11 Syndicating Content Into OracleAS Portal

External content sources can be syndicated by Oracle Application Server Syndication Services into OracleAS Portal as a syndicated channel (subscription) by the Portal administrator using the Syndication Channel Administration portlet. A syndication channel is the means by which content configured to use a syndication offer can be subscribed to and placed in a Portal folder in the Oracle Application Server Metadata Repository. (A folder in this case refers to a Portal page containing a default region of type item.) Once a channel is established, subsequent updates received through administrative pull or automatic push operations will keep the destination Portal folder in sync with the offer content. A Portal administrator can then grant page designers access to the Portal folder containing the syndicated content.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Registering Syndication Portlet Provider

• Configuring Portal for Content Syndication

• Using Syndication Channel Administration Portlet

• Advanced Configuration Parameters

• Syndication Channel Administration Error Messages

The Portal administrator using this Syndication Channel Administration portlet can:

• Create new syndication channels of content to subscribe to from a list of offers.

• Edit the properties of existing syndication channels.

• Delete a syndication channel.

• Perform a full update of the content available through a syndication channel.

• View a list of updates for a specific syndication channel.

• View a summary report for a single update event for a specific syndication channel.

Note that offers for a content provider must have already been created using Oracle Enterprise Manager Syndication Services Administration pages before you can create a Syndication Channel Administration portlet. See Oracle Application Server Syndication Services Developer's and Administrator's Guide for more information.

11.1 Registering Syndication Portlet Provider

Oracle Application Server comes with a set of Provider Groups, one of which contains the Syndication Portlet Provider. In order to use the Syndication Channel Administration portlet, the Syndication Portlet Provider must be registered.

To register the Syndication Portlet Provider, perform the following steps:

1. Login to OracleAS Portal as an administrator.

2. Go to Portal Navigator.

3. Select the Providers tab.

4. Navigate to Providers Group --> OracleAS Providers.

5. Click Register for the Syndication Services Web provider.

11.2 Configuring Portal for Content Syndication

The following sections describe how to build the Syndication Channel Administration page and set up the Portal privileges on destination folders.

11.2.1 Build the Syndication Channel Administration Home Page

To build the Syndication Channel Administration home page, you must perform the following steps:

1. Create a new page or decide on the page where you want the Syndication Channel Administration portlet to be installed.

   Note: Only one Syndication Channel Administration portlet instance can be used for each Portal installation.

2. As an administrator, edit the selected page and add the Syndication Channel Administration portlet to a region of your choice, by browsing the Portlet Repository to the Syndication provider (see Section 11.1 for more information).

11.2.2 Setup the Portal Privileges on Destination Folders

The channels created through the Syndication Channel Administration portlet transfer the syndicated content from external sources into Portal Pages. In order to accomplish this goal, some privileges need to be granted to the portal user used by the channel application. As an administrator, you must add manage all permission for the Syndication Channel Administration Portlet user (see Step 2 in Section 11.3, "Using Syndication Channel Administration Portlet") on the destination pages or page-groups that will be used by the channels.

11.3 Using Syndication Channel Administration Portlet

To access and use the Syndication Channel Administration portlet:

1. Navigate to the Syndication Channel Administration home page.

   At the Syndication Channel Administration home page, shown as follows, you can perform the following tasks:

   • Set user settings for the syndication channel administration portlet (click the Edit Defaults icon)

   • Create a syndication channel (click Create a Syndication Channel)

   • Edit the properties of an existing syndication channel (select a channel from the list provided and click Edit)

   • Delete a syndication channel (select a channel from the list provided and click Delete)

   • Immediately retrieve content (an incremental update) for the specified syndication channel (select a channel from the list provided and click Pull Content)

     

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2. To set user settings, click the Edit Defaults icon. The Syndication Channel Administration configuration page is displayed as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page).

   

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   On this page:

   • In the User Settings section, you can specify the user name and password to authenticate to Portal when opening a WebDAV connection. The portlet will use the same user to authenticate to OracleAS Syndication Services when creating a new channel or pulling content for a channel.

   • In the Portal WebDAV Settings section, you can specify the URL to be used to connect to Portal using the WebDAV protocol.

   • In the Syndication Server Settings section, you can specify the URL to be used to connect to OracleAS Syndication Services when creating new channels or pulling channel content.
     • Enter the user name and password to authenticate to Portal when opening a WebDAV connection.

     • Enter the URL to be used to connect to Portal using the WebDAV protocol.

     • Enter the URL to be used to connect to OracleAS Syndication Services when creating new channels or pulling channel content.

     • After you have entered this information, click OK to save this information. You will return to the Syndication Channel Administration home page.

3. To create a new syndication channel, click Create a Syndication Channel to launch the 5-step create syndication channel wizard.

   The first step of this wizard, the Offers page is displayed.

   Note: Use only the Back, Next, Cancel, Finish, or Home buttons on the create new syndication channel wizard pages to navigate through the wizard or to return to the Channel Syndication administration portlet. Do not use the Web browser's Forward or Back buttons to navigate through the wizard because the state of the wizard session is not validated and will result in an internal error being thrown at the next submit operation.

   1. At the Offers page, shown as follows, select one of the available offers by clicking its radio button, then click Next to continue to the next step.

      

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   2. At the Business Terms page, shown as follows, in the Accept Business Terms section, review the business terms of the offer you selected.

      If the business terms are acceptable, click the radio button I Have Read and Accept, then click Next to continue to the next step. If the business terms are not acceptable, click Back to return to the Offers page and find another offer whose business terms are acceptable.

      

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   3. At the Delivery Rules page, shown as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page), in the Expiration Policy section, the expiration priority and expiration date information is displayed. In the Pull and Push sections, select the pull or push or both delivery rules to be used by OracleAS Syndication Services to deliver this offer to you by clicking its check box, then click Next to continue to the next step.

      

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   4. At the Channel Properties page, shown as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page), in the Specify Channel Properties section specify the syndication channel properties, including the syndication channel's name and description in the Name and Description fields. Then, in the Specify Channel Folder section, specify the destination Portal folder name in the Destination Folder field, or click the flashlight icon, browse to the desired Portal folder, and select it; then click Next to continue to the next step.

      

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   5. At the Channel Summary page, shown as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page), review and confirm the channel information. If the information is correct, click Finish to complete the syndication channel creation process. You will return to the Syndication Channel Administration home page and the newly created channel is listed in the drop down box in the bottom of the Syndication Channel Administration portlet.

      If the information is not correct, click Back to return to the appropriate create syndication channel page where you can make the necessary change or changes, then click Next to return to this Channel Summary page to review a summary of the syndication channel information again.

      

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4. To edit the syndication channel properties for an existing syndication channel, at the Syndication Channel Administration home page, click the Properties tab to display the Edit Channel:<channel-name> page, shown as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page).

   In the Channel Properties section, you can edit the syndication channel name and its description. In the Destination Folder section, you can select another Portal destination folder as the destination folder. If no changes are necessary, click Cancel; if changes are necessary, make your changes, then click OK.

   

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5. To view the offer details, at the Syndication Channel Administration home page, click the Offer tab to display the Edit Channel:<channel-name> page, shown as follows (the top half of the page followed by the bottom half of the page).

   The Edit Channel:<channel-name> page includes the Offer Details section, the Delivery Rules section, and the Business Terms section. Review the summary of properties for this offer configured to use this syndication channel. The subscription ID is the unique identifier assigned when the subscription is created. The subscription ID can be cross-referenced to the list of subscriptions in Oracle Enterprise Manager Syndication Services Administration --> Subscriptions page. Click OK when your review is complete.

   

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6. To view full channel update information for this syndication channel, at the Syndication Channel Administration home page, click the Updates tab to display the Edit Channel:<channel-name> page, shown as follows. This page displays the ChannelUpdates Log section and the Full Channel Update section.

   

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   1. To view the list of updates performed for this syndication channel, browse the list of performed updates that display in the Channel Updates Log section.

   2. To perform a full syndication channel update of the content available through this syndication channel, click Perform Full Update.

      Note: There is a known issue in Syndication Services with propagation of deleted items. If a content provider is registered using a content connector that cannot detect deleted items, removal of any item at the content source will never be revealed to the subscriber, and as an effect, such items will be retained on the subscriber site. See Section 4.1.4 "Content Packages Built" in Oracle Application Server Syndication Services Developer's and Administrator's Guide for more information. A second known issue is if you delete an item in the destination folder (that still exists in the source) the item is not re-created during a regular pull or push operation. A Perform Full Update operation is required for the item to be created in the destination folder. A third known issue is that using OracleAS Portal as a content source for a content provider (configured on the portal page using a WebDAV content connector), Portal item attributes are not retained. For example, item level security information, item versioning, expiration changes, deletion of time, and hiding of items do not change for an item after pulling.

   3. To confirm the successful delivery of an update, select a report and click Send Confirmation. When the update gets confirmed the confirmation state changes to confirmed. If the confirmation state says Not required, the send confirmation operation is not necessary and will be ignored. If the delivery of a package requiring confirmation encounters an error the report will report the error description. Sending a confirmation for an update report having a code of Error will result in the update not getting confirmed and leaving the state as it is. This means that the package was received with an error, so at the next package delivery the same update will be sent again.

   4. To view the details of a particular update report, select its radio button, then click View Details. The Edit Channel:<channel-name> Updates page is displayed as follows, showing the Update Summary section as the top half of the page followed by the Update Details section as the bottom half of the page). When you are through reviewing the contents of this page, click back to Report list to return to the Edit Channel:<channel-name> Updates page.

      An update report can be deleted one at a time by clicking Clear report, or all reports can be deleted by clicking Clear all reports.

      Note: Report deletion is only possible if there is no pending confirmation that is related to that report.

      

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This completes the tasks that the Portal administrator can perform using the Syndication Channel Administration portlet.

11.4 Advanced Configuration Parameters

This section describes the advanced configuration parameters that can be used to support secure socket layer (SSL) encryption on the channel communication with OracleAS Syndication Services and with the Portal distributed authoring and versioning (DAV) entry point.

Table 11-1 shows the initialization parameters (<init-params>) that can be set on the channel Web application's web.xml file (channel/WEB-INF/web.xml in the syndprovider application on UNIX or channel\WEB-INF\web.xml in the syndprovider application on Windows). The value of Parameter is the <param-name> value.

Table 11-1  Initialization Parameters

Parameter	Description	Sample Value
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndDelegator.walletLocation	Specifies the location of the file containing all SSL certificates to establish HTTPS connections to DAV entry points or OracleAS Syndication Services.	/tmp/mycert.db on UNIX or \tmp\mycert.db on Windows
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndDelegator.davPoolSize	Specifies the size of the DAV context pool.	5
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndDelegator.sycPoolSize	Specifies the size of the syndicate connection pool.	5
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndDelegator.timeout	Specifies the timeout (in milliseconds) for requests sent to OracleAS Syndication Services by the syndication provider. It also controls the timeout when syndication provider writes content into Portal Content Repository.	60000

Table 11-2 shows the parameters that can be set for the listener Web application, the one responsible for incoming push deliveries of content, the web.xml file (listener/WEB-INF/web.xml in the syndprovider application on UNIX or listener\WEB-INF\web.xml in the syndprovider application on Windows). The value of Parameter is the <param-name> value.

Table 11-2  Listener Web Application Parameters

Parameter	Description	Sample Value
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndRequestHandler.walletLocation	Specifies the location of the file containing all SSL certificates used to connect to DAV entry points.	/tmp/mycert.db on UNIX or \tmp\mycert.db on Windows
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndRequestHandler.davPoolSize	Specifies the size of the DAV context pool.	5
oracle.syndicate.ui.provider.ProviderSyndRequestHandler.timeout	Specifies the timeout (in milliseconds) to control access to the Portal Content Repository by the syndication provider.	60000

11.5 Syndication Channel Administration Error Messages

See: Oracle Application Server Portal Error Messages Guide