10 Ways to use OAUG Knowledge Factory

O A U G F E A T U R E

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I was looking for a single source of truth where

people “in the know” engage in sharing their Oracle

experiences, tips and suggestions. It was sheer serendipity

to discover the OAUG Knowledge Factory™ at

COLLABORATE 08. Since then, I have returned time

and again to this oasis of knowledge.

I was among some of the first participants to take

advantage of this unique opportunity get to know more

users, implementers and experts in the Oracle Universe.

As a result, my overall awareness and knowledge of

Oracle’s latest offerings and releases has increased

manifold, which would not have been possible through

any other method.

It would be prohibitively costly and logistically

impossible to assemble such a team of experts, other than

virtually, that is now available courtesy of the OAUG

Knowledge Factory. A free member benefit, this priceless

forum can help you network with users and implementers

of the Oracle products you may be using. The OAUG

Knowledge Factory can serve as your collaboration portal,

learning portal, presentation portal, support portal and

reference portal. Please read on to find out how you can

Knowledge Factory™

Educate. Network. Influence.

By Mohan Dutt Project ManagerVeriSign, Inc.

The Oracle portfolio of

offerings is expanding

rapidly with new technologies,

product suites, releases

and acquisitions, making it

challenging to stay abreast of

the latest information.

10 WAYS TO USE THE

oaug insight spring 2009

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make the best use of this unique

OAUG offering.

If you are looking to catalyze your

performance and help your company’s use of

Oracle products go from good to great, don’t

miss this opportunity to network and collaborate

with the “who’s who” of the Oracle World. I

encourage every OAUG member to tap into the

great resources that are available in the OAUG

Knowledge Factory. It is a priceless opportunity,

offered for free to OAUG members!

Here are ten ways that you can use the

Knowledge Factory and obtain the maximum

benefit from this Web 2.0 community.

It is difficult to miss the Knowledge Factory

logo on the top right-hand corner of the OAUG

home page. The “Enter” button invites you to

discover the rich nuggets of information inside

(Figure 1). Use your OAUG member login and

password to enter the Knowledge Factory.

Search for ContentThe landing page allows one to

“Search for Content.” Enter any

keyword and the powerful search

engine mines all the content and returns results matching

the nearest context (Figure 2). One can also search for

community members using the “Search for People” field.

1Figure 1

Figure 2

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Profile SearchGet in touch with

Knowledge Factory

members using the profile search by clicking

on the “Profiles” tab. One can also search

for community members by entering a name

or keyword. Once you enter any search

keyword and click on the “Search People”

button, the results page shows profile

matches. The illustration shows “Profiles

Search” using the keyword “contracts”

(Figure 3). A community member whose

profile includes the keyword is returned

in the search results. One can also use the

“Advanced Search” feature and use multiple

search criteria to find member profiles.

Set up Your Knowledge Factory ProfileClick on the “Manage

Posts/Profile” link on the Knowledge

Factory home page (Figure 4) and then

click on the “About Page” tab to navigate to

your user profile. The “About Me” tab is for

providing your pen profile (Figure 5). The

“Personal Profile” tab is where you can enter

your contact information, such as e-mail

address and telephone number, for other

members to use to contact you. Information

on this page can be set to “Public” so that

it is visible to everyone or “Private.” The

“Professional Experience” tab can be used to

indicate applications used, areas of expertise

and industry worked. It is important to

2

3

Figure 3

Figure 4

Figure 5


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insert information on all the tabs so that

the “Profile Search” feature can retrieve

your name when community members

search by keywords.

Make a QuickpostUse the “Submit

a Quickpost” box

(Figure 6) to submit a

question that would appear on the “Blogs”

tab (Figure 7). One can also upload an

attachment for the post. The quickpost

inherits the default values for blog posts.

For more advanced options, use blog posts.

Write a Blog PostClick on the “Manage

Posts/Profile” link on the

Knowledge Factory home

page (Figure 4), and then navigate to the

landing page for blog posts. Click on either

the “Add New” or “New Post” link to create

a new blog post (Figure 8). The blog post

editor has a look-and-feel of MS Word and

one can do all the formatting one does using

the text editor (Figure 9). One can also add

categories and tags (Figure 10) so the post

appears within a specific category on the

portal and is indexed and search made more

efficient with the presence of the tags. Click

on the “Save and Publish” button. Your blog

is now published! As evident from the steps,

4

5

“ I encourage every OAUG

member to tap into the

great resources that are

available in the OAUG

Knowledge Factory.”

Figure 6

Figure 7

Figure 8

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blogging or publishing on the Web does not

require any software coding as the blogging

engine does the work behind the scenes and

takes care of the formatting and publishing

on the Knowledge Factory portal.

Upload AttachmentsUse the quickpost or

advanced post feature to

upload attachments with

your blog posts (Figure 11). Attachments

can be images, presentations and white

papers. One can even upload a video! The

blog post can have the presentation abstract

while the attachment would contain the

presentation or white paper that can be

downloaded.

Comment on a Blog Post or Answer a Question

Click on the “Add comment” link below

a blog post and add your comment. This

is also the place where one can answer

questions asked via a quickpost (Figure 12).

Vote on the ContentEach blog post has a

link to vote to indicate

whether the content was

helpful to you (Figure 13). Perhaps one can

use this feature to vote on a post for which

they would like to attend a presentation or

review a white paper in the future.

6

7

8

Figure 9

Figure 11

Figure 10

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Search the Conference Paper DatabaseSearch the

comprehensive database of previous

conference white papers and presentations

in the same place you go to get all the

latest Oracle Applications information —

the OAUG Knowledge Factory (Figure

14). One can search by keyword, author,

company, conference and tracks.

Subscribe to RSS FeedsYou do not need to log

in to the Knowledge

Factory everyday and

conduct a mini data mining operation

to gather all the nuggets of priceless

information from the experts. All the

new posts will appear on your RSS

Reader. The OAUG Knowledge Factory

already has RSS embedded on each page.

This feature enables you to subscribe to

OAUG Knowledge Factory in a similar

way you subscribe to a list server. The

only difference is that the feeds appear

on your RSS Reader home page.

9

10

“The OAUG Knowledge

Factory is a collaborative

knowledge resource for

OAUG members worldwide

who are “in the know” –

or want to be.”

Figure 12

Figure 13

Figure 14

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STEP 1.Select an RSS Reader of your choice. It can be

Web-based like Google Reader or on your desktop

using free software such as FeedReader. The

RSS Reader is equivalent to your inbox when you

subscribe to the OAUG Knowledge Factory.

Step 2.Log in to the OAUG Knowledge Factory

and navigate to the category for which you

want to subscribe. For example, you want

to subscribe to “E-Business Suite,” click on

the E-Business Suite link under “Categories”

and the Category home page will open.

Step 3.Near the search box, click on the orange icon for

RSS feeds. Click on the orange icon (Figure 15)

and a new page will open with several XML tags.

Step 4.Copy the URL (Figure 16). For example, the URL

for the E-Business Suite category is http://www.

kf.oaug.org/community/feeds/rss.asp?cat=6249.

Step 5.Log in to your RSS Readers and subscribe to the

feed using the URL above (Figure 17). Viola!

In a second, all the posts from the E-Business

Suite category on the OAUG Knowledge Factory

appear in your RSS Reader “Inbox” (Figure 18).

Steps two through four can be completed for as

many categories/pages as you select. For those

who are visually orientated, the screenshots for

the above steps are available as an attachment

on a blog post. Permalink: http://mohan-dutt-1.

kf.oaug.org/default.asp?item=2189797.

Quick and Easy Steps to Set Up RSS Feeds

Figure 15

Figure 16

Figure 17

Figure 18


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Visit your RSS Reader page daily and check for the latest

posts. If you want to read more about the post, click on its

subject hyperlink and you will be redirected to the relevant page

on the OAUG Knowledge Factory. Of course, please visit the

OAUG Knowledge Factory many times a week to check for new

content for which you may want to create a RSS subscription!

The OAUG Knowledge Factory is a collaborative

knowledge resource for OAUG members worldwide who

are “in the know” – or want to be. The portal is completely

community-driven and evolutionary in nature. It is left to the

imagination and innovation of fellow members to leverage

this platform to interact with peers and experts to share and

enhance our understanding of the Oracle Applications family.

WEB 2.0 – The term “Web 2.0” describes the

changing trends in the use of World Wide Web

technology and Web design that aim to enhance

creativity, communications, secure information sharing,

collaboration and functionality of the Web. Web 2.0

concepts have led to the development and evolution of

Web culture communities such as social-networking sites

like the OAUG Knowledge Factory. Although the term

suggests a new version of the World Wide Web, it does

not refer to an update to any technical specifications, but

rather to changes in the ways end-users utilize the Web.

BLOG – The term is a contraction of “Web log” and is

usually maintained by an individual with regular entries

of commentary. Entries are commonly displayed in

reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used

as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a

blog. The OAUG Knowledge Factory provides the

option for members to create their individual blog.

RSS – The term is an acronym for “Really Simple

Syndication” and is a family of Web-feed formats

used to publish frequently updated works, such as

blog entries. Readers subscribe to RSS Feeds using

software which can be Web-based or desktop-based.

PERMALINK– A permalink is a portmanteau word

made from permanent link. It is a URL that points to

a specific blog that remains unchanged indefinitely.

TRACKBACK URL – A trackback is an

acknowledgment or link back. It is a method for

Web authors to request notification when somebody

links to one of their documents. This enables

authors to keep track of who is linking and referring

to their articles. The OAUG Knowledge Factory

supports the feature with a “Trackback URL” with

every entry. This URL is used by the commenting

blogger, whose blogging software would track

information about the new entry to this URL.

Mohan Dutt is a project manager at VeriSign,

Inc. in Mountain View, Calif. Mohan is an active

OAUG volunteer; he founded the Procurements

and Contracts Special Interest Group (SIG) and

was also the Technology Committee Chair. Mohan

has presented nearly 40 white papers at Oracle

conferences around the world and was honored as

the 2007 OAUG Member of the Year. Mohan is

always looking for an engaging conversation with

Oracle Community members and blogs everyday on

the Oracle Certified Professionals Blog at http://

ebizocp.blogspot.com and on the Oracle EBS

R12 Blog at http://oracler12.blogspot.com.

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