Episode five of the Insum Insider features special guest Oracle APEX Product Manager David Peake, who discusses why and how to move from Oracle Forms to APEX with Oracle ACE Director Francis Mignault.
Episode Show Notes:
This session was a multi-faceted look at the issues encountered by companies wishing to bring modern functionality to their Oracle Forms-based business processes.
Our thanks to special guest Oracle Product Manager David Peake!
Hosts Monty Latiolais and Francis Mignault opened the session remarking that there is increasing interest in the Forms to APEX transition with an increasing amount of questions on the subject.
David Peake Explains the Increasing Popularity of APEX
3:05 – Monty introduces special guest Oracle APEX Product Manager David Peake.
5:55 – Monty asks David to explain APEX’s increasing popularity among Forms developers.
David’s answer touched on the subjects of Forms technology, the newer generation of developers, and on business processes then and now.
He also speaks about the importance of power-user adoption during a changeover from Forms to APEX, and their reaction to APEX characteristics such as Interactive Reports.
9:15 – The group talks about the importance of an intuitive interface for business users (which APEX provides).
13:35 – David’s cat enters his office.
14:05 – Francis asks David “Is there anything that APEX cannot do, that Forms can?”
David explains that client-server applications are able to do certain things differently from web applications (in terms of interacting directly with the desktop), but that the delta between the two is getting smaller.
On the Subject of Tooling
16:05 – Monty changes the discussion topic to tooling, with a question about Oracle APEX’s Migration Assistant.
17:30 – David’s cat leaves his office.
David explains how Migration Assistant is designed to identify business logic so it doesn’t get “lost in the translation”.
David then emphasizes the importance of understanding the business rules buried in the triggers within Forms when it comes to modernization.
18:13 – David relates a customer story about a trigger that was missed in a Forms to APEX Modernization.
18:30 – Cat re-enters.
22:00 – Group discussion on how Forms migration with APEX allows you to keep the same data model, logic triggers as well as the same developers.
Forms Modernization and Co-Existence with APEX
25:35 – Francis describes Insum’s tooling for Forms modernization.
32:10 – David Peake describes an Oracle Forms to APEX modernization with a large police department. Includes a group discussion about change management.
36:20 – (Participant question) David Peake talks about naming conventions in Forms vs APEX. Group discussion about keeping current Forms functionality vs improving business processes.
44:40 – Francis and Monty describe Insum’s blended solution (a coexistence of Forms and APEX).
48:05 – David Peake emphasizes how the “why” or main business driver of a Forms modernization is the most important consideration.
Participant Questions
54:55 – The group answers a participant question about converting from Oracle Reports.
55:30- The group addresses a participant question about the best way to migrate Oracle Forms’ built-in functions to APEX.
56:20 – David Peake recommends the Oracle APEX Migration Guide for Forms developers to understand the differences between Forms and APEX.
53:15 – The group fields a participant question about best practices needed to migrate a considerable number of Forms. David Peake provides a link to Oracle APEX’s Hands on Labs resource and recommends that developers sign up on Oracle’s Always Free Autonomous Cloud to “Kick the tires” on APEX development.
