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Oracle applicatiOn express

ELEvAtor PItCh

Oracle Application Express allows you to rapidly develop applications based on Oracle database. As a result, you not only profit from the fast, easy development but also the availability, scalability, and security of Oracle database.

Browser tools– Access developer or end user tools through a

Web browser – without needing to install any software. Plus, since no separate deployment or compilation steps are needed, you can im-mediately deploy developed applications on the Web.

More insight – Use fill-in-the-blank wizards to build sophisti-

cated, professional-looking Web applications.

Database integration – Incorporate the full power of the Oracle da-

tabase in your application. Since the applica-tion is fully integrated with the database you can use features such as fine grained access control (VPD), spatial or location-based que-ries, Oracle text and OLAP.

MS Access migration workshop– Migrate Microsoft Access Applications to

Oracle Application Express using the built-in Application Migration Workshop.

Multi-tenant hosting– Utilize a robust framework designed for

multi-tenant hosting.

Packaged applications– Get a fast start using Oracle’s free packaged

business solutions. Customers can either use these solutions as they are or customize the applications to their individual needs.

With Oracle Application Express, you can build applications on existing databases or migrate data from spreadsheets and desktop database applications. If you are using spreadsheets to track important business data, Application Ex-press is an excellent way to promote data shar-ing. An Application Express application provides Web-based access to a single data source that is securely stored in an Oracle database.

tArGEt ACCoUnt ProfILE

typical Customer– < 100 employees– < $500 million– Uses Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access to track frequently changing data

orACLE InStALLED BASE nEw orACLE ProSPECtS– Use oracle Database – have multiple MS Access applications– Develop applications using PL/SQL web

toolkit– waste time e-mailing, consolidating and

merging spreadsheets– want a simple migration from MS Access – Using J-Boss and looking for commercial-qual-

ity, enterprise support and/or more powerful configuration and management functionality

– need to develop applications quickly to address department requirements

– wish to migrate from Lotus notes. want to quickly develop and deploy database-driven web applications to solve a specific task

– require hi-fidelity Document Printing within Application Express.

– need fast, easy applications

– want to reference web services– need fast, easy applications

note: customers must have Oracle 9.2.0.3 or higher.

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KEy fEAtUrES

Quick Application wizards Thanks to the wide range of application wizards, users without any programming experience can take data in existing database tables or spreadsheets and transform it into a fully functional reporting and data entry ap-plication in minutes. The application is then deployed as soon as it has been created. No separate steps are needed to compile or in-stall the application.

reportingApplication Express has a powerful reporting engine that delivers data through the Web. Reports are template driven and come with built-in features such as pagination, column heading sorting, and the ability to export a result set to a spreadsheet. Application Ex-press can also export a report section to PDF (i.e. printing a report). Companies can choose Oracle BI Publisher or a standard XSL-FO pro-cessing engine as the report server.

ChartingWith the help of wizards, users can add bar, line, and pie charts – including a range of flash charts – into applications. Users can define the general look and feel, add animations and even enable asynchronous chart updates.

Data Entry formsApplication Express offers wizards and com-ponents for building several types of forms including tabular and master detail forms. To enable concurrent data access, default forms have built-in features to detect lost updates. Users can also extend forms with validations that are either executed on the server or in the browser via Javascript.

Integration with LDAP and Single Pre-built login pages and authentication routines enable an easy integration with LDAP and single sign-on. Administrators can set rules for password expiry and enforce “strong” passwords that have a minimum number of characters and use of numeric/al-phanumeric characters.

web Services SupportApplication Express supports Web services created with JDeveloper and Oracle BPEL (Business Process Exec. Language) synchro-nous Web services. It also references Web ser-vices located behind a firewall authentication.

Access Migration The Access Migration Workshop enables the migration of data and application definitions. Its declarative environment allows you to design recovery on the existing MS Access database.

Pre-built UI templates Application Express offers complete, built-in templates for building professional-looking user interfaces. Companies can fully custom-ize these templates using HTML and Cascad-ing Style Sheets (CSS).

Built-in navigational controls Application Express offers tabs, pull-down menus, breadcrumbs and other built-in con-trols for adding navigation to applications. New features include:– Place a new/existing item to the left/right of

an existing item (Drag and Drop Item Creation wizard)

– Insert a new row quickly and add items in the middle of an existing form

– Set the cache time for the page or a section of the report

– Set separate cache times for different users– Switch among daily, weekly and monthly

calendar views.– Access new item types such as the ‘Shuttle

Widget’, ‘HTML Editor’ and ‘Date Picker’ (Use Item Level Format Mask)

hosted Architecture Application Express was built with consolida-tion in mind. Once it is installed into an Oracle database, many applications can operate on their own data yet co-exist without interfer-ence in a single database. Teams of develop-ers can work on one or more projects in so-called workspaces, which are each associated with one or more database schemas. As a result, companies can turn a single database into a shared service that hosts hundreds of applications.

Schema and Application ComparisonThis extremely quick and handy tool assesses changes/modification in object definitions of two accessible schemas/ components being used by applications. It offers both “details” and ”differences only” views.

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hIGh yIELD QUEStIonS

Does your organization use spreadsheets to collect and share data?

Do you find yourself wasting time cutting, pasting, e-mailing and consolidating spread-sheets?

Are you worried if the data stored in desktop databases is secure?

Are you concerned how the widespread use of spreadsheets and Microsoft Access tools could affect your compliance with SoX or hIPAA?

Is your It overwhelmed with internal requests to create web-based data entry and reporting applications for various departments?

Do you lack the time to build all of the appli-cations that users want?

Do you have developers with SQL and PL/SQL skills?

Does your system lack web Services function-ality so that your application can publish its function or message to the rest of the world?

Do you have the ability to export a section of a report to PDf (i.e. print a report)?

In your current system, can you add an “Up-grade Script” to your packaged application?

Are you looking for a quick and easy tool to assess changes/modifications in the object definition of two accessible schemas?

CoMPEtItIon

Competitor: IBM DB2

StrEnGthS wEAKnESSES

– Quick and easy development – Works best when application is co-located with data in the same database.

– Easy to make changes to existing applications – Does not work with third-party databases with-out gateways

– Instant Web deployment – Doesn’t support Java Beans. You need to wrap the Java code to be executed via PL/SQL

– No software to install on the client – Exporter tool used to export MS Access meta-data while migrating a MS Access application to an APEX application

– Fully integrated with Oracle Database – Supports MS Access 97, MS Access 2000, MS Access 2002, and MS Access 2003, but not MS Access 2007.

– PDF printing

– Flash charting

– Support for Web services

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oBJECtIon hAnDLInG

oracle Application Express is a new Product. who is using it?Oracle Application Express has been down-loaded nearly 370,000 times since its intro-duction in February 2004. Surveys show that about 15% of Oracle database customers use Application Express in some fashion.

With 11g, Oracle Application Express is part of the seed database due to its increased popu-larity and importance both within Oracle and with our customers.

Isn’t oracle Application Express just webDB revisited? No. WebDB was a feature first released with Oracle Database 7.3 in 1997. Oracle Application Express was an entirely fresh start by a de-velopment group that is part of core database development. When Oracle’s focus shifted to Portals, WebDB was included with AS Portal as a component builder. Oracle Application Express, however, is based on a completely different architecture. Although WebDB en-abled quick developments of application com-ponents such as forms and reports, it wasn’t flexible enough to incorporate string forms, reports and charts together in an intuitive task flow. This is largely due to WebDB’s architec-ture which generates PL/SQL packages. To modify application functionality, users need to edit those PL/SQL packages – a difficult and time-consuming task. Oracle Application Ex-press is a metadata-driven tool.

Can oracle Application Express’s architecture scale if it doesn’t rely on an application server?Oracle Application Express uses the perfor-mance and scalability of the database itself. Its unique architecture does not consume server resources when a user is not request-ing or submitting a page. Since Application Express stores all state in database tables and releases database connections as soon as pages are generated or processed, it con-sumes very few resources at any given time. As a result, applications with large user popu-lations such as Aria People Search (50,000 po-tential users, 1,000,000 page views per week) can run on a single 2 CPU server.

oracle is pushing J2EE and ADf. where does Application Express fit in? Oracle HTML DB and Oracle JDeveloper cater for different types of developers and tend to be applied to different problems. Oracle Applica-tion Express is often used by non-technical business professionals that have significant domain expertise but not formal training in programming or computer science. In order to solve business problems, they often build small applications that solve a specific task such as project tracking or people lookup. JDeveloper and ADF are a complete IDE and framework for building SOA applications that orchestrate business processes across the en-terprise. Applications developed using Oracle Application Express and Oracle JDeveloper access the same data in an Oracle database and integrate with Oracle Application Server for services such as identity management and Oracle Portal. As a result, they complement each other perfectly.

what else does oracle Application Express offer?– Provide self-service access to employee

phone numbers, e-mail addresses and other contact information

– Enable self-service updates of personal pro-file information including image uploads

– Facilitate the management of customer data including location and contact details

– Show the history of all customer interactions– Track the last contact date with any given

customer– Deploy a 24-7, self-service portal where

customers can ask questions and access a knowledge base

– Create a fully customizable message board solution with threaded discussions organized by topic, built-in user and forum manage-ment, and a robust message search feature

– Track the location, status and age of com-pany assets (e.g. phone and computer equip-ment)

– Empower users to create new assets, modify the details of existing assets, view inventory details and track missing assets

– Enable 24-7 customer orders of company products and services

– Create user accounts automatically when the first order is placed; up-front user registra-tion is not required

– Facilitate user knowledge of events through report or calendar view options

– Expedite user registration for published events including reminder options

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– Track user registration for meeting planning and management

– Track and guide sales opportunities through-out the sales cycle based on your company’s steps to close.

– Empower account owners to track at oppor-tunity levels

– Help sales management analyze the pipeline as well as closed deals

– Expedite self-service time entry and project/assignment tracking for remote employees

– Allow users to view saved time sheets– Empower administrators to edit saved time

sheets– Facilitate sharing, collaborating and tracking

review cycles for one or more documents– Assign tasks and share links pertaining to

document-related research– Enable document storage and security

thIrD-PArty vALIDAtIon

oracle Application Express validation“Oracle Application Express is so efficient that we use it to rapidly prototype applications as part of our analysis and design phase. Many of the new Oracle Application Express 3.0 fea-tures will be great for our own public facing site and for clients’ applications. The ability to cache pages and individual regions on a page should improve overall performance. Flash-based charts and publishing directly to PDF provide great enhancements to public facing sites.” Anton Nielsen, President, C2 Consulting, Inc., March 2007

“Oracle Application Express has directly contributed to our success and provides the means to engineer our technology quickly and efficiently.” Nick Intintolo, Director of Strategic Programs, Mythics, March 2007 “Oracle Application Express’s 4GL declarative development and the built-in features like se-curity, validation, themes, flash charting, PDF reporting, and Web Services, among others, increase the productivity of our developers. With the new out-of-the-box PDF reporting and Flash charting, it’s even easier for us to build the highly sophisticated, Web 2.0 ap-plications our clients are demanding. We’re fans of the database-based repository used by Oracle Application Express.” Patrick Wolf, Senior Solution Architect, Sphinx IT Consulting GmbH, March 2007

“Nothing else I’ve used – and I’ve been in data processing for 30 years – is as fast for developing robust, secure applications as Oracle Application Express. The speed at which I am able to design, develop, and deploy applications is incomparable.” Tony Jedlinski, Vice President, Administration, Roman, Inc., February 2007 “With Oracle Application Express, our staff has a user-friendly solution with business-specific online help, enabling them to meet customers’ needs rapidly.”Frédéric Vast, Studies Manager, Afilbel, Febru-ary 2007 “Oracle Application Express helps build Web applications quickly. Over the past year, the adoption of Oracle Application Express has increased twofold mainly because it is easy to use, saves money when consolidating spread-sheets and desktop databases, and comes bundled for free with Oracle databases.” Noel Yuhanna, Forrester Report, July 2006 “Oracle Application Express lets us consoli-date previously fragmented contact manage-ment information into a single enterprise-wide document and allows multi-user access without sacrificing centralized control.” Russell Irwin, Head of Group Technical Direction, Standard Life, July 2006 “Microsoft Access is not intended as an inherently reliable solution for several rea-sons

– Database Corruption– Backup and Maintenance– Different Versions of Access and Jet– Security”

Luke Chung and Dan Haught, Microsoft Corporation, February 2005

Gartner: Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Application Servers, 2Q08

Oracle Fusion Middleware Analyst Reports

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CUStoMEr rEfErEnCES

Contacts: David peake

PGA of AmericaThe PGA of America (PGA) is a not-for-profit trade association that promotes the enjoy-ment and involvement in the game of golf and contributes to its growth by providing ser-vices to golf professionals and the golf indus-try. The Association is comprised of more than 28,000 men and women PGA Professionals who are dedicated to growing participation in the game of golf. The PGA of America is supported by 41 PGA Section Offices located throughout the geographic regions of the United States, as well as a staff of more than 175 employees at the national headquarters in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida.

Usage SummaryPGA of America used Oracle Application Ex-press to create a dashboard for financial re-porting. The head office and each of its 41 sec-tion offices now receive financial data on the thousands of tournaments and other events run each year.

The PGA of America also has developed a purse management system. This system al-lows PGA staff to enter a golfer’s name and purse amount, which automatically prints and mails a check to that golfer. Since this purse management and payment system integrates with Oracle eBusiness Suite via Open APIs, all financial transactions occur at a single source.

Using Oracle Application Express’s flexible security architecture, the PGA was able to integrate SiteMinder’s single sign-on services with Oracle Application Express. Now, when a PGA employee is authenticated to SiteMinder, they are also automatically logged on to all of their Oracle Application Express applications.

Proof Points– Leveraged investment in the oracle eBusi-

ness SuiteThanks to Oracle eBusiness Suite and specifi-cally the Oracle Payables module, the PGA was able to keep all of their financial transac-tions in a single database. This simplified both their accounting as well as the transaction-en-tering process for casual users. Now when a check run is initiated, purse payments entered from Oracle Application Express print along-side checks that originated elsewhere in the Oracle eBusiness Suite.

– Extend the eBusiness Suite without modifi-cations

Since the PGA has a small IT shop, they sim-ply do not have the resources to make exten-sive modifications to the Oracle eBusiness Suite. Oracle Application Express has enabled them to build applications which integrate with the Oracle eBusiness Suite via its open APIs, thus eliminating the need to modify the Oracle eBusiness Suite itself.

– Quick development timeThe PGA was able to build their initial Oracle Application Express application in just a few weeks. This quick turnaround time led to man-agement asking for more features and ad-ditional functionality, which the PGA’s IT staff was easily able to accommodate with Oracle Application Express.

telstra CorporationTelstra Corporation Limited is the largest telecommunications company in Australia. It provides fully integrated landline and mobile voice, internet, data, and video services to residential and business customers across Australia and New Zealand. It also provides advertising, directory, and cable television services through subsidiaries and affiliates.

Usage SummaryTelstra was using a client-server application to manage maintenance activities performed from centers in Adelaide, Ballarat, Brisbane, Coffs Harbour, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

With 450 users and more than 5.5 million work-order records created or updated in the course of a year, Telstra was eager to consoli-date its distributed desktop databases into a centralized environment. This was achieved by combining applications from the seven data centers into a single Oracle 10g Database running an Application Express application.

Proof Points– Improved data consistency and security by

centralizing the database architecture

– reduced costs by eliminating desktop client software and consolidating onto low-cost

– rapid development “Another thing to note is flexibility: Oracle HTML DB gives us faster reaction times when business circumstances change. We can change the application within two days, compared to traditional program-ming tools where change projects are nor-

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mally measured in weeks or months, even for minor changes. Oracle HTML DB is com-pletely Web-based, so we can roll out a new version every day and the users don’t see it – it’s simply a Web page to them. This means we can make changes in real time.”

University of San DiegoLocated in San Diego, California and founded in 1949, the University of San Diego (USD) is a comprehensive university offering under-graduate, graduate, and professional degrees in a variety of disciplines. USD’s enrollment of 7,500 includes 4,900 undergraduate, 1,500 graduate, and 1,100 law students. Schools and colleges include the School of Law, School of Business Administration, College of Arts and Sciences, School of Education, and Hahn School of Nursing and Health Science. As an independent, Catholic institution, USD is dedicated to providing a values-based edu-cation evolved from a liberal arts foundation.

Usage SummaryUSD built a self-service Financial Aid Sys-tem and a Computer Assets Management Information System. Prior to developing and implementing the Financial Aid application, USD would print, collate, and mail nearly 16,000 individual offers of financial assistance to students and their parents. The new system provides students immediate access to their financial aid offers, greatly increasing the efficiency of a traditional manual system. Fi-nancial Services staff members are now able to focus their attention on interacting with the students rather than packaging materials to send out.

Using Application Express to build its Com-puter Assets Management Information System, USD was able to consolidate data from multiple disparate systems such as

spreadsheets and Microsoft Access desktop databases into a single Oracle database. Prior to this consolidation, it was difficult to make information technology decisions since data needed to first be merged before any analysis could occur.

Proof Points– Ease of useSince USD’s IT staff was already familiar with Oracle, developing applications with Oracle Application Express was rather simple. USD application developers are able to easily achieve the look and feel they need from the applications they design.

– Improved access Oracle Application Express facilitates the con-solidation of disparate data sources such as spreadsheets and Microsoft Access databases and leverages the data already stored their Oracle database.USD can now make data more accessible to system users and deci-sionmakers alike via the Web.

– rapid, robust developmentWizard-based and declarative in nature, Ora-cle Application Express allowed USD applica-tion developers to quickly build and deploy applications as their needs change. Because the tool leverages the full capabilities of the Oracle database, its Application Express ap-plications are robust enough to handle the sophisticated needs of their user commnity.

CUStoMEr rESoUrCES

General Resources: Oracle Application Express OTN Web SiteCustomer Reference Resources: Oracle Applica-tion Express Customer References

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PrICInG

oracle Application Express & oracle warehouse Builder are included with the purchase of the oracle Database at no additional charge

StAnDArD EDItIon onE StAnDArD EDItIon$ USD/named User Plus $180 $350Minimum # of Users 5 5oracle License SKU L46760 L46747

$ USD/Processor Socket $5,800 $17,500Maximum # of Sockets 2 4oracle License SKU L46754 L46741

note: pricing as of november 13, 2008. For further pricing details including limitations and definition of terms, refer to Oracle price list.

Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition One offers an enterprise-level database with the same core functionality as Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition at a low-entry price for fast-growing busi-nesses. Oracle Database 11g Standard Edition, which includes Oracle Real Application Clusters, is available on single or clustered servers with up to four sockets.