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Portal Framework Overview

Enterprises are often composed of many different information technology resources, such as:

• Shared network directories.
• Department intranet sites.
• Legacy applications.
• Applications developed in-house.
• Purchased Web applications.

With many disparate applications and technologies, IT resources are difficult to maintain and difficult to use. For example, applications:

• Follow different user interface guidelines.
• Are rendered with different themes.
• Track profile attributes differently.
• Vary in the quality of online assistance.
• Have separate login and password credentials.
• Have different search functionality.

One solution to this problem is to integrate the various applications and content sources used in an enterprise and present them in a single user interface, called a portal. The Siebel Portal Framework allows you to do this. The Portal Framework provides you with the tools and supporting technologies that allow you to:

• Aggregate external data with Siebel data and present it in the Siebel user interface.
• Deliver Siebel data to external applications.
• Integrate external application business logic and data with Siebel applications.