delivering mobile apps to the field

Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential

DELIVERING MOBILE APPS TO THE FIELD WITH ORACLE

Simon Haslam


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 6/2017JET project from 7/2018

@simon_haslam


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


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Connect:

Nominate yourself or someone you know: acenomination.oracle.com

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Copyright © 2018, eProseed and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. | Confidential5

• Real-world ‘field’ environments & Oracle technologies

• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova

• Oracle JET for mobile apps

• User experience

• Learning points & summary


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

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Photo fromhttps://www.pexels.com


BUT FIRSTLY: HOW RETAIL “APPS” HAVE EVOLVED

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UK car importer/distributor

App calculates personalised finance termsfor a customer, e.g. at end of test drive

IT to assist salesperson in a car showroom

1997


AGENDA

• Real-world ‘field’ environments


• Typical integration challenges

• User experience


8


WHAT DO YOU NEED FOR A MOBILE ENTERPRISE APP?

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Data services

‘Functional’ services

Offlinepersistence

App devtools

MobileDevice

Management

SDLCtools

Securitytools

Notificationservices

Tracking & analytics

Operating System inc app

packagingDevice-specific

features

Identity services

API

….and this is before you consider microservices!


ORACLE PRODUCTS TO MEET THESE NEEDS

10

Data services

‘Functional’ services

Offlinepersistence

App devtools

MobileDevice

Management

SDLCtools

Securitytools

Notificationservices

Tracking & analytics

Operating System inc app

packagingDevice-specific

features

Identity services

Mobile Cloud Service

Mobile Cloud

Service

Integration Cloud

SOASuite Service Bus

Identity Cloud

Service

ADF

ERP

JET

MAF

MAF(CDM)

Persist. Toolkit

DevCSAPIPlatform


TYPES OF MOBILE APP

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Native HybridProgressive

Web Apps

Platform-specific(multiple teams

for different platforms) Cross-platform Cross-platform

Ultimate performanceUsually acceptable

performanceExpected to be acceptable

performance

Native APIs Cordova Cordova(?)

This presentation

PL

AT

FO

RM

SS

PE

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DE

VIC

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OS

FE

AT

UR

ES


WHAT DO YOU NEED* TO DEVELOP HYBRID MOBILE APP?

Cordova

JET

PackagingOffline

Phone photo by Terje Sollie from Pexels

MAFor

* Oracle tools - other tools are available!


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 toolkithttps://github.com/oracle/offline-persistence-toolkit

https://github.com/oracle/offline-persistence-toolkit



• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova


• User experience



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)

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2014 / 4 years ago:


MAF: 02. An Introduction to Oracle Mobile Application Framework (Oracle MAF)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4rN1kQncy0E

2014


MAF DEMO

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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 needed19



• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova


• User experience



CORDOVA ARCHITECTURE

Bluetooth Serial

Barcode Receiver

https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/overview/index.html

JavaScript

JavaScript

Android: Java

Physicalconnection

to hardware

https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/guide/overview/index.html


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

https://cordova.apache.org/docs/en/latest/reference/cordova-plugin-battery-status/


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 feelslike a step back in time!

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https://github.com/don/BluetoothSerial



• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova


• User experience



MODERN ORACLE TOOLS FOR MOBILE APP DEV

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• 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


JET DEMO

26



• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova


• User experience



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

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➢Importance of Business Sponsor & Product Owner ➢Mobile app usage means lots of opinions!➢Management of expectations


MOCK-UPS

32


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



• Oracle MAF

• Apache Cordova


• User experience



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


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

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