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® IBM Software Group © 2006 IBM Corporation HATS Case Study.

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Presentation on theme: "® IBM Software Group © 2006 IBM Corporation HATS Case Study."— Presentation transcript:

1 ® IBM Software Group © 2006 IBM Corporation HATS Case Study

2 IBM Software Group 2 Business Challenge  Infor Global Solutions Technology  Financial software and services provider for fundamental transactional activities (accounting, procurement, inventory management), expense management, regulatory compliance, and enterprise performance management  Over 12,500 customers worldwide, including half of the Fortune 100 and 18 of the top 20 US banking institutions  An IBM Business Partner who develops and sells financial applications and the supporting software licenses. Applications are licensed by the customer and may be further enhanced. Infor ® provides support to the customers.  Need to modernize mainframe applications  Back-office applications are older CICS, COBOL, Assembler applications  Need to provide an intuitive web interface for customers, employees and vendors  Need to combine multiple host screens into single web page to improve navigation and ease-of-use  Goal to improve user interface  Lower total cost of operation by not having to own and maintain separate 3270 terminals and/or desktop terminal emulation software  Improve accessibility for internal users, remote employees, and casual users  Accelerate the learning curve of new and infrequent users through a more intuitive, web-like interface  Enable personalization of applications through customization tools  Improve productivity by streamlining interfaces and workflow in support of business process reengineering efforts

3 IBM Software Group 3 Previous Solution  Overview of Active Client 1.1  Active Client is an application developed by Infor which provides a GUI to access a full suite of back- office financial applications  3270 green-screens accessed across the web using Host on-Demand  Screens transformed using Screen Customizer  Customers could choose to use the default screen customization  Or they could choose to further personalize the customization on the client  IBM products used in Active Client 1.1  Host on-Demand V7.0  Screen Customizer V2.0.70  IBM HTTP Server – multiple versions supported  Other products used in Active Client 1.1  Microsoft Internet Information Services V5 – used as alternative to IBM’s web server  Microsoft Internet Explorer browser

4 IBM Software Group 4 Technical Challenges  Problems with previous solution from technical perspective  Screen Customizer reached end of life  New customer features and enhanced functions couldn’t be implemented with the previous solution, such as  Combined screens  Embedded java  Global variables  JavaScript  Style sheets  Needed to further modernize the GUI to enhance the end user experience  Customized templates and style sheets  Populate drop-downs and pop-ups to reduce data entry errors  Tabbed folders to combine multiple screens on single web page  Macros to retrieve data  JavaScript to validate data entry prior to submitting to host application

5 IBM Software Group 5 Alternatives Considered  Other products  Jacada® HostFuse  IBM products  Host Access Transformation Services (HATS)  Infor decided on HATS  IBM is strategic partner  Wanted to provide one technical solution for all web-enabled products  Decision was made by Infor VP of Development and Marketing team to go with HATS

6 IBM Software Group 6 New solution IBM zSeries Suite of back-office applications Production Server HATS V6.0.4 WAS V6.0 IBM HTTP Server V6.0 on Windows 2003 Server Client Workstation Microsoft IE V6 SP1 or later on Windows XP/Windows 2000 Key Components Software  IBM WebSphere Host Access Transformation Services V6.0.4  IBM Rational Web Developer V6.0.1  IBM WebSphere Application Server V6.0  IBM HTTP Server V6.0 (or alternatively Microsoft IIS V6) Servers  IBM zSeries Services  IBM Software Services for WebSphere (ISSW) Development Workstation HATS V6.0.4 RWD V6.0.1 WAS V6.0 on Windows XP/Windows 2000

7 IBM Software Group 7 Key Technical Benefits  Implementation of Active Client 2.0  Application developed using HATS installed on Rational Web Developer (RWD)  Resulting application utilizes both default and customized transformations  Deployed to WebSphere Application Server  Key HATS and RWD functions used  Customized screen transformations using JSPs  Host components rendered using drop-down, popup, text input, field and calendar widgets  Business logic and global variables used to populate drop-down and popup lists  Tabbed folders with macros used to combine multiple related host screens to single web page  Fields from multiple host screens combined into single web page  Modified keyboard mappings  Enhanced templates and Cascading Style Sheets with application buttons and hyperlinks provide consistent style and ease-of-use  JavaScript to validate fields on web page to prevent unnecessary calls back and forth to host  Embedded Java business logic performs business functions against data extracted from host  Utilized component based development to easily reuse and share between screen customizations

8 IBM Software Group 8 Key Business Benefits  Business results achieved  Active Client 2.0, using HATS technology, is easy to deploy, requiring minimal integration and can provide immediate cost savings.  Application includes a rich set of web components and takes advantage of web technologies to improve presentation, navigation and productivity.  Zero-footprint, web-based application requires no installation or management of special software on user desktops.  Common tasks may be performed more rapidly and effectively with drop-downs, menus, and navigation which provides options to support novice, casual, and "power" users.  Expectations and how they were met  Modernization: Takes advantage of web technologies, such as drop-downs, menus, popups, and combining multiple host screens in a tabbed folder to increase productivity.  J2EE compliant: Enables greater openness, flexibility and extensibility. Skills in Web technologies are more widely known.  Usability: Improved user interface provides streamlined navigation which is user-friendly and intuitive, and saves time to perform routine procedures.  Portability: Application may be accessed from anywhere and now available for those unfamiliar with the green-screen host application and reduces their learning curve.

9 IBM Software Group 9 HATS in Action  Screen shots of the 3270 screen and the screen transformation using HATS 3270 Host ScreenWeb Browser

10 IBM Software Group 10 Deployment Experience – The Good  What did it take to implement HATS and get it production ready?  A team of 10 developed Active Client 2.0.  Full time project duration was 10 months; available for license in May, 2006  Required new hardware for development environment  Developers learned web development skills  Infor worked with IBM Software Services for WebSphere (ISSW) for 2 weeks - provided education and mentoring  Took advantage of project level settings for components, widgets, templates which enabled reuse for customizations  What will it take for customer deployment?  Infor will provide 40 hours of education and mentoring  Can provide additional services to further customize the application  Estimate a month for rollout, but dependent upon customer needs

11 IBM Software Group 11 Deployment Experience – The Bad  What did not meet expectations?  Started with RAD, but Infor needed a lighter solution  Solution: Decided on RWD  Big learning curve for some Infor developers  Mainframe developers needed to learn HTML, XML and other web technologies  Solution: Were able to use the Design View in RWD  Technical issues encountered  Support for host field colors rendered in pop-up widget  Error messages were highlighted in host application. Field widget supported host field colors, but not pop-up. Solution provided.  Widget bleed through  Drop-down bled through pop-up widget when next to each other. Fix provided.  Next screen  Next screen not being used when executing macros from run macro command key. Fix provided.  Autotab  With turnAutoTabOn enabled, autoAdvance skipped the last field on the transformation. Fix provided.

12 IBM Software Group 12 A Success Story Infor built a user-friendly, intuitive GUI for accessing their back- office applications by taking advantage of the rich web technologies provided by HATS and RWD. Common tasks are performed more rapidly and effectively with drop-downs, menus, and navigation which provides options to support novice, casual, and "power" users. Active Client 2.0, built on HATS technology, is a robust and feature rich replacement for users currently on Active Client 1.1. Utilizing HATS Technologies, Infor can provide to its customers a flexible and powerful web based solution to connect users to our financial applications.


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