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  • Siebel 8.1.1 for Communication

    The latest release of Siebel CRM 8.1.1 includes many new features and enhancements for the Communications industry. In this webcast, you’ll hear from Brenda Harris, Principal Product Strategy Manager for Communications here at Oracle. She’ll explain how Siebel Communications 8.1.1 will help your communications company provide the most differentiated and personalized customer experience proven to increase customer loyalty and profitability levels.

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  • Customization: It’s Wanted in Enterprise Tech Platforms Too

    - by Mike Stiles
    Did you know that every customer service person does their job the exact same way in every business organization?  And did you know that every business organization cares about the exact same metrics? I hope not, because both those things couldn’t be farther from the truth. And if there are different needs and approaches in different enterprises, it stands to reason technology platforms must become increasingly customizable. Oracle Social Cloud sees that coming and is doing something about it, at least in terms of social media management. Today we introduce Social Station, a customizable user experience workspace within the Oracle Social Relationship Management (SRM) platform. We think a lot about customer-centricity and customer experience around here, and we know our own customers are ready to start moving forward in being able to set up their work environments in the ways that work best for them. That kind of thing increases productivity, helps deliver on social objectives faster, and generally just makes life more pleasant. A recent IDG Enterprise report says that enterprises currently investing in more consumerized, easy-to-use technologies experience a 56% increase in employee productivity and a 46% increase in customer satisfaction. Imagine that. When you make it easier and more pleasant for employees to help customers, more customers get helped and everyone ends up happier. So what does this Social Station do and what does it mean, exactly? It’s an innovative move to take some pretty high-end tech (take a bow developers) and simplify it, making things more intuitive: Drag and drop lets you easily build out and personalize your social workspace with different modules. The new Custom Analytics module can mix and match over 120 metrics with thousands of customizable reporting options. You can check constantly refreshed updates and keep a real-time eye on the numbers you’re trying to move. One-click sharing and annotation in the Custom Analytics module improves sharing and collaboration across teams, departments and executives. Multi-view layout helps you leverage social insights by letting you monitor conversations by network, stream, metric, graph type, date range, and relative time period. The Enhanced Calendar is a better visual representation of content, posts, networks and views, letting you easily toggle between functions and views. The Oracle Social Station sets us up to always be developing & launching additional social modules for you, covering areas like content curation, influencer engagement, and command center creation. Oracle Social Cloud Group VP Meg Bear says, “Consumers today have high expectations of their technology application capabilities and usability, and those expectations don’t stop when they enter their workplaces.” In other words, internal enterprise technology platforms must reflect the personalization and customization being called for in consumer products and marketing. “One size fits all” is becoming an endangered concept. @mikestiles @oraclesocial

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  • When Less is More

    - by aditya.agarkar
    How do you reconcile the fact that while the overall warehouse volume is down you still need more workers in the warehouse to ship all the orders? A WMS customer recently pointed out this seemingly perplexing fact in a customer conference. So what is going on? Didn't we tell you before that for a warehouse the customer is really the "king"? In this case customers are merely responding to a low overall low demand and uncertainty. They do not want to hold down inventory and one of the ways to do that is by decreasing the order size and ordering more frequently. Overall impact to the warehouse? Two words: "More work!!" This is not all. Smaller order sizes also mean challenges from a transportation perspective including a rise in costlier parcel or LTL shipments instead of cheaper TL shipments. Here is a hypothetical scenario where a customer reduces the order size by 10% and increases the order frequency by 10%. As you can see in the following table, the overall volume declines by 1% but the warehouse has to ship roughly 10% more lines. Order Frequency (Line Count)Order Size (Units)Total VolumeChange (%)10010010,000 -110909,900-1% If you want to see how "Less is More" in graphical terms, this is how it appears: Even though the volume is down, there is going to be more work in the warehouse in terms of number of lines shipped. The operators need to pick more discrete orders, pack them into more shipping containers and ship more deliveries. What do you do differently if you are facing this situation?In this case here are some obvious steps to take:Uno: Change your pick methods. If you are used to doing order picks, it needs to go out the door. You need to evaluate batch picking and grouping techniques. Go for cluster picking, go for zone picking, pick and pass...anything that improves your picker productivity. More than anything, cluster picking works like a charm and above all, its simple and very effective. Dos: Are you minimize "touch" points in your pick process? Consider doing one step pick, pack and confirm i.e. pick and pack stuff directly into shipping cartons. Done correctly the container will not require any more "touch" points all the way to the trailer loading. Use cartonization!Tres: Are the being picked from an optimized pick face? Are the items slotted correctly? This needs to be looked into. Consider automated "pull" or "push" replenishment into your pick face and also make sure that high demand items are occupying the golden zones.  Cuatro: Are you tracking labor productivity? If not there needs to be a concerted push for having labor standards in place. Hope you found these ideas useful.

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  • Oracle Supply Chain Sessions at Collaborate 2010

    - by Paul Homchick
    Oracle SCM executives will be presenting more than thirty sessions at the Collaborate 2010 Oracle Users' Group Conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, April 18-22.Charles Phillips, President of Oracle will give a keynote address on Monday "Transforming Customer Value -- Delivering Highest Customer Service."A list of the Oracle SCM sessions to be presented at Collaborate 2010 is presented after the break...

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  • Using Table-Valued Parameters in SQL Server

    - by Jesse
    I work with stored procedures in SQL Server pretty frequently and have often found myself with a need to pass in a list of values at run-time. Quite often this list contains a set of ids on which the stored procedure needs to operate the size and contents of which are not known at design time. In the past I’ve taken the collection of ids (which are usually integers), converted them to a string representation where each value is separated by a comma and passed that string into a VARCHAR parameter of a stored procedure. The body of the stored procedure would then need to parse that string into a table variable which could be easily consumed with set-based logic within the rest of the stored procedure. This approach works pretty well but the VARCHAR variable has always felt like an un-wanted “middle man” in this scenario. Of course, I could use a BULK INSERT operation to load the list of ids into a temporary table that the stored procedure could use, but that approach seems heavy-handed in situations where the list of values is usually going to contain only a few dozen values. Fortunately SQL Server 2008 introduced the concept of table-valued parameters which effectively eliminates the need for the clumsy middle man VARCHAR parameter. Example: Customer Transaction Summary Report Let’s say we have a report that can summarize the the transactions that we’ve conducted with customers over a period of time. The report returns a pretty simple dataset containing one row per customer with some key metrics about how much business that customer has conducted over the date range for which the report is being run. Sometimes the report is run for a single customer, sometimes it’s run for all customers, and sometimes it’s run for a handful of customers (i.e. a salesman runs it for the customers that fall into his sales territory). This report can be invoked from a website on-demand, or it can be scheduled for periodic delivery to certain users via SQL Server Reporting Services. Because the report can be created from different places and the query to generate the report is complex it’s been packed into a stored procedure that accepts three parameters: @startDate – The beginning of the date range for which the report should be run. @endDate – The end of the date range for which the report should be run. @customerIds – The customer Ids for which the report should be run. Obviously, the @startDate and @endDate parameters are DATETIME variables. The @customerIds parameter, however, needs to contain a list of the identity values (primary key) from the Customers table representing the customers that were selected for this particular run of the report. In prior versions of SQL Server we might have made this parameter a VARCHAR variable, but with SQL Server 2008 we can make it into a table-valued parameter. Defining And Using The Table Type In order to use a table-valued parameter, we first need to tell SQL Server about what the table will look like. We do this by creating a user defined type. For the purposes of this stored procedure we need a very simple type to model a table variable with a single integer column. We can create a generic type called ‘IntegerListTableType’ like this: CREATE TYPE IntegerListTableType AS TABLE (Value INT NOT NULL) Once defined, we can use this new type to define the @customerIds parameter in the signature of our stored procedure. The parameter list for the stored procedure definition might look like: 1: CREATE PROCEDURE dbo.rpt_CustomerTransactionSummary 2: @starDate datetime, 3: @endDate datetime, 4: @customerIds IntegerListTableTableType READONLY   Note the ‘READONLY’ statement following the declaration of the @customerIds parameter. SQL Server requires any table-valued parameter be marked as ‘READONLY’ and no DML (INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE) statements can be performed on a table-valued parameter within the routine in which it’s used. Aside from the DML restriction, however, you can do pretty much anything with a table-valued parameter as you could with a normal TABLE variable. With the user defined type and stored procedure defined as above, we could invoke like this: 1: DECLARE @cusomterIdList IntegerListTableType 2: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (1) 3: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (2) 4: INSERT @customerIdList VALUES (3) 5:  6: EXEC dbo.rpt_CustomerTransationSummary 7: @startDate = '2012-05-01', 8: @endDate = '2012-06-01' 9: @customerIds = @customerIdList   Note that we can simply declare a variable of type ‘IntegerListTableType’ just like any other normal variable and insert values into it just like a TABLE variable. We could also populate the variable with a SELECT … INTO or INSERT … SELECT statement if desired. Using The Table-Valued Parameter With ADO .NET Invoking a stored procedure with a table-valued parameter from ADO .NET is as simple as building a DataTable and passing it in as the Value of a SqlParameter. Here’s some example code for how we would construct the SqlParameter for the @customerIds parameter in our stored procedure: 1: var customerIdsParameter = new SqlParameter(); 2: customerIdParameter.Direction = ParameterDirection.Input; 3: customerIdParameter.TypeName = "IntegerListTableType"; 4: customerIdParameter.Value = selectedCustomerIds.ToIntegerListDataTable("Value");   All we’re doing here is new’ing up an instance of SqlParameter, setting the pamameters direction, specifying the name of the User Defined Type that this parameter uses, and setting its value. We’re assuming here that we have an IEnumerable<int> variable called ‘selectedCustomerIds’ containing all of the customer Ids for which the report should be run. The ‘ToIntegerListDataTable’ method is an extension method of the IEnumerable<int> type that looks like this: 1: public static DataTable ToIntegerListDataTable(this IEnumerable<int> intValues, string columnName) 2: { 3: var intergerListDataTable = new DataTable(); 4: intergerListDataTable.Columns.Add(columnName); 5: foreach(var intValue in intValues) 6: { 7: var nextRow = intergerListDataTable.NewRow(); 8: nextRow[columnName] = intValue; 9: intergerListDataTable.Rows.Add(nextRow); 10: } 11:  12: return intergerListDataTable; 13: }   Since the ‘IntegerListTableType’ has a single int column called ‘Value’, we pass that in for the ‘columnName’ parameter to the extension method. The method creates a new single-columned DataTable using the provided column name then iterates over the items in the IEnumerable<int> instance adding one row for each value. We can then use this SqlParameter instance when invoking the stored procedure just like we would use any other parameter. Advanced Functionality Using passing a list of integers into a stored procedure is a very simple usage scenario for the table-valued parameters feature, but I’ve found that it covers the majority of situations where I’ve needed to pass a collection of data for use in a query at run-time. I should note that BULK INSERT feature still makes sense for passing large amounts of data to SQL Server for processing. MSDN seems to suggest that 1000 rows of data is the tipping point where the overhead of a BULK INSERT operation can pay dividends. I should also note here that table-valued parameters can be used to deal with more complex data structures than single-columned tables of integers. A User Defined Type that backs a table-valued parameter can use things like identities and computed columns. That said, using some of these more advanced features might require the use the SqlDataRecord and SqlMetaData classes instead of a simple DataTable. Erland Sommarskog has a great article on his website that describes when and how to use these classes for table-valued parameters. What About Reporting Services? Earlier in the post I referenced the fact that our example stored procedure would be called from both a web application and a SQL Server Reporting Services report. Unfortunately, using table-valued parameters from SSRS reports can be a bit tricky and warrants its own blog post which I’ll be putting together and posting sometime in the near future.

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  • Oracle WebCenter @ OpenWorld 2012

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    This week, we want to focus on giving our blog readers a preview of Oracle WebCenter related events and activities happening at Oracle OpenWorld this year! Today's guest post comes from Jamie Rancourt, Senior Manager of Product Management for Oracle WebCenter. Are you registered to attend OpenWorld 2012 in San Francisco from September 30 – October 4?  If not, the conference details and registration information can be found at http://oracle.com/openworld!  Here’s a brief run down of the planned activities for Oracle WebCenter at this year’s event. WebCenter Sessions This year WebCenter will be featured in 36 sessions across the following tracks: Web Experience Management, Portals, Content Management and Social Network Middleware for Enterprise Applications Financial Management Oracle ADF and Fusion Application Development Applications Tools and Technology Applications Strategy Life Sciences Customer Relationship Management Oracle RightNow CX Cloud Service Siebel Applications SOA and Business Process Management Oracle Fusion Applications Oracle Commerce Retail Social Business Cloud Computing Here are a few of the sessions to wet your appetite: Oracle WebCenter Strategy: Engaging your Customers.  Empowering your Business Oracle WebCenter Sites Strategy & Vision Oracle WebCenter Content Strategy & Vision Oracle WebCenter Portal Strategy & Vision Oracle Social Network Strategy & Vision Develop a Mobile Strategy with Oracle WebCenter: Engage Customers, Employees, and Partners Oracle WebCenter’s Cloud Strategy: From Social and Platform Services to Mash-ups We also have 4 interactive customer panels planned for the event: Using Web Experience Management to Drive Online Marketing Success Land Mines, Potholes, and Dirt Roads: Navigating the Way to ECM Nirvana Becoming a Social Business: Stories from the Front Lines of Change Building Next-Generation Portals: An Interactive Customer Panel Discussion And there are many more sessions for you to attend to learn everything there is to know about Oracle WebCenter from our product experts and partners. Make sure to visit the Content Catalog for the complete session details Labs and Demos This year’s event also features 4 WebCenter hands on labs, each focusing on a different product area including Portal, Content, Sites and Social Network.  In addition to the labs, there will be 6 demos featuring Oracle WebCenter in both the Fusion Middleware and Cloud pavilions.  Make sure you stop by to see the latest demos and meet our knowledgeable product managers! And don't forget about the Oracle WebCenter Customer Appreciation Event, which is sponsored by our Partners and will take place on Tuesday, October 2nd at The Palace Hotel. Be sure to watch the blog for more information in the coming months with how to register! We look forward to seeing you at Oracle OpenWorld 2012!

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  • Bunny Inc. – Episode 2. Mr. CIO meets Mrs. Sales Manager

    - by kellsey.ruppel(at)oracle.com
    How can you take advantage of a modern customer experience in your sales cycle? What can Mr. CIO come up with to improve customer interaction and satisfaction? See how Enterprise 2.0 solutions can help Bunny Inc. improve business responsiveness to market requests, sell more and simplify post sales support! Bunny Inc. - Episode 2. Mr. CIO meets Mrs. Sales ManagerTechnorati Tags: UXP, collaboration, enterprise 2.0, modern user experience, oracle, portals, webcenter, e20bunnies

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  • Hosted CRM Solutions from a Manager?s Perspective

    CRM, Customer Relationship Management is a method or process that is used to know the customer?s behavior and their needs and it helps in developing a stronger relation with them. This is only a defi... [Author: James Wong - Computers and Internet - April 29, 2010]

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  • ACORD LOMA 2010: Building Insurance Companies in the Clouds

    - by [email protected]
    Chuck Johnston, vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance, participated in a featured speaking session at ACORD LOMA 2010. He provides an update on his discussions with insurers at the show and after his presentation. Every year I always make a point of walking the show floor at the ACORD LOMA technology conference to visit with colleagues and competitors, and try to get a feel for which way the industry will move over the next 12 months. Insurers are looking for substance in cloud (computing), trying to mix business with pleasure (monetizing social networks), and expect differentiation through commodity (Software as a Service). The disconnect at this show is that most vendors are still struggling with creating a clear path from Facebook to customer intimacy, SaaS to core cost savings and clouds to ubiquitous presence. Vendors need to find new ways to help insurers find the real value in these potentially disruptive technologies by understanding the changes coming to the insurance business and how these new technologies impact the new insurance business. Oracle's approach to understanding the evolving insurance industry comes from a discussion with our customers in our Insurance CIO Council, where one of our customers suggested we buy an insurance company to really understand our customers. We have decided to do the next best thing and build our own model of an insurance company, Alamere Insurance, that uses the latest technologies to transform its own business. Alamere will never issue an actual policy, but it does give us a framework to consider the impacts of changes in the insurance landscape and how Oracle technology meets the challenge or needs to evolve to help our customers be successful. In preparing for my talk at the conference using Alamere as my organizing theme, I found myself reading actuarial memoranda on CSO table changes and articles on underwriting theory that really made me think about my customer's problems first and foremost, and then how Oracle technology can provide answers. As much as I prefer techno-thrillers and sci-fi novels to actuarial papers for plane reading, I got very excited about the idea of putting myself back in the customer shoes I haven't worn in a decade, and really looking at how Oracle can power the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise. Talking to customers and industry people after the session, the idea of Alamere seemed to excite people and I got a lot of suggestions as to what lines of business we should model and where we should focus first on technology uptake. One customer said to a colleague that Oracle's attempt to "share their pain" was unique among vendors. More about Alamere, and the Adaptive Insurance Enterprise next time. Chuck Johnston is vice president of global strategy and alliances for Oracle Insurance.

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  • Manageability at Oracle Openworld: a Guide to sessions for Partners

    - by Javier Puerta
    A large number of sessions focusing on Manageability will be taking place during the week of Oracle Openworld in San Francisco. To help you organize your schedule I am including below a list of sessions and events around Manageability that you will find of interest. PARTNER SPECIFIC SESSIONS Date/Time/Location  Session   Monday, October 1st, 2011 at 15:30 - 18:00 PST Grand Hyatt San Francisco 345 Stockton Street, San Francisco (Conference Theater) (It is a 15 minute walk from OOW Moscone Center. See directions here) Exadata & Manageability EMEA Partner Community Forum.- Listen to other partners share their experiences in selling and implementing Exadata and Manageability projects, and have a direct dialogue with some of the Oracle executives that are driving the strategy of the company in these areas. Agenda Welcome - Hans-Peter Kipfer, VP, Engineered Systems Oracle EMEA Next challenges in building and managing clouds - Javier Cabrerizo, VP, Business Development for Exadata, Oracle Corp. Partner Experiences: IT modernization, simplification and cost reduction: The case of a customer in Transportation & Logistics with custom applications and SAP. - Francisco Bermudez, Country Leader Infrastructure Services, Capgemini, Spain Nvision cloud project - Dmitry Krasilov, Head of Oracle Competence Center, Nvision Group, Russia From Exadata Ready to Exadata Optimized: An ISV Experience - Miguel Alves, Product Business Solutions Manager, WeDo Technologies, Portugal To confirm your participation send an email to [email protected] Tuesday, Oct 2, 11:45 AM - 12:45 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate A Developing Services for Private and Public Clouds.- The Oracle Cloud provides new business opportunities, secures business applications and data, and provides operational efficiencies and cost savings. For customers lacking the skill or time to architect, develop, or build a cloud, there is a growing demand for services practice partners that can deliver and manage Oracle Cloud solutions. In this session,• Become familiar with services examples and use cases that demonstrate how an Oracle Cloud can provide a solution to a customer’s needs today• Learn about Oracle architecture and best practices available for an Oracle Cloud instances• Identify the right Oracle technology and the optimal model for meeting customer needs while providing excellent revenues and an optimal margin for services delivered Wednesday, Oct 3, 1:15 PM - 2:15 PM - Marriott Marquis - Golden Gate B Using Management Already Built into Oracle Products: Oracle Enterprise Manager .- Engineered into Oracle products are management capabilities ready to be used. In this session, applicable to all partners, understand the growing market opportunities and how to use or include Oracle Enterprise Manager as part of your solution or services. Other Cloud sessions for Partners at the Oracle PartnerNetwork Exchange  Click here.-     OOW CUSTOMER SESSIONS   Download the Focus On Oracle Enterprise Manager Cloud Control 12c (and Private Cloud) guide for a full list of Exadata OOW sessions.  

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  • The Social Business Thought Leaders - Ray Wang

    - by kellsey.ruppel
    It seems both consumers and businesses are at the peak of the social hype. Overwhelmed by social media channels, platforms, and processes both in their private and professional life, many early adopters are starting to feel the social fatigue. Mirroring what happened with email and web sites during the late 1990's - early 2000's, more and more managers are looking to move from ubiquitous social media tactics to the most appropriate business use case and processes. This step becomes even more important considering the year over year contraction in IT budgets and the consequent need to maximize return on every dollar spent in new technologies. Ray Wang, CEO and Principal Analyst at Constellation Research, suggests engagement through collaborative technologies both as a conceptual model and a transformational tool for enterprises to reap business value. Without participation - the reasoning goes - there is no value and good technology alone is not enough to guarantee employee and customer adoption. Enterprise gamification is a new lever to succeed with Social Business by directing a critical mass of participation towards desired outcomes. What kind of outcomes? A recent study from Constellation Research (see 2012 Q1 Gamification Early Adopters Best Practices) highlights how Marketing, Customer Service and HR are leading the pack with gamification in processes such as: Sustaining long term customer loyalty (76.4%) Improving response in campaign to lead (74.5%) Right channeling incidents for resolution in social media (67.3%) Growing the number service and support incidents resolved by the community (63.6%) Improving employee referral rates and effective recruiting (43.6%) Driving on-boarding success with new hires (20%) More than simply adding badges, points and leaderboards to existing processes, enterprise gamification should be holistically embedded into employee and customer experience to stimulate specific behaviors. According to Ray Wang this can be done at three core levels: Measurable actions. The behaviors we want to facilitate consist of granular actions (i.e likes, comments, posts, recommendations, etc) and more complex actions (i.e projects, initiatives, programmes) attributed to individuals, groups and/or external actors  Reputation. The reputation an individual has earned through his actions is a key factor in building motivation among others and it is determined by its identity, social standing status and competitiveness Incentives or the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards that motivate behaviors and drive actions Listen to Ray Wang's video-interview to learn more about the dynamics that are shaping the future of collaboration and how gamification can help organizations attain new levels of engagement.

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  • Creating the Completely Customized World Just for YOU

    - by divya.malik
    OK so not a customized world, but do you know what goes into creating that customized web store front for you? How do you get those additional offers from vendors when you call in for service or when you are browsing a storefront. This is what is has been happening behind the scenes.  When a customer calls in a contact center for service, at the end of the conversation, they are offered a new product, or service. But what just transpired was that the CRM system that was in place had routed the call to the right agent, the agent got the pop up screen with the customer information, and the call request  was handled. Then came the decision point to cross-sell and up-sell, The agent got some recommended offers that were created based on analyzed data (this data had been put into a data warehouse, modeled, profiled and rules were implemented e.g.. People with profile X like product Y).  But with this system, what happens is that analytics can be applied to a very small subset. Now comes Real Time Decisioning (RTD), this helps companies make optimal decisions in the context of transactional systems. It enables companies to improve business processes with real time intelligence on every single transaction. RTD is like a service plug-in that you put at the back of your transactional systems and that you  ping to get a recommendation.  It listens to business process flows and data moving through the process, getting all that data, processes all that you can do with that data, and gives out out various offers. It takes a process centric view of analytics rather than just a data centric view. It continuously observes and learns from ever-changing customer behavior and applies those insights to providing real-time decisions and recommendations at any customer touch point. At Oracle we define Real Time Decisioning as “ The solution that addresses a business issue faced by all organizations : how to make accurate decisions, using the most up to date information, in real time…consistently and in large volumes”. Here is a video on recommendation engines that are benefiting from real time decisioning today and see how it is helping online vendors.

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  • Supercharging the Performance of Your Front-Office Applications @ OOW'12

    - by Sanjeev Sharma
    You can increase customer satisfaction, brand equity, and ultimately top-line revenue by deploying  Oracle ATG Web Commerce, Oracle WebCenter Sites, Oracle Endeca applications, Oracle’s  Siebel applications, and other front-office applications on Oracle Exalogic, Oracle’s combination  of hardware and software for applications and middleware. Join me (Sanjeev Sharma) and my colleague, Kelly Goetsch, at the following conference session at Oracle Open World to find out how Customer Experience can be transformed with Oracle Exalogic: Session:  CON9421 - Supercharging the Performance of Your Front-Office Applications with Oracle ExalogicDate: Wednesday, 3 Oct, 2012Time: 10:15 am - 11:15 am (PST)Venue: Moscone South (309)

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  • Thou shalt not put code on a piedestal - Code is a tool, no more, no less

    - by Ralf Westphal
    “Write great code and everything else becomes easier” is what Paul Pagel believes in. That´s his version of an adage by Brian Marick he cites: “treat code as an end, not just a means.” And he concludes: “My post-Agile world is software craftsmanship.” I wonder, if that´s really the way to go. Will “simply” writing great code lead the software industry into the light? He´s alluding to the philosopher Kant who proposed, a human beings should never be treated as a means, but always as an end. But should we transfer this ethical statement into the world of software? I doubt it.   Reason #1: Human beings are categorially different from code. They are autonomous entities who need to find a way of living happily together. To Kant it seemed this goal could only be reached if nobody (ab)used a human being for his/her purposes. Because using a human being, i.e. treating it as a means, would contradict the fundamental autonomy and freedom of human beings. People should hold up a symmetric view of their relationships: Since nobody wants to be (ab)used, nobody should (ab)use anybody else. If you want to be treated decently, with respect, in accordance with your own free will - which means as an end - then do the same to other people. Code is dead, it´s a product, it´s a tool for people to reach their goals. No company spends any money on code other than to save money or earn money in the long run. Code is not a puppy. Enterprises do not commission software development to just feel good in its company. Code is not a buddy. Code is a slave, if you will. A mechanical slave, a non-tangible robot. Code is a tool, is a tool. And if we start to treat it differently, if we elevate its status unduely… I guess that will contort our relationship in a contraproductive way. Please get me right: Just because something is “just a tool”, “just a product” does not mean we should not be careful while designing, building, using it. Right to the contrary. We should be very careful when writing code – but not for the code´s sake! We should be careful because we respect our customers who are fellow human beings who should be treated as an end. If we are careless, neglectful, ignorant when producing code on their behalf, then we´re using them. Being sloppy means you´re caring more for yourself that for your customer. You´re then treating the customer as a means to fulfill some of your own needs. That´s plain unethical behavior.   Reason #2: The focus should always be on your purpose, not on any tool. But if code is treated as an end, then the focus is on the code. That might sound right, because where else should be your focus as a software developer? But, well, I´d say, your focus should be on delivering value to your customer. Because in the end your customer does not care if you write a single line of code. She just wants her problem to be solved. Solving problems is the purpose of any contractor. Code must be treated just as a means, a tool we know how to handle very well. But if we´re really trying to be craftsmen then we should be conscious about exactly that and act ethically. That means we must never be so focused on our tool as to be unable to suggest better solutions to the problems of our customers than code.   I´m all with Paul when he urges us to “Write great code”. Sure, if you need to write code, then by all means do so. Write the best code you can think of – and then try to improve it. Paul has all the best intentions when he signs Brians “treat code as an end” - but as we all know: “The road to hell is paved with best intentions” ;-) Yes, I can imagine a “hell of code focus”. In fact, I don´t need to imagine it, I´m seeing it quite often. Because code hell is whereever two developers stand together and are so immersed in talking about all sorts of coding tricks, design patterns, code smells, technologies, platforms, tools that they lose sight of the big picture. Talking about TDD or SOLID or refactoring is a sign of consciousness – relative to the “cowboy coders” view of the world. But from yet another point of view TDD, SOLID, and refactoring are just cures for ailments within a system. And I fear, if “Writing great code” is the only focus or the main focus of software development, then we as an industry lose the ability to see that. Focus draws a line around something, it defines a horizon for perceptions and thinking. So if we focus on code our horizon ends where “the land of code” ends. I don´t think that should be our professional attitude.   So what about Software Craftsmanship as the next big thing after Agility? I think Software Craftsmanship has an important message for all software developers and beyond. But to make it the successor of the Agility movement seems to miss a point. Agility never claimed to solve all software development problems, I´d say. So to blame it for having missed out on certain aspects of it is wrong. If I had to summarize Agility in one word I´d say “Value”. Agility put value for the customer back in software development. Focus on delivering value early and often – that´s Agility´s mantra. All else follows from that. And I ask you: Is that obsolete? Is delivering value not hip anymore? No, sure not. That´s our very purpose as software developers. So how can Agility become obsolete and need to be replaced? We need to do away with this “either/or”-thinking. It´s either Agility or Lean or Software Craftsmanship or whatnot. Instead we should start integrating concepts and movements. Think “both/and”. Think Agility plus Software Craftsmanship plus Lean plus whatnot. We don´t neet to tear down anything from a piedestal and replace it with a new idol. Instead we should do away with piedestals and arrange whatever is helpful is a circle. Then we can turn to concepts, movements for whatever they are best. After 10 years of Agility we should be able to identify what it was good at – and keep that. Keep Agility around and add whatever Agility was lacking or never concerned with. Add whatever is at the core of Software Craftsmanship. Add whatever is at the core of Lean etc. But don´t call out the age of Post-Agility. Because it better never will end. Because once we start to lose Agility´s core we´re losing focus of the customer.

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  • It was a figure of speech!

    - by Ratman21
    Yesterday I posted the following as attention getter / advertisement (as well as my feelings). In the groups, (I am in) on the social networking site, LinkedIn and boy did I get responses.    I am fighting mad about (a figure of speech, really) not having a job! Look just because I am over 55 and have gray hair. It does not mean, my brain is dead or I can no longer trouble shoot a router or circuit or LAN issue. Or that I can do “IT” work at all. And I could prove this if; some one would give me at job. Come on try me for 90 days at min. wage. I know you will end up keeping me (hope fully at normal pay) around. Is any one hearing me…come on take up the challenge!     This was the responses I got.   I hear you. We just need to retrain and get our skills up to speed is all. That is what I am doing. I have not given up. Just got to stay on top of the game. Experience is on our side if we have the credentials and we are reasonable about our salaries this should not be an issue.   Already on it, going back to school and have got three certifications (CompTIA A+, Security+ and Network+. I am now studying for my CISCO CCNA certification. As to my salary, I am willing to work at very reasonable rate.   You need to re-brand yourself like a product, market and sell yourself. You need to smarten up, look and feel a million dollars, re-energize yourself, regain your confidents. Either start your own business, or re-write your CV so it stands out from the rest, get the template off the internet. Contact every recruitment agent in your town, state, country and overseas, and on the web. Apply to every job you think you could do, you may not get it but you will make a contact for your network, which may lead to a job at the end of the tunnel. Get in touch with everyone you know from past jobs. Do charity work. I maintain the IT Network, stage electrical and the Telecom equipment in my church,   Again already on it. I have email the world is seems with my resume and cover letters. So far, I have rewritten or had it rewrote, my resume and cover letters; over seven times so far. Re-energize? I never lost my energy level or my self-confidents in my work (now if could get some HR personal to see the same). I also volunteer at my church, I created and maintain the church web sit.   I share your frustration. Sucks being over 50 and looking for work. Please don't sell yourself short at min wage because the employer will think that’s your worth. Keep trying!!   I never stop trying and min wage is only for 90 days. If some one takes up the challenge. Some post asked if I am keeping up technology.   Do you keep up with the latest technology and can speak the language fluidly?   Yep to that and as to speaking it also a yep! I am a geek you know. I heard from others over the 50 year mark and younger too.   I'm with you! I keep getting told that I don't have enough experience because I just recently completed a Masters level course in Microsoft SQL Server, which gave me a project-intensive equivalent of between 2 and 3 years of experience. On top of that training, I have 19 years as an applications programmer and database administrator. I can normalize rings around experienced DBAs and churn out effective code with the best of them. But my 19 years is worthless as far as most recruiters and HR people are concerned because it is not the specific experience for which they're looking. HR AND RECRUITERS TAKE NOTE: Experience, whatever the language, translates across platforms and technology! By the way, I'm also over 55 and still have "got it"!   I never lost it and I also can work rings round younger techs.   I'm 52 and female and seem to be having the same issues. I have over 10 years experience in tech support (with a BS in CIS) and can't get hired either.   Ow, I only have an AS in computer science along with my certifications.   Keep the faith, I have been unemployed since August of 2008. I agree with you...I am willing to return to the beginning of my retail career and work myself back through the ranks, if someone will look past the grey and realize the knowledge I would bring to the table.   I also would like some one to look past the gray.   Interesting approach, volunteering to work for minimum wage for 90 days. I'm in the same situation as you, being 55 & balding w/white hair, so I know where you're coming from. I've been out of work now for a year. I'm in Michigan, where the unemployment rate is estimated to be 15% (the worst in the nation) & even though I've got 30+ years of IT experience ranging from mainframe to PC desktop support, it's difficult to even get a face-to-face interview. I had one prospective employer tell me flat out that I "didn't have the energy required for this position". Mostly I never get any feedback. All I can say is good luck & try to remain optimistic.   He said WHAT! Yes remaining optimistic is key. Along with faith in God. Then there was this (for lack of better word) jerk.   Give it up already. You were too old to work in high tech 10 years ago. Scratch that, 20 years ago! Try selling hot dogs in front of Fry's Electronics. At least you would get a chance to eat lunch with your previous colleagues....   You know funny thing on this person is that I checked out his profile. He is older than I am.

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  • Can a Mediawiki table be dynamically created using other Mediawiki pages?

    - by Ashimema
    OK, So I've got created a page on my wiki which contains just a single table listing various details about servers and customers. You can follow links for each customer name in the table to find additional details about said customer. What I want to know is; Can the information in the customers page (page B) be used to dynamically update the table (Page A). Is this something that the Semantic MediaWiki extension can accomplished? Running Mediawiki 1.16.2

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  • BI&EPM in Focus December 2012

    - by Mike.Hallett(at)Oracle-BI&EPM
    Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE /* 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:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; 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-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Share with your customers: October Edition of Business Analytics Customer Newsletter (link) Oracle OpenWorld Presentation pdf's available for download (link) OOW Mark Hurd Recap: Business Analytics at Oracle OpenWorld (video | blog) Register your customers for Oracle Days 2012 (link | video) BI & EPM Business Analytics Advisor Webcasts on My.Oracle.Support - Current Schedule and Archived (link) Customers Wüstenrot Efficiently Generates Reports and Analyzes Data with Enterprise Reporting Solution Empresas Públicas Medellin Gathers Data for Annual, Financial Projections 70% Faster ICON Improves Month-End Reporting Significantly Using a Single Source for Timely Consistent Business Intelligence, Reduces Reliance on Spreadsheets  Gilead Sciences, a science-led company backed by business-led IT, uses Oracle solutions to simplify business processes and establish a foundation for continued growth Dell Enhances the Customer Experience with Oracle’s RTD (video) Link to Complete Archive Enterprise Performance Management eBook: Transforming Enterprise Business Planning (link) Blog: Why CFO's should care about Big Data (link) Oracle Hyperion Project Financial Planning - New Projects Feature Release 11.1.2.2 Video Feature Overview. Now Available with many other Hyperion overviews on the YouTube Oracle EPM Channel (link) Available Patch Sets and Patch Set Updates for Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management Products on My.Oracle.Support (link) Hyperion Disclosure Management supplementary materials provides a set of guides for Disclosure Management and Taxonomy Designer users, including best practices guidelines, a full Disclosure Management sample report, a webinar series, and other guiding materials on My.Oracle.Support (link) See the selection of EPM Customer Videos at MediaNetwork (Hyperion) Business Intelligence Webcast Replay: Big Data, Bright Future, featuring Andrew McAfee (link) Webinar series and guides on Getting Started With Hyperion Interactive Reporting Translation Workbench, a tool that accelerates metadata conversion from IR to Oracle BI Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) on My.Oracle.Support (link) See the selection of BI Customer Videos at MediaNetwork (BI) and for (Exalytics) and (Endeca) ORACLE TEAM USA Analytics Dashboard demo - Now Available (link)

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  • Solita Oy Achieves Oracle PartnerNetwork Specialization

    - by michaela.seika(at)oracle.com
    Helsinki, February 2, 2011 - Solita Oy, a member of the Oracle® PartnerNetwork (OPN), is the first Finnish enterprise to achieve OPN Specialized status for customer-specific systems integration and software solutions.To achieve a Specialized status, Oracle partners are required to meet a stringent set of requirements that are based on the needs and priorities of the customer and partner community. By achieving a Specialized distinction, Solita Oy has been recognized by Oracle for its expertise in customer-specific systems integration and software solutions, achieved through competency development and demonstrated by the company's business results and proven success in implementing customer projects. "Solita and Oracle have cooperated for a long time, and we have been an Oracle partner for many years. We believe that the renewed partner program and the new partnership level that we have achieved will open up new opportunities for a closer collaboration with Oracle. Our increased focus on systems integration solutions and the stepping up of our specialized knowledge of SOA will enable us to provide even better solutions for our customers," said Jari Niska, Chief Executive Officer, Solita Oy. "Solita has shown trust and belief in Oracle's technology and in the business opportunities arising with it. They have contributed to building our cooperation in a consistent and systematic way. Achieving a Specialized status in our partner program is a natural further step in our close and committed cooperation. It strengthens our trust in our ability to be able to increase both turnover and profitability together," said Juha Kaskirinne, Alliances and Channel Leader, Oracle Finland Oy.  About Oracle PartnerNetwork Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) Specialized is the latest version of Oracle's partner program that provides partners with tools to better develop, sell and implement Oracle solutions. OPN Specialized offers resources to train and support specialized knowledge of Oracle products and solutions and has evolved to recognize Oracle's growing product portfolio, partner base and business opportunity. Key to the latest enhancements to OPN is the ability for partners to differentiate through Specializations. Specializations are achieved through competency development, business results, expertise and proven success. To find out more visit http://www.oracle.com/partners or connect with the Oracle Partner community at OPN on Twitter, OPN on Facebook, OPN on LinkedIn, and OPN on YouTube. About Solita Oy Solita Oy is a Finnish company dedicated to developing demanding information system solutions and IT professional services. Solita's customers include prominent Finnish companies and public organizations. Solita's turnover in 2010 was about 17 million euros. The company was founded in 1996 and has over 170 employees. Further information: www.solita.fiFurther information Jari Niska, CEO, Solita Oy, tel. +358 40 524 6400, [email protected] Kaskirinne, A&C Leader Finland, Oracle Finland Oy, tel. +358 40 506 3592, [email protected]

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  • A "First" at Oracle OpenWorld

    - by Kathryn Perry
    A guest post by Adam May, Director, Fusion CRM, Oracle Applications Development There are always firsts at OpenWorld. These firsts keep the conference fresh and are the reason people come back year after year. An important first this year is our Fusion CRM customers who are using the product and deriving real benefit from Fusion CRM. Everyone can learn from and interact with them -- including us!  We love talking to customers, especially those who are using our solutions in unexpected ways because they challenge us! At previous OpenWorlds, we presented our overall Fusion vision and our plans for Fusion CRM. Those presentations helped customers plan their strategies and map out their new release uptakes. Fast forward to March of this year when the first Fusion CRM customer went live. Since then we've watched the pace of go-lives accelerate every single month. Now we're at the threshold of another OpenWorld -- with over 45,000 attendees, 2,500 sessions and LOTS of other activities. To avoid having our customers curl into a ball with sensory overload, we designed a Focus On Document to outline the most important Fusion CRM activities. Here are some of the highlights: Anthony Lye's "Oracle Fusion Customer Relationship Management: Overview/Strategy/Customer Experiences/Roadmap" on Monday at 3:15 p.m. The CRM Pavilion, open in Moscone West from Monday through Wednesday; features our strategic Fusion CRM partners and provides live demonstrations of their capabilities General Session: "Oracle Fusion CRM--Improving Sales Effectiveness, Efficiency, and Ease of Use" on Tuesday at 11:45 a.m.; features Anthony Lye and Deloitte "Meet the Fusion CRM Experts" on Tuesday at 5:00 p.m.; this session gives customers the opportunity to interact one-on-one with Fusion experts divided into eight categories of expertise CRM Social Reception on Tuesday from 6-8 p.m.; there's no better way to spend the early evening than discussing Fusion CRM with Oracle experts and strategic partners over appetizers and drinks Wednesday night is Oracle's Customer Appreciation event; enjoy Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon, etc. beginning at 7:30 p.m. at Treasure Island Be sure to drink plenty of water before sleeping Wednesday night and don't stay out too late because we have lots of great content on Thursday; at the top of the list is "Oracle Fusion Social CRM Strategy and Roadmap: Future of Collaboration and Social Engagement" at 11:15 a.m. We hope you have a fantastic experience at OpenWorld 2012! And here's a little video treat to whet your appetite: http://www.youtube.com/user/FusionAppsAtOracle

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  • Driving Growth through Smarter Selling

    - by Samantha.Y. Ma
    With the proliferation of social media and mobile technologies, the world of selling and buying has drastically changed, as buyers now have access to more information than they did in the past. In fact, studies have shown that buyers complete 60 percent of the buying process before they even engage with a salesperson. The old models of selling no longer work effectively; and the new way of selling is driven by customer insights. To succeed, sales need to be proactive, not reactive. They need to engage with the customer early, sometimes even before the customer’s needs are fully understood. In fact, the best sales reps prescribe a solution that the customer doesn't even know they need, often by leveraging social media to listen, engage and collaborate with peers. And they fully tap into the power of analytics and data to drive results.  Let’s look at some stats regarding challenges facing sales today. According to recent studies, sales reps spend 78 percent of their time doing administrative things -- such as planning, searching for information, data entry -- and only 22 percent of the time actually selling. Furthermore, 40 percent of B2B sales reps miss their quota, and only 3 percent of companies can say with confidence that their forecasts are “always accurate.” How do you drive growth in this modern day and age? It's not just getting your sales teams to work harder; it's helping them work smarter and providing them with a solution they want to use, on the device(s) they already know, giving them critical insights and tools to be more productive, increase win rates, and close deals faster. Oracle Sales Cloud was designed to do exactly that. It enables smarter selling that allows reps to sell more, managers to know more, and companies to grow more.  Let’s face it—if all CRM solutions worked well, sales executives wouldn’t be having the same headaches as they had in the past. Join Oracle’s Thomas Kurian and Doug Clemmans on Tuesday, October 22 as they explain: • How today’s sales processes have rendered many CRM systems obsolete • The secrets to smarter selling, leveraging mobile, social, and big data • How Oracle Sales Cloud enables smarter selling—as proven by Oracle and its customers Take the first step down the path toward smarter selling. With Oracle Sales Cloud, reps sell more, managers know more, and companies grow more.

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  • Webshop in Europe with high revenues.. what to use?

    - by Patrick
    I need to build a webshop for a customer with an weekly revenues more than 40.000 euros Location: Europe I was thinking to use Paypal Standard Payment (in this case the customer needs to contact paypal given the above mentioned revenues, right ? Any other solution for an european web shops ? (i.e. Paypal Payments Pro doesn't work in Europe) Also, is there any pre-built service.. to make such webshop ? thanks

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  • Where I missed boot.properties.?

    - by Dyade, Shailesh M
    Today one of my customer was trying to start the WebLogic Server ( Production Instance) , though he was trying to start the server in a standard way, but it was failing due to below error :   ####<Oct 22, 2012 12:14:43 PM BST> <Warning> <Security> <BanifB1> <> <main> <> <> <> <1350904483998> <BEA-090066> <Problem handling boot identity. The following exception was generated: weblogic.security.internal.encryption.EncryptionServiceException: weblogic.security.internal.encryption.EncryptionServiceException: [Security:090219]Error decrypting Secret Key java.security.ProviderException: setSeed() failed> And it started failing into below causes. ####<Oct 22, 2012 12:16:45 PM BST> <Critical> <WebLogicServer> <BanifB1> <AdminServer> <main> <<WLS Kernel>> <> <> <1350904605837> <BEA-000386> <Server subsystem failed. Reason: java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException weblogic.security.internal.encryption.EncryptionServiceException: weblogic.security.internal.encryption.EncryptionServiceException: [Security:090219]Error decrypting Secret Key java.security.ProviderException: setSeed() failed weblogic.security.internal.encryption.EncryptionServiceException: [Security:090219]Error decrypting Secret Key java.security.ProviderException: setSeed() failed at weblogic.security.internal.encryption.JSafeSecretKeyEncryptor.decryptSecretKey(JSafeSecretKeyEncryptor.java:121) Customer was facing this issue without any changes in the system, it was stable suddenly started seeing this issue last night. When we checked, customer was manually entering the username and password, config.xml had the entries encrypted However when verified, customer had the boot.properties at the Servers/AdminServer/security folder and DomainName/security didn't have this file. Adding boot.properies fixed the issue. Regards Shailesh Dyade 

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  • Database ERD design: 2 types user in one table

    - by Giskin Leow
    I have read this (Database design: 3 types of users, separate or one table?) I decided to put admin and normal user in one table since the attributes are similar: fullname, address, phone, email, gender ... Then I want to draw ERD, suddenly my mind pop out a question. How to draw? Customer make appointment and admin approve appointment. now only two tables, and admin, customer in same table. Help.

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  • What is a clean Agile (Scrum) Sprint Presentation?

    - by negarnil
    Suppose someone of your development team is presenting a sprint to the customer but he is having web connection problems such that a complete story cannot be presented. For the sake of the cleanness of the presentation, do you help your colleague suggesting possible solutions and try to fix it in the moment? Or is it kind of messy? May be the customer (who is "part" of the team) will understand? Why?

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