Delivering Mobile Apps to the Field with Oracle
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The document discusses the development of mobile applications using Oracle technologies, focusing on tools like Oracle Mobile Application Framework (MAF) and Apache Cordova. It emphasizes the importance of understanding user needs and device requirements for successful applications in various field environments. Key learning points include the significance of tool choice, early mock-ups, real device testing, and maintaining a positive user experience.
Delivering Mobile Apps to the Field with Oracle
- 1. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential DELIVERING MOBILE APPS TO THE FIELD WITH ORACLE Simon Haslam
- 2. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential ABOUT ME Simon Haslam • Platform / Infrastructure Architect • Focus includes HA, DR, security, automation Relevant to this session • Worked on a mobile project before “mobile” and “app” where things ☺ • Technical lead on: MAF projects from 6/2017 JET project from 7/2018 @simon_haslam
- 3. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential ABOUT EPROSEED • Focussed only on Oracle technology • Globally distributed with centralised delivery management and local resources • 5 active ACE Directors, 2 Dev Champions, 8 OCM • 19 Oracle Excellence Awards in 8 years 25 Oracle Specializations… and counting. Local offices in UK, NL, PT… & Head Office in Luxembourg
- 4. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 3 Membership Tiers • Oracle ACE Director • Oracle ACE • Oracle ACE Associate bit.ly/OracleACEProgram 500+ Technical Experts Helping Peers Globally Connect: Nominate yourself or someone you know: acenomination.oracle.com @oracleace Facebook.com/oracleaces [email protected]
- 5. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 5 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 6. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential WHY APPS FOR MOBILE DEVICES? • Nature of work - desktop or laptop is not suitable for many job roles: – Outside, materials handling, etc (e.g. warehouse) – Highly mobile (e.g. sales rep, ticket collector/issuer) – Hazardous or clinical conditions (e.g. doctor or electrician) • Reduce barrier for customer interaction • Bring your own device - extending corporate IT • Tablet might simply be better means of interacting with IT 6 Photo from https://www.pexels.com
- 7. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential BUT FIRSTLY: HOW RETAIL “APPS” HAVE EVOLVED 7 UK car importer/ distributor App calculates personalised finance terms for a customer, e.g. at end of test drive IT to assist salesperson in a car showroom 1997
- 8. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential AGENDA • Real-world ‘field’ environments • Oracle JET for mobile apps • Typical integration challenges • User experience • Learning points & summary 8
- 9. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR A MOBILE ENTERPRISE APP? 9 Data services ‘Functional’ services Offline persistence App dev tools Mobile Device Management SDLC tools Security tools Notification services Tracking & analytics Operating System inc app packaging Device-specific features Identity services A P I ….and this is before you consider microservices!
- 10. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential ORACLE PRODUCTS TO MEET THESE NEEDS 10 Data services ‘Functional’ services Offline persistence App dev tools Mobile Device Management SDLC tools Security tools Notification services Tracking & analytics Operating System inc app packaging Device-specific features Identity services Mobile Cloud Service Mobile Cloud Service Integration Cloud SOA Suite Service Bus Identity Cloud Service ADF ERP JET MAF MAF (CDM) Persist. Toolkit DevCSAPI Platform
- 11. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential TYPES OF MOBILE APP 11 Native Hybrid Progressive Web Apps Platform-specific (multiple teams for different platforms) Cross-platform Cross-platform Ultimate performance Usually acceptable performance Expected to be acceptable performance Native APIs Cordova Cordova(?) This presentation PLATFORMSSPEED DEVICE/OS FEATURES
- 12. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential WHAT DO YOU NEED* TO DEVELOP HYBRID MOBILE APP? Cordova JET PackagingOffline Phone photo by Terje Sollie from Pexels MAF or * Oracle tools - other tools are available!
- 13. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential OFFLINE PERSISTENCE • Offline is required in many/most mobile apps to either: – give illusion of better performance – provide application functionality under all network conditions (variable or none) • Biggest challenge is cache coherency across devices – May not be as bad as you think – perhaps first or last “wins” • You may not need to provide offline capability for all functions – Most functions may be read-only anyway; transactional ones may have to wait for connectivity if rare 13 MAF: Container Data Model (fka AMPA) built-in JET: use Oracle’s offline persistence toolkit https://github.com/oracle/offline- persistence-toolkit
- 14. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 14 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 15. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential TRADITIONAL ORACLE TOOL FOR MOBILE APP DEV Mobile Application Framework • Declarative dev env, similar to ADF • JDeveloper IDE (MAF extension) • Java-based (mostly) • Pre-integrated Cordova • Built in navigation, security, login • Model (binding) layer that integrates nicely with SOAP & REST • Discovery feature when using ADF BC exposed as REST APIs • Offline persistence built-in (uses encrypted SQLite database)15 2014 / 4 years ago:
- 16. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential17 MAF: 02. An Introduction to Oracle Mobile Application Framework (Oracle MAF) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rN1kQncy0E 2014
- 17. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential MAF DEMO 18
- 18. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential FIRST TWO APPS: MAF OUTCOMES • Lots of new technologies for the team (ADF supported by MAF consultant): – Android SDK, standard PC build – Emulator, building, deploying to .apk / device – Build server integration – JavaScript (Cordova plus some fixes like the “enter” button on Android keyboard) • App 1: Lots of Java bean & persistence layer debugging – Sub-optimal REST APIs (following data model) – A couple of bugs (fixed in MAF 2.5.1+) • App 2: Much smoother – Reworked both data model & APIs, simplifying app • Once through pilot, rollout was fast & no bug fixes needed 19
- 19. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 20 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 20. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential CORDOVA ARCHITECTURE Bluetooth Serial Barcode Receiver https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/overview/index.html JavaScript JavaScript Android: Java Physical connection to hardware
- 21. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential THE LASER SCANNER • Scanner is proprietary feature of the Honeywell hardware – Including hardware buttons on both sides of device • Honeywell-customised flavour of Android – Android Intent (android.scan) for successful scan completed • We used the cordova-plugin-battery-status as an example/starting point for our custom Cordova plug-in https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/reference/cordova-plugin-battery-status/ We could add more features of the Honeywell APIs/SDK to the plug-in, e.g. enable/disable scan button, multi-scan 22
- 22. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential THE BLUETOOTH PRINTER • Used BluetoothSerial plug in to communicate with printer https://github.com/don/BluetoothSerial & in npm • Bluetooth needs to be paired • Error handling left a lot to be desired – we’ve made some improvements (PR imminent) Printer control language feels like a step back in time! 23
- 23. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 24 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 24. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential MODERN ORACLE TOOLS FOR MOBILE APP DEV 25 • JavaScript Extension Toolkit (JET) – Integrated & stable collection of open source frameworks – Oracle contributions for visual elements – Many IDEs available for JavaScript – Oracle offline persistence toolkit – Apache Cordova is used to access device features – Deployment to iOS, Android as hybrid apps, but also regular web apps e.g. for desktop usage • Visual Builder Cloud Service (VBCS) – Low-code tool, highly graphical – Runs in the cloud, has a runtime component – Builds regular web apps, but can also build mobile apps to run from cloud – Access to full range of JET components – Export JavaScript code so you can use as JET if you need to go deeper
- 25. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential JET DEMO 26
- 26. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 30 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 27. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential BACK TO BASICS: OUR USERS • Who are our users? • How IT-literate are they? • What is their working process? – How much focus do they have on the app – How does “happy path” compare to non-standard flows? – Quick wins and process improvement 31 ➢Importance of Business Sponsor & Product Owner ➢Mobile app usage means lots of opinions! ➢Management of expectations
- 28. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential MOCK-UPS 32
- 29. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential THE DEVICE Don't underestimate device requirements, even if you think app is simple! Consider: • Processor speed & memory • Screen brightness • Features, e.g. pen, scanning, bluetooth, NFC • Battery life – Replacement batteries – Charging docks • Physical resilience – Drop resistance – Water resistance (or even hygiene, e.g. for hospital use) • Supported lifespan: service & spare parts34
- 30. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential 35 • Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies • Oracle MAF • Apache Cordova • Oracle JET for mobile apps • User experience • Learning points & summary
- 31. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential LEARNING POINTS • Tool choice is very important, especially due to pace of change • We love the JET cookbook & training, e.g. MOOC • Do mock-ups early and carefully, ahead of dev sprints • Cordova plug-in dev: create test harness to reduce debug scope/cycle time • Give developers real devices – emulators only go so far • CI, automated build & deployment • Automated testing, especially WAN simulation if possible 36 Credit: https://gfycat.com/CompleteDimpledGoitered
- 32. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential SUMMARY • Plenty of quick win scenarios where employees need to access IT through mobile devices • Oracle JET or MAF, coupled with Cordova, provides mature means to build mobile apps. JET re-uses of JavaScript & desktop skills • Hybrid mobile apps offer good compromise between development flexibility and cost. Keep an eye out for Progressive Web Apps though • Various integration options & cloud services – some overlap so consider carefully • Positive user experience is central to success of your project – consider usage, device, convenience, etc 37
- 33. Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU MIGHT LIKE… 38 In this room next: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!