A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 1 In-House Custom Channel Development Presented by: Wallace Neikirk, Senior Programmer/Analyst,

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 1 In-House Custom Channel Development Presented by: Wallace Neikirk, Senior Programmer/Analyst, Wright State University Main Campus March 21, 2007 Course ID 945

2 Session Rules of Etiquette Please turn off your cell phone/pager If you must leave the session early, please do so as discreetly as possible Please avoid side conversation during the session Thank you for your cooperation!

3 Course ID 945 Introduction Demonstrate how to expose Banner services through the Luminis platform Banner Surveys, Elections, and Alerts How we developed and deployed our In-House custom channels Peek-n-poke, Luminis framework, CAR deployment How we leveraged Banner SSO and CPIP connectors Seamless navigation to Banner services How to write some simple (yet effective) Web Services XML communications & JDOM parse Exploiting and extending the Banner API Alerts API & DB tables

4 Course ID 945 Agenda Slide WSU Architecture Web Services Architecture Development Environment System Design Demonstration Banner leverage points Survey Channel Election Channel Alerts Channel Future Directions Summary Questions

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 5 WSU Architecture WSU computing from 10,000 feet.

6 Course ID 945 WSU Architecture WSU is a Banner shop We bought all the products To do Surveys, Elections, and Alerts, we used a subset of the architecture Luminis Portal Websphere App Server Oracle DB Server Banner Self Services Banner Admin Services

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 7 WSU Web Services Architecture WSU computing to solve the problem.

8 Course ID 945 Web Services Architecture The web service is implemented on Websphere (webserv.ear) It provides XML communications to Luminis and Oracle It provides seamless access to Banner Self-Service & Admin Service.

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 9 WSU Development Environment Tools to construct the solution.

10 Course ID 945 WSU Development Environment Development stations Websphere WSAD uPortal Quickstart Oracle JDBC connections Import uPortal & Luminis jars into WSAD Clean compile Publish custom channels to uPortal Fire-up uPortal quickstart for testing No debugger Production Deployment Publish webserv.ear to WebSphere Publish custom channels to Luminis CAR files Publish Tables & API to Oracle

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 11 System Design A single design pattern.

12 Course ID 945 System Design - Overview This same design pattern was applied to all the problems, i.e., Surveys, Elections, Alerts.

13 Course ID 945 System Design Points to Consider Channel does https post/response to the Web Service Channel becomes simply an interface Business rules are contained in the Web Service Channel uses no DB connections It offloads CPU cycles to the Web Service Channel does XSLT presentation Transforms XML to simple HTML Or, any other presentation language Communications between layers done with an XML Can represent complex structures Very flexible Web Service uses the JDOM parser Simple Java Collections Sits on top of Xalan, Xerces, and Jaxp DB API encapsulates the Survey, Election, and Alerts tables WSU developed API Banner API continues to evolve

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 14 Demonstration Lets see it work.

15 Course ID 945 Demonstration Lets demo the channels Login to the Luminis Channel populates with MY surveys, elections, alerts Content is for me Not role based Post to the Web Service to retrieve Banner content Single solution pattern Click to navigate seamlessly to a particular Survey, Election, or Alert Leveraging SSO and CPIP connectors Now, take the Survey, fill out the Ballot, or complete the Alert task in Self-Service or Banner Admin Leveraging Banner Services Banner already did the work

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 16 Banner Leverage Points Leveraging Banner Services, SSO, and CPIP.

17 Course ID 945 Leverage Points Overview Leveraging Banner SSB and INB Services Survey, Elections, and Alerts are existing SSB Services SCT did all the work Were just pushing channel content to clients Leveraging Banner SSO and CPIP connectors Enables seamless navigation to Banner services Its an install & config project In general, we want to Establish a CPIP conversation between Luminis and SSB and/or INB Have a secure exchange/mapping of user credentials Create a user session seamlessly in SSB & INB

18 Course ID 945 Leverage Points SSO & CPIP Configure Luminis LDAP es.systems = sctssb sctinb es.sctssbconfigURL=http://wsu.ssb.server:port/DAD/gokssso.P_ GetConfigVersion2_sserv SSBServerName, DADSpecial, CPAuth, SearchBase, etc. Configure SSB DADNormal (www_user), DADSpecial (bansso) WebTailor parameters CPCOOKIEDOMAIN, CPCOOKIENAME, etc. Install INB Bannersso.jar, basejsso.htm, formsweb_sso.cfg Configure DB tables General User Preferences Maintenance Form (GUAUPRF) LDAPServer, DN, BIND_USER, BIND_PSWD, etc. GOKSSSO, GOKCSSO packages are the CPIP Verify the installation Sso_ldapssb.sql, sso_ldapinb.sql verifies SSO http://luminis1.wright.edu/cp/ip/login?sys=sctssb&url=http://wsu. ssbserver:port/DAD/bwgksrvy.P_ShowSurveys

19 Course ID 945 Leverage Points Sample Survey Lets setup a simple Banner survey Setup the Survey in Banner Admin Take the Survey in Banner Self-Service Now, lets channelize this content and enable seamless navigation to these services

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 20 Survey Channel Lets look at Custom Channel Development more closely.

21 Course ID 945 Survey Channel - Overview The Survey Channel exposes the Banner Survey service into a Luminis custom channel The portal user sees survey content targeted to them personally for a particular period of time They can take a survey, review the results of a survey, or (if an admin) can manage surveys Channel permissions The implementation follows the same single design pattern Post/response to the web service to obtain all Banner surveys for the user Communications between layers with XML WSU API encapsulates the survey databases Seamless navigation to SSB Use of the Luminis/uPortal framework to develop the custom channel Channel, Person, Permission, Events, RuntimeData, etc. Use XSLT for the presentation of Survey content Use of CAR files for ease of deployment

22 Course ID 945 Survey Channel - Demo Lets look at the sample survey we just setup Note, the survey link shows up in the channel Lets take the survey Lets review the results Lets navigate to INB to define a new survey

23 Course ID 945 Survey Channel Class Diagram My view of the Luminis/uPortal framework These are some of the objects I used to develop the Surveys channel Service objects are up and running when the portal starts up Common services needed by all channels DB connections, Logging, etc. Session objects are available when a user logs onto the portal Objects provide information about the user logged on Person attributes, group membership, permissions Channel objects are how we extend the portal with our own channel development Extend the IChannel interface to create your own channel Composed of several very useful objects, e.g., ChannelStaticData, ChannelRuntimeDate, etc.

24 Course ID 945 Survey Channel Custom Channel To create your own channel you need to extend the IChannel interface You will need to implement the abstract methods receiveEvent, setStaticDate, setRuntimeDate, etc. These methods provide info about channel parameters, person info, permissions, This is where you provide your own channel functionality, e.g., Surveys, Elections, Alerts. Note, there is a package naming convention..uportal.ch annels This is to avoid name collisions in portal deployment Note, you will always need those eight import statements - no matter what! Lets look at a couple of the methods in more detail (channel snipplet) package edu.wright.is.uportal.channels.surveys; // A channel needs these eight classes no matter what: import org.jasig.portal.IChannel; import org.jasig.portal.ChannelStaticData; import org.jasig.portal.ChannelRuntimeData; import org.jasig.portal.ChannelRuntimeProperties; import org.jasig.portal.PortalEvent; import org.jasig.portal.PortalException; import org.jasig.portal.utils.XSLT; import org.xml.sax.ContentHandler; public class CSurveys extends IChannel { (channel snipplet) public ChannelRuntimeProperties getRuntimeProperties() { public void receiveEvent(PortalEvent ev) { public void setStaticData(ChannelStaticData sd) { public void setRuntimeData(ChannelRuntimeData rd) { public void renderXML(ContentHandler out) throws PortalException {

25 Course ID 945 Survey Channel Custom Channel The setStaticData method is called once. It is called when the channel renders the first time It provides access to the channel parms defined when the channel was published It also provides access to the person object in session. You can get uid, email address, etc. The mapping of these person attributes is defined in the personsDir.xml config file User permissions are also accessible in this method The setRuntimeDate method is called every time there is an interaction with the channel It provides access to the runtime parms in the URL, i.e., the name=value pairs This method simply goes through a case statement determining what to do It creates the XML for display into the channel It determines the stylesheet to apply to the XML It also sets the channel mode. More complex channels may need state machines. (channel snipplet) public void setRuntimeData(ChannelRuntimeData rd) { this.runtimeData = rd; // get runtime parms action = runtimeData.getParameter("action"); // process the form submissions if (action.equals("surveys")) { this.processSurveys(); mode = SURVEYS_MODE; } (channel snipplet) public void setStaticData(ChannelStaticData sd) { this.staticData = sd; // get static parms enable = (String) staticData.getParameter("Enable"); // get person info person = staticData.getPerson(); String uid = (String) person.getAttribute("uid"); String email = (String) person.getAttribute("mail");

26 Course ID 945 Survey Channel Custom Channel The renderXML method is called every time the portal renders your channel You create an XSLT object Tell the object the XML you are using Tell it the stylesheet you want to use You can send some parameters to the stylesheet. Good for forming links, controlling what is displayed, etc. Do the XSLT transform producing HTML which is displayed in your channel The processSurveys method is mine. It is our business logic. It is what produces the Surveys Channel content It does an HTTPS post to the Surveys Web Service It gets the response from the web service with all the survey info in the XML doc Finally, permissions. We are relying on the portal to provide user info and permissions You must implement the IPermissible interface You will need to implement the abstract methods getActivityTokens, getTargetTokens, GetOwerTokens, etc. When the channel is published, the permissions will appear in the admin tool. (channel snipplet) public void renderXML(ContentHandler out) throws PortalException { // Create a new XSLT styling engine XSLT xslt = new XSLT(this); // pass the result XML to the styling engine. xslt.setXML(xml); // specify the stylesheet selector xslt.setXSL("CSurveys.ssl", stylesheet, runtimeData.getBrowserInfo()); // set parameters that the stylesheet needs. xslt.setStylesheetParameter("baseActionURL", // do the deed xslt.transform(); (channel snipplet) public class CSurveys extends BaseChannel implements IPermissible { public String getOwnerToken() { public String getOwnerName() { public String[] getActivityTokens() { public String getActivityName(String token) { public String[] getTargetTokens() { public String getTargetName(String token) {

27 Course ID 945 Survey Channel XSLT Presentation What is an XSLT? Its an engine that transforms a source XML doc into a resulting XHTML doc. Actually, it can transform into any resulting XML doc. In the Luminis/uPortal case, its a SAX engine that does the transformation The Sax engine scans the document sequentially and fires off events as the tags are parsed The XSLT transformation is done in the channel renderXML method. It passes... Source XML doc the Survey Channel content SSL file mapping to a particular XSL stylesheet Browser information object effects the mapping XSL stylesheet looks like a programming language Variable, if, choose, for-each, message, etc. Templates, element, sort, strip-space, etc.

28 Course ID 945 Survey Channel XSLT Presentation We define a template to match the tag When the SAX engine parses the tag this template fires off Within the template, we produce the header HTML for the Survey channel Then, we apply the templates that match each particular child tag For the template that matches the tag We continue to produce HTML fragments for Survey channel content Here, we are forming the SSO link into SSB for the user to seamlessly navigate to the Survey Service in SSB We are also getting the value of the element to display as the link text (xsl snipplet) Surveys: (xsl snipplet)

(xsl snipplet) ">

29 Course ID 945 Survey Channel XSLT Presentation For the template that matches the tag We produce an HTML link that communicates back to the Survey Channel The $baseActionURL is the portal identifier for this instance of the Survey Channel The HTML link adds on a couple of runtime parms - action and surveyName surveyName tells the channel which survey result to display Were also getting the value of the element to display as the link text Finally, for the template that matches the tag We are displaying the count for each survey question The @text gets the text attribute of the tag which is the question The . gets the current element of the tag which is the count (xls snipplet) (xsl snipplet)

30 Course ID 945 Survey Channel CAR Deployment What is a CAR file? A CAR file is just a java archive with a.car extension It is created with the jar utility provided with the JDK A CAR contain all the elements for the construction and presentation of custom channel There are two important elements to Channel deployment Web visible elements jpg, gif, etc. Deploy to luminis/media Resource elements class, xsl, ssl, etc. Deploy to luminis/WEB-INF/classes There is a naming convention to follow for Channel deployment /

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 31 Election Channel Lets look at Web Service Development more closely.

32 Course ID 945 Election Channel - Overview The Election Channel exposes the Banner Election service into a Luminis custom channel The portal user sees election content targeted to them personally for a particular period of time They can participate in an election, review the results of a election, or (if an admin) can manage elections Channel permissions The implementation follows the same single design pattern Post/response to the web service to obtain all Banner elections for the user Communications between layers with XML WSU API encapsulates the survey databases Seamless navigation to SSB Use of the WSU framework to develop our custom web services DbManager, PropManager, LogManager, Client, etc. JDOM manages all XML communications parse, navigate, and build XML docs

33 Course ID 945 Election Channel - Demo Lets look at a sample election Note, current elections are visible in the channel Lets vote in an election Lets review the results of an election Lets navigate to INB to define an election

34 Course ID 945 Election Channel Class Diagram The WSU Web Service Framework Could use any MVC framework, e.g., Struts, Spring, etc. The WSU Web Service Framework is composed of... Service Layer - DbManager, PropManager Session Layer - Client, Authenticate Base Layer - SvtBase, CmdBase, DatBase, VewBase Web Service Layer - Election objects Elections web service objects include... Contoller SvtElections Model CmdElections View DatXmlResp OXMap DatXmlReq ORMap DatElections, DatResults The CmdElections (model) object is the web service Xml request -> xml response Encapsulate your business rules! Dont put business in a channel, portlet, oracle form, etc. The model layer can be fired off from a Servlet, Apache Axis, etc.

35 Course ID 945 Election Channel Sequence Diagram Student logs into Luminis, then CElections channel Ids the person Determines permissions Creates the xml request Https post to web service Read response Display channel The Elections web service Parses xml request Ids the person & role Reads elections & results for that person Creates the xml response Returns xml to the channel post Use JDBC to read Elections datastores GUBSRVY - surveys GURSRVQ - questions BURSVRL - roles Student votes & reviews Elections Clicks on cp link Uses SSO to navigate to SSB Admin sets up Elections Clicks on cp link Uses SSO to navigate to INB

36 Course ID 945 Election Channel Parse Request How to parse the XML request Use JDOM packages Encapsulate the request as a DOM document DatXmlReq class does XML to object mapping Populating the DOM document Parse the XML request with SAXBuilder Document becomes a DOM tree Navigate & Extract info Get the doc root element Use XPath to navigate to all elements Iterate the Java list Extract text to obtain the wId JDOM is a simple way to parse, navigate, and extract info from an XML document (webserv snipplet) import org.jdom.*; // properties... protected Document doc; // parse request SAXBuilder builder = new SAXBuilder(); doc = builder.build(new StringReader(xmlReq)); (webserv snipplet) // xpath to tag Element root = doc.getRootElement(); List list = XPath.selectNodes(root,"/electionChannel/auth/userid"); ListIterator i = list.listIterator(); if ( i.hasNext() ) { Element e = (Element) i.next(); wid = (String) e.getText(); } return wid;

37 Course ID 945 Election Channel Create Response How to create the XML response Use JDOM packages Encapsulate the response as a DOM document DatXmlResp class does XML to object mapping Creating the DOM document Create doc Navigate to root Creating an Election Enum thru result set Create tag Attach to root Creating Election Attributes Create element Set its text value Attach to tag Return XML response Use XMLOutputter JDOM is a simple way to create XML docs, elements, text, attributes, etc. (webserv snipplet) // create tag elections = new Document(new Element("elections")); Element root = elections.getRootElement(); Enumeration e = datElections.getElectionsList().elements(); while (e.hasMoreElements()) { DatElections datElections1 = (DatElections) e.nextElement(); election = new Element("election"); root.addContent(election); election.addContent(new Element("name").setText(datElections1.getName())); election.addContent(new Element("title").setText(datElections1.getTitle())); election.addContent(new Element("user").setText(datElections1.getUser())); } (webserv snipplet) COBA Student Elections 1/1/2007 W001WLN 1/10/2007 1/15/2007 Elections for student officers

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 38 Alerts Channel Lets look at Banner API Development more closely.

39 Course ID 945 Alerts Channel - Overview The Alerts Channel exposes the View Holds service into a Luminis custom channel The portal user sees alerts targeted to them personally each morning They can view the alerts or (if an admin) can manage alerts Channel permissions The implementation follows the same single design pattern Post/response to the web service to obtain all Banner alerts for the user Communications between layers with XML WSU API encapsulates the alerts databases Seamless navigation to SSB We extended Banner with two new tables - the Alerts and Profile table The Alerts table is a collection point for Banner alerts that are of interest to an admin Alerts populated each night Alert is run immediate from database Allows channel to render quickly The Profile table contains definitions of alerts. An Alerts admin Uses the Alerts channel to define an alert Defines the SQL to populate the alert Defines the URL to view the alert Activate & Inactive Alerts

40 Course ID 945 Alerts Channel - Demo Lets look at my current set of alerts Note, the alerts that are visible in the channel Alerts populated last night Lets view an alert Seamless navigation Now, lets define a new alert Lets inactivate an existing alert Note, the web service does the actual operations

41 Course ID 945 Alerts Channel DB Diagram This is the Banner extension that supports alerts Banner alerts can be gleaned from many sources SPRHOLD Student Holds RRRAREQ FinAid Requirements SRBGRP Reg Groups Etc. The Alerts extension is composed of two tables & a package The Alerts table collection point for Banner alerts Alerts populate at 2 am every night Alert is run immediate from database Alert maps to pidm, name, etc. URL defines where to view the alert The Profile table is the definition of an alert Alerts admin defines the alert from the channel SQL column tells the package how to populate the alerts table URL defines where to view the alert Status column tells the package which profiles are active The WsuGenAlerts package encapsulates the alert tables. It Populates the alerts table based upon active profiles CRUDs the Alerts & Profile tables

42 Course ID 945 Alerts Channel Create an Alert An alert profile is created in the Alerts channel The portal user must have Alerts Admin permissions The SQL column defines the alert. It must adhere to the sample select statement given. The URL column defines where the user should go to view the alert When the Submit button is clicked, the channel Forms the XML document It sends the XML to the Web Service The web service calls the insert stored proc through the JDBC to create a new profile Note, the Alerts Admin also has the ability to easily activate & inactivate an alert Note, since the alert definition is simple SQL, the alert could come from anywhere (channel snipplet) NBA New Banner Alert select pidm, name, etc. http://oas2.wright.edu A w001wln 03/06/2007 16:55:01

43 Course ID 945 Alerts Channel Populate alerts The Alerts are populated by the WsuGenAlerts package The CRON utility fires the populate method off every night at 2 am The procedure Truncates all alerts Cursors through the active profiles Fetches each profiles SQL Inserts into the alerts table Execute immediate Warning: This could be a long running job Its populating alerts for all constituents of the University Faculty, Staff, Students, etc. Although, it does enables quick rendering of alerts in the Alerts Channel (db snipplet) -- truncate alerts truncateSql := 'truncate table alerts'; execute immediate truncateSql; -- cursor thru profiles open profileCursor; loop fetch profileCursor into profileRec; exit when profileCursor%notfound; profileName := profileRec.profile_name; profileSql := profileRec.profile_sql; -- insert alerts insertSql := ' insert into alerts ' || profileSql; execute immediate insertSql; end loop; close profileCursor; commit work;

A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 44 Future Directions Refining and Refactoring this solution.

45 Course ID 945 Future Directions Apache Axis? WSUs custom web services are propriety We would like to standardize them with Apache Axis It is an implementation of the SOAP ("Simple Object Access Protocol") submission to W3C. It is free Just like Tomcat. It works with standard protocol & XML envelopes Note, there would be very little change to the model layer of the web service just the means of communication Portlets? Java Portlet Specfication (JSR 168) Luminis 4.0 supports the Portlet API Drawback - migrating channels to portlets Could an Apache Pluto portlet be installed into Luminis 4.0?

46 Course ID 945 Summary We have Demonstrated how to expose Banner services through the Luminis platform Showed how we developed and deployed our In- House custom channels Showed how we leveraged Banner SSO and CPIP connectors Showed how to write some simple (yet effective) Web Services Showed how to exploit and extend the Banner API

47 Course ID 945 Questions & Answers Be sure to leave about 10-15 minutes for questions from your audience

48 Course ID 945 Thank You! Wallace Neikirk, Senior Programmer/Analyst, Wright State University Main Campus [email protected] Please complete the online class evaluation form Course ID 945 SunGard, the SunGard logo, Banner, Campus Pipeline, Luminis, PowerCAMPUS, Matrix, and Plus are trademarks or registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. Third-party names and marks referenced herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. 2006 SunGard. All rights reserved.

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A Community of Learning SUNGARD SUMMIT 2007 | sungardsummit.com 1 In-House Custom Channel Development Presented by: Wallace Neikirk, Senior Programmer/Analyst,