Follow-up to Oracle AppAdvantage IT Leader Webcast with Pella

Thanks to everyone who attended yesterday's Oracle AppAdvantage IT Leader Webcast on Pella Revolutionizes the Digital Experience for Customers, Partners and Employees. If you missed it, the on-demand replay is now available here.

Our sincere thanks to the team at Pella for making this documentary possible. We'd especially like to thank Pella's IT Leader, Rick Hassman for sharing his vision, Pella's technology reference model and the business strategy behind their digital experience innovation. A few of you have already reached out to let us know how you found the Pella documentary and the segment with Rick Beers (an Oracle AppAdvantage "guide", the host of this documentary and an IT Leader himself) and Al Viall Jr's (Oracle Enterprise Architect) walk-through quite useful - we are very encouraged by your response and will continue to showcase other shining examples of  leadership and innovation via this Oracle AppAdvantage IT Leader series.

We did our best to answer your questions during the live webcast. However, due to time constraints, we couldn't quite get to all of those. So, we have compiled the Q&A with Rick Beers and Al Viall Jr. from the webcast here. If you have any follow-up questions, please send us a comment; we'd love to hear from you!

1. Can
   you please explain how content management ties to WebCenter Sites and WebCenter
   Portal at Pella?
   Answer:
   Pella used several technologies in the Oracle AppAdvantage program to create
   the real-time appointment scheduling application including Oracle SOA Suite,
   Oracle Application Development Framework (Oracle ADF), Oracle Business
   Intelligence, Oracle Identity Management, Oracle WebCenter Sites, and Oracle
   WebCenter Portal. Oracle WebCenter Sites serves as the foundation for a new
   application that re-engineers the scheduling process and pulls in all the
   necessary information from Oracle CRM On Demand, Oracle E-Business Suite, and
   Oracle’s PeopleSoft applications. The information is collated across all these
   apps to give dealers a complete history of each account including prior
   purchases, service requests, responses to marketing offers, previous searches,
   and more. Oracle SOA Suite brings all this information together and displays it
   through Oracle WebCenter Portal.Pella utilizes Oracle WebCenter Content as an
   enterprise content store that includes all this content 
2. Does
   Oracle WebCenter Portal provide dashboard and analytics capabilities?
   Answer:
   Absolutely - WebCenter Portal provides complete dashboard and composite
   application functionality along with analytics. For example - at Pella -
   information is collated across Oracle Applications, as well as from Google Maps
   and other third-party apps, to give dealers a complete history of each account
   including prior purchases, service requests, responses to marketing offers,
   previous searches, and more. Oracle SOA Suite brings all this information
   together and displays it through Oracle WebCenter Portal.
3. Rick
   – To relate Pella story to AppAdvantage, how do you expect ERPs and CRM systems
   to behave with front-end tools like WebCenter Portal and Sites?
   Answer:
   Oracle AppAdvantage is based on a pace-layered approach. We recommend that you
   use applications – ERP systems, et al to do what they do best – standardize and
   consolidate data. Leave the ERP modules unmodified. Whatever functionality
   enhancements, application extensions you need, you build those in the
   middleware layer. Whether you need to simplify your IT infrastructure, bring
   capabilities in to differentiate or introduce innovation, do it in the
   middleware layer to minimize disruption to your application lifecycles.
4. Does
   Oracle WebCenter Portal provide dashboard and analytics capabilities?
   Answer:
   Absolutely - WebCenter Portal provides complete dashboard and composite
   application functionality along with analytics. For example - at Pella -
   information is collated across Oracle Applications, as well as from Google Maps
   and other third-party apps, to give dealers a complete history of each account
   including prior purchases, service requests, responses to marketing offers,
   previous searches, and more. Oracle SOA Suite brings all this information
   together and displays it through Oracle WebCenter Portal.
5. Isn’t
   integration between applications key to Pella’s AppAdvantage implementation?
   Answer:
   It's extremely key to maintaining a 360 degree view of information. Since
   customer information is actually housed in various systems, integration is key
   in providing an abstracted layer with a separation of concerns.
6. For
   Al - Do we need Oracle SOA Suite to consolidate the data from different
   applications, Oracle and others and then present it to WebCenter portal?
   Answer:
   While Oracle SOA Suite is not required, it provides superior value to our
   customers, including Pella, in building out an abstracted information exchange
   layer.
7. Al
   , were there clear benefits to using Oracle Webcenter Suite and Oracle SOA
   Suite with Oracle CRM on-demand and Oracle EBS in the back-end?
   Answer:
   The Pella implementation included the appointment setting application with
   pella.com as well as with its Oracle CRM On Demand applications. Oracle
   WebCenter Portal enabled a diverse, geographically dispersed team to work
   remotely and collaboratively, accelerating the implementation process. Oracle
   WebCenter Portal provided the engine that allows Pella to interact and display
   the right information to the right people. The information is collated across
   these Oracle Applications, as well as from Google Maps and other third-party
   apps, to give dealers a complete history of each account including prior
   purchases, service requests, responses to marketing offers, previous searches,
   and more. Oracle SOA Suite brings all this information together and displays it
   through Oracle WebCenter Portal.
8. Rick,
   how do you see companies starting with AppAdvantage? Do they already have
   investments in both Oracle Middleware and Oracle Applications?
   Answer:
   Oracle AppAdvantage offers a business solution strategy rather than a product
   focused one. You already have applications in place. Some of these maybe Oracle
   Applications, the others could be third party applications. They may be
   on-premise or in the cloud. Depending upon your current business driver(s),
   your current business challenge, you can determine which lever to pull and see
   which 'entry point' suits you best and you build your IT strategy and investments accordingly. You may not need existing investment in Oracle Fusion Middleware.
9. Where
   can we get more information on this and other Oracle AppAdvantage stories?
   Answer:
   We currently have an Oracle
   AppAdvantage Roundtable Series where you will hear from Oracle AppAdvantage
   customers and partners on real time implementations. So, we highly recommend
   that as a next step. And do visit www.oracle.com/appadvantage for customer case studies, technical
   materials, more. You should also be receiving a detailed whitepaper on Pella
   implementation as our thank you for attending this webcast.
10. Al
    – How does this model extend to mobile?
    Can Oracle Middleware or Webcenter support both Apple and Android app
    development?
    Answer:
    Oracle WebCenter Suite provides both Android and IOS apps available today on
    the app stores.