About Providing Content and Services to a Group of Users through Communities

Communities are sites within a portal designed for a specific audience or task, such as collaborative projects. The pages, portlets, layout, community preferences, and subcommunities within a community are determined by the community administrator. Although the community administrators determine which portlets are displayed in a community, a portlet itself might allow community members to change the content within each portlet.

You might have communities based on departments in your company. For example, the Marketing department might have a community containing press information, leads volumes, a trade show calendar, and so on. The Engineering department might have a separate community containing project milestones, regulatory compliance requirements, and technical specifications.

You are automatically subscribed to communities based on your group membership. You can also join communities on your own. Some community subscriptions might be mandatory, but you can unsubscribe from those that are not. The communities you are subscribed to appear in the My Communities menu. Some mandatory communities might also appear as tabs in the menu area.

Community Menus

The community might include the following menus:

The community menu displays all the community pages, and—if enabled by the administrator—the Community Knowledge Directory. The community pages display portlets. The Community Knowledge Directory displays the members of the community, any subcommunities of the community, and any other folders and contents the community administrator added.
Subcommunities displays any subcommunities within the current community.
Related Communities displays any communities that are stored in the same administrative folder as the current community.

This menu only appears if you have access to related communities.

Note: Your portal administrator might use a navigation scheme with customized menu options.

Community Templates

Each community is based on a community template. Community templates define the basic structure for the resulting communities, such as which page templates to include and, optionally, a header or footer for the community. A single community template can be used by many different communities, allowing you to keep similar types of communities looking analogous. For example, you might want all communities based on departments to look similar and contain similar content, but you might want communities based on projects to look different.

Page Templates

Each community page is based on a page template. Page templates define the basic structure for the resulting community pages, such as the column layout and which portlets to include. A single page template can be used by many different communities, allowing you to keep similar types of pages looking analogous. For example, you might want each department to create a community in which the first page lists the general duties of the group, the department members, and the current projects owned by the department.

Template Inheritance

When you create a community or a community page, you can decide whether to inherit the underlying community template or page template. Inheriting a template has several effects on the resulting communities and pages:

You cannot remove objects that are included as part of the template. For example, you cannot remove pages that came from the community template and you cannot remove portlets that came from the page template.
Any changes made to the template are inherited by the resulting communities or community pages. For example, if a page template is removed from a community template, the page is removed from any communities that inherited the template; if a portlet is removed from a page template, the portlet is removed from any pages that inherited the template.

Note: If you inherit a community template, you also inherit the included page templates.

Subcommunities

Subcommunities (along with community pages) allow you to create separately-secured subsections in a community, so it can have a more restrictive security than the main community. For example, you might have a Marketing Community that includes an Advertising Subcommunity. This subcommunity might have distinct owners or might be accessible to only a subset of the Marketing Community.

A subcommunity is just a community folder stored in another community folder. Therefore, the subcommunity inherits the security and design of the parent community, but you can then change these settings to suit the needs of the subcommunity. You can also change the relationships of communities and subcommunities just by rearranging the folder structure.

Community Groups and Community Portlets

With the appropriate activity rights, you can create groups and portlets inside a community without affecting portal groups or portlets. For example, you might have a group that is responsible for maintaining schedules in a specific community without making that group a portal group. Or you may create a community links portlet inside a community for the convenience of community members.

Note: Community groups and community portlets are available only to the community in which they are associated. If you want to use them outside the community, you can move them from the community folder to another administrative folder.

Community Knowledge Directory

The Community Knowledge Directory, if enabled, displays community resources in an organizational structure that is relevant to the community (as opposed to the broader portal audience). It includes a list of community members, displayed in the Members folder, and a list of subcommunities, displayed in the Subcommunities folder. Community administrators can also create folders that contain links to relevant web pages, community experts, portal documents, or community pages.

Note: Communities and subcommunities have separate Community Knowledge Directories.

Community Links Portlets

A community links portlet displays a snapshot of the links in a single Community Knowledge Directory folder. You can then add the portlet to a page in the community or invite users to add the portlet to their My Pages to provide quick access to the community resources. With the proper access privileges, you can also use the portlet to add or delete content from the associated Community Knowledge Directory folder.

Creating a Community TemplateCommunity templates define the basic structure for the resulting communities, such as which page templates to include and, optionally, a header or footer for the community.
Providing Content and Services to a Group of Users through a CommunityCommunities are sites within a portal designed for a specific audience or task, such as collaborative projects. You might have communities based on departments in your company. For example, the Marketing department might have a community containing press information, leads volumes, a trade show calendar, and so on. The Engineering department might have a separate community containing project milestones, regulatory compliance requirements, and technical specifications.
Creating a Community Page TemplatePage templates define the basic structure for the resulting community pages, such as the column layout and which portlets to include. A single page template can be used by many different communities, allowing you to keep similar types of pages looking analogous. For example, you might want each department to create a community in which the first page lists the general duties of the group, the department members, and the current projects owned by the department.
Creating a Community PageYou can create different pages in a community to categorize information for your community audience. For example, you might have a project community that includes a page for each department that is involved in the project.
Editing a Page in the Flyout EditorYou can rename a page, add portlets, recommend portlets, and reposition portlets while viewing the page.
Deleting a Page from a CommunityYou can delete any page that is not inherited from the community template.

Related tasks

Creating a Community Template

Creating a Community Page Template

Providing Content and Services to a Group of Users through a Community

Creating a Community Page

AquaLogic Interaction Administrator Guide