Integration Using the Portal Content Studio 

Use

The Portal Content Studio is the central environment in the portal for creating and managing portal content. You can use it to edit the following types of portal content.

●     iViews

●     Portal pages

●     Layouts of portal pages

●     Portal roles

●     Worksets

For more information on calling the Portal Content Studio, see Starting the Portal Content Studio.

Features

Portal Catalog

You manage portal content with the Portal Catalog. The portal catalog enables you to search, display and manage portal content that is saved in the Portal Content Directory (PCD).

You use wizards and object editors to create and maintain portal content. For more information, see Object Editors & Wizards in the Portal Content Studio.

Wizards

The wizards are started in the portal catalog:

       1.      Select a folder in the portal catalog.

       2.      To start the wizard, choose New → iView in the context menu of the folder. You can select from a variety of iViews. The most important iViews are:

○     BEx Web Application iView

○     KM Document iView

○     KM Navigation iView

○     SAP Transaction iView

○     SAP BSP (Business Server Page) iView for Web Interface (from BW-BPS)

For more information on these iViews, see Displaying BI Content in the Portal. The wizards ask for the specific, necessary properties of the iViews.

Object Editors

The Object Editors enable direct changes to iView properties. Using object editors, you can maintain the views for Related Links and Dynamic Navigation as well as authorizations.

In addition to the properties described in Displaying BI Content in the Portal, you can edit all of the other properties of the iView. The iView ID can be changed retroactively.

Important properties for BEx Web Applications as iViews are:

●     iView name: Title of the iView. This is displayed in the Open/Save dialog in the BEx Web Application Designer (and in other areas).

●     Description

●     Type of height

●     Fixed height (in pixels)

For more information, see iView Properties.

Using the Portal Cache

The properties Cache Level, Cache Validity Period and Isolation Method are necessary for using the portal cache. Using the portal cache has the following benefits:

●     Significant improvement of interface reaction time

●     Avoidance of unnecessary re-rendering of the page when the portal page is called again

●     Web browser-like caching for server-based, dynamic pages on the Web (such as BEx Web Applications)

You can make the following settings for the cache level:

●     No Caching (None): With the None option, the BEx Web Application is called again in the BI system with every call.

●     Session Related (Session): With the Session option, the cache is filled specific to the user. After finishing the current session by closing all Web browser windows, the cache is invalidated.

●     Common for All Users (Shared): With the Shared option, the cache is not filled specific to the user; instead it is filled the same for all users. Personalization is not taken into account.

●     Own User (User): With the User option, the cache is filled specific to the user. The cache is updated or invalidated automatically by the cache validity period process. BI personalization and iView personalization are taken into account.

The cache validity period is specified in milliseconds. The isolation method has to be set to URL. The settings for using the portal cache should be performed manually by the administrator for every iView with a BEx Web Application.

The use of the portal cache enables a full proxy mode of the portal. Full proxy mode means that only the portal server communicates directly with the BI server. All requests (HTTP requests) from the user’s (client) Web browser are answered by the portal server. The user’s Web browser (client) does not have direct access to the BI server. The BI server can thus be protected from external access and is located in the internal network zone. For external access, the portal server can be located in the DMZ network zone (demilitarized zone). The protocol for communication between the Web browser of the user (client) and the portal server, as well as between the portal server and the BI server, is either HTTP or HTTPS. In both cases the port number can be configured.