Getting Started With Oracle BPM 11g

In a previous blog post I wrote a step by step guide on how to install Oracle BPM 11g. That was all good and well, but now what? The first thing I would suggest you do is go and by the book Getting Started with Oracle BPM Suite 11gR1 – A Hands-On Tutorial. Read that book cover to cover and go through the labs. It provides very good information and a great sample application that you build from scratch throughout the book. If you’re like me and you want to first play with the software a little bit before you go reading a 500 and some-odd page book, Oracle allows you download the same application that you create in the book.

To download the sample application, go to:

http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/bpm/learnmore/index.html

Browse down to the Samples and Demos section for the link. The sample application is called the Sales Quote Demo and is a BPM process where sales people enter in a quote into the process system, have the quote go through approvals and reviews, perform some automated routing, and finalize the quote.

Once you download the sample application and unzip it there are two documents to help you set up and run it. The first doc is the ‘Setup Instructions’, it takes you step by step through prepping your environment for the application. It walks you through the steps of creating your schema, setting up the WebLogic server, seeding the LDAP, connecting JDeveloper (or BPM studio if you prefer) to the MDS, deploying the project, setting up the groups, and mapping the LDAP users to the process roles. The guide is very good and I didn’t have any problems following through it step by step and deploying the application.

The second document is the ‘Understand and Run’ guide. This document has two sections. The first section goes through the process design and describes the logic behind it. The second section walks you through actually running the application and the end-user experience. Just like the Setup document, this guide is pretty straightforward and easy to follow. Unlike the Setup document, when you go through this guide you actually learn a little bit about Oracle BPM 11g and how it works.

Downloading the Sales Quote Demo and deploying it isn’t a replacement for reading the book I mentioned above or going to a training course, but it is a very good jumping off point. If you like dry reads you can download the various guides that Oracle has for BPM. The guides are all located at:

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E17904_01/nav/portal_booklist.htm

The guides are actually invaluable and for Oracle BPM 11g I would recommend downloading the following and putting them into your library:

• Quick Installation Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
• Installation Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
• Modeling and Implementation Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
• Administrator’s Guide for Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Business Process Management Suite
• User’s Guide for Oracle Business Rules
• Business Process Composer User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Management
• User’s Guide for Oracle Business Process Management

Going through these steps, setting up the Sales Quote Demo application, and reviewing it is a great way to start off learning BPM and I highly suggest it. Good luck!

 

John Linehan

ImageSource, Inc.

www.imagesourceinc.com

Fusion Middleware Patchset 5 in the Wild

Oracle slipped out the fifth patchset release for the Fusion Middleware products during the middle of the night on the 22nd of February.  For the most part things will be very familiar to longtime users.  One of the most visible changes is that the branding has caught up with the software.  Oracle Content Server is now Webcenter Content,  Imaging and Process Management is now Webcenter Imaging.  It feels like an end of an era!

ImageSource has a customer that was entering an upgrade project for their Fusion Middleware based solution.  After two surprisingly easy days I got their development and test environments up and running with this new release.  Oracle has stated this released isn’t focused on adding lots of new features but they have rolled up a lot of bug fixes and patches that previously had to be installed separately into this release.  This is by far the best release of this platform ever.

That’s not to say Oracle didn’t sneak in some great new features.  Folks who haven’t got to try out the Oracle Business Process Management feature back in PR4 will find huge improvements in this release.  One of the Webcenter Imaging additions I appreciate is a built-in configuration editor for any Oracle solution accelerators installed in the environment.  Most folks probably haven’t had to work with those much but as one of the few who have let me tell you it’s a breath of fresh air to start seeing official Oracle tooling support and documentation for those things.

The folks at AMIS have a good write up with lots of reference links and general impressions of the release.  All in all,  I’m really excited to see what the future brings.  Oracle has come a long way since the initial release of the 11g platform as a whole.  Even from PS2 this seems like lightyears ahead.

Les Harris
Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

IPM 10g is Going Away, Now What?

Earlier this month ImageSource hosted our annual ECM conference Nexus.  I had the chance to meet with many of our customers and have some really great conversations.  Many of these folks are running IPM 10g as a core component of their enterprise and since that product is being end of life’d they are taking a long hard look at their installations.  Everyone wanted to know what options they had and to talk about the best way for them to move forward.  The 11g version of IPM was frequently a core topic of conversation and everybody wanted to hear how to get from here to there.

This turns out to be a hard question to answer! There is no single bullet-proof solution that you can just pull the trigger on and have everything completed.  (Sorry, we’re still working on the ILINX® Magic Wand)   Depending on your environment and your goals there are different considerations.  Let’s take a look at a few common scenarios.

IPM 10g, Imaging Only

So in your environment you’re using IPM to store and retrieve images.  You’re not using workflow, you don’t have many complex integrations, IPM is basically acting solely as a repository.  You are in a great position for an upgrade to IPM 11g.  Unlike folks with workflows and complex integrations there is a clear and defined upgrade path for an Imaging-only IPM 10g system.  Oracle provides a migration tool that performs the actual transfer of documents (with annotations!) from 10g to 11g.  The upgrade is mostly a matter of setting the applications and searches up in 11g and letting this tool move the content over.

IPM 10g, Process

Your environment utilizes workflows to streamline your business processes.  All your content can be moved over no problem as described previously in the Imaging-only section but what about all these workflows?  Sadly there is no way to directly move these from 10g to 11g.  11g workflows utilizes technologies like BPM and BPEL which are architecturally far-removed from the Process engine in 10g.

Not all is lost however.  While not being built on the same technology, there is a strong mapping between the older 10g workflow and 11g workflow (especially when using BPM).  The workflows won’t have to be redesigned just reimplemented.  Much of the work in creating workflow is capturing the business process in the first place, implementing the design is in many ways easier.  Plus, this is a great time to take a look at your workflows and see which ones you are still using and which ones could do with some updates.  IPM 11g offers much more advanced workflow functionality and this is also the perfect time to add modern workflow features into your own workflows.

I’ve talked a great deal at Nexus and with customers about the benefits of 11g workflow.  If you’d like to learn more leave a comment or email me and we can talk about some of the features that can really add alot of value to your workflow business process.

Migration to Another Platform

Lastly since the switch to 11g is more of a migration rather than an upgrade now is a time to consider implementing other systems.  Many of our current IPM 10g customers are looking at a product of ours called ILINX Content Store as a replacement option.  IPM 11g is really geared towards the enterprise and everything from server hardware to licensing is based on that assumption.  But if you are using IPM 10g at a departmental level, or just as an imaging repository 11g is in many ways overkill for your needs.

ILINX Content Store is focused on easy and effective content management  with strong Microsoft Windows integration.  It’s built on modern technologies and  encapsulates our years of experience in the ECM space to provide an intuitive, easy to use and administer solution.  It is a natural replacement for an imaging only IPM 10g system and most end-users find Content Store’s user experience easier and just as powerful.

If you’re using a lot of workflow though your options drift back towards the enterprise.  Many of our customers are making Sharepoint a core component of their workflow strategy.  We are also exploring IBM’s P8 family of products (which live in their FileNet umbrella).

Wrapping Up

These three scenarios are the ones that I see come up again and again.  But every environment is different.  Your needs and requirements are going to be different.  If you have further questions I encourage you to leave a comment or email me and we can have a great discussion about where you are today and where you want to be.

Les Harris
Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

Oracle BPM 11g Install for a Development Environment

Who is finally ready to get off their laurels and start looking at Oracle BPM 11g? I knew I was, the question I had was: where do I start? I figured the best place to start would be to actually install the software. A special thanks to one of our Systems Engineer, Les Harris who helped in getting me going on installing the software. I installed the entire Oracle BPM 11g stack on my laptop and documented the procedure. The following outline is not for a production install, but rather for getting a development environment up and running. A production install would be different and require different install packages as well as a few more steps. This install is strictly for setting up a development environment which is why I used the versions of the software listed below. Sorry I didn’t take screenshots, but I documented everything I did and using these steps I have been able to install multiple environments without issue.

The first thing I had to do was go and download all of the different install packages that comprise the Oracle BPM stack, those are:

• JRockit (JDK R28.1.4)
• Oracle Database (10G Express Edition – Universal)
• Oracle Repository Creation Utility (version 11.1.1.5.0)
• Oracle Web Logic Server (version 10.3.5)
• Oracle SOA Suite (version 11.1.1.5.0)
• Oracle JDeveloper Studio Edition (version 11.1.1.5)

Next I had to unzip all the packages that came zipped up. I recommend 7-zip or pretty much anything else that isn’t the built in Windows utility, that thing is just too slow for these large files.

Now it’s time to start installing.

1. Install JRockit. Since I’ll need to type the path a lot I installed it to C:\Java.
2. Install the database server. It’s a very typical install, I used all the defaults. Be sure to write down the sys account password.

a. After installed launch SQL plus and run the following commands to up the process count:

i.      Connect
ii.      Enter the credentials (username: sys as sydba, password: whatever you specified during your database install)
iii.      alter system reset sessions scope=spfile sid=’*';
iv.      alter system set processes=400 scope=spfile;
v.      shutdown immediate
vi.      startup
vii.      exit

3. Install the RCU utility. This creates all the necessary components in the database.

a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:

i.      Cd:\<path to RCU install>rcuhome\bin
ii.      Set RCU_JDBC_TRIM_BLOCKS=TRUE
iii.      Rcu.bat

b. Use all the defaults, pointing it to the database server that was just installed (hostname = localhost, port = 1521, servicename = xe,)

i.      You will see an error message about the database not being supported. Ignore it, this isn’t a production install.When prompted for which components to install select SOA at the top level in order to get all the other necessary requirements.

4. Install Web Logic Server. This is the underlying foundation upon which the application runs.

a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:

i.      Cd:\<path to weblogic install>\
ii.      C:\Java\Bin\Java.exe – jar wls1035_generic.jar

b. Select a custom install but choose all the defaults when prompted.

5. Install SOA. This is the meatiest part of the Fusion Middleware stack.

a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:

i.      Cd:\ path to RCU install>\Disk1\
ii.      Setup.exe –jreLoc c:\Java

b. Select all the defaults.

6. Create the SOA domain.

a. This must be done from the command line. Install as follows:

i.      Cd:\oracle\middleware\oracle_SOA1\common\bin
ii.      Config.cmd

b. When prompted select the ‘Create domain’ option

i.      Select the BPM Suite for Development and Enterprise Manager option
ii.      Select the Admin Server, Managed Servers, and Deployments options

7. Now it’s time to test the install out (this may take a while, be patient).

a. This must be done from the command line.

i.      Cd:\ oracle\middleware\user_projects\domains\base_domain\
ii.      Startweblogic.cmd

b. When the server is all done with its first start-up the command window should say something like: ‘SOA platform is now running and accepting requests’)
c. You can now close out the WebLogic server (CTRL+C)

8. Install JDeveloper

a. Use all the defaults
b. Once installed, launch JDeveloper Studio from the start menu (it will be under Oracle WebLogic)
c. Go to Help|Check for Updates

i.      Select Next on the Source
ii.      In the search box type in SOA and select the SOA update, then type in BPM and select the BPM update.
iii.      Select Next, then Finish. When it is done, close out of JDeveloper.

9. Now it is time to create your very first BPM 11g project.

a. Launch JDeveloper Studio.

i.      Select File|New
ii.      In the prompt select Applications in the left pane and BPM Application in the right pane.
iii.      Select OK
iv.      Now you’ll be prompted to give your application a name, name it whatever you want or leave it default and select Next.
v.      Now you’ll be prompted to give your Project a name, name it whatever you want or leave it default. Make sure BPM and SOA are selected form the list of available technologies. Select Next.
vi.      Select the Composite with BPMN Process option and select Finish.
vii.      You should now be prompted to create a BPMN process, just select Finish and you can start from there.

You should now be looking at an empty project with a Start and an End event. Here is where the fun begins…

John Linehan

Sr. Systems Engineer
ImageSource Inc.

Oracle Content Management – IPM 11g Links

Looking for some useful links to information about installing Oracle IPM 11g?  We have been performing successful Oracle IPM 11g implementations and will be providing useful information, as well as, tips and tricks on this blog.

Here are the main links that have been leveraging for some valuable information related to this next generation ECM Suite:

Oracle Content Management Description	URL
Overview	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/overview/index.html
Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index.html
Documentation	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/documentation/index.html
UCM 11g Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-085241.html
IPM 11g Downloads	http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/middleware/content-management/downloads/index-ipm-088963.html

Ryan Keller

ImageSource, Inc.

Nexus 2010

I recently attended the Technology conference put on by my company. Nexus®, as it is dubbed, is where we try to bring in all the local and national minds in our ECM space together. On the vendor side we had both hardware and software manufacturers represented. On the standards side we had credits offered for PMI, ARMA, AHIMA, and IAPP just by attending. There was pre-conference training on  Oracle I/PM 11g, a risk management course, and an AIIM ECMp course. For the user community we had attendees from Fortune 50 companies  down to small government agencies and everything in between. Sounds great right? It was.

As with any conference, you have to make it to the break out session that relate to you, and make connections with people that you can relate to. The latter was easy of course, we are all living and breathing the ECM world. Even if your content is different, the pain points are nearly always the same. It’s great to connect with others and find out their resolutions to similar issues, their approach to common problems, and to hear their success stories. Besides giving a presentation on our product ILINX® Integrate (something I have blogged about in the past), I also attended sessions on advanced document capture, ILINX Content Store, Oracle I/PM, and sessions on project management.

The breakout sessions had real value for me. The sharing of knowledge is essentially what Nexus is all about and the break outs are core to that. In years past, I have attended Nexus but allowed myself to do project work or provide technical support for the conference itself during the breakout sessions. This year I made it a point to attend as many sessions as possible and only missed two. I am confident I took the right approach.

I attended Shon Mueller’s presentation on advanced capture solutions and it was great. He was dynamic and brought a wealth of experience in his years at Kofax, ImagesSource, and other ECM technology companies. Jon Sutherland’s presentation on ILINX Content Store was informative for me as well. As a system’s engineer that’s busy in the field I haven’t had as much time as would like to work with our latest product offering. ILINX Content Store is a real solution for content management and I am quite confident we will see and hear more about it. Les Harris’ session on upgrading to Oracle I/PM 11g was an eye opener. I have worked extensively with the I/PM product line for many years and the new product accomplishes the same functions as all previous versions, but with an entirely new architecture. For those planning on sticking with the product it is time to start planning your upgrade path now. I also attended a session on project management in which Dennis Brooke discussed how to use Web 2.0 technologies to streamline project management and enhance project morale. The session sparked lots of questions form the audience and I could see the wheels turning as people thought how they could use these ideas in their own corporate structure. I worked with Dennis for many years and it was great to hear about some of the lessons learned and successes.

I have linked to all the presentations, please feel free to review them and all the other’s on the Nexus site.  All in all Nexus 2010 was a success and I can’t wait to see what ImageSource puts together for next year.

  

Oracle IPM Invoice Processing Accelerators

Oracle is rolling out best-practice ERP AP invoice processing solution accelerators as part of their 11g Fusion Middleware offering. Called “adapters”, these ERP software components are available for Oracle E-Business Suite, PeopleSoft, and Siebel.

 The accelerators are a mechanism to ensure scanned invoices reach a backend ERP system for final handling even when there are issues in the invoice data gathered using OCR forms recognition during scanning. This allows for minimal user exception handling or intervention prior to each invoice arriving in the ERP system. The idea is to simply load the scanner with invoices, press a button, and then handle the invoices once they arrive in the backend.

 In order for this approach to work, Oracle’s solution accelerators use XML documents to contain header and line invoice data. The XML documents are combined with business rules in an Oracle BPEL Process Manager workflow that automatically massages the data into a format that will be accepted by the ERP import functionality such as the Oracle EBS open interface table import. The invoice image resides in the Oracle IPM system.

 In the case where data can’t be massaged sufficiently for insert, the invoice is keyed from image from within the BPEL workflow. Invoices that directly insert into the ERP system arrive either ready for validation, matching, payment, coding, etc., or are placed on hold with a hold code and a hold reason code. Some sample hold and reason codes are:

FIELD	VALIDATION	HOLD	HOLD REASON
Purchase Order	PO must be valid and open. PO vendor must match invoice vendor.	IPM_INVALID_PO_HOLD	INVALID PO NUM INACTIVE PO INCONSISTENT PO SUPPLIER
Supplier	Supplier is required. Supplier must exist in vendor master. Supplier ID and supplier site ID must match.	IPM_INVALID_ SUPPLIER_HOLD	NO SUPPLIER INVALID SUPPLIER INCONSISTENT SUPPLIER

 There are many more business rules that operate on each invoice inside of workflow that meet the requirements of the ERP system.

 Oracle has created a flash demo of a scan to EBS process at:

 http://bit.ly/aHaNwl

 Oracle has also created a PDF document that highlights the E-Business Suite Adapter:

 http://bit.ly/b4pGFa

 As an Oracle partner, ImageSource has begun to implement these solutions in the field.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Oracle I/PM and TIFF Requirements

However far we move away from the imaging side of ECM, it is still the largest part of the industry. More often than not, the solutions I deploy revolve around some sort of mechanism to scan, store, and retrieve documents. Imaging is the gateway into Business Process Management (BPM), Records Management (RM), Electronic Reports Management (ERM), and a whole string of Line of Business applications (LOB). I often work with Oracle Image and Process Management (I/PM) as the ECM component and we integrate it with many different applications. There are a few caveats with I/PM and I ran into one issue recently that has come up many times in the past.

Oracle I/PM version 10G (and earlier) has a list of requirements for TIFF images. That’s not to say that the system can’t handle any object, because it can. You can file anything into an I/PM system, but you might not be able to view it within the software. For example: you could file a .zip file into the system, it just wouldn’t render in the viewer. The TIFF requirement list has to do with the image viewer built into the system. So if you want to be able to view what you file into an I/PM system with the I/PM viewer, you better be sure your TIFF images meet the requirements. The main reasons to limit access solely to the I/PM viewer are:

• Limit access to documents within the I/PM system only. This simply means you don’t want users to be able to view the object outside of I/PM.
• To take advantage of the I/PM annotation capabilities.

The TIFF requirements as listed in the I/PM documentation are as follows:

• Tagged Image File Format (TIFF)
• Group IV Compression
• Group VI Compression (Original Microsoft TIFF standards, not the Wang hybrid)
• 200, 300 or 400 dpi
• X resolution equal to Y resolution
• Non-tiled
• Non-stripped (i.e., Lines per strip equal to total lines. Stripped and LZW formats are not supported.)
• Image widths which are a multiple of 8
• Fill order of 1 or 2
• Tags at the top or bottom of the file
• Single-plane (monochrome) / Bi-tonal
• Single page or multi-page TIFFs.
• Intel Format (II) are supported. Other formats, such as Motorola format (MM) are not supported. Group 7 TIFF are not supported.

That might seem like a long list when you first glance at it. But it is pretty simple to modify an image and render it compatible with the I/PM viewer. There are plenty of tools out there to standardize TIFF images. ImageMagick or a couple of different tools by Informatick would do the trick. With ImageMagick there is a compress function that can standardize the image. Simply execute ImageMagick with the ‘-compress Group4 –density 200×200’ command and the image output will meet all the I/PM requirements.

From experience, most scanning applications meet the I/PM requirements so this isn’t an issue. Documents coming out of Kofax Capture, Oracle Document Capture, or ILINX Capture all meet the I/PM TIFF requirements. Where the I/PM TIFF requirements becomes an issue is when migrating documents from an old legacy ECM application that stored or captured images in a non-standard format. Just be aware that the requirements are there and that the images have to be modified before being archived into I/PM if they don’t meet the specifications.

John Linehan

Senior Systems Engineer

ImageSource Inc.

Match Fields Early when Designing an Imaging Solution

When building an enterprise level imaging system, one of the most important early tasks is matching up the fields in the solution. A typical ERP imaging solution has fields in the following functional areas:

Scan and validation
Image repository
Workflow template
Temporary tables for line items and custom forms
EBS tables

Looking at the big picture, the entire imaging solution is simply a transportation system for meta data stored in table columns (fields) at various stages from paper scan to workflow, to voucher creation. Fields carry information that tie to a specific image document.

Many fields map across each step of the process and must have the same data types. Some fields are used uniquely during scanning, image retrieval, workflow, or in the ERP backend. It is very difficult to begin a project until all these fields are well-known and understood.

One of the challenges of matching up fields is that each area may refer to a field data type (string, integer, etc.) in a slightly different way. An experienced architect and solutions implementor will resolve the type quirks during implementation.

I’ve found the best way to understand how the fields map across the solution is to create a single table with a common set of fields names and data types with columns indicating areas of use, rather than creating separate tables spread throughout the project plan for each area.

Since project plans are lengthy, having a single field mapping table makes it much easier to create the necessary fields, templates, and tables during project implementation since you don’t have to jump around in the project document to find the needed information. Also, having a single table prevents incorrectly mapped fields between functional areas because the big picture view is simple to understand.

I like to use color to highlight specific logical field groupings and keep notes for each field. I tend to continuously revise the master table as the project unfolds and additional information is discovered and then email each revision to the key project players so that everyone is working from the same assumptions.

Here is a link to a sample field mapping table. The table can be improved by adding a column that contains realistic sample data for each field. I use basic field type nomenclature and convert the types as needed in each functional environment.

If you are responsible for putting together a project plan for an imaging system deployment, or work in a company with an imaging system, I encourage you to have a table like this that matches your system. It’s very useful.

Clint Lewis
Senior Systems Engineer
ImageSource, Inc.

  

Oracle IPM 11g Released!

For those of you who have not heard Oracle has released the next generation of their Enterprise Content Management Software, Imaging and Process Management (IPM) 11g.  This version is the first major step that Oracle has taken to tightly integrate the product into Oracle’s overall software architecture…IPM 11g has been completely overhauled to be part of the Fusion Middleware (FMW) tech stack.  From the ECM perspective, Oracle now has a complete seamlessly integrated end to end offering that includes the storage repository, document management, business process management, library services, web publishing, records management, reporting/monitoring and application integration.  This creates many advantages for customers that use or plan to use other Oracle products in their workplace, as well as, integrating and leveraging existing investments in non-Oracle software.

I have been working as a Systems Engineer and Project Manager with the IPM software base for over 8 years, through the Stellent IBPM acquisition, all the way back to the Optika Acorde and eMedia days.  A couple major differences in implementing the latest Oracle 11g version are the requirements for Oracle Universal Content Management (UCM) for the storage repository and Oracle WebLogic Server for the application/web server.  I look at both of these requirements in a positive light.  UCM and WebLogic Server are powerful robust products that provide standard approaches to managing content storage and applications, respectively, from the FMW perspective.  With that said, if you do not have experience with either UCM or WebLogic, you will need to get up to speed with them to succeed in an IPM implementation.  Neither of these products can be installed through the “Next, Next, Next, Finished!” approach, so careful upfront planning and architecting is required to ensure a successful implementation. 

Let’s talk about the new user interface a little bit.  Oracle has followed suit with the rest of the major players in the ECM world by creating a complete web based interface for performing all administrative and end user functions.  This makes administration duties of the system much easier than in past versions that require administration to be done through the “thick” client.  Also, by moving to the WebLogic Server the full featured web interface is now much more browser agnostic than in the past.  The image viewer comes in two flavors that support over 400 file formats; a zero footprint view only version and the a re-written java applet that allows for full annotations, annotation security, and server based conversion/rendering for access speed.  The following are a couple of screen captures of the user interface from IPM 11g:

The Client Interface

The Zero Footprint Viewer

The Java Applet Viewer

Lastly, I would like to touch on a feature that is often overlooked when implementing ECM solutions, application integration. Oracle has done a great job in IPM 11g to provide some powerful capabilities for leveraging investments into Oracle and non-Oracle applications through integration.  For a process where users are assigning metadata to a record in their business application, through application integration this data can be pushed to and associated with the document stored in IPM 11g. Another example of integration would be the image enablement of a business application.  In this case a user could be accessing records in their ERP system a hotkey, menu item, or button in the application screen can retrieve and display the document from IPM without the user ever having to leave their business application.  These capabilities can create significant efficiencies in an organization through increased user productivity, the reduction of training and the simplification of support and administration. 

All in all I see the changes that Oracle made in IPM 11g as great additions to an already strong platform.  Oracle has a product that not only adheres to their architecture model, but also will provide many benefits to the customers that use it.  Stay tuned to this blog for more information related to our experiences with Oracle IPM 11g.

Ryan Keller

Project Manager

ImageSource, Inc.