Configuring the External-Facing Portal 

Purpose

This IT process describes the steps for preparing a portal to serve as an external-facing portal.

Prerequisites

●      You are logged on to the portal as an administrator. The steps below show, in parentheses, who is responsible for performing each step.

Process Workflow

...

       1.      Define user profiles (system administrator).

Set up the portal to accept anonymous users, and define the users and groups to which anonymous and self-registered users are mapped.

       2.      Assign content to users (user administrator).

Select the content to be accessible to anonymous and self-registered users, and assign these users to the content.

       3.      Configure the navigation cache (system administrator).

To improve performance, the portal caches navigation hierarchies and nodes, so that the portal can retrieve the hierarchy from the cache instead of creating it for each request.

By default, caching is turned off. After the portal is set up and tested, turn on and configure caching by setting the appropriate J2EE parameters.

       4.      Create/modify navigation iViews (developer).

Create your own navigation iViews, or modify the default light navigation iViews to fit your company’s needs. You can use the Navigation tag library to build JSP-based navigation iViews.

       5.      Customize the light framework page (content administrator).

Replace the navigation iViews in the light framework page with your customized navigation iViews.

       6.      Customize styles (system administrator).

The Theme Editor includes styles that are used in the default light navigation iViews.

       7.      Assign the light framework page to users (system administrator).

Using desktop display rules, assign the light framework page to anonymous and self-registered users, as well as other users who need it.

You can assign the framework pages based on the URL alias, role, or group, or the user’s network bandwidth.

Results

You have set up an external-facing portal, and anonymous users can view content in the portal. Anonymous users can also register to view additional content.

The next steps in implementing an external-facing portal can be performed. For more information, see Creating External-Facing Portal Content.