If you ever wanted to learn Oracle UCM, successfully deliver a project, or take your career to the next level—this will be the most important book you ever read. Why? Because the text you're looking at right now is a lot more than just a book.
That's right, this IS your complete Oracle UCM mastery system—the book itself is just a component. And this system will take you to where you need to b fast. Let me show you in more specific details the actual components, that work together to get you there:
The book chapters will give you the much needed knowledge, insider information, and shortcuts that you can use to slash days, weeks, and even months off your learning curve, and your project schedule. Its "you and me talking" style makes learning effortless and fun—even if you are a "slow learner".
8 hour Quick Start will give you a rocket boost to help you get comfortable with Oracle UCM in a hurry. If you are "under the gun" to decide whether your project can be accomplished with UCM or you found yourself on a deep end of the pool of a UCM implementation—this section will be your helping hand.
Your Free Critique Certificate entitles you to having me personally review and comment on your architecture document, security or metadata model, or any other Oracle UCM-related matter that you can describe in one email. We routinely charge no less than $100 to $200 per critique, so this is a very real $100 to $200 value. It's probably the only time in your life you'll ever buy an inexpensive book and find $100 stuck inside it! And it's very possible that redeeming it will prove even more valuable to you.
Extensive Resource directory—your Oracle UCM "Yellow Pages" that gives you instant access to the most comprehensive collection of resources you can use to keep yourself up to date or get help with your current project. You will find anything from a listing of UCM blogs to a directory of professional services firms that specialize in Oracle UCM space.
And finally, your free Newsletter Subscription that gets you important updates on this book's content, (especially timely and critical now, when the new UCM 11g is just about to be released) and keeps you abreast of the new tools, features, and techniques. It will force-feed critical information that you need to continue improving your UCM skills without putting any effort into it.
Not only these unique components will help you achieve your professional goals, over time, they will take you straight to Oracle UCM mastery and get you to the top ranks of your team, your company and, maybe even your industry.
And now let me pause for a second and describe the ideal audience—people, who will reap maximum benefits from The Oracle UCM Handbook and this Complete Oracle UCM Mastery System.
In this section I'll quickly guide you through the chapters of the book itself, and show you what each of them will help you achieve.
Chapter 1, Getting Up and Running, is a deluxe walkthrough that takes you over building your personal "sandbox", downloading free unlimited evaluation software, and completing the installation. It also "shows you around the house" to get you instantly familiar with core UCM Document Management.
Chapter 2, Major Controls, guides you through all major controls of Content Server in time it takes to have lunch. Get instantly familiar with operations, diagnostics, and troubleshooting, and also learn how to manager users.
Chapter 3, Metadata, helps you master standard and custom metadata, and learn how to quickly perform complex customizations on Check In, Content Info, and Search screens without a single line of code.
Chapter 4, Understanding Security, gets you a crystal clear understanding of UCM Security Model and how to get it right, the first time around, to avoid costly redesigns.
Chapter 5, Understanding Workflows, explains what UCM workflows can do for you and how to use them. It includes tutorial for advanced workflow design that shows you how to use jumps, sub-workflows, basic and criteria workflows, tokens, and aliases.
Chapter 6, Understanding Virtual Folders and WebDAV, tells you all about Virtual Folders. It is a detailed walkthrough that shows how to set up and use folder structures, so you can bring alive your shared drives and other existing content.
Chapter 7, Under the hood, is an in depth review of the file system, content store, and important utilities (for managing System Configuration and Process Administration), also discover how Content Server is designed to be so lightning-fast.
Chapter 8, Backup, Restore, and Content Migration, shows you how to backup and restore the Content Server like a pro—to avoid devastating data losses. Also learn to use Archiver—to remove inactive content, migrate items to other servers, and mass-update metadata. (This tip alone can white-out days of mind-numbing manual labor from your life's chart).
Chapter 9, Migrating Configuration, shows you how to transfer just the changes you want from Development to Testing and Production environments. Avoid the quicksand of manually applying the same changes to multiple environments.
Chapter 10, Customizing Oracle UCM, introduces you to all the tools and techniques available for altering UCM interface and behavior. It also shows you how to smoothly integrate into your overall organization's infrastructure and avoid dreaded manual data re-entry and multiple "source of truth" repositories that spell disaster for content management systems.
Chapter 11, Web Content Management and Collaboration, is your complete step by step walkthrough of creating killer websites with Site Studio Designer. It walks you through the server-site set up, and how to best use templates, regions, and fragments.
Appendix A, Exploring Oracle UCM Product Offering, gives you an in-depth review of the entire Oracle UCM Product Offering, insider tips, strongest sides, and the caveats you need to be aware of—when using dozens of products and components within the UCM Suite (and how to avoid missing the cut by picking a wrong tool for the job).
Appendix B, Detailed Oracle UCM Resource Directory, is your instant access to many valuable print and online resources, trusted system integrators, UCM training providers and more. Here're just a few categories of resources you will find in Appendix B:
Free online resources—a comprehensive listing of UCM-specific and general content-management related blogs, review, and article sites. Many of these hidden gems are not actively promoted and you won't pick them up from a Google search.
Best recommended publications—the few UCM-related books and whitepapers you may find really useful some even indispensable.
Trusted System Integrators—a small list of time-tested, good track record Oracle Partners that specialize in the UCM space.
Trusted Training Providers—just like the System Integrators, this is a small list of vendors you can start with if you're looking for official or customized Oracle UCM training.
Value-Added Products and Services—a list of products that may help you avoid expensive customizations or save you time on content migration and other time consuming initiatives.
Be sure to check your Resource Directory when you are done reading the chapters.
And now let's see what kind of hardware and software you will need to run the examples and follow the tutorials from this book.
If you want to build your own local copy of the Content Server, to run the examples and follow the tutorials in this book, you will need a Windows (2000, XP, Vista, or Windows 7) desktop or laptop with 5 GB of free disk space and at least, 1GB of RAM. You can also use your existing development or sandbox environment running Oracle Content Server v.10g R3, in which case all you need on your local machine is a web browser.
And now let's get right into the Eight-hour Quick Start System.
Welcome to the eight hours quick start! This section is different—it's here to give you a rocket boost to help you get comfortable with Oracle UCM in a hurry. If you are "under the gun" to decide if your project can be accomplished with UCM or you found yourself on a deep end of the pool of a UCM implementation—this section will be the helping hand you need.
Even though the book you're reading right now is the fastest way to master Oracle UCM I know about, this may still not be "fast enough" for what you're trying to accomplish. So how do we force-feed the UCM expertise directly into your brain? The answer may shock and delight you.
We will rely on the famous 80/20 rule. 80 percent of what you really need to learn only takes 20 percent of time to master. The rest of the time is spent on the remaining 20 percent of knowledge!
In this section I'll help you identify the knowledge you need and help you find it within this book at maximum speed.
Ready? Let's get into it. But first, I want to tell you something that will help you get even better results.
I want you to feel this way because you picked a very good product to master. Here's why:
Oracle is a great company, leader in the marketplace, and offers great support.
The UCM itself has been around for 14 years, has thousands of happy customers and you'll come to appreciate its speed, simplicity, and reliability.
I actually challenge you to find an enterprise level UCM solution that can run completely on 512 MB of RAM, fit on a 1 GB flash drive, and run on an outdated laptop! And offer comparable response speed. Most of the tools today are bloated, take an enormous amount of hardware and are slow. Not every laptop or even desktop will let you run a copy or SharePoint 2007. Certainly, not—if you have 2 GB or RAM!
It doesn't take a lot of effort to configure and learn, which you can actually see by the size of this book! It's not that another thousand page volume with a hundred of pages of dedicated to installation and configuration.
And it doesn't take two weeks just to get up and running. (In fact, in the first chapter I'll show you how to build and configure your own Content Server in a short afternoon).
So let's take a look at your eight-hour Quick Start System.
There are two types of facts you'll be acquiring today. The basic concepts behind Oracle UCM, that unlock the rest of the knowledge for you, and additional stuff that your project at hand may urgently require.
No matter what you're planning on doing with Oracle UCM, you need to start with the Content Server. All major UCM modules, such as Document Management, Web Content Management, and Records Management are all based on it.
The best way to get started and understand the base Content Server paradigms is by reading the introduction in Chapter 1. Easily enough, it's called "Here's an easy way to understand the Content Server".
Note
If you're in a rush, don't install your local copy of Content Server at this point. Just flip through the pages and focus on introductions, summaries, headers, and illustrations.
Not sure what this sentence is trying to say! When you're learning at a maximum speed, you need to go for the "bird eye" view of all of the content.
Once you have a feel for how it works, take it a bit deeper and learn more about metadata and security. These are the two most important aspects of any Content Server implementation, and the one that you must understand in order to succeed.
I'm not asking you to carefully read and study the chapters at this point. You're after the "what" question, not the "how". Flip through the pages and see:
What metadata is used for
What's involved in creating a metadata model
What are the basic concepts of Content Server Security
How different security components fit together
At this point, you will find yourself a lot more comfortable and ready to focus on your specific UCM assignment.
If you plan on doing some hands-on Content Server administration, review Chapter 2, Major Controls. This will get you instantly familiar with operations, diagnostics, and UCM troubleshooting, and show you how to manage users.
If you are planning on customizing Oracle UCM, skim Chapter 7 and Chapter 10. This will give you important insights about the inner workings of Content Server, its key file formats and all the tools, and choices you have for customizing its interface and behavior.
And if you are working or planning to work with a vendor then be sure to review the section called Five ways to maximize results and avoid disaster when working with a UCM vendor in Chapter 10. These street-tough project success tips will help you reduce your risk and avoid severe penalties to your budget, timeline, and your system functionality.
And last, but not least, I urge you to scan through Appendix A and get yourself familiar with the entire Oracle UCM product line up. Not only you will see how other modules integrate with Content Server, you will see what other tools and integration options you have at your disposal.
That's it. How did you do? Still have a bit of time left of your eight hours? Then how about some activity? Why not have a little fun with actually installing your own local copy of the Content Server? Or you can simply skim Chapter 1 and see what it takes to install.
Congratulations! You've just accomplished something that a vast majority of technical people cannot even dream possible. You've got yourself a solid understanding of Oracle UCM—in just under eight short hours. I agree, you may not be ready to take over a high volume production environment, but I'm sure, you can find your way around it.
So now, let's pick up everything we've left off in the first reading. Let's get some practice and get you bumped up to next level of Oracle UCM mastery.
And before I see you in Chapter 1, let's take one quick important step that will literally put your learning on auto-pilot and help you achieve your career objectives faster than you ever dreamed possible.
You will soon be finished with the book material, but it doesn't mean you will not continue to benefit from it for years to come, and I don't mean re-reading the chapters when you need a refresher. That goes without saying…
What I do mean is the fact that any book is limited in what the author can relate to you. And you need a steady flow of insider information to keep you up in the top ranks of your chosen filed, any field. And Oracle UCM is no exception.
That's why, to thank you for investing in this book, I've set aside your own private and personal spot in the Independent Oracle UCM Knowledge Center. Claim it and you will accomplish these three critical objectives:
You will receive important updates to this book's content. Those will be especially timely and critical now, when the new UCM 11g is just about to be released. I'll keep you in the loop on how what you've just learned will apply to the new version, and what new features you can use to get things done better and faster.
You will stay abreast of the new tools, features and techniques, no matter whether or not they were covered in this book at all. And the most precious gift I can give you is the fact that…
You will stay motivated about mastering Oracle UCM and reaping the maximum benefit it can give your organization and your career.
Imagine waking up in the morning feeling yourself on the top of your profession. Going to work, mentally repeating to yourself "I'm the best! In my team… In my company… I'm the best!", and knowing in your heart of hearts, IT'S TRUE!
Few people are really motivated to learn anything. Even fewer are keeping their skills updated on a regular basis. Just a tiny number of brave souls can keep themselves on top—week after week, month after month…
A few short months from now you can easily be considered a top Oracle UCM expert in your team, your company and, maybe even your industry.
And here's the secret of…
Feel at ease and relaxed when everyone else is painfully grinding out every little bit of knowledge they acquire. And the secret (and the fastest) way to the top is simply to be on the right bus!
Let me explain. It's tough to make yourself learn something new every day, and many people run out of enthusiasm almost immediately. So why not try the other way? Why not simply subscribe to an e-mail list and let the publisher do the hard work? All you need to do is look over the tips, tricks, and trade secrets you receive right in your in-box, and use them to your advantage.
One day I'll ask you to read a short article. The other day, it will be a three minute screen cast video, and before you know it, you will find yourself in the top ranks of Oracle UCM.
Don't miss your bus. Stop by www.stellentexperts.com/handbook and pick up your free subscription. This elite community of professionals is not open to just anyone. I don't want the tire-kickers and wannabes as subscribers. That's why I'm keeping this subscription page hidden.
Your subscription will also help you get the most of this book's content and digest it even faster. So don't delay. These great insider tips, tricks, in-depth articles, and exclusive special offers are only e-mailed once and will not be repeated. Why is this important?
Let me give you an example. The all-new UCM 11gR1 has just been released, and while most of this book's content still applies to the new version, a few specific areas (such as installation and user management) have been changed. I'll be covering those in a series of articles. But if you miss out on, say the one covering the installation—you will have to study the Installation Guides and make your own mistakes, and you don't need to waste your days on trial and error!
I've already seen this mistakes being made and have the solution ready for you. All you need to do is simply this: go to www.stellentexperts.com/handbook and claim your free Oracle UCM continuing education.
Sincerely,
Dmitri Khanine
P.S. You are not risking anything by subscribing to this free exclusive newsletter. Your email address will never be sold, traded or misused, and you can unsubscribe at any time. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Don't risk missing out on this great career booster. Subscribe now, while this information is still fresh in your mind.
This book and this system is for all IT professionals—who would like to win an unfair advantage of Oracle UCM mastery for their project and their jackpot career, and for Oracle Stellent UCM Users, Administrators, and Developers who're ready to jump up to the next level of expertise.
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "Close all of your browser windows and re-login to Content Server as sysadmin."
A block of code is set as follows:
<html> <body> Hello <strong><$UserFullName$></strong><br/> Your login name is <$UserName$>,<br/> your roles are <$UserRoles$><br/> and your accounts are <$UserAccounts$> </body> </html>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:
<table border="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td> <!--SS_BEGIN_ELEMENT(region1_element1)--> <!--$ssIncludeXml(SS_DATAFILE,region1_element1 & "/node()")-->
Any command-line input or output is written as follows:
C:\oracle\ucm\server\bin>IdcCommand.exe -f c:\Temp\create_folder.hda -u sysadmin -l c:\Temp\log.txt -c auto
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "They were moved to the Trash folder".
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