Migrating myUWindsor
to Liferay
Sanjay Chitte
Shawn DenHartogh
This Session
•
•
•
•
•
What is myUWindsor
Migration
Demo of myUWindsor Features
myUWindsor App
Leveraging Liferay’s features in the future
myUWindsor
• Our Portal for:
– Applicants
– Students
– Alumni
History of myUWindsor
• CGI-Bin Forte based environment
– called as sisweb
• September 2007 Oracle Portal
– Web Content aggregator enabling
personalization
• June 2013 Liferay driving our mobile app
• November 2013 Liferay (internet + mobile)
Why we need new portal
• Impact of increase in use of Mobile
devices
• Oracle Portal end of life
– Oracle purchased weblogic and was
realigning their app server and portal strategy
• Stay at par with UI ( look and feel)
Why we need new portal
• Oracle Portal (version 10) was not mobile
friendly
• Used java standards based on jdk1.4
• JPDK was proprietary
– Did not support JSR 286
• Meet additional expectations of our clients
and departments.
Realigning with change in
requirements
• Internet + mobile and cloud
– Implied many instant interactions everywhere
• Find ways to enhance student
engagement and experience
Is it Possible?
• Students would like relevant information
when and where they need
• Info should help them make decisions
towards their needs at university
• Provide Personalized interactions across
all channels
Choices we had
• Oracle Portal Weblogic/Webcenter
– Steep learning curve
– Total change form Oracle 10 version
– Installation and Configuration time consuming
– Not fully in integrated ( 2011/2012 my
personal opinion)
– Licensing cost is high
– Proprietary technology
– Training cost is high
Choices we had
• IBM Websphere?
– Licensing cost , proprietary
– We have to deal with a new vendor in this
space
– More training cost because we were not
exposed the environment
– Steep learning curve for our department
Why Liferay
• Open Source/Standards, Java based Extensible with portlets (JSR standard)
• Well documented
• Build for integration
• SSO
• Granular RBAC
• Secure
Deciding Factors
• Proven, enterprise portal platform with
350,000 installations worldwide
• Lower license cost
• Easier and cheaper to install and maintain
• Less time needed to configure, secure and
implement
– Quick proof of concept enables to try and
prove the value before making long term
commitments
Deciding Factors
• Short learning curve
• Higher customer satisfaction confirmed by
Gartner
• 15,000+ community sharing Liferay
experience for free
• Freedom in software stack (OS, Database,
App server)
• Cluster: Scalable & High Availability
Some methods that I follow
• Can I install and run the software in 1 hr
after the download
• Can I fully test the features after its up and
running
• Check the forums and public bug reports
• Check if requests are answered on the
forums
Migration plan
• In our case as mobile initiative had priority
we migrated the portlets required for
mobile applications
• Both Oracle portal and Liferay ran in
parallel
– Liferay feeding mobile and Oracle on internet
• Decommissioned Oracle Portal in
November 2013
Google Analytics
Monthly
Daily Pattern
Google Analytics
30 % of the Traffic is Mobile
--Multidevice support in Liferay 6.2
--Also has google analytics support
Moving Forward
• Launching Liferay 6.2 in Nov 2014
(Tentative)
– Goal is to initiate full virtual presence for
students, leveraging the new features of
Liferay 6.2
Liferay 6.2
• Portlets such as Personal Dashboard ,
Private sites, Notifications and Liferay
sync
• Responsive Design
• Multidevice Preview
• Google Integration
– SAML portlet
– openAM
What is myUWindsor
• All-in-one student self service location
–
–
–
–
UWinCARD
Library
Parking
Registration and other SIS services
• Directed Messaging
• Events and news feeds
Demo
Directed Messaging
Directed Messaging
Directed Messaging
myUWindsor App
• myUWindsor app is UWindsor’s mobile ‘portal’
– Android / iOS / HTML5
• Mobile app designed to be consistent with
myUWindsor web application.
– Several features of the mobile app are driven through
existing code of myUWindsor
• Using webviews or webservices
– New features on myUWindsor are immediately
available in mobile app
– New features requested for mobile app are available
to myUWindsor
myUWindsor App
myUWindsor App - Courses
myUWindsor App - Courses
myUWindsor App
Leveraging Liferay’s Features
Responsive Design
Responsive Design
Responsive
Design
Virtual Portals / Groups
• Investigating how to allow academic areas
control over group sites and pages
– This should require little administration
Questions?
• Sanjay Chitte (sanjay@uwindsor.ca)
• Shawn DenHartogh (sden@uwindsor.ca)