Implementing an External-Facing Portal 

An external-facing portal is an implementation of the SAP NetWeaver Portal that is exposed to the intranet and provides content to anonymous and registered users.

In this scenario variant, the portal administrator must enable the portal to accept anonymous and self-registered users, and create and assign light content to these users. Light content is content that requires fewer resources (such as JavaScript and CSS files) than standard content.

Getting Started

For basic information on using the portal, see the Portal section in Getting Started – Using SAP Software. See also the scenario variant Providing Uniform Content Access.

Tools

The following design-time tools are used by administrators to configure and administer an external‑facing portal, and by developers to create content and navigation iViews for an external‑facing portal:

Tool	Task
Portal Content Studio	●     Creating, editing and managing external-facing portal content (iViews, pages, worksets and roles). ●     Modifying the light framework page. ●     Creating quick links.
UME Administration Console (portal)	Assigning users and groups to roles in order to assign content to anonymous and self-registered users.
J2EE Config Tool	●     Turning on and configuring the navigation cache. ●     Configuring the portal to accept anonymous and self-registered users, and setting the users and groups to which anonymous and self‑registered users are mapped.
SAP NetWeaver Developer Studio	●     Creating light navigation iViews. ●     Creating light content.
Theme Editor	Customizing styles for light navigation iViews.
Portal Display Rules Editor	Assigning the light framework page to users/groups/roles.
Portal Activity Report	Monitoring usage of the external-facing portal.

Prerequisites

You have installed the following SAP NetWeaver usage types:

●     Application Server Java (AS-Java)

●     Enterprise Portal (EP)

●     Developer Infrastructure (DI)

Usage type DI is required only if you intend to develop applications and content for the external-facing portal.

After installing usage type EP, you have performed the mandatory initial configuration tasks, as described in Initial Configuration Tasks.

Limitations

For a list of known limitations when working with an external-facing portal, see the relevant sections of SAP Note 853509.

For additional information about the external-facing portal, see SAP Note 877188.

Tasks

This section outlines the flow of tasks which administrators must perform to implement an external-facing portal. Tasks are performed by administrators and content developers.

Configuring the External-Facing Portal

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       1.      Define User Profiles: Set up the portal to accept anonymous users, and define the users and groups to which anonymous and self-registered users are mapped.

For more information on setting up the portal to allow anonymous users, see Using Anonymous Logon to Access the Portal.

For more information on assigning self-registered users to specific groups, see Self-Registration.

       2.      Create and Assign Content to Anonymous/Self-Registered Users: Select the content to be accessible to anonymous and self-registered users, and then assign these users to the content.

For more information on assigning users and groups to roles, see Role Assignment.

For more information on creating content, see Content Administration.

       3.      Configure Navigation Cache: In order 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.

For more information, see Navigation Cache.

       4.      Create/Modify Navigation iViews: 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.

For more information, see Creating Navigation iViews.

       5.      Modify the Light Framework Page: Replace the navigation iViews in the light framework page with your customized navigation iViews.

For more information on modifying a framework page, see Framework Pages.

       6.      Customize Styles in Theme Editor (optional): The Theme Editor now includes styles that are used in the default light navigation iViews.

For more information on the Theme Editor, see Portal Themes.

       7.      Assign Light Framework Page to Users/Groups/Roles: 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.

For more information on desktop display rules, see Portal Display Rules (Rule Collections).

Creating External-Facing Portal Content

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       1.      Develop Light Content Applications: Develop additional applications that do not consume many resources and are suitable for an external-facing portal.

For guidelines on developing content applications suitable for an external-facing portal, see Content Guidelines.

For more information about developing applications for the portal, see Running an Enterprise Portal in the SAP NetWeaver Developer’s Guide.

       2.      Create and Assign Light Content: From the newly developed light content applications, package the content into roles, pages and iViews, and assign this content to anonymous and self-registered users.

For more information on creating content, see Content Administration.

For more information on assigning users and groups to roles, see Role Assignment.

Maintaining the External-Facing Portal

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       1.      Define Quick Links: Create quick links, or shortcuts, so users can navigate more easily to specific content in the portal.

For example, you may have a page of news. Define the quick link News for this page so users can simple type http://myHost:50000/irj/portal/News to access the content.

For more information, see Navigation with Quick Links. 

       2.      Monitor Performance and Usage: The portal’s Portal Activity Report feature enables you to check who logged in and what content was viewed. This tool is designed to provide information on anonymous users, as well as details about groups of users, such as all self-registered users.

For more information on the Portal Activity Report feature, see Portal Activity Report.

For information on additional portal monitoring tools, see Monitoring.