Oracle® Mobile Collaboration Administrator's Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.1) Part Number B14497-02 |
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This chapter, through the following sections, describes how Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g provides mobile access.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g provides a complete collaborative platform to enterprise customers, including services such as mail, calendar, files (Content Services), and Web conferences. Because users need access to these services while they are away from their desks, Oracle Collaboration Suite provides the Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mobile Collaboration. Oracle Mobile Collaboration provides users with a continuous connection to the enterprise, enabling them to access company e-mail, voice-mail, calendars, address books, tasks, online files, and directories from any location using any mobile device, including those with voice access. For example, an employee using a mobile phone can send a white paper to a client or retrieve the phone numbers of fellow employees from a company directory. Using the wireless and voice access to the Oracle Collaboration Suite, users receive notifications when important events are added to their calendars, when they receive specific e-mails or voice-mails, or when documents are updated in their folders.
Enabling Mobile Access to Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g
Oracle Mobile Collaboration provides the mobile and voice access to such browser-based applications as Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mail, Calendar, Search and Content Services through the following services:
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mobile Access
Oracle Collaboration Suite Mobile Access applications include the following options, which can be used in any combination:
Mobile Browser Access
Mobile Browser Access enables access to e-mail, voicemail, fax, calendars, address books, and corporate directories from a mobile device. By providing access to the Oracle Collaboration Suite portal, mobile users can compose, send, receive, forward and reply to e-mail, as well as review, create, modify and confirm calendar events, view a file hierarchy or fax. A user can also search for names, numbers, locations and management structure in a corporate directory.
Mobile Text Access
Mobile Text Access enables users to access Oracle Collaboration Suite services by sending a request to the Oracle Collaboration Suite through e-mail or Short Message Service (SMS) text message. Oracle Collaboration Suite then replies with the requested information. For example, a user can access information on appointments logged in the Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Calendar by issuing a text message with the short name, cal.
Mobile Notifications
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g provides a set of configured notifications which enable users to receive notifications of messaging events, such as new e-mails or voicemails and reminders through SMS, e-mail, voice and fax delivery channels. Users manage notification subscriptions and set the preferences that trigger reminders for each application according to their preferences or context.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Voice Access
Oracle Voice Access enables users to compose, send, receive, forward and reply to e-mail (through .wav
files attached to common e-mails), view, create, modify and confirm calendar events, audibly review a file hierarchy, fax and e-mail files, search for names, numbers, locations and management structure in a corporate directory, and place calls from any phone (including non-mobile phones). Oracle Collaboration Suite Voice Access also provides voice-dialing and enables users to receive voice notifications.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mobile Push Mail
Oracle Mobile Push Mail is a Push IMAP (P-IMAP) solution that provides a real-time e-mail experience by automatically pushing e-mail to a user's device over a wireless network as soon as the e-mail is received by mail server. Oracle Mobile Push Mail provides "always on" mail push functionality to mobile devices without user intervention; users need only specify the type of mail that they want to receive, such as high-priority e-mail, or e-mail sent by specific individuals. Because the user's device stores the received e-mail, users can read and compose e-mail without a connection. Oracle Mobile Push Mail also provides cradle-free, two-way synchronization between the user's device and the Push Mail server that reflects the current state of the e-mail at the server or stored on the user's device; any action made by the user (such as read or delete) is securely sent to the mail server.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mobile Data Sync
Oracle Mobile Data Sync enable users to keep abreast of important information without a physical connection to a laptop corporate network. Oracle Mobile Data Sync provides over-the-air (OTA) synchronization of Oracle Collaboration Suite calendar events, tasks, and personal address book to the native applications of a user's device, enabling users to view data off-line after synchronization. The intelligent, bi-directional sync engine ensures that data maintains its integrity when it is propagated to both the server and device, with respect for meeting ownership and recurrence rules. Based on the Open Mobile Alliance – Data Synchronization (OMA-DS, formerly SyncML), the Mobile Data Sync is certified for most devices that support OMA-DS. For more information on Mobile Data Sync, see Oracle Calendar Administrator's Guide.
Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Mobile Device Management
Oracle Mobile Collaboration enables smart client devices to leverage Oracle Calendar [10g] and Oracle Mail [10g] through the downloading of client programs for Oracle Mobile Push Mail and Oracle Mobile Data Sync. Oracle Mobile Device Management is an infrastructure that provides a central repository for the client programs and settings for various mobile devices. In addition, Oracle Mobile Device Management enables you to manage the over-the-air (OTA) installation of these client programs, which users request through the Oracle Collaboration Suite portal when they configure their devices. Oracle Mobile Collaboration also provisions the properties files of the downloaded client programs, enabling immediate communication with the user device. For security, Oracle Mobile Device Management enables you to remotely lock down user devices that are stolen, lost, or have been used to perpetrate misuse of the system.
Figure 1-1 Architecture of Oracle Mobile Collaboration
As illustrated in Figure 1-1, the Oracle Mobile Collaboration Server not only provides users with voice and mobile browser access to Oracle Collaboration Suite data, messaging and notifications, but also enables mobile push mail (that is, constant access to Oracle Mail [10g]) for device-specific e-mail applications and native calendar applications to synchronize with Oracle Calendar [10g]. The Oracle Mobile Collaboration Server (Figure 1-2) provides these functions through two components: Mobile Collaboration and Mobile Collaboration. While Mobile Collaboration provides the Oracle Mobile Device Management functions for the Oracle Mobile Push Mail and Oracle Mobile Data Sync client programs, the Oracle Mobile Push Mail Server, which interprets and manages user actions with the Oracle Mobile Push Mail client, and the mobile applications that support Oracle Collaboration Suite services, it is Oracle Application Server Wireless which provides the messaging, voice, mobile access and notification components of the Oracle Mobile Collaboration Server. The messaging component of OracleAS Wireless also provides the OTA provisioning the client programs. Its notification component enables mobile push mail and calendar notifications.
Figure 1-2 The Oracle Mobile Collaboration Server