Migrating myUWindsor to Liferay

Sanjay ChitteShawn 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)