Chapter 1   Overview


The iPlanet Portal Server: Mobile Access Pack software leverages the common iPlanet Portal Server components and extends the capabilities of the portal platform. When you install the Mobile Access Pack software, a number of features are added to Portal Server. These features allow the user to access your portal site using mobile devices.

Mobile Access Pack Software

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Understanding the following Mobile Access Pack concepts and how they extend Portal Server's functions is useful:

• Client Types

• Client Awareness

• Providers and Channels

• The Desktop

• The Administration Console

Client Types

The Mobile Access Pack software supports three types of mobile devices and you can configure your installation to support other mobile devices. The three configured client types are:

• Nokia 7110

• Siemens S35

• Panasonic P503 i

The Mobile Access Pack uses a client detection module to identify what mobile device a user is using to access the portal site. The module compares the mobile device that is accessing Portal Server with the client types that the portal site supports.

You can configure support for additional client types, such as personal digital assistants and other mobile phones, so that your portal site users can access the site with other mobile devices.

See Chapter 2 "Configuring Mobile Clients," for more information.

Client Awareness

The Mobile Access Pack software allows your portal site users to use mobile devices to access the same content that they access using an HTML browser.

After the Mobile Access Pack software identifies the mobile device, it delivers portal site content to the mobile device in a format that is compatible with its client type.

Providers and Channels

Mobile Access Pack providers determine what is presented to users in Portal Server channels within the desktop.

Provider content sources can include:

• Content in a file

• Output from an application

• Output from a service

Providers, which are Java classes, deliver content in the proper format for each type of mobile device. As a desktop is created, each provider is queried for the content of its associated channel.

The Mobile Access Pack software adds the following providers to those included with the Portal Server software:

Wireless Bookmark Provider WML
Channel name: iwtWirelessBookmarkProviderWML

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.bookmark.WirelessBookmarkProvider

Wireless Bookmark Provider cHTML
Channel name: iwtWirelessBookmarkProvidercHTML

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.bookmark.WirelessBookmarkProvider

Wireless URL Scraper Provider
Channel name: the iwtWirelessURLScraperProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.urlscraper.WirelessURLScraperProvider

Postit Provider
Channel name: iwtPostitProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.postit.WirelessPostitProvider

User Information Provider
Channel name: iwtUserInfoProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.userinfo.WirelessUserInfoProvider

In addition, you can use the following Portal Server providers to deliver content to mobile devices:

Address Book Provider
Channel name: iwtAddressBookProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.ab.AddressBookProvider.

Calendar Provider
Channel name: iwtCalendarProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.calendar.CalendarProvider

Mail Provider
Channel name: iwtMailProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.mail.MailProvider

Personal Note Provider
Channel name: iwtWirelessPersonalNoteProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.personalnote.WirelessPersonalNoteProvider

XML Content Provider
Channel name: iwtXMLProvider

Provider class name: com.iplanet.portalserver.providers.xml.XMLProvider

The Desktop

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Various sources of content appear in channels on the Portal Server desktop, the page where content is presented to users. On a mobile device, the page where content is presented to users is called the home page.

When you install the Mobile Access Pack software, the Portal Server desktop is changed so that users can use an HTML browser to manage their mobile device home pages themselves. The following features are added to the HTML browser desktop to allow this:

• Mobile Devices tab

  The user selects this tab to display the Mobile Devices channel, which allows the user to customize the home page for each mobile device used.

• An Options channel

  This allows the user to specify the character set for each mobile device used.

• A Content channel

  This displays a list of channels that can be selected for display on the home page of a mobile device.

• A Layout channel

  This allows the user to specify the order of channels appearing on the home page of a mobile device.

• An Add/Remove Mobile Devices channel

  This allows the user to select a mobile device.

The default URL allowing user access to the desktop is:

http://MobileAccessPackServerName:PortalServerPort

For example: http://siroe.iplanet.com:8080

The Administration Console

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Administrators use the Portal Server's browser-based Administration Console to complete most ongoing, day-to-day Mobile Access Pack tasks. The features needed to manage mobile access to Portal Server are added to the Administration Console when the Mobile Access Pack software is installed.

The new Administration Console pages allow administrators to:

• Set up client types and define their attributes

• Identify the names and values of client type properties

• Identify which authentication modules are supported for the client type of the user's mobile devices

• Create new URL scraper channels and assign attributes to them

• Create a new XML provider and new channels and assign attributes to them

• Define the appearance and behavior of other channels on user desktops

• Change the attributes of existing providers and channels

The URL for the Administration Console is:

http://MobileAccessPackServerName:PortalServerPort/console

For example: http://siroe.iplanet.com:8080/console

Administrators log on to the Administration Console as root.