1. APEX Day 2011 Northgate Revenues and Benefits Forms migration to APEX 22 nd March 2011

2. APEX Day 2011 Introductions Tony Andrews – Independent Apex Developer Nigel Blair – Product Director – Northgate Public Services

3. Why we did it Nigel Blair

4. “Unpopular Front End” Late 2004…… Internal Focus Groups Guide Site Project Results…. Version 6 Integrated Workflow Performance Management

5. APEX Day 2011.......how we got there

6. APEX Day 2011 Ambitions - Technology Move from Oracle Forms in Browser to pure HTML Front End Fully Transactional Web Site –Same model as Amazon, eBay, Tesco Builds on iWorld Project Improvements in Accessibility –W3C Level 1 (possibly level 2) Any Browser Features –Skinnable / Style Sheets –Colors / Large Print / Proportional Resizing/ Text Only –Light / Quick Can run alongside existing UI during phased migration

7. APEX Day 2011 Ambitions – Presentation (Enquiry) Faster Enquiries User Friendly Technical Jargon Free Business Focussed User Driven Liaise / Consult with End Users –Learn from previous roll-outs –Look at weak areas Flatter Presentation of Data –Quicker Access to Data –Quicker Link to Update

8. APEX Day 2011 Ambitions – Performance (Update) Quicker –Speed of Response –Less Clicks –Multiple Update of data –Enquire / Create / Update –Multi Row Benchmark Existing Application –Address Weak Areas –More Organic Approach Improved Service / Productivity Improved Quality Integrated Workflow / Scheduler

9. APEX Day 2011 Timeline October 2005 Launch Of Prototype at IRRV Conference November 2005 V6 Prototype Installed On Customer Portal December 2005 Management Board Sanctions Version 6 V6 Development Commences Jan - May 2006 Development Continues Consultation Continues User Group Executive Approve Roll-out

10. APEX Day 2011 Timeline May – July 2006 Recruitment Of 6 Beta Sites Beta Programme Commences V6 Beta Release – July 2006 December 2006 First Production Release of V6 December 2008 All forms and processes available in V6 Announced De-support of V5 from December 2009 December 2009 First All-V6 Release All customers live on Version 6 Only

11. APEX Day 2011 TABS Quick Access to all main work Areas through use of Tabs CONTEXT BLOCK Holds the main details of the item in context (Applicant, Task) REGIONS Breaks information down into clearly defined regions KEY DETAILS Shows the user the main details and current status of the item in context (Account, Property, Claim etc etc) ACTIONS Gives quick access to the actions (updates etc.) associated with the current page. LINKS User-defined links to other applications, internal and external web sites (e.g. DWP) Version 6 – today!

12. APEX Day 2011 Outcomes.......

13. APEX Day 2011 Outcomes....... Central Government Opportunities International Opportunities Improved Performance

14. How to migrate 1500 Forms to Apex Tony Andrews

15. APEX Day 2011 UK-based Oracle developer for 20+ years User of Apex since Project Marvel Developer at Northgate 2002-2010 Active on: –tonyandrews.blogspot.com –stackoverflow.com –forums.oracle.com Tony Andrews

16. APEX Day 2011 Update of 1500-module Forms application Preserve large existing database Preserve large existing code base Preserve large existing body of role-based security and navigation metadata Use 20+ developers who know Forms, PL/SQL and the application (but don't know HTML, CSS, Javascript) Aims

17. APEX Day 2011 Will Apex scale? Is Apex robust enough for a serious product? Is Apex good for developers? –Why not Java?! Concerns

18. APEX Day 2011 Migrate 1500 forms quickly, consistently and correctly Some Apex built-in features not useful: –Form region –Tabular form region –Tabs –Validations Requirements for “Rich UI” Management of large Apex project Challenges

19. APEX Day 2011 Reports with “overflow” area Tabular forms over APIs Dynamic hide/show, enable/disable, validation and population of items –In other words, Dynamic Actions! Configurable item, region and report column labels Rich UI

20. APEX Day 2011 Report with Overflow

21. APEX Day 2011 Report with Overflow

22. APEX Day 2011 Report with Overflow

23. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

24. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

25. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

26. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

27. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

28. APEX Day 2011 Tabular Form

29. APEX Day 2011 Defined via data in tables Applied automatically via page 0 region (no developer code) “Dynamic Actions”

30. APEX Day 2011 Report overflows, tabular forms, “dynamic actions” etc. all defined declaratively via data This data needs to be maintained by the developer, and deployed via version control Creating all this data via SQL Plus scripts or Toad (or SQL Developer) is tiresome Q: What can we do to make the developer's life easier? Rich UI

31. APEX Day 2011 A: Give them an Apex application to maintain the data, with a facility to download all data for a page as a SQL script ready for deployment. Rich UI

32. APEX Day 2011 Forms module definitions in Oracle Designer –Generate first-cut Apex pages and our “metadata” from these Security/navigation data –Render navigation tabs from this –Base page authorisation scheme on this Business Logic APIs –Generate first-cut code to map Apex page to API Reuse Legacy

33. APEX Day 2011 Apex Page Generator

34. APEX Day 2011 Build Standards Generator Skeleton pages to copy Reports to check Apex pages for adherence to standards Consistency (Quality)

35. APEX Day 2011 Many small applications –One per logical business area –Between 5 and 50 pages per app –Assign applications to development teams –Version control export files (app or page) –Version control our metadata Master Application –Common Components, published to other apps: –Templates, Authorisation and authentication schemes –Shortcuts, Application processes Manageability

36. APEX Day 2011 Apex on OTN Apex Forum Apex Blogs Apex Development Team Apex Resources

37. APEX Day 2011 Successful replacement system Satisfied customers Productive and satisfied developers* A foundation for developing future applications * well, mostly! Outcome

38. APEX Day 2011 Can Apex be used for large projects? Is it a good idea? Would we do it again? Conclusions

39. APEX Day 2011 Can Apex be used for large projects? Yes Is it a good idea? Yes Would we do it again? Yes – and we have Conclusions