| Oracle® Collaboration Suite Concepts Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.2) Part Number B25491-03 |
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View PDF |
| Oracle® Collaboration Suite Concepts Guide 10g Release 1 (10.1.2) Part Number B25491-03 |
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View PDF |
This chapter discusses the concepts of Oracle Collaboration Suite 10g Discussions and contains the following sections:
Oracle Discussions is Oracle Collaboration Suite's online discussion forum for browsing message boards, posting messages and viewing responses. As a component of Oracle Collaboration Suite, Oracle Discussions leverages the proven and scalable foundation of Oracle Database 10g.
This section contains the following topics:
Oracle Discussions tightly integrates with Oracle Mail so that users can use Discussions from within e-mail.
E-mail clients accessing the Oracle Mail IMAP Server can access the Discussions Boards as Shared Folders. This allows you to read board messages in your e-mail client and, with the Mail Participation feature, post new threads and replies.
E-mail enabling a forum:
With Oracle Discussions, a Forum can be e-mail enabled so that users can send an e-mail to the forum e-mail address and the contents of that e-mail will be automatically posted on the Forum.
Browse Discussions using an e-mail program:
Oracle Discussions stores categories and forums as shared IMAP folders in the e-mail repository. Similarly, postings are stored as messages. Because of this, popular e-mail programs like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird or the Oracle's Web Access client can be used to browse the postings on any forum by accessing the shared folder for that forum.
Email Notifications
Users can subscribe to forums and receive an automatic e-mail notification whenever there is a posting on the subscribed forum.
Portal and Web site Access
In addition to e-mail clients, Oracle Discussions can be made accessible through other applications like portals and Web sites. Users will be able to collaborate within the business context for increased personal productivity.
All Discussions content is stored in the Oracle Database 10g, the leading database for manageability, performance, availability, scalability, and value. Users and Administrators can search and retrieve information from Discussions using powerful search technology. Discussions content can be secured at both the storage level and the access level. This is accomplished through e-mail access and public access settings as well as root category creation rights.
Oracle Discussions provides RSS feeds to access and browse its boards and discussions. Desktop RSS readers can be used to browse boards and threads. RSS feeds can also be leveraged for basic application integration. Access to the RSS feeds is protected by HTTP Basic Authentication.
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Note: The feature described in this section was added to Oracle Collaboration Suite in the Oracle Collaboration Suite Cumulative Patchset 10.1.2.2. If you are using a previous version or patchset of Oracle Collaboration Suite, the feature described is not available. |
Oracle Discussions has Web Services for building custom applications and integrating Oracle Discussions functionality into existing applications.
The Oracle Discussions Web Services is a layer on top of Oracle Disussions SDK. It exposes operations supported by Oracle Discussions SDK as Web services. These operations have been categorized into 10 services.
For more information on web services for Oracle Discussions, see Oracle Discussions Java API Reference (Javadoc) and Oracle Discussions Application Developer's Guide.
The Oracle Discussions Web UI is an intuitive Web-based application that enables users to participate in a running log of questions, responses, comments and opinions within the structure of categories, forums and topics.
The Oracle Discussions Web UI has the following features:
My Discussions
Select My Discussions to show Favorites, My Posts and Replies to My Posts to quickly access topics that particularly interest you. Favorites show the categories, forums and messages that the user has bookmarked.
Discussions Bar
The Discussions Bar provides a snapshot view of Announcements, Favorites, Recent Messages and Popular Topics that will enable users to quickly navigate to any of these areas.
Discussion View
Users can view the topic and replies either as a flat view or threaded view.
Attachments
Users can attach relevant documents to their postings.
Search
Postings are automatically indexed so users can use keywords to quickly search all the postings that they have access to. Advanced Search allows users to search using keywords, author, message size, number of replies and date ranges.
See "Managing Oracle Discussions" in Chapter 5 of Oracle Collaboration Suite Administrator's Guide for more about Oracle Discussions administration, configuration, and troubleshooting.
See Chapter 7, "Deploying Oracle Discussions" in Oracle Collaboration Suite Deployment Guide for information about Oracle Discussions deployment.
