Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g support(including Forms 11g)

Since we’re talking about Forms 11g, the first question we get from customers is “Until when is Forms supported?”.
I saw the blog post of Gerd Volberg and thought is was interesting to share this with our readers.
Extended support for Forms 11g(and reports): June 2017.

Complete information on Fusion Middleware support: Lifetime support Middelware

And maybe it will go further as I mentioned in a previous post.

Forms 11g javascript integration: Call others

Forms 11g holds a lot of interesting new features focused on event-driven architecture, one of these is javascript integration. There are two ways of using javascript with Forms 11g: “call others” and “let others call you”.

Javascript can call code in Forms(“Let others call you”) using the new forms trigger “when-custom-javacript-event”.

This post is going to show you the first one: “call others”, in other words call javascript from your Oracle Forms application.

During the Forms Modernization Seminar I showed a google map that could be manipulated from an Oracle Form. It’s an easy implementation with only a few lines of code(most of the javascript is taken from the api examples on the google code site: http://code.google.com/apis/maps/).

• Build a little form with one (control) block, one text field(to enter an address) and one button(to call the javascript code).
• Next step is to create an HTML-page to display the form.

This code puts the form(in an iframe) and the map side by side:
(Click to enlarge)

And it will look like this:

• The javascript that will be called is put in another file google.js:

• The only thing to do is creating a “when-button-pressed” trigger in forms to call the javascript function showAddress.
  This is done by a new built-in procedure web.javascript_eval_expr:
  

• Copy the HTML and javascript file to the following directory:
  <middleware_home>\user_projects\domains\<domain>\servers\WLS_FORMS\tmp\_WL_user\formsapp_11.1.1\e18uoi\war\
• Create a new configuration using Enterprise Manager:

• Make sure the parameter EnableJavascriptEvent is set to “true’ in your configuration!

And the working demo…

Forms Modernization, Part 1: Motivation for change

In the first part of our seminar we discussed some topics that forms customers want to change today.

These changes are mostly focussed on the island most forms applications and teams are working on today, such as:

1) Internal services that are provided within the enterprise that could uplift the provided functionality to the end users.

E.g. Order-information that is provided via a webservice of the existing legacy application. This information can be provided to the back-end and forms interface to have real time information provided to the accountancy-department that is using the forms app.

2) External services that are provided by partners that could uplift the provided functionality to the customers and the business users.

E.g. a good example of the ROI is explained in the ZLM Case Study.

3) Existing pl/sql functionality that can be offered as a service to enterprise applications or external partners.

E.g. the forms application handles the allocation of consultants of iAdvise. To be able to provide customers a better service we could offer the business unit managers, pre-sales and sales a real-time view on the whereabouts (no we don’t play tennis ;o) ) of the consultants. In other words, a customer is facing production problems and needs support asap, the sales person looks up which consultants are nereby the customers with the needed skills. Given the coordinates the sales-person can then call the consultant and give the customer a much better service without needing to cross to many channels to get the necessary information.

4) Get on the fusion track and let your forms application talk to you jee, adf, apex, custom made application.

You want to integrate new functionality which is provided through ajax, java server faces, event driven architecture, … to improve look and feel and to let end users profit from the added value such as asynchronous event handling, JavaScript integration, …

In other words when you start thinking about improvements you could make to your existing forms application, the ROI mostly is very obvious.

The investments made in human capital, architecture and infrastructure are protected whilst enabling integration of new technologies and improving your existing skill set and investments.

What I would like to know from other customers, developers, end-users, …:
Is anybody facing integration/modernization issues today within their Forms Apps that can’t be addressed using one of the following scenario’s: modernization, integration, upgrade to 10g/11g?

If so, please provide us this information so we can discuss the different scenario’s, aspects that are applicable to your specific case.

Oracle Forms … alive and kicking

Yesterday Gert Poel, Yves Van Looy and myself organised a Forms Modernization seminar for customers, developers, partners … everyone that was interested.

The seminar was a huge succes and the customers were reassured that Forms is still alive and kicking.

First we discussed the improvements customers want to make to their existing forms applications, why would you want to change. Afterwards we discussed the how, which different scenario’s are applicable when you want to modernize your Forms Application. Most customers are indeed looking to improve their UI, open up the forms application’s services and integrate them within the enterprise, service-enable the existing pl/sql functionalities.

After the theoritical approach we showed some of our succesfull case studies, such as the ZLM Case that’s published on the Forms Modernization URL. These cases showed the customers how to achieve integration of forms with a soa architecture, how to implement a document workflow within forms and how to modernize your UI using LAF, thanks to François Degrelle’s resources.

In other words the first part of the seminar hit the nail on the head ;o)

In the second part we demonstrated the Forms 11g release and discussed the migration path towards 11g. This was very interesting for the customers as well because they were reassured that Forms will be part of the fusion ages. Most of all, Forms is one of the players within Event Driven Architecture using the AQ-mechanisme, thus using the scalability and performance of the Oracle Database.

The attendees’ feedback was great and they were eager to start modernizing … in other words: Forms will no longer be an island within the organisation but will definitly become an important player within the fusion strategy.

I would like to thank the attendees, Gert & Yves for the great experience !

Let’s start modernizing !!!

Oracle Forms Modernization seminar

iAdvise organises a seminar on Forms modernization.

During this seminar we will show you how you can modernize your Oracle Forms applications, give it a rich look and feel, and adopt the latest technologies without throwing away years of investment in Oracle Forms.
We will show you how you can combine the power of an Oracle Forms application with functionality from external application (javabeans, pluggable java components, webservices,…) and how you can give a Forms application a modern “look and feel”.

Also part of this seminar is an overview of the new features in the latest Oracle Forms release(11g)

When: June 1, 2010
Where: iAdvise office, Kontich
Language: Dutch

View invitation

What new features would you want to see in Oracle Forms?

A few months ago I wrote a blogpost about forms titled  “Forms isn’t dead!”

Since then I went to Oracle Open World and gave a presentation on how to modernize your existing Oracle Forms application.
So you don’t have to throw away years of investment in Oracle forms.

I’m working at a customer that created a new application in Forms 10g and it was put in production last year.

And now there’s a thread on the OTN Forms forum started by Grant Ronald(Product Manager at Oracle):
What new features would you want to see in Oracle Forms?

So, if you want a cool new feature or an improvement in Oracle Forms…you know what to do!

Still not convinced that “Forms isn’t dead”?

Java Object Cache – The Future

You will all encounter, or maybe already have encountered, at some point in time, applications that perform bad. You check the code, or better, profile it. After removing the Thread.sleep(1000) calls there are still cases where the code runs too slow. The reasons can be various, from bad architecture to large object creation times and external systems with slow response times.
If the architecture is bad, you have a problem, in all other cases you can think about implementing a caching mechanism.
There are various cache libaries available or you can even write your own. It all depends on the requirements for the cache.
As an Oracle minded company, we use the Oracle caching products.

Oracle provides a caching library called the Java Object Cache (JOC). It is fairly easy to implement and supports distributed caching across multiple JVMs. JOC is a part of the OC4J and thus the Oracle Application Server, so you can use it for ‘free’ if you have licensed the app server.

Since the launch of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11G I wondered if Oracle would still supports the JOC because:
-) The current version of JOC is 10.1.2, no 11G version in sight.
-) It is embedded in OC4J but OC4J is replaced by Weblogic.
-) Oracles strategic caching product is Coherence.

So I did a little research. Indeed Coherence is the way to go. Coherence has all the features of JOC and many more. But imho Coherence true power unleashes when using it as an enterprise grid cache. And yes, there is the standard edition without the grid capabilities, but still, JOC is a better choice if you want a no nonsense, simple to use, embedded in your application, I can’t afford Coherence, cache.

Back to my initial question. Is JOC still supported? Actually it does. Webcenter 11G uses JOC in the Webcenter Spaces component. Maybe, Oracle will release an 11G version…you never know.

References
JOC home page
Coherence
JOC in Webcenter 11G
More about Oracle caching mechanisms (2005)

Forms isn’t dead!

This is it…my first blog entry!

And by this I want to say that Forms isn’t dead

I’m still convinced that Forms is one of the most suitable environments for data entry applications(Prove me wrong).

Some of you think it’s old fashioned or maybe antique.
But there are still companies choosing for an Oracle Forms environment, even to create new applications.
Using Pluggable Java Components, Java Beans, webservices,… it’ll be a pretty modern application.

And now there’s even the new version: Forms 11g(I told you Forms isn’t dead).
From now on Forms can “react” to external events(Asynchronous Web Services, BPEL, JMS) with the “When-event-raised” trigger.
I’m looking forward to work with it.
For those who want to install Forms 11g, check out Jan Carlin’s blog

I know it’s a bit daring to talk about Forms on a blog that is usualy visited for SOA, APEX and other “newer” technologies.

But I hope that my future posts will indicate that there is still a Forms future.