan and size SQL VM migrations.- A Look at a Windows Azure VM SQL Server app making use of load balancing and SQL Server high availability features.- A BI case study running SQL BI components in Azure VMs and making use of Windows 8 tiles.- A training class in a VM case study.   SQLOS Sessions DBA-500-HD Inside SQLOS 2012 (half-day session) Bob Ward - Wednesday 11/6 1:30pm Bob Ward from CSS applies his wealth of experience to look at the internals of SQLOS and what's changed in the various SQL 2012 components, including memory, resource governor, scheduler.   DBA-403-M: SQLCAT: Memory Manager Changes in SQL Server 2012 Gus Apostol, Jerome Halmans - 1:30pm Covers the redesigned SQLOS memory manager in SQL Server 2012 including the new page allocator for any size pages (and all that implies), DMVs, demo's. Not sure why this was placed at the same time as the SQLOS half-day session, but since it's recorded it's available for catch-up.   - Guy   Originally posted at http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sqlosteam/

    Read the article

  • Please help me give this principle a name

    - by Brent Arias
    As a designer, I like providing interfaces that cater to a power/simplicity balance. For example, I think the LINQ designers followed that principle because they offered both dot-notation and query-notation. The first is more powerful, but the second is easier to read and follow. If you disagree with my assessment of LINQ, please try to see my point anyway; LINQ was just an example, my post is not about LINQ. I call this principle "dial-able power". But I'd like to know what other people call it. Certainly some will say "KISS" is the common term. But I see KISS as a superset, or a "consumerism" practice. Using LINQ as my example again, in my view, a team of programmers who always try to use query notation over dot-notation are practicing KISS. Thus the LINQ designers practiced "dial-able power", whereas the LINQ consumers practice KISS. The two make beautiful music together. I'll give another example. Imagine a C# logging tool that has two signatures allowing two uses: void Write(string message); void Write(Func<string> messageCallback); The purpose of the two signatures is to fulfill these needs: //Every-day "simple" usage, nothing special. myLogger.Write("Something Happened" + error.ToString() ); //This is performance critical, do not call ToString() if logging is //disabled. myLogger.Write( () => { "Something Happened" + error.ToString() }); Having these overloads represents "dial-able power," because the consumer has the choice of a simple interface or a powerful interface. A KISS-loving consumer will use the simpler signature most of the time, and will allow the "busy" looking signature when the power is needed. This also helps self-documentation, because usage of the powerful signature tells the reader that the code is performance critical. If the logger had only the powerful signature, then there would be no "dial-able power." So this comes full-circle. I'm happy to keep my own "dial-able power" coinage if none yet exists, but I can't help think I'm missing an obvious designation for this practice. p.s. Another example that is related, but is not the same as "dial-able power", is Scott Meyer's principle "make interfaces easy to use correctly, and hard to use incorrectly."

    Read the article

  • Using Oracle BPM to Extend Oracle Applications

    - by Michelle Kimihira
    Author: Srikant Subramaniam, Senior Principal Product Manager, Oracle Fusion Middleware Customers often modify applications to meet their specific business needs - varying regulatory requirements, unique business processes, product mix transition, etc. Traditional implementation practices for such modifications are typically invasive in nature and introduce risk into projects, affect time-to-market and ease of use, and ultimately increase the costs of running and maintaining the applications. Another downside of these traditional implementation practices is that they literally cast the application in stone, making it difficult for end-users to tailor their individual work environments to meet specific needs, without getting IT involved. For many businesses, however, IT lacks the capacity to support such rapid business changes. As a result, adopting innovative solutions to change the economics of customization becomes an imperative rather than a choice. Let's look at a banking process in Siebel Financial Services and Oracle Policy Automation (OPA) using Oracle Business Process Management. This approach makes modifications simple, quick to implement and easy to maintain/upgrade. The process model is based on the Loan Origination Process Accelerator, i.e., a set of ready to deploy business solutions developed by Oracle using Business Process Management (BPM) 11g, containing customizable and extensible pre-built processes to fit specific customer requirements. This use case is a branch-based loan origination process. Origination includes a number of steps ranging from accepting a loan application, applicant identity and background verification (Know Your Customer), credit assessment, risk evaluation and the eventual disbursal of funds (or rejection of the application). We use BPM to model all of these individual tasks and integrate (via web services) with: Siebel Financial Services and (simulated) backend applications: FLEXCUBE for loan management, Background Verification and Credit Rating. The process flow starts in Siebel when a customer applies for loan, switches to OPA for eligibility verification and product recommendations, before handing it off to BPM for approvals. OPA Connector for Siebel simplifies integration with Siebel’s web services framework by saving directly into Siebel the results from the self-service interview. This combination of user input and product recommendation invokes the BPM process for loan origination. At the end of the approval process, we update Siebel and the financial app to complete the loop. We use BPM Process Spaces to display role-specific data via dashboards, including the ability to track the status of a given process (flow trace). Loan Underwriters have visibility into the product mix (loan categories), status of loan applications (count of approved/rejected/pending), volume and values of loans approved per processing center, processing times, requested vs. approved amount and other relevant business metrics. Summary Oracle recommends the use of Fusion Middleware as an extensions platform for applications. This approach makes modifications simple, quick to implement and easy to maintain/upgrade applications (by moving customizations away from applications to the process layer). It is also easier to manage processes that span multiple applications by using Oracle BPM. Additional Information Product Information on Oracle.com: Oracle Fusion Middleware Follow us on Twitter and Facebook Subscribe to our regular Fusion Middleware Newsletter

    Read the article

  • Web Experience Management: Segmentation & Targeting - Chalk Talk with John

    - by Michael Snow
    Today's post comes from our WebCenter friend, John Brunswick.  Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;} Having trouble getting your arms around the differences between Web Content Management (WCM) and Web Experience Management (WEM)?  Told through story, the video below outlines the differences in an easy to understand manner. By following the journey of Mr. and Mrs. Smith on their adventure to find the best amusement park in two neighboring towns, we can clearly see what an impact context and relevancy play in our decision making within online channels.  Just as when we search to connect with the best products and services for our needs, the Smiths have their grandchildren coming to visit next week and finding the best park is essential to guarantee a great family vacation.  One town effectively Segments and Targets visitors to enhance their experience, reducing the effort needed to learn about their park. Have a look below to join the Smiths in their search.    Learn MORE about how you might measure up: Deliver Engaging Digital Experiences Drive Digital Marketing SuccessAccess Free Assessment Tool

    Read the article

  • What tools exist for assessing an organisation's development capability?

    - by Eric Smith
    I have a bit of a challenge at work at the moment. Presently (and in fact, for some time now), we have been experiencing the following problems with some in-house maintained applications: Defects (sometimes quite serious) being released into production; The Customer (that is, the relevant business unit) perpetually changing their minds (or appearing to do so) about what issue to work on next; A situation where everyone seems to be in a "fire-fighting" mode a lot of the time; Development staff responding to operational requests from business users; ("operational" here means something that needs to be done in order to continue with business, or perhaps just to make a business user's life a little less painful, as opposed to fixing a bug in the application, or enhancing the application); Now I'm sure this doesn't sound particularly new or surprising to most of the participants on this Q&A site and no prizes for identifying the "usual suspects" when it comes to root causes. My challenge is that I have to persuade the higher-ups to do uncomfortable things in order to address all of this. The folk I need to persuade come from a mixture of the following two cultures: Accounting; IT Infrastructure. I have therefore opted for a strategy that draws from things with-which folk from such a culture would be most comfortable (at least, in my estimation), namely: numbers and tangibles. Of course modern development practitioners know all too well that this sort of thing isn't easily solved using an analytical mindset (some would argue that that mindset is, in fact, entirely inappropriate). Never-the-less, this is the dichotomy with-which I am faced, so that's the stake that I've put in the ground. I would like to be able to do research and use the outputs to present findings in the form of metrics and measures. I am finding it quite difficult, though, to find an agreed-upon methodology and set of templates for assessing an organisations development capability--the only thing that seems applicable is the Software Engineering Institute's Capability Maturity Model. The latter, however, seems dated and even then rather vague. So, the question is: Do any tools or methodologies (free or commercial) exist that would assist me in completing this assessment?

    Read the article

  • Any suggested approaches to track bugs/defects?

    - by deostroll
    What is the best way to track defect sources in tfs? We have various teams for a project like the vulnerability team, the customer, pre-sales, etc. We give a build and these teams independently test it. They do not have access to our tfs system. So they usually send in their defects via email. It will usually be send in an excel format. Our testing team takes these up and logs them into tfs. Sometimes they modify the original defect description (in excel) and add the expected/actual results. Sometimes they miss to cite the source. I am talking about managing the various sources as such. Is there a way we can add these sources into tfs, and actually link this particular source with the defects, with individual comments associated with them (saying where in the source we can find the actual material for the defect). Edit: I don't know if there is a way to manage various sources. Consider this: the vulnerability assessment team has come out with defects/suggestions. They captured it into an excel and passed that on to the testing team (in my case). The testing team takes the responsibility of elaborating the defect and logging it in tfs. Now say that the excel has come with 20 defect items. This is my source. (It answers the question where did this defect come from). So ultimately when I am looking at a bug I know from where it came from - I'll ultimately be looking at the email sent from the VA team which has the excel or the excel file itself sent by the VA team. It may be one of the 20 items in that excel. How should the tester link to this source just once? On the contrary, it does not make sense for the tester to attach the same excel 20 times (i.e. attach the same excel for the 20 defects while logging it into tfs) right? I hope you get my point.

    Read the article

  • Cheating on Technical Debt

    - by Tony Davis
    One bad practice guaranteed to cause dismay amongst your colleagues is passing on technical debt without full disclosure. There could only be two reasons for this. Either the developer or DBA didn’t know the difference between good and bad practices, or concealed the debt. Neither reflects well on their professional competence. Technical debt, or code debt, is a convenient term to cover all the compromises between the ideal solution and the actual solution, reflecting the reality of the pressures of commercial coding. The one time you’re guaranteed to hear one developer, or DBA, pass judgment on another is when he or she inherits their project, and is surprised by the amount of technical debt left lying around in the form of inelegant architecture, incomplete tests, confusing interface design, no documentation, and so on. It is often expedient for a Project Manager to ignore the build-up of technical debt, the cut corners, not-quite-finished features and rushed designs that mean progress is satisfyingly rapid in the short term. It’s far less satisfying for the poor person who inherits the code. Nothing sends a colder chill down the spine than the dawning realization that you’ve inherited a system crippled with performance and functional issues that will take months of pain to fix before you can even begin to make progress on any of the planned new features. It’s often hard to justify this ‘debt paying’ time to the project owners and managers. It just looks as if you are making no progress, in marked contrast to your predecessor. There can be many good reasons for allowing technical debt to build up, at least in the short term. Often, rapid prototyping is essential, there is a temporary shortfall in test resources, or the domain knowledge is incomplete. It may be necessary to hit a specific deadline with a prototype, or proof-of-concept, to explore a possible market opportunity, with planned iterations and refactoring to follow later. However, it is a crime for a developer to build up technical debt without making this clear to the project participants. He or she needs to record it explicitly. A design compromise made in to order to hit a deadline, be it an outright hack, or a decision made without time for rigorous investigation and testing, needs to be documented with the same rigor that one tracks a bug. What’s the best way to do this? Ideally, we’d have some kind of objective assessment of the level of technical debt in a software project, although that smacks of Science Fiction even as I write it. I’d be interested of hear of any methods you’ve used, but I’m sure most teams have to rely simply on the integrity of their colleagues and the clear perceptions of the project manager… Cheers, Tony.

    Read the article

  • Becoming the well-integrated content company (and combating AIUTLVFS)

    - by Lance Shaw
    Every single day, each of us create more and more content. Sometimes it is brand new material and many times it is iterations of existing content, but no one would argue that information and content growth is growing at an almost exponential rate. With all this content being created and stored, a number of problems naturally arise. One of the most common issues that users run into is "Am I Using The Latest Version of this File Syndrome", or AIUTLVFS. This insidious syndrome is all too common and results in ineffective, poor or downright wrong business decisions being made.  When content or files are unavailable or incorrect within the scope of key business processes, the chance for erroneous and costly business decisions is magnified even further. For many companies, the ideal scenario is to be able to connect multiple business systems, both old and new, into one common content repository.  Not only does this reduce content duplication, it also helps guarantee that everyone in various departments is working off the proverbial "same page".  Sounds simple - but for many organizations, the proliferation of file shares, SharePoint sites, and other storage silos of content keep the dream of a more efficient business a distant one. We've created some online assets to help you in your evaluation and eventual improvement of your current content management and delivery systems. Take a few minutes to check out our Online Assessment Tool.  It's quick, easy and just might provide you with insights into how you can improve your current content ecosystem. While you are there, check out our new Infographic that outlines common issues faced by companies today. Feel free to save our informative Infographic PDF and share it with business colleagues and your management to help them understand the business costs and impact of inaction. Together we can stop AIUTLVFS in its tracks and run our businesses more effectively than ever. Additionally, we hope you will take a few minutes to visit our new and informative webpages dedicated to the value of a well connected, fully integrated content management system. It's a great place to learn more about how integrating WebCenter Content into your infrastructure can lower your operational costs while boosting process and worker efficiency.

    Read the article

  • What algorithms can I use to detect if articles or posts are duplicates?

    - by michael
    I'm trying to detect if an article or forum post is a duplicate entry within the database. I've given this some thought, coming to the conclusion that someone who duplicate content will do so using one of the three (in descending difficult to detect): simple copy paste the whole text copy and paste parts of text merging it with their own copy an article from an external site and masquerade as their own Prepping Text For Analysis Basically any anomalies; the goal is to make the text as "pure" as possible. For more accurate results, the text is "standardized" by: Stripping duplicate white spaces and trimming leading and trailing. Newlines are standardized to \n. HTML tags are removed. Using a RegEx called Daring Fireball URLs are stripped. I use BB code in my application so that goes to. (ä)ccented and foreign (besides Enlgish) are converted to their non foreign form. I store information about each article in (1) statistics table and in (2) keywords table. (1) Statistics Table The following statistics are stored about the textual content (much like this post) text length letter count word count sentence count average words per sentence automated readability index gunning fog score For European languages Coleman-Liau and Automated Readability Index should be used as they do not use syllable counting, so should produce a reasonably accurate score. (2) Keywords Table The keywords are generated by excluding a huge list of stop words (common words), e.g., 'the', 'a', 'of', 'to', etc, etc. Sample Data text_length, 3963 letter_count, 3052 word_count, 684 sentence_count, 33 word_per_sentence, 21 gunning_fog, 11.5 auto_read_index, 9.9 keyword 1, killed keyword 2, officers keyword 3, police It should be noted that once an article gets updated all of the above statistics are regenerated and could be completely different values. How could I use the above information to detect if an article that's being published for the first time, is already existing within the database? I'm aware anything I'll design will not be perfect, the biggest risk being (1) Content that is not a duplicate will be flagged as duplicate (2) The system allows the duplicate content through. So the algorithm should generate a risk assessment number from 0 being no duplicate risk 5 being possible duplicate and 10 being duplicate. Anything above 5 then there's a good possibility that the content is duplicate. In this case the content could be flagged and linked to the article's that are possible duplicates and a human could decide whether to delete or allow. As I said before I'm storing keywords for the whole article, however I wonder if I could do the same on paragraph basis; this would also mean further separating my data in the DB but it would also make it easier for detecting (2) in my initial post. I'm thinking weighted average between the statistics, but in what order and what would be the consequences...

    Read the article

  • Remote server security: handling compiler tools

    - by Gonzolas
    Hello! I was wondering wether to remove compiler tools (gcc, make, ...) from a remote production server, mainly for security purposes. Background: The server runs a web application on Linux. Consider Apache jailed. Otherwise, only OpenSSHd faces the public network. Of course there is no compiler stuff within the jail, so this is about the actual OS outside of any jails. Here's my personal PRO/CON list (regarding removal) so far: PRO: I had been reading some suggestions to remove compiler tools in order inhibit custom building of trojans etc. from within the host if an attacker attains unpriviliged user permissions. CON: I can't live without Perl/Python and a trojan/whatever could be written in a scripting language like that, anyway, so why bother about removing gcc et al. at all. There is a need to build new Linux kernels as well as some security tools from source directly on the server, because the server runs in 64-bits mode and (to my understanding) I can't (cross-)compile locally/elsewhere due to lack of another 64-bits hardware system. OK, so here are my questions for you: (a) Is my PRO/CON assessment correct? (b) Do you know of other PROs / CONs to removing all compiler tools? Do they weigh in more? (c) Which binaries should I consider dangerous if the given PRO statement holds? Only gcc, or also make, or what else? Should I remove the enitre software packages them come with? (d) Is it OK to just move those binaries to a root-only accessible directory when they are not needed? Or is there a gain in security if I "scp them in" every time? Thank you!

    Read the article

  • Remote Desktop Services Licensing - Does server have to have a RDS role?

    - by transistor1
    I recently set up a "micro" size Windows 2008 Datacenter server on Amazon AWS. My small group needs several concurrent RDS users to be able to access the machine. Without installing the "Remote Desktop Server" role, it allows 2 concurrent connections. I read on MS' website that in order to set up multiple users, we needed to install the RDS role. I did so, but now the application we are trying to share is running much slower than it was before. Prior to the role installation, it was taking about 5 seconds to open; now it is taking a few minutes to open -- without any other users logged on except me. My assumption is that the RDS role may be too much for this micro instance to handle, and currently, changing to another size instance is not an option (it may be possible later if we were to receive enough funding). This leads me to the following questions: 1) Is it a sensible assessment to assume that it is the RDS role is slowing things down, or are there other things that I could look at to speed it up? We are talking about a machine with ~600MB of memory. 2) If I revert back to the pre-RDS role, is there any legitimate way (in terms of purchasing RDS licenses) to get more than 2 concurrent desktops? I did read this, and am not questioning that the answerer is knowlegeable; but someone else may have some other experience. I am also making it clear that we want to do this in a legitimate way. Thanks in advance for any assistance that can be provided! EDIT: if it is helpful in answering the question, the application in question is a Lotus Approach database. Also, I am asking this from a technical perspective: not a legal one. I want to know if it is possible to install valid licenses without the RDS role.

    Read the article

  • xml to xsl transformation

    - by amirin
    Hi, I have a requirement to extract the uniquie values from the different nodes of the given xml using xsl transformation. XML FILE:- var IPClaimCausesNice = ""; function changeIPClaimCause(){ if(CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Diagnosis") { IPClaimCausesNice = "diagnosis" } if(CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Illness") { IPClaimCausesNice = "illness" } if(CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Accident") { IPClaimCausesNice = "accident" } return IPClaimCausesNice; } <section id="1903879316" name="Logos"> <fraglink id="605609862" resid="1235000151"> <argvalue name="CommJob"> <var name="CommJob" type="Th_1235001170_CommJob" /> </argvalue> </fraglink> </section> <section id="13483397" name="Address Block"> <fraglink id="563800610" resid="986000123"> <argvalue name="PersonInformation"> <var name="AddresseePersonInformation" type="Th_1235000929_PersonInformation" /> </argvalue> </fraglink> </section> <section id="1093480468" name="Details"> <fraglink id="460316501" resid="1195000163"> <argvalue name="currentDateTime"> <var name="getSystemVariables.getCurrentDate" type="date" /> </argvalue> <argvalue name="CommJob"> <var name="CommJob" type="Th_1235000929_CommJob" /> </argvalue> <argvalue name="ShowDOB" /> <argvalue name="ShowYourRef" /> <argvalue name="YourRefLabel" /> </fraglink> <fraglink id="1026044336" resid="1235000070"> <argvalue name="brandKey"> <var name="CommJob.commJobDetails.brandingKey" type="string" /> </argvalue> <argvalue name="brandSponsor"> <var name="CommJob.client.policy.policyDetails.brandSponsor" type="string" /> </argvalue> </fraglink> </section> <section id="2092948772" name="Important info"> <frag id="1180564368" name="frag" no-match="error" type="text"> <edition id="1178777425" name="Any" withdrawn="False"> <edition-content> <p style="bodyTableHeader" align="left" xml:space="preserve">Important information</p> <p style="body" xml:space="preserve">In accordance with the terms and conditions of your policy, your claim has been classified as a <iif><expression><script language="JavaScript">CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Diagnosis" || CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Ill health"</script><description>the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy insurances Insurance Coverages IPCover Claim equals "Diagnosis" or the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy insurances Insurance Coverages IPCover Claim equals "Ill health"sicknessCommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Accident"the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy insurances Insurance Coverages IPCover Claim equals "Accident"accident. Please assist us Please quote your policy and claim numbers / when returning your forms. Your claim has been received Your Thank you for sending your Initial Claim Form which we received on . We are sorry to hear of your recent . Our assessmentThe attending doctor’s statement indicates you are claiming benefits as a result of , CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Diagnosis"the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy Insurance Coverages first Coverage Claim equals "Diagnosis"which was diagnosedCommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Accident"the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy Insurance Coverages first Coverage Claim equals "Accident"which first occuredCommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause == "Ill health"the IPClaimCause of the CommJob's client policy Insurance Coverages first Coverage Claim equals "Ill health"with symptoms commencing on . We note you ceased all work on and consulted your doctor IsNotMissing(CommJob.placeHolders.date.date5)the date5 of the CommJob's placeHolders date is not missingon this day also regarding your condition. Further information is required We’ve enclosed the following forms. Please complete these and return them to us so that we can continue assessing your claim. Progress claim form Attached questionnaire Authority to the Health Insurance Commission Medical authority <<other/ free format>> <<other/ free format>> Please be advised we’ve CommJob.placeHolders._boolean.boolean1 == truethe CommJob's placeHolders boolean is boolean1also requested the following information: Medical report from Dr Medicare history report from the Health Insurance Commission <<other/ free format>> <<other/ free format>> As your claim forms have been submitted months after you ceased work, our ability to properly assess your claim may have been prejudiced. In order to complete our assessment of your claim, the following information is required within 30 days of this letter: Reason for late lodgement of claim. Reason(s) you ceased work on (eg redundancy or due to medical condition). Name and contact details of all doctors and specialists you have consulted since you ceased work. Copies of any medical, radiology, pathology or other reports in your possession. Details of all treatment you have received since you ceased work. Whether you returned to work (paid or unpaid) in either a full-time or part-time capacity. If so, please provide the dates you worked, hours you worked, duties you performed and any income you received. Financial information for any other related entities (if applicable). If you are unable to supply the above information, please contact us by WriteText(FormatDateTime(DateAdd(getSystemVariables.getCurrentDate,"day",30),"dd MMMM yyyy")). To help in the ongoing assessment of your claim, you are required to be under the regular care and attendance of a medical practitioner. We’ve enclosed a Progress Claim Form which needs to be completed and returned to us by . False False False CC: Different nodes to pick the values:- 1. 2.path form 5. Values to be picked form the xml node and display in HTML is like CommJob.client.policy.Insurance.Coverages.Coverage[0].Claim.IPClaimCause CommJob.commJobDetails.stockType CommJob.commJobDetails.targetClient.targetClientName CommJob.client.policy.policyDetails.policyStatus CommJob.client.policy.policyDetails.productType CommJob.commJobDetails.targetClient.targetClientName ........etc can any one help me to provide the solution. This xsl transformation doesn't pick correctly only the values <xsl:template match="@*"/> Any help on this will great.

    Read the article

  • Form File Upload with other TextBox Inputs + Creating Custom Form Action attribute

    - by Jonathan Stowell
    Hi All, I am attempting to create a form where a user is able to enter your typical form values textboxes etc, but also upload a file as part of the form submission. This is my View code it can be seen that the File upload is identified by the MCF id: <% using (Html.BeginForm("Create", "Problem", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "ProblemForm", enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) {%> <p> <label for="StudentEmail">Student Email (*)</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextBox("StudentEmail", Model.Problem.StudentEmail, new { size = "30", maxlength=26 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("StudentEmail", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="Type">Communication Type (*)</label> <br /> <%= Html.DropDownList("Type") %> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("Type", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="ProblemDateTime">Problem Date (*)</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextBox("ProblemDateTime", String.Format("{0:d}", Model.Problem.ProblemDateTime), new { maxlength = 10 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("ProblemDateTime", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="ProblemCategory">Problem Category (* OR Problem Outline)</label> <br /> <%= Html.DropDownList("ProblemCategory", null, "Please Select...")%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("ProblemCategory", "*")%> </p> <p> <label for="ProblemOutline">Problem Outline (* OR Problem Category)</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextArea("ProblemOutline", Model.Problem.ProblemOutline, 6, 75, new { maxlength = 255 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("ProblemOutline", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="MCF">Mitigating Circumstance Form</label> <br /> <input id="MCF" type="file" /> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("MCF", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="MCL">Mitigating Circumstance Level</label> <br /> <%= Html.DropDownList("MCL") %> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("MCL", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="AbsentFrom">Date Absent From</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextBox("AbsentFrom", String.Format("{0:d}", Model.Problem.AbsentFrom), new { maxlength = 10 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("AbsentFrom", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="AbsentUntil">Date Absent Until</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextBox("AbsentUntil", String.Format("{0:d}", Model.Problem.AbsentUntil), new { maxlength = 10 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("AbsentUntil", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="AssessmentID">Assessment Extension</label> <br /> <%= Html.DropDownList("AssessmentID") %> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("AssessmentID", "*") %> <%= Html.TextBox("DateUntil", String.Format("{0:d}", Model.AssessmentExtension.DateUntil), new { maxlength = 16 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("DateUntil", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="Details">Assessment Extension Details</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextArea("Details", Model.AssessmentExtension.Details, 6, 75, new { maxlength = 255 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("Details", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="RequestedFollowUp">Requested Follow Up</label> <br /> <%= Html.TextBox("RequestedFollowUp", String.Format("{0:d}", Model.Problem.RequestedFollowUp), new { maxlength = 16 })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("RequestedFollowUp", "*") %> </p> <p> <label for="StaffEmail">Staff</label> <br /> <%= Html.ListBox("StaffEmail", Model.StaffEmail, new { @class = "multiselect" })%> <%= Html.ValidationMessage("StaffEmail", "*")%> </p> <p> <input class="button" type="submit" value="Create Problem" /> </p> This is my controller code: [AcceptVerbs(HttpVerbs.Post)] public ActionResult Create(Problem problem, AssessmentExtension assessmentExtension, Staff staffMember, HttpPostedFileBase file, string[] StaffEmail) { if (ModelState.IsValid) { try { Student student = studentRepository.GetStudent(problem.StudentEmail); Staff currentUserStaffMember = staffRepository.GetStaffWindowsLogon(User.Identity.Name); var fileName = Path.Combine(Request.MapPath("~/App_Data"), Path.GetFileName(file.FileName)); file.SaveAs(@"C:\Temp\" + fileName); if (problem.RequestedFollowUp.HasValue) { String meetingName = student.FirstName + " " + student.LastName + " " + "Mitigating Circumstance Meeting"; OutlookAppointment outlookAppointment = new OutlookAppointment(currentUserStaffMember.Email, meetingName, (DateTime)problem.RequestedFollowUp, (DateTime)problem.RequestedFollowUp.Value.AddMinutes(30)); } problemRepository.Add(problem); problemRepository.Save(); if (assessmentExtension.DateUntil != null) { assessmentExtension.ProblemID = problem.ProblemID; assessmentExtensionRepository.Add(assessmentExtension); assessmentExtensionRepository.Save(); } ProblemPrivacy problemPrivacy = new ProblemPrivacy(); problemPrivacy.ProblemID = problem.ProblemID; problemPrivacy.StaffEmail = currentUserStaffMember.Email; problemPrivacyRepository.Add(problemPrivacy); if (StaffEmail != null) { for (int i = 0; i < StaffEmail.Length; i++) { ProblemPrivacy probPrivacy = new ProblemPrivacy(); probPrivacy.ProblemID = problem.ProblemID; probPrivacy.StaffEmail = StaffEmail[i]; problemPrivacyRepository.Add(probPrivacy); } } problemPrivacyRepository.Save(); return RedirectToAction("Details", "Student", new { id = student.Email }); } catch { ModelState.AddRuleViolations(problem.GetRuleViolations()); } } return View(new ProblemFormViewModel(problem, assessmentExtension, staffMember)); } This form was working correctly before I had to switch to using a non-AJAX file upload, this was due to an issue with Flash when enabling Windows Authentication which I need to use. It appears that when I submit the form the file is not sent and I am unsure as to why? I have also been unsuccessful in finding an example online where a file upload is used in conjunction with other input types. Another query I have is that for Create, and Edit operations I have used a PartialView for my forms to make my application have higher code reuse. The form action is normally generated by just using: Html.BeginForm() And this populates the action depending on which Url is being used Edit or Create. However when populating HTML attributes you have to provide a action and controller value to pass HTML attributes. using (Html.BeginForm("Create", "Problem", FormMethod.Post, new { id = "ProblemForm", enctype = "multipart/form-data" })) Is it possible to somehow populate the action and controller value depending on the URL to maintain code reuse? Thinking about it whilst typing this I could set two values in the original controller action request view data and then just populate the value using the viewdata values? Any help on these two issues would be appreciated, I'm new to asp.net mvc :-) Thanks, Jon

    Read the article

  • Data Quality and Master Data Management Resources

    - by Dejan Sarka
    Many companies or organizations do regular data cleansing. When you cleanse the data, the data quality goes up to some higher level. The data quality level is determined by the amount of work invested in the cleansing. As time passes, the data quality deteriorates, and you need to repeat the cleansing process. If you spend an equal amount of effort as you did with the previous cleansing, you can expect the same level of data quality as you had after the previous cleansing. And then the data quality deteriorates over time again, and the cleansing process starts over and over again. The idea of Data Quality Services is to mitigate the cleansing process. While the amount of time you need to spend on cleansing decreases, you will achieve higher and higher levels of data quality. While cleansing, you learn what types of errors to expect, discover error patterns, find domains of correct values, etc. You don’t throw away this knowledge. You store it and use it to find and correct the same issues automatically during your next cleansing process. The following figure shows this graphically. The idea of master data management, which you can perform with Master Data Services (MDS), is to prevent data quality from deteriorating. Once you reach a particular quality level, the MDS application—together with the defined policies, people, and master data management processes—allow you to maintain this level permanently. This idea is shown in the following picture. OK, now you know what DQS and MDS are about. You can imagine the importance on maintaining the data quality. Here are some resources that help you preparing and executing the data quality (DQ) and master data management (MDM) activities. Books Dejan Sarka and Davide Mauri: Data Quality and Master Data Management with Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 – a general introduction to MDM, MDS, and data profiling. Matching explained in depth. Dejan Sarka, Matija Lah and Grega Jerkic: MCTS Self-Paced Training Kit (Exam 70-463): Building Data Warehouses with Microsoft SQL Server 2012 – I wrote quite a few chapters about DQ and MDM, and introduced also SQL Server 2012 DQS. Thomas Redman: Data Quality: The Field Guide – you should start with this book. Thomas Redman is the father of DQ and MDM. Tyler Graham: Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Master Data Services – MDS in depth from a product team mate. Arkady Maydanchik: Data Quality Assessment – data profiling in depth. Tamraparni Dasu, Theodore Johnson: Exploratory Data Mining and Data Cleaning – advanced data profiling with data mining. Forthcoming presentations I am presenting a DQS and MDM seminar at PASS SQL Rally Amsterdam 2013: Wednesday, November 6th, 2013: Enterprise Information Management with SQL Server 2012 – a good kick start to your first DQ and / or MDM project. Courses Data Quality and Master Data Management with SQL Server 2012 – I wrote a 2-day course for SolidQ. If you are interested in this course, which I could also deliver in a shorter seminar way, you can contact your closes SolidQ subsidiary, or, of course, me directly on addresses [email protected] or [email protected]. This course could also complement the existing courseware portfolio of training providers, which are welcome to contact me as well. Start improving the quality of your data now!

    Read the article

  • Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

    - by Michelle Kimihira
    By Maria Forney Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

    Read the article

  • Oracle BI and XS Energy Drinks – Don’t Miss the Amway Presentation!

    - by Maria Forney
    Amway is a global leader in the direct sales industry with $10.9B in annual sales in more than 100 countries and territories. The company has implemented a global BI framework that provides accurate, consistent, and timely insights to support global, regional and local analytical research, business planning, performance measurement and assessment. Oracle BI EE is used by 1500 employees across Amway sales, marketing, finance, and supply chain business units as well as Amway affiliates in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Japan, Australia, Latin America, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Last week, I spoke with Lead Data Analyst with Amway Global Sales, Dan Arganbright, and IT Manager with Amway BI Competency Center, Mike Olson, about their upcoming presentation at Oracle OpenWorld in San Francisco. Scheduled during a prime speaking slot on Monday, October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007, Dan and Mike will discuss their experience building Amway’s Distributor Consulting solution, powered by Oracle BI EE. You can find more information here. As background, Amway offers people an opportunity to own their own businesses and consumers exclusive products in health and wellness, beauty and home care.  The Amway internal Sales organization is charged with consulting leadership-level Distributors to help them with data insights and ultimately grow their business. Until recently, this was a resource-intense process of gathering and formatting data. In some markets, it took over 40 hours to collect the data and produce the analysis needed for one consultation session. Amway began its global BI journey in 2006 and since then the company has migrated from having multiple technology providers and integration points to an integrated strategic vendor approach. Today, the company has standardized on Oracle technology for BI.  Amway has achieved cost savings through the retirement of redundant technology platforms. In addition, Mike’s organization has led the charge to align disparate BI organizations into a BI Competency Center.  The following diagram highlights the simplicity of the standardized architecture of Amway today. Dubbed Distributor Consulting, Amway has developed a BI solution using the Oracle technology stack to help Distributor leaders grow their businesses. The Distributor Consulting solution provides over 40 metrics for Sales staff to provide data-driven insights on the Distributors and organizations they support.  Using Oracle BI EE, Exadata, and Oracle Data Integrator, Amway provides customized and personalized business intelligence, and the Oracle BI EE dashboards were developed by the Amway Sales organization, which demonstrates business empowerment of the technology. Amway is also leveraging the power of BI to drive business growth in all of its markets.  A new set of Distributor Segmentation metrics are enabling a better understanding of distributor behaviors. A Global Scorecard that Amway developed provides key metrics at a market and global level for executive-level discussions. Product Analysis teams can now highlight repeat purchase rates, product penetration and the success of CRM campaigns. In the words of Dan and Mike, the addition of Exadata 11 months ago has been “a game changer.”  Amway has been able to dramatically reduce complexity, improve performance and increase business productivity and cost savings. For example, the number of indexes on the global data warehouse was reduced from more than 1,000 to less than 20.  Pulling data for the highest level distributors or the largest markets in the company now can be done in minutes instead of hours.  As a result, IT has shifted from performance tuning and keeping the system operational to higher-value business-focused activities. •       “The distributors that have been introduced to the BI reports have found them extremely helpful. Because they have never had this kind of information before, when they were presented with the reports, they wanted to take action immediately!”  -     Sales Development Manager in Latin America Without giving away more, the Amway case study presentation will be one of the unique customer sessions at OpenWorld this year. Speakers Dan Arganbright and Mike Olson have planned an interactive and entertaining session on Monday October 1 at 12:15pm in Moscone West, 2007. I’ll see you there!

    Read the article

< Previous Page | 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10  | Next Page >