LDAP and UUP Documentation Updates

On December 19th, 2001, the "Creating and Managing Users" chapter of the Building Personalized Applications guide was reorganized, with significant updates to the following sections:

• "Accessing User Properties from an LDAP Server

• "Incorporating Data from Other External Sources." This section now provides step-by-step instructions for configuring the Unified User Profile (UUP) to include data from sources other than the default RDBMS repository or an LDAP server.

SQL Server 2000 Certification and DDL Files

As of November 8, 2001, support was added for Microsoft SQL Server 2000 databases. For details, please see the Databases and JDBC Drivers row of the Supported Platforms table in the WebLogic Portal Installation Guide. Also see the section Unzipping the SQL Server 2000 DDL Files in the Installation Guide. 

Presentation Framework and Portal Pages

In the Presentation Framework, the Portal pages enable multiple portal pages per portal using a tabbed user interface paradigm. Each page can have an independent layout template applied and independent portlets defined on the page. The system administrator controls tab ordering, and a default page may be set that acts as the home page for the portal.  

User profiling and customization features let you control the level of customizations visitors can make to portal pages and portlets. 

Multi-Portal Architecture

Multi-Portal architecture lets customers deploy multiple portals on a single instance of the solution stack by providing better scoping of portlets and other portal resources. The previous architecture did not allow portal resources to be scoped to a particular instance of a portal.  

Webflow-enabled Portals and Portlets

Webflow-enabled portals and portlets provide the power of Webflow to individual portlets within the portal framework. Any portlet can be implemented to take advantage of its own individual WebFlow as desired.  

A Webflow-enabled portlet framework provides the ability to control flow and inter-portlet communication through the webflow framework.  

Portal Skins

Skins provide a presentation model for the portal look and feel (color, fonts, branding, and so on). Skins are applied through cascading style sheets on the client.  

Extensible Layout Templates

Extensible layout templates enable layouts that go beyond hard-coded two- or three-column layouts. There are five templates provided out of the box, and additional templates can be created using any HTML editor that handles tables (such as Dreamweaver). Once the HTML tables are defined, the user must simply add a single JSP tag into cells that will contain portlets.  

Rule-based Entitlements

Rule-based entitlements let administrators use business rules and visitor profile information to control the amount of customizations visitors can make to portals and portlets. Visitors can be assigned to multiple entitlement roles that control the level of customization allowed according to business roles.  

Enhanced Samples

• Portal Sample - The sample portal is based on a fictional company called Avitek.  

• Enhanced Personalization Samples - A new set of Personalization samples cover topics such as content management, user segments, internationalization, and user management. Each sample is designed to teach users how to use the available JSP tags, Java APIs, and associated tools for creating personalized applications.  

• Webflow and Pipeline Sample - A "PetStore" sample application highlights Webflow and Pipeline.

Delegated Administration

Delegated administration provides several new classes of user (system admin SA, portal admin PA, and group admin GA) that enable delegation of certain administrative functions to other system users. The system supports "n-levels" of delegation within the three administrative roles.  

E-Business Control Center Modules and Enhancements

New E-Business Control Center modules and enhancements enable business engineers and developers to create and edit portals and portlets, modify Webflow and Pipeline configurations, modify property sets supported by personalization, manage entitlements rules, and develop campaigns. In addition to new modules, there are several minor feature enhancements, including discount wizards, picklists for ads, catalog, and email in the campaign editor, and usability enhancements.  

You can also create or use pre-defined events to track user behavior, such as content viewed, user registrations, shopping behavior, business rule effectiveness, and more.  

Enhanced Enterprise Configuration and Deployment Tools

Several new features have been added to enable improved configuration and deployment. Data synchronization allows development using staged systems (such as development, test, and deployment) while using a content management or source-control system to manage changes to configurations and content. A multi-user environment lets many people work in their own instance of the product stack.

The E-Business Control Center was enhanced to provide the main data synchronization interface. Users work on the local versions of the various application configuration files and deploy them to servers for testing, staging, and production. The E-Business Control Center works with the local file system or the content management or source code control system chosen by the user.

Webflow and Pipeline

WebFlow/Pipeline integration separates site and process logic from presentation. It enables developers build and deploy sophisticated business logic and integration with external systems.  

New Webflow and Pipeline editors in the E-Business Control Center provide enhanced graphical, drag-and-drop capabilities for editing Webflows and Pipelines.  

Commerce Tax and Payment Web Services

This release provides out-of-the-box Tax and Payment Web services that let you connect your enterprise applications to third-party tax and payment products.  

Simplified Database Schema

The database schema used by WebLogic Portal 4.0 has been simplified, allowing for the use of standard SQL queries. In Product Catalog, there is a schema that defines the commonly used product attributes found on Web-based catalog sites. It includes a hierarchy of categories and items and provides a search feature. Metadata for the product catalog is based on the Dublin Core Open Standard.  

Unified User Profile Enhancements

The Unified User Profile (UUP) has been enhanced for performance and usability. It is now easier to specify which properties come from various data sources. This allows, for example, the use of multiple LDAP servers as part of the unified profile. 

Integration with BEA WebLogic Integration 2.1

WebLogic Portal 4.0 includes JMS-based integration with WebLogic Integration to let portal components communicate with the integration components provided by WebLogic Integration. The specific example provided enables the WebLogic Portal commerce component to place an order in a JMS queue for the business process integrator module of WebLogic Integration.  

Migration Tool

A migration helper tool helps you to migrate your code and data, streamlining the migration process significantly. The code migrator helper analyzes your .java and JSP files to point out changes that need to be made, and make them if appropriate. The data migration helper converts schemas to the new 4.0 format, as database tables or as XML files.