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In the live production environment, portal administrators and end-users create Communities based on the Community templates created in the Staging phase, and Community members with administrative rights manage Communities. Portal administrators can also modify visitor entitlements, delegated administration, content management types, configure cache for performance management, and other relevant tasks. If you are creating a GroupSpace Community, rather than a custom Community, you should configure the ActiveMenus tag in the Production phase. See Using Tag Libraries in Your Community for more information.
Portal administrators can also use the WebLogic Portal propagation tools to propagate community templates and other portal data back to the staging environment for testing against production conditions.
This chapter includes the following sections:
As a portal administrator, you can create communities with the WebLogic Portal Administration Console. In order for end users to create their own communities, at least one community must exist that includes the Community Tools. The Community Tools provide the menu that lets administrative community members create new communities.
You must create communities in the production environment rather than in the staging environment, because the WebLogic Portal propagation tools do not propagate community instances.
When a user creates a community, that user automatically becomes the community creator and owner with full management rights in the community.
Tip: | As a best practice, do not make communities inactive when you create them. This allows you or any community member with administrative rights to test and configure the community before you activate it. If your community functionality depends on the presence of custom community properties, also define those before activating a community. (See Creating Custom Community Properties.) |
This section describes how to create a community with the WebLogic Portal Administration Console. The steps are similar if you create a community using the community tools inside of a community.
One reason to create a community with the WebLogic Portal Administration Console is to provide an initial community that contains the community tools, from which end users can create their own communities.
To activate an inactive community, which allows users to access the community:
When you modify a template, any communities created with that template take on the new template properties and characteristics. Existing communities based on that template do not change. If you want the changes to apply to existing communities, you must modify those communities directly.
To delete a community template, select Portals > yourPortal > Templates > Community Templates, check the Delete box next to the template, and click Delete. Communities that were based on that template are not affected.
Communities should use a shell that contains the Visitor Tools.
After you have created a community, you can modify its properties in the WebLogic Portal Administration Console. After your modifications, the community immediately uses the new settings.
Communities should use a shell that contains the Visitor Tools.
After you create a community, you can add custom properties to it to uniquely identify the community and its characteristics. Your developers can then develop programmatic functionality using those properties.
To create a custom community property:
You can also modify and delete a custom property by clicking Edit or selecting the Delete checkbox and clicking Delete next to the property.
You can control administrative access to community resources by assigning delegated administration roles to resources, the same way you do for portal desktop resources.
You can control end user access to community resources by assigning visitor entitlement roles to resources, the same way you do for portal desktop resources.
Note: | Be careful when setting entitlements on community resources. Entitlements applied to components (books, pages and portlets) of the community desktop at the definition level may result in some or all of the components not being visible to community members. |
You can provide localized text for the title and description of your communities. When you provide localized text, and a browser is set to use a language you provide, the localized title and description of that community appear in that browser, either in the WebLogic Portal Administration Console or in the community itself. For example, in GroupSpace, localized titles appear in the GroupSpace header. For more information, see the GroupSpace Guide.
If you want to use double-byte characters, such as Chinese, make sure your system is configured to support this.
You can also use this feature to provide an alternative community name and description in English, changing them as often as you like.
If you want to modify an existing title and description, such as changing the English text, click the language link and modify the title and description.
If you want to prevent users from accessing a community, you can either deactivate or delete the community. Reasons to deactivate a community include wanting to prevent user access while you configure it, archiving it, or wanting to activate it again in the future. Deleting a community permanently removes it from the database.
To deactivate an active community, which prevents users from accessing the community:
The callback class assigned to the community determines what occurs when the community is deactivated. For example, notifications can be sent to users when a community is deactivated.
Deleting a Community permanently removes it from the database.
Perform the following steps to delete a Community:
If you belong to more than one GroupSpace Community, you can log in once and access Communities you have joined, Communities to which you are invited to join, and public Communities that anyone can join.
Perform the following steps to access the GroupSpace Communities to which you belong and view any invitations:
You can modify the capability rights of members or remove members from communities in the WebLogic Portal Administration Console.
Capabilities, such as creator, owner, contributor, and viewer, dictate the level of access members have to community resources. You can change the capabilities of community members. For example, to give a user administrative access to a community, change the user's capability to owner.
The creator and owner capabilities are provided automatically in all communities. Any additional capabilities are provided by your development team.
You can also remove members from communities.
The following procedures show you how to manage members with the WebLogic Portal Administration Console.
Removing a member does not delete the member from the user store. It only removes the member from the community.
You cannot propagate a community back to staging or development. You can only propagate community templates.
For information on deployment and propagation, see the Production Operations Guide.
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