The Enterprise Portal Interface 

This section provides a brief introduction to the different elements displayed in the Enterprise Portal and their functionality.

Main Portal Interface Components

 

Title Area

Contains personal user information, links to the Personalize and the Search tools, the Log Off link, and the Add to Favorites link.

The Personalize links enable you to view and personalize the portal, while the Search tool enables you to conduct a search across system-defined information resources. The Add to Favorites link lets you save portal pages in your browser list of favorites.

Complete information on the Log Off link is available in Logging on to the Enterprise Portal.

Search Tool

·        Used to conduct searches on information sources accessed by your portal, including structured and unstructured data, and Web sites.

·        The search is not functional until you install and configure the Knowledge Management platform. For instructions on implementing the Knowledge Management platform, see Knowledge Management Platform - Administration.

 

Top-Level Navigation Bar

The top-level navigation bar enables you to navigate through the various components available in the portal environment.

The top-level navigation bar provides access to portal content and tools, organized into pages. You click the high level tabs described below, to display the low level tabs that you click to access the pages containing content and tools.

·        My Pages tab contains the default Welcome page plus the pages assigned to all of the roles to which the logged on user is assigned. My Pages display iViews, small applications designed to retrieve information from various information resources. Working with My Pages is described in the Enterprise Portal--Help for the End User.

·        Portal Admin tab contains the most common tools for administering the portal. On the Portal Admin tab you will find the tools for importing and exporting portal-related content, such as iViews, pages, roles, and worksets, and for uploading PAR files. You will also find the tools for assigning portal permissions to the users in your organization, such as roles, channels, and iPanel strips.

·        Content Admin tab provides the tools for creating portal-related content, such as roles, iViews, pages, Web components.

·        Portal Monitoring contains the tools for monitoring the Java iView Runtime server.

·        System Configuration tab provides the various tools for configuring the portal system infrastructure. From the System Configuration tab you manage users and security, define the system landscape, view and enter licensing information, and set various system parameters. You can define information resources as portal data sources, and map portal users to them. You can create a custom look and feel for your portal through the Style Designer, and you configure access to Corporate Yahoo! as Enterprise Portal content.

·        Support tab groups various support tools to help you troubleshoot your portal more effectively. For complete information, see Troubleshooting.

iPanel

Displays the portal elements that run in conjunction with the Unification Server. Web components are launched from the My Portal iPanel strip, while Unifier projects are launched from their respective iPanel strips. Note that you can hide/show the iPanel by selecting from the top-level navigation System Configuration >System Preferences, and in the System Preferences page, choosing the relevant iPanel display option. Once you restart the IIS, this iPanel setting applies to all portal clients.

·        Unifier projects display a hierarchical tree of component icons that enable access to database tables or enterprise application interfaces. A user can launch a component by clicking it, or by dragging an HRNP link onto it. Dragging an HRNP link onto a Unifier project component triggers at the data source represented by the component, a search based on the selected data.

·        Web components are designed to launch a specified Web site. The Web component may define a relationship between the Web site and one or more Unifier projects. This parameter enables an end user to retrieve related information from the Web site by dragging an HRNP link from an iView or from a Unifier project component onto the Web component.

·        Detailed Navigation provides a hierarchy of portal pages and folders, enabling you to navigate the portal by clicking nodes in the hierarchy

 

When building your portal, you configure the iPanel by creating Unifier projects in the Unification Server environment, and Web components from the Content Admin > Web Components utility on the top-level navigation bar. You then define the Unifier projects as portal data sources, and assign Unifier project data sources and Web components to roles. Information on implementation of Detailed Navigation is found in Roles and Navigation.

The iPanel diagram below illustrates the following:

·        Unifier Project strips - displayed for each Unifier project defined as a portal data source.

·        Web components - enable retrieving specific information from a Web site.

 

 

Portal Content Area

The portal content area is both the launch pad for the applications and utilities used to build your portal, and the area in which Unifier project component forms, transactions, and iViews are displayed at run time.

iViews are mini applications that enable the retrieval of specific, up-to-date, information from varied data sources.

You access both the pages on which iViews are displayed and the pages that contain the tools for developing and administering portal content by clicking the tabs on the top-level navigation bar, above the portal content area.