How are Clients Using ePortal?

With an intuitive, point-and-click environment, the ClearPath Forward® ePortal makes application modernization a quick and easy process.

And because you can target your newly modernized apps to web, mobile, and Web Service environments, ePortal opens up a world of possibilities to you, your users, and your business partners.

But what does ePortal look like in the real world? We recently asked several clients to share how they’re using ePortal to help drive their organizations forward. Here’s what they had to say.

Online Browsing and Ordering

In our first example, the client is using ePortal to modernize several applications that work in concert to provide a comprehensive online shopping experience.

The first application provides the screen interfaces that allow shoppers to view available inventory over the web. With ePortal, the client modernized these interfaces to include drop-down lists and buttons, as well as a scrolling function enabled by the solution’s Orchestration feature.

Another ePortal application was built to automatically load in product photos as shoppers browse the site. And to enable online ordering, the client built a new ClearPath® MCP application, imported its COBOL records into ePortal, and then used Microsoft MVC and Bootstrap to generate the front-end experience.

Everything was then made mobile friendly thanks to the combination of ePortal’s inherent mobile capabilities and Bootstrap functionality.

ePortal as Middleware

In this deployment, the client’s applications need to access ePortal applications using HTTPS and IBM® MQ Series message queues.

Two Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) routing services running on ePortal accept the incoming messages, one via HTTPS and the other through a custom IBM MQ channel. The messages are then routed through ePortal to the appropriate applications based on content in the messages, some of which reside in a second data center.

To keep security strong at every point in the sequence, mutual authentication was implemented between the clients and ePortal applications, as well as between the ePortal applications in the two data centers.

By thinking outside the box and combining ePortal with a host of tools and utilities, ePortal became more than just a direct interface to the client’s existing ClearPath application. It’s now serving as a critical piece of middleware in a complex message-queuing deployment.

Pay-by-Barcode

The client in this example wanted to create a quick, easy way for on-the-go customers to pay their utility bills.

So, the client built a web interface in ePortal that connects to their core payment application. When customers access this secure web portal using their smartphones, the ePortal application returns a unique barcode containing their billing information and account balances. The phone’s native optical readers scan the barcode and transmit the payment through the banking network, without requiring the customer to print a payment receipt.

A special “thank you” to our featured clients for allowing us to share these creative use cases. Have a cool ePortal project you’d like to share? Email us the details and we’ll consider including it in a future article.