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Oracle® Fusion Middleware Administrator's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal
11g Release 1 (11.1.1.6.0)

Part Number E12405-17
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10 Managing Oracle WebCenter Portal Services

This chapter provides an overview of managing services in WebCenter Portal applications. It also explains the back-end repositories required for the various services.

Audience

The content of this chapter is intended for Fusion Middleware administrators (users granted the Admin or Operator role through the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console). For more information, see Section 1.8, "Understanding Administrative Operations, Roles, and Tools."

10.1 Introduction to Managing Services

WebCenter Portal exposes collaborative, social networking, and personal productivity features through services, which, in turn, expose subsets of their features and functionality through task flows. Task flows provide reusable functionality that may expose all or a subset of the features available from a particular service.

Always use Fusion Middleware Control or the WLST command-line tool to review and configure back-end services for WebCenter Portal applications.

Note:

Most changes that you make to services configuration, through Fusion Middleware Control or using WLST, are not dynamic so you must restart the managed server on which the WebCenter Portal application is deployed for your changes to take effect. For more information, see Section 8.2, "Starting and Stopping Managed Servers for WebCenter Portal Application Deployments."

Table 10-1 lists where data for services is stored. It may be helpful to know what services are impacted when repositories are unavailable.

Table 10-1 Services Data Repositories

WebCenter Portal Service Description MDS Database Schema External Repository For More Information

Activity Graph

Leverages collective intelligence to benefit search and social applications

 

ACTIVITIES schema

 

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Analytics

Enables you to display usage and performance metrics for your portal application

 

ACTIVITIES schema

X

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Chapter 13, "Managing the Analytics Service"

Announcements

Provides the ability to post announcements about important activities and events to all authenticated users

X

 

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 14, "Managing the Announcements and Discussions Services"

Discussions

Provides the ability to create threaded discussions, posing and responding to questions and searching for answers

X

 

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 14, "Managing the Announcements and Discussions Services"

Documents

Provides content management and storage capabilities, including content upload, file and folder creation and management, file check out, versioning, and so on

X

WEBCENTER schema - for documents (including wikis and blogs) that want to include comments and Activity Stream

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Chapter 11, "Managing Content Repositories"

Events

Provides the ability to create and maintain a schedule of events relevant to a wider group of authenticated users

X

 

X (Personal Events)

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 15, "Managing the Events Service"

Instant Messaging and Presence (IMP)

Provides the ability to observe the status of other authenticated users (online, offline, busy, or away) and to contact them instantly

   

X

Chapter 16, "Managing the Instant Messaging and Presence Service"

Links

Provides the ability to view, access, and associate related information; for example, you can link to a document from a discussion

 

WEBCENTER schema

 

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Lists

Provides the ability to create, publish, and manage lists

X

WEBCENTER schema

 

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Mail

Provides easy integration with IMAP and SMTP mail servers to enable users to perform mail functions, such as reading messages, creating messages with attachments, replying to or forwarding messages, and deleting messages

X

 

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 17, "Managing the Mail Service"

Notes

Provides the ability to "jot down" and retain bits of personally relevant information

Note: This service is available only in Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.

X

   

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Notifications

Provides a means of subscribing to services and application objects and, when those objects change, receiving notification across one or more messaging channels

     

Chapter 19, "Managing Subscriptions and Notifications"

People Connections

Provides social networking capabilities, such as creating a personal profile, displaying current status, and viewing other users' recent activities

 

WEBCENTER schema

 

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Personalization

Enables you to deliver content within your application to targeted application users based on selected criteria

     

Chapter 20, "Managing Personalization for WebCenter Portal"

Polls

Enables you to survey your audience (such as their opinions and their experience level), check whether they can recall important information, and gather feedback

 

WEBCENTER schema

 

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Recent Activities

Provides a summary view of recent changes to documents, discussions, and announcements

X

   

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

RSS

Provides the ability to access the content of many different web sites from a single location—a news reader

X

   

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Search

Provides the ability to search services, the application, or an entire site

(This includes integrating Oracle Secure Enterprise Search.)

X

 

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 22, "Managing Oracle SES Search in WebCenter Portal"

Tags

Provides the ability to assign one or more personally-relevant keywords to a given page or document

X

WEBCENTER schema

 

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Section 10.1.2, "Setting Up Database Connections"

Worklists

Provides a personal view of business processes that require attention

X

 

X

Section 10.1.1, "Setting Up the MDS Repository"

Chapter 23, "Managing the Worklist Service"


10.1.1 Setting Up the MDS Repository

Some services store information in the Metadata Services Repository (MDS). To enable these services in WebCenter Portal applications, you must configure the MDS repository. For information, see Section 7.1.5, "Creating and Registering the Metadata Service Repository."

10.1.2 Setting Up Database Connections

Many services store information in the WebCenter Portal repository, which is a database with the WebCenter Portal schema (WEBCENTER) installed. For example, with the Links service, relationship mapping information, such as what object is linked to what other object, is stored in the database. The WebCenter Portal schema is included with the product.

For WebCenter Portal: Framework applications, you must set up a database connection to the WebCenter Portal repository. This database connection can be of type JDBC Data Source or JDBC URL.

Note:

For WebCenter Portal: Spaces, a WebCenter Portal repository is configured out-of-the-box, and repository connection does not require reconfiguration.

See Also:

Depending on the connection type used in an application, do one of the following:

In a typical business scenario, applications are deployed to different managed servers, and multiple databases are used as repositories for the applications. The repository that you use in a development environment is different from that in a production environment, and therefore, when migrating WebCenter Portal: Framework applications from development to production, you must reconfigure the database connection.

When a repository connection is reconfigured, the local datasource file and the *-jdbc.xml file in the WEB-INF directory of the WAR file are updated with the new connection details. However, the JNDI Name and data source name remain the same. If you change the JNDI Name for any reason, then you must also update the adf-config.xml file. The JNDI name must be of the form jdbc/connection-nameDS. For example, if the application has a connection name connection1, then the JNDI name is jdbc/connection1DS.

10.1.3 Setting Up External Application Connections

When a service interacts with an application that handles its own authentication, you can associate that application with an external application definition to allow for credential provisioning.

The following services permit the use of an external application to connect with the service and define authentication for it:

  • Documents

  • Events

  • Instant Messaging and Presence

  • Mail

  • RSS Viewer (when using a secured RSS feed)