Experience and Best Practices from Integrating and Implementing a Intranet Portal at Unitrin/Kemper...

Session: BUS-S07Experience and Best Practices from

Integrating and Implementing a Intranet Portal

at Unitrin/Kemper Insurance

© Unitrin 2011

Smarter software for a Smarter Planet.

Daniel Jaffa | Application Architect | UnitrinDave Jacob | Managing Partner | Davalen

* Join the Twitter conference by following @PortletFactory and using #ibmexperience

© IBM Corporation

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Agenda

• Meet Kemper, A Unitrin Business

• Meet Davalen – An IBM Premier Business Partner

• Background of Business Need

• Why WebSphere Portal?

• Solution Architecture and Environment

• Project Plan

• Implementation Team

• Technical Solutions

• A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent – Scenarios

• Technical Challenges

• Next Steps

• Questions and Answers

• More Information© IBM Corporation

IBM Exceptional Web Experience Conference 2011 - Americas

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Meet Kemper Meet Kemper, A Unitrin Business

• Kemper – A Unitrin Business

– Kemper markets and sells automobile, homeowners and other personal lines property and casualty insurance.

– Kemper® became part of the Unitrin family through an acquisition of renewal rights of the personal lines business of Lumbermans Mutual Casualty Company and its affiliates. Today, Kemper is a registered trademark of Unitrin ,

Inc. Unitrin, Inc. (NYSE:UTR) is a $2 billion company.

• Presenter: Daniel Jaffa– Application Architect with Unitrin family for six years.

– Responsible for providing architecture solutions and support for Unitrin’s P&C lines of business over its portal architecture.

– Worked over 14 years with web based applications in several Fortune 500 companies.

© Unitrin 2011


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Meet Davalen – IBM Premier Business Partner

• Davalen: An IBM Premier Business Partner since 1993– Specializing blend of system architecture, mentoring, and agile implementation

assistance for WebSphere Portal, Lotus Domino, Retail and Enterprise Search, and Web Content Management.

– Creator of IBM Licensed WebSphere Portlet Factory Application Development Course: WPC52.

• Presenter: Dave Jacob, Managing Partner– Held a number of key management positions with EDS and Data General.

– Certified by IBM as an architect, consultant, and trainer in most IBM development technologies including RAD, Domino, and Portlet Factory.

– Davalen Project Manager for Kemper

© IBM Corporation


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Background of Business Need

• Kemper sells a variety of property and casualty insurance products through independent insurance agents.

• Agent interaction is an imperative aspect of the Kemper business model – check on the status of policies, renewals, and servicing additional insurance

requirements, satisfy the needs and requests of clients

• Develop a new portal based agency system (AgentInside℠) using IBM WebSphere Portal – Improved access to key information and data: Integrate Rating Application,

Billing Application, Claim Inquiry, Enterprise Content Management

– Improve customer service and client retention

– Reduce cost

– Ease of Use for Independent Agents

© Unitrin 2011


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Why WebSphere Portal?

• To Satisfy Current Needs:

– Replace aging “Custom” Portal Applications

• Major Site Agent Inside is over 10 years old

• Each new functionality is new WebSphere application

• Showing its age

– Reduce growing WebSphere “Sprawl”

– Rapid business problem to IS solution

– Kemper has moved to System Oriented Architecture (SOA) architecture, plan on using Portal as front end to Services

– Develop once use multiple times

– Cost controls


© Unitrin 2011

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Solution Architecture and Environment

• Portal is our front end to Enterprise Service Bus (ESB).

• All communication with the Bus is via Java Messaging Service (JMS).

• Portlet applications can be built without use of the ESB but can not be shared with other parts of the enterprise.

• Currently have four virtual portals running but AgentInside will be first Internet facing portal.

© Unitrin 2011


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Implementation Team

• Project Manager, Kemper

• Project Manager, Davalen

• Branding Team - Look and Feel

– Davalen

– Kemper

– Independent Agents

• Business Logic Team

– Davalen

• Services Team

– Kemper

– Davalen

© Unitrin 2011


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Project Plan

• Training

• High Level Architecture

• Theme work done by Davalen

• Portlet work done by Davalen

• Services work done by Kemper

– Services already existed, used LJO to connect to Services

• Integration work done by Kemper

• Debugging and Support by Kemper, Davalen

• Project handoff by Davalen

© Unitrin 2011


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Technical Solution

• IBM WebSphere Portal v6.1.5 running in WebSphere v7.0 on Windows 2003 Server

• Security through CA Siteminder

• IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory v7.0

– 15 Portlets

– Product Launcher Portlet (PLP) – Links to legacy systems

– Integrated Link Portlets (ILP) – Dynamic PLPs

– SunOne LDAP

– UDB Relational Database

• Rapid Application Development (RAD) for Service Layer

© Unitrin 2011


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A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent - Scenarios

• Customer Search

• Document Search

• Launching Legacy Applications

• Look and Feel

© Unitrin 2011


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A Day in the Life of an Independent Agent

Scenario 1: Customer Search

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 1: Customer Search - Before


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Scenario 1: Customer Search - Before


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Scenario 1: Customer Search - After


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© Unitrin 2011


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© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 2: Document Search

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 2: Document Search - Before


© Unitrin 2011

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Scenario 2: Document Search - Before

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 2: Document Search - After

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 2: Document Search - After

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy Systems

© Unitrin 2011


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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy Systems- Before

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Scenario 3: Launching Legacy Systems- After

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Scenario 4: Look and Feel

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Scenario 4: Look and Feel - Before

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Technical Challenges

• WebSphere Portal version 6.1.5 vs. 7.0?

– Made the decision to move to 6.1.5 due to 7.0 just being released

– Thought that issues with 7.0 would be greater than issues with 6.1.5

– Currently looking into moving to 7.0 before our production roll

• WebSphere Portlet Factory vs. Portal DOJO versions.

– Portlets worked inside on WebSphere Portlet Factory but failed to work correctly deployed to our Development server

– Thought it was due to difference in Dojo between WPF and Portal Dojo theme.

– Issue: We updated our Portal but did not update out Theme with the correct Dojo version (Hint - always update Theme’s when updating portal version)

© Unitrin 2011


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Next Steps…

• Go Live!

• Investigate Web Content Management

• Refine Search capabilities

• Expand AgentInside to encompass Consumer website

• Additional small releases

– Moving WebSphere Applications into Portal Applications

– Convenience for our Agents

– Updating our user experience more often than once every ten years

– Content, Content, Content

© Unitrin 2011


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For More Information about this Project

• At Event: Davalen, Booth #112

• Website

– www.Davalen.com

• Contact Information

– Davalen: (800) 827 – 8451, [email protected]

– Unitrin: Daniel Jaffa, [email protected]

© IBM Corporation


* Join the Twitter convo by following @PortletFactory and using #ibmexperience

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Please complete the session survey for this session:

• www.ibmconf.com

Session Title: Experience and Best Practices from Integrating

and Implementing a New Portal at Unitrin/Kemper Insurance

Session Code: BUS-S07

Presented By: Daniel Jaffa, Application Architect, UNITRIN

[email protected]

Dave Jacob, Managing Partner, Davalen

[email protected]

Showcase Booth #112

© IBM Corporation


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For More Information

• IBM Customer Experience Suite, WebSphere Portal and Web Content Manager Software and Solutions

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/info/customerexperience/

http://www-3.ibm.com/software/genservers/portal/

• WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager Information Center

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/portal/proddoc.html

• WebSphere Portal Business Solutions Catalog

https://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog/home_full.xsp?fProduct=WebSphere%20Portal

© IBM Corporation


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IBM, the IBM logo, Lotus, Lotus Notes, Notes, Domino, Quickr, Sametime, WebSphere, UC2, PartnerWorld and Lotusphere are trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. Unyte is a trademark of WebDialogs, Inc., in the United States, other countries, or both.

Adobe, the Adobe logo, PostScript, and the PostScript logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States, and/or other countries.

Kemper is a registered trademark of Unitrin, Inc. AgentInside is a service mark of Kemper Independence Insurance Company.

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Experience and Best Practices from Integrating and Implementing a Intranet Portal at Unitrin/Kemper...

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