Oracle Forms Migration to Formspider

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Migrating a Forms Applicationto Formspider

14.04.2015

The Webinar Location in Germany

© TEAM – Ihr Partner für IT 2

The Webinar TEAM


Michael WibbergProStore Product Manager andLead Product Development

Frank ZscherlichDivision Manager Logistics

facts and figures

� belongs to the MATERNA Group:

1500 employees –192 million Euros turnover 2014

� Managing Directors:Michael Baranowski - Heike Käferle

� number of employees:

60

Solutions

� ProStore®

Intralogistics and Warehouse

Management

� ProTrace

Traceability for the food

industry

Business areas

OracleBusiness

� Oracle licensing

� Oracle consulting

� Oracle training

� Business intelligence

� Custom projects

� Oracle Administration Services

ProStore® - Intralogistics and Warehouse Management

� Warehouse Management System

� Material Flow System

� Paperless order picking

� Pick-by-Voice

� Forklift Control System

� Resource Planning

� Monitoring Center

� Logistics intelligence

Initial Situation


ProStore Facts

� about 150 Forms dialogs in a typical customer installation

(from simple master data dialogs with Forms Enter Queryto complex dialogs with a lot of functionality)

� about 400 dialogs overall

� several million lines of PL/SQL code(not UI-related business logic is already in the database)

� about 100 Reports


� about 100 Reports

� from 50 to several hundred users per customer

� source code management with SVN

� process lifecycle management with Polarion

The Migration Constraints

� developer productivity comparable to Oracle Forms demanded

� if possible, use the distinct PL/SQL- and Forms-know how of our development, QA and support teams

� do not change the methodology to keep migration cost low

(keep PL/SQL business logic in the database, stay with Thick Database concept, as opposed to „Data Store only“ concept)

� find an easy to use tool, concentrate on business processes


� find an easy to use tool, concentrate on business processesand not the development tool

� take in account a simple integration of a Oracle Reports

replacement tool (we choose Jasper Reports)

� license costs should be as low as possible especially

for the runtime environment

The Result


The Result


The Migration Steps (1/2)

� evaluate the tools (ADF, BBj, xDev, JVx, RAP, Captain Casa,

Intellij IDEA, rapid.Java),

choice: ADF, features: very good, easy: no, migration effort: high

� evaluate the tool, second pass (Formspider),result: features: very good, easy: yes, migration effort: medium(estimation was 50% less effort compared to ADF)

� discuss and define the new overall layout and features of the new UI


� discuss and define the new overall layout and features of the new UI

� define the new schema architecture in the database

(a schema for business logic, a schema for the UI logic and as an

interface between UI and business logic, a schema for FS)

� define the configuration requirements (dialogs should be highly

configurable, e.g. search/filter panel, grid states, function bar,

internal message system, personalized dialog help, …)

The Migration Steps (2/2)

� implement a framework for the configuration features and required

changes to the existent Forms framework (user authentication and authorization, multi language support, error handling, …)

� implement a framework for the generation of dialogs (basically

master data dialogs)

� create a „How to“ guide for how to migrate a Forms to a FS dialog

(how to move the business logic from Forms into the database)


(how to move the business logic from Forms into the database)

� discuss/define new and renovated dialogs, e.g. merge several

Forms dialogs into just one FS dialog

� migrate the dialogs(estimated effort: 1 to 5 wd per dialog, depending on the complexity)

Formspider Benefits

� easy to use for PL/SQL developers, productivity comparable to Forms

� very good overall design (no business logic in the UI, use of XML for UI definition and communication between server and client)

� can generate XML UI code and replace UI components at runtime

� very good performance (small application server footprint, can be

used for network connections with higher latency: Cloud ready)


� very engaged/dedicated team at Gerger

� short response time for most questions asked in the Q&A

section of the homepage

� very short response time with professional support contract

(but you pay for bug fixing and ordered enhancements)

� lots of demos and tutorials (but no overall doc)

ProStore 10.0 Live Demo

LIVE DEMO


LIVE DEMO

Some development experience with Formspider

� strict separation of UI and Business Logic � challenge how to migrate the forms integrated logic

� well thought-out naming convention is a must� otherwise the huge amount of UI elements in the IDE and identification of UI components using names is not manageable

� api documentation is helpful but sometimes requires trial and error � Q&A is one of the first contact point to find some hints

26.06.2014 © TEAM - Ihr Partner für IT 19

� Q&A is one of the first contact point to find some hints

� chance to integrate third party java script tools like ckeditor� but java script know how is mandatory

� Besides the debugging possibility, getting the exchanged xml information helps to understand the behavior of the application and the interaction with the client

� XML definition and generating features allows a guided dialog creation� harmonization of coding and dialog design leads to better code quality

TEAM Consulting Services

� training with best practices

� individual project support

� coaching

� framework design and implementation

� dialog migration or implementation


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TEAM GmbH

Hermann-Löns-Str. 88

33104 Paderborn

Fon +49 5254 8008-0

Fax +49 5254 8008-19

Mail [email protected]

Web www.team-pb.de

Thank you for your attention!


Software

Oracle Forms Migration to Formspider