Oracle9iAS Portal Developer Kit
Oracle9iAS Portal Developer Kit - Development Cycle

Using Oracle9iAS Portal, organizations are able to expose applications to users and provide access to business critical information in a standard format, while allowing new applications and data sources to be added as required.

Portal pages are made up of one or more portlets. A portlet is an area of HTML or XML within an HTML table. It is information that is placed within a region on a page. All portlets come from a data source registered with Oracle9iAS called a provider. Browsers display this combined output as a single page with multiple portlets.

From concept to production, you can develop an Enterprise Portal by using the Oracle9iAS Portal Developer Kit Development Cycle which contains stages of development. This top-down, systematic approach to portal development transforms business information requirements into an integrated enterprise portal. This five-tier development cycle includes strategy and analysis, design, build and document, transition, and production.
This article describes guidelines and suggestions to build Portal pages seamlessly. After reading this article, you should have an idea of how to plan your Portal site.

### LIFE CYCLE

### Strategy and Analysis

Study and analyze the business requirements. Interview users and managers to identify the information requirements. Incorporate the enterprise and application mission statements as well as any future system specifications.

- Gather information about the Web based requirements of your enterprise.
- What are the needs of the users?
- What Web pages are used often, but require consolidation?

Build models of your pages. Transfer the business narrative into a graphical representation of business information needs and rules. Confirm and refine the model with the analyst and experts. A few questions to ask:

- Will my portal require components based on database objects such as tables, procedures, etc? Can we distribute information to your enterprise with Reports, Forms, Charts?

- Are there special needs in our environment that require more features than Portal components? Can we build stored procedures to fill in the gaps of portal components?

- Will the Web site need to incorporate self-service content publishing?

- Do we have existing Web sites that we would like to incorporate into our Enterprise Portal? Can we write code to integrate these Web sites with Portal or do we just want these sites available for user access?

- How much Hard Disk Space will the portal require? What if the site grows 100% over time? How much memory will it require. How many concurrent users will hit the server?

To answer the above information, you will need to review the installation notes and requirements for Portal. Knowing how much space and memory is required for the install will help you gauge how much it may grow. Review the user documentation to determine if the built-in components will meet your requirements.

### Design

Design the Portal based on the model developed in the strategy and analysis phase. The second step in the life cycle is design. During design you may choose to use the built-in components or select an implementation style of PL/SQL (Database) or Java services (Web). By choosing the implementation style, you are selecting a provider type. A provider in an entity that owns portlets. It manages communication between the Oracle9iAS Portal and portlets. The Portal receives needed information about each portlet from its provider.

- You may want to incorporate the self-service content at this stage. Think about the look and feel as well as restrictions and limitations.

- What type of authentication will you require? Do you plan to have a public page and then require user login for secured information? Will all the information be secure?

  - Create a list of users that you will allow access to the Portal.

  - Gather information about Web sites which will be available to users, but require a separate login from the Portal.

    - URL
    - username variables
    - password variables

### Build and Document

When building your application, you have many options to pursue. The following section describes a few steps that may help you get started.

- You may want to create Applications to group related data. An application is a container for a group of related components and shared components. You typically create the application before creating the components and shared components that comprise it.

  If you choose, create components to display information about your business. Portal components enable you to display, create, or update data stored in objects in the Oracle database. Some components, such as charts, only display database data in a graphical format on a Web page. Other components, such as a form based on a table, provide interfaces that allow end users to change data in the database objects on which the component is based.
  You use build wizards accessible from the Oracle9iAS Portal Application Explorer to create components. The build wizard produces a PL/SQL stored procedure that is stored in the database. When executed, the stored procedure dynamically renders the HTML and JavaScript code that displays the component.
  These are the components you can build:

  - Report - Displays data you select from the database table or view in a report. The report
    can have tabular, form or custom layout. The report may also allow users to query, delete, update and insert rows into the database table or view.

  - Chart - Displays data you select from the database table or view in a chart format.

  - Calendar - Displays data you select from the database table or view as a calendar.

  - Dynamic Page - Displays dynamically generated HTML content on a Web page.

  - Hierarchy - Displays data you select from the database table or view as a graphical
    hierarchy of items containing up to three levels.

  - Query by Example Form (QBE)- Displays a form with entry fields for querying and updating information.

  - Master-Detail (MD) Form - Displays a form that has a master row and multiple detail rows within a single HTML page. The form contains fields for updating values in two
    database tables or views.

  - Form (based on a table or procedure) - Displays a customized form that can be used as an interface for updating tables, executing stored procedures, and generating other customized forms.

  - Menu - Displays an HTML-based menu containing hyperlinked options to other menus,
    WebDB components, or URLs.

  - Frame Driver - Displays a Web page with two frames. End user queries in one frame controls the content of the other frame.

- If you need additional services above the built-in components, you may choose to develop PL/SQL or Java portlets.

> PL/SQL portlets can be written as PL/SQL or Java stored procedures by the developer. They allow you to customize your page using Oracle9iAS Portal APIs and provide additional information or features that are not available using the wizards. More information about how to develop PL/SQL portlets can be found by reviewing the article Understanding Database Providers .

> Web providers are written by the developer in JSP or Servlet code and are used to integrate any existing Web sites with Oracle9iAS Portal. More information about how to develop Web providers can be found by reviewing the article Primer on Web Providers .

- You can develop the pages by selecting the custom portlets you have created or components created using the Oracle9iAS Portal wizards.

- It is also a good idea to develop user documentation, help links, and operations manuals to support the use of the Enterprise Portal.

### Transition

Now that you have built the Enterprise Portal, you will need to complete user testing before sending it to production. Refine the prototype. Move the Portal into production with user acceptance testing, conversion of existing data, and parallel operations.

- Test the resources available. Have I estimated the Hard Disk space and Memory correctly. Do I have room to grow?

- Is there easy access to the most used portlets and pages?

- Depending on the resources used and the database links required, how long and often should I have Oracle9iAS Portal cache the pages to reduce access to the server?

- Make any necessary modifications.

### Production

Roll out the system to the users. Operate the production system. Monitor its performance, and enhance and refine the system.

### Maintenance

It is very important to maintain your Web site. It is important to develop a site that is modulus; a site that can be expanded and changed easily when required without interrupting production for long periods of time.

Revision History:

- September 24, 2000. Version 1.0.5.