In this session we will show our student portal system and mobile app, MySAIL, and how we integrate it with Banner data. In our portal we display to students their class schedules, mid-term and final grades, financial aid information, progress to degree/capp, and other general student information. Additionally we use CAS, an open source project, to allow for single sign-on between MySAIL, Moodle, Banner Self Service and more.

1. Oakland University
Open Source Portal
and Mobile Solutions
Lori TirpakDirector of Enterprise Systems
Aaron Grant
Senior Applications ArchitectDave DerderianJava
Developer Analyst

2. Oakland University
uPortal 4.0.12 / uMobile
20,000+ Students
CAS 3.5
PostgreSQL 9.2
Tomcat 7
OpenJDK 7
Build Tools:
Maven, Ant, and Groovy

3. What is uPortal?
uPortal is an open source project under
the Apereo foundation (formerly Jasig).
"uPortal is the leading open source enterprise portal
framework built by and for the higher education
community. uPortal continues to evolve through
contributions from its global community and is
supported by resources, grants, donations, and
memberships fees from academic institutions,
commercial affiliates, and non-profit foundations."
More Information: http://www.jasig.org/

4. Why uPortal?
● Friendly and Helpful Community
● Very Active Project
● Multiple Conferences a Year
● Good Vendor Support
o Unicon
● Easily Configured with Banner
● Code Camps
● Supports Sign Sign-on:
o CAS
o Shibboleth
● Supports Mobile (Frameworks / Initiatives)

5. Mobile and Portal Stats
The MySAIL Portal gets between 50,000-
100,000 sessions a day.
OU MySAIL App:
12,500+ iOS downloads
5,000+ Android downloads

6. Desktop vs Mobile
Breakdown between devices:
Desktop
66%
Mobile
26%
Tablets
7%

7. Mobile Growth Stats
From 2013 to 2014:
● Android 127% Growth
● iOS (iPhone/iPad) 78% Growth
● Desktop -5% Growth
OU Mobile Market 2013 Share:
● iOS 64%
● Android 35%
● Windows .5%
● Blackberry .2%

8. Mobile App vs RWD
Responsive web design (RWD) is a web design approach aimed at crafting sites to provide an
optimal viewing experience—easy reading and navigation with a minimum of resizing, panning, and
scrolling—across a wide range of devices (from mobile phones to desktop computer monitors).
Wikipedia
Students are looking for University App
when researching Universities.
50 Powerful Statistics About Tech
Mega Trends Affecting Every Business
http://www.slideshare.net/ValaAfshar/6297-top50megatrends-v3

9. MySAIL Desktop View

10. MySAIL Mobile Views

11. MySAIL Native Phone Apps
MySAIL uses Apereo's uMobile technology for
an iPhone app and an Android app.
● OU MySAIL on iPhone:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/ou-mysail/id485691462
● OU MySAIL on Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.oaklan
d.mobile&hl=en
● More Information: http://www.jasig.org/umobile

12. Apereo Portlets
Apereo has many portlets available for you to
implement into your portal for free since they
are all open source projects!
● Calendar
● Announcements
● Notifications
● News Feeds
● Content Management
● Human Resources
● Dining
● Laundry
● Classified Ads
● And many many more (https://wiki.jasig.org/display/PLT/Home)
● Source code can be viewed and downloaded at http://github.com/jasig

13. Oakland Portlets
● OU has taken many of the Apereo portlets
and have implemented them.
● Also OU has built their own unique portlets.
● Apereo portlets by default do not come with
Banner SQL tie-ins. We are willing to share
our source code to help speed up Banner
integration.

14. Financial Aid Portlet
● Displays Requirements, Academic Standing,
Awards, and Usage of Awards
● Integrates with Banner
o Financial Aid Requirements
o Financial Aid Awarded and Claimed
o Messages from Financial Aid Advisor

16. Courses Portlet
● Displays Course Schedule, Midterm Grades,
and Final Grades
● Originally created by the Apereo Foundation
and the University of Wisconsin - Madison
● Student can select on a class room and it
displays which academic building
Integration with Google Maps

17. Courses Portlet
● Modified API
o Extra information for courses
o Tie into Calendar Portlet
● Custom Desktop View
● Custom Mobile View
● Custom Footer (Mobile / Desktop)
● Bookstore Integration
● Links into other major OU services
o Webmail / Moodle

24. Calendar Portlet
Courses Integration
Calendar Portlet shipped with uPortal
● Creates custom calendar feed
● Integrates directly with Courses Portlet API
● Displays students class schedule
o Date
o Location
o Description
● iCal feed available for download

26. Progress to Degree Portlet
● Displays student's completed / incomplete
courses for their course of study using
Banner’s CAPP Degree Evaluation
● Displays multiple course information
o Grades, GPA, Credits

27. Progress to Degree Portlet
● Calls Banner Stored Procedure
● Additionally a student can do a what-if analysis if they
are thinking about changing their course of study
● Data generated from the stored procedures is received
through a customized Oracle view

31. My Details Portlet
● Displays student specific information
o Degree (BS / BA / etc)
o Undergraduate / Graduate Level
o Catalog Term
o College (Arts & Sciences / Computer Science / etc)
 Link to Advising web page
o Major
o Oakland University Student Number

32. My Details Desktop View

33. My Details Mobile View

34. Advising Suite
Oakland over the last year has been building an
advising suite for academic advisors.
● Allows advisors to search for students
● View current and historic schedules / grades
● Allows advisors to run degree audits and
what-if analysis
● Collection of resources

36. Bus Tracker Portlet

37. CMS Portlet Implementation
● Mostly used as quick links
o Oakland Services
o Academic Information
o Campus Information
● Uses Single Sign-On Links into SSB (Self
Service Banner 8.x)
o Oakland used this extension from Evergreen State
College to SSB to allow for CAS (Apereo’s Central
Authentication Service integration with SSB.
o https://wiki.jasig.org/display/UPC/CASifying+Bann
er+Self+Serve
● Banner XE comes with CAS integration!

38. Oakland Services and Academic Information

40. Sail Mail (Email Preview)
● Apereo's Email Preview Portlet
● Oakland's custom skin
● Oakland's custom settings
o Only uses Oakland email

42. Email Preview and Inbox

43. Read Email from Portlet

44. Get Involved!
Apereo uPortal
● http://www.apereo.org/uportal
● Mailing list: http://www.apereo.org/uportal/mailing-lists
Apereo uMobile
● http://www.apereo.org/umobile
● Mailing list: http://www.aperep.org/umobile/mailing-
lists
Apereo CAS
● http://www.apereo.org/cas
● Mailing list: http://www.apereo.org/cas/mailing-lists

45. Questions?
tirpak@oakland.edu
asgrant@oakland.edu
dmderde2@oakland.edu