Chapter 5 Configuring Mobile Applications

The Portal Server Mobile Access software does not provide the following applications from the mobile Portal Desktop as default since these are not part of Mobile Access software:

• Address Book

• Calendar

• Mail

• Fax

These application need to be installed separately. You can install these applications in other machines also and need not run on the same machine on which Portal Server software is installed. The mobile Portal Desktop acts as the user interface. Once the link to the application is established, they run outside the control of Portal Server software. When the users are finished using the application, they can return to the mobile Portal Desktop to work with other applications or channels.

To obtain detailed information on the Service Configuration and Access Manager features, refer to the Sun Java System Access Manager 7 2005Q4 Administration Guide. To obtain detailed information on configuring communications channels, refer to the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Administration Guide and the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Command Line Reference guide.

Using Service Configuration Attributes

Within the Service Configuration level, you can view and change default application preferences as well as control which preferences users can edit themselves. You can set the application preferences using the Portal Server 7.1 CLIs. For more information on setting the preferences, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Command Line Reference guide.

Using Access Manager Attributes

Within the Access Manager level, you can view and change default application preferences for any organization or user.

Preferences stored here are copies of the dynamic preferences stored at the Service Configuration level. For the mobile mail application, an organizational preference is stored here also.

To Edit Identity Management Users Attributes From the Portal Server Console

1. Log in to Portal Server administration console as the administrator.

   By default, the Common Tasks tab is selected and the Common Administrative Tasks page is displayed.

2. Click the Portals tab.

   The Portals page is displayed. The available portals are displayed in the Portals table.

3. Click on the name of the portal, which you want to manage.

   The Desktop Tasks and Attributes page is displayed. This page lists the Portal Server desktop tasks and attributes that you can edit.

4. From the Select DN options, choose the username (User) DN.

   If the username (User) DN option is not available, you need to add this DN to the Select DN list. Follow the steps to add the username (User) DN.

   1. Click the Add DNs button.

      The Add to DNs list window appears.

   2. From the Search for options, choose the User option.

   3. Type the user name in the text box after the User option.

   4. Click Search.

      If the user name is available, it will be displayed in the Found table.

   5. Select the checkbox preceding to the user name you want to add and click Add

      The username (User) DN is added to the Select DN options.

5. From the list of Tasks, click the Manage Containers & Channels.

   The Manage Containers & Channels: Portal name page is displayed. The left frame in this page displays the available View Types and the right frame displays the properties of the selected View Type.

6. From the View Type options, choose the view type for which you want to edit the properties.

   The Tasks and Properties for the selected view type are displayed in the right frame.

7. In the Properties table, select the checkbox preceding to a property, which you want to edit.

8. Click the Table Preferences button.

   The Table Preferences box appears at the top of the Properties table.

9. In the Client Type and Locale fields, type the appropriate client type and locale information.

10. Click OK.

11. Click Save.

    The client type is added in the Value column.

About Mobile Application Templates

Mobile application templates exist to establish the rules governing the storage of application preferences. The templates are represented as uniform resource locators (URLs) described in RFC 1738 published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Administrators can edit template strings to assign values to properties within the strings and to apply certain rules of use to those properties.

A template string must start with the word default followed by the pipe symbol |. The string provides the name of the template configuration and preferences that can be changed to alter the application’s behavior. These preferences are set to default values when Mobile Access is installed.

The following is an example of an address book template. In this example, template strings appear in the field as a single, long string. This example divides the template string into separate lines for readability purposes. Line breaks have been added preceding each ampersand (&).

Example 5–1 Example

default|undef:///?configName=MA-AB-APP
&default=sortBy
&default=sortOrder
&merge=sortBy
&merge=sortOrder
&sortBy=cn
&sortOrder=asc

The name of the template in this example is MA-AB-APP. This template includes two preferences—sortOrder and sortBy. It provides default values for them and rules permitting user definitions of these preferences.

Configuring Fax

The fax feature enables the hand held device users to send a document to a fax machine. The fax machine can be any where, including a local fax machine where the user wants the document in a printed form. In this release, we address one feature where the user can fax one or more documents that are available as a received email attachment(s).

The capability of faxing more than one e-mail attachment is dependent on the Fax Service provider. The default implementation (Fax1.com) does not support this feature as the Fax service provider does not allow the same.

Users can send a complete email message to the service provider which can be printed as a Fax. Users can also be able to specify a different service provider than the one that is configured, in which case, the following information shall be provided by the user:

• Fax Number: The number to which the user intends to send the e-mail as fax.

  The fax number may be suffixed with the fax service provider’s DNS domain name. If this information is not provided, the default, configured domain name shall be used

  For example: <fax#@domain>

• From Address: The e-mail address should match with the fax service account that the user has created with the service provider.

• Subject: Contains the required credential information for service provider to verify the request.

The following limitations are applicable for this feature:

• The type of the document are set by the service providers

• User can only fax the complete email message. They don’t have an option to choose selective attachments in the message and fax them.

• If the message format which the user is trying to fax is non-plain text such as HTML, then the fax contents would not appear as expected. In case of HTML, the fax content would have the HTML code with HTML elements in it. Hence, users must ensure that the fax message is of type plain text. This is a requirement from Fax1

• Since there is no standard which dictates how the email should be formatted for the email to fax services, all service providers define their own format. Formats of the mail differ from provider to provider. Supported attachment types to be faxed may be found by visiting the respective service provider site since not all file types are supported.

For more information on how to configure Fax, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Command Line Reference guide.