Saturday, October 10, 2009

Should Oracle Go the IBM way?

After FileNet got acquired from IBM, IBM brought all issues and problems that were inside the FileNet product support website into the open. These content were only avilable for partners and customers who had a valid login credentials to these website. Which means to see this content you should have spent enough dollars and buy support.
   Lets look at a case, many a times new patches will have some sleeper bugs or known issues. I have first hand experience where in an organisation only select few will have authorization to these website and people have to wait for these key people when they have some issue after they have applied the latest patch.
   If this info is made available in public it would make life simpler to all of us.
So should oracle go IBM way and bring content locked in Metalink into public domain?

Thursday, October 1, 2009

Redirect post Login in UCM content server

If you have a requirement where you need to redirect the user to some other page after login instead of the default search page we need to over ride the LOGIN service.  Below are the details steps to take the user to the browse content page which has the list of virtual folders in the content server..
  1.  Open Component Wizard
  2. Click on Options --> Add
  3. Give suitable name to the component, do not change any of the fields.
  4. Now the new component is created and you can add resource to this component.
  5. Click on Add, under Resource Defination tab.
  6. Select service radio button
  7. Make load order as 20 (this is to make sure your component is loaded last and content server will use the LOGIN service created by us instead of the default service.)
  8. Click next,
  9. Click next
  10. Now in the Add service dialog box , Give name as LOGIN
  11. Select Service as the Service Class
  12. Leave rest of the fields blank.
  13. Click on Add button under Actions sections
  14. Select type as Java Method.
  15. Give name as prepareRedirect
  16. In parameter Text box add IdcService=COLLECTION_DISPLAY&hasCollectionID=true&dCollectionID=2 
  17. This will take your users to the browse content page. We can the IDC service as per our requirement
  18. Click OK
  19. Close all boxes.
  20. Enable the component 
  21. Restart content server
  22. Go to the portal home page and click on LOGIN
  23. You should go the desired page

Friday, September 25, 2009

Oracle UCM on vista

Pleasant surprise, UCM can run on vista home edition. I did install the Content server and site studio on my laptop. But on a single box things do get cranky some times. Some times Idc Services fails to start up with ERROR:1064, possible reason for this is that your database is not handling content server requests as expected.
After restart it was business asusal.

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Is UCM better placed than rest of the Gang?

         I am no high profile analyst, these taughts are purely from the trench. Is Oracle UCM offering better placed than FileNet or Documentum?
         Documnetum guys are still converting there basic doc management code to services, and stoping support for there earlier version and forcing business to migrate to new expensive versions. Thanks to oracles backing now UCM can be integrated with there other fusion middleware products like SOA, BPEL processor, weblogic server.
         For the FileNet folks they were never a major player when it came to WCM, in case you are looking for a intranet site integrated to your document management solution you end wirting the custom application interacting with FileNet.
         One draw back for UCM was the relatively large learning cruve required to integrate with existing J2EE apps, as you had to do things UCM way instead, with RIDC's introduction curve is a bit more smooth.
         Let me know what you think are the features that will clinch deals in favor of UCM