22 Tracking Portal Activities
This chapter describes how to work with Activity Stream and Recent Activities, which track and report on activities in WebCenter Portal, enabling you to easily keep up with what is going on.
This chapter includes the following topics:
Permissions:
To perform the tasks in this chapter, you need the application-level permission People Connections: Update People Connections Data.
22.1 Comparison of Activity Stream and Recent Activities
Activity Stream and Recent Activities both track and report on activities in WebCenter Portal, enabling you to easily keep up with what is going on. However, there are two main differences between them. First, Activity Stream tracks a broader range of activities. For example, Recent Activities tracks the Documents (including wikis and blogs), Announcements, Discussions, and Page activities. Activity Stream tracks these activities as well as People Connections. Second, Recent Activities reports activities regardless of who performs the action. Activity Stream reports activities performed by a user's connections. There is a third, small difference—Activity Stream includes information about who performed the activity, whereas Recent Activities does not.
22.2 About the Activity Stream
In WebCenter Portal, Activity Stream provides a streaming view of the activities of your connections, actions taken in portals, and business activities. For example, Activity Stream can note when you or a connection posts feedback, uploads a document, or creates a discussion forum. Additionally, it streams messages and attachments entered through Publisher.
See Also:
For information about Publisher, see Chapter 13, "Liking, Commenting On, and Sharing Items in WebCenter Portal."
Through Activity Stream Preferences, you can select to show connection and portal activities. (However, your system administrator can disable users from overriding application-level settings.)
In addition to streaming messages, your Activity Stream can provide access to file attachments and web links added through Publisher. Supported mime types can be fully previewed in the Activity Stream. Unsupported mime types are rendered as links, which you can use to access the file.
Activity Stream previews files through either a native web format or through Oracle WebCenter Content slide rendition. The previewer used depends on the mime type of the file to be previewed.
The mime types that use the native web format include the following:
-
image -
htm -
text
The mime types that use Oracle WebCenter Content slide rendition include the following:
-
pdf -
powerpoint -
powerpnt -
pptx
Note:
PDF file previews are available only if your system administrator configured WebCenter Portal to preview PDFs.
The mime types shown in the previous lists are the only mime types that are previewed. Other mime types appear as links. The mime types docx and xlsx are not previewed in Activity Stream. Your administer can configure Activity Stream to omit file previews.
Users can share a streamed activity and its attachments using a Share feature, available on each streamed item.
See Also:
For information about sharing, see Section 22.4.7, "Sharing Files and other Objects Through an Activity Stream Item."
Table 22-1 lists and describes the types of activities that are reported through Activity Stream.
Note:
Delete activities do not appear per se in the Activity Stream, but references to objects, such as Joe Smith created the document file.xml, are removed from the stream when such objects are deleted.
Table 22-1 Activities Tracked by Activity Stream
| Tools/Service | Tracked Activities | Scope | Activities Shared or Private |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Announcements |
|
|
|
|
Blogs |
|
|
|
|
Connections |
|
|
|
|
Discussions |
|
|
|
|
Documents |
|
|
|
|
Feedback |
|
|
|
|
Lists |
|
|
|
|
Message Board |
|
|
|
|
Pages |
|
|
|
|
Profiles |
|
|
|
|
Portal Events |
|
|
|
|
Portals Management |
|
|
|
|
Tagging |
|
|
|
Use Activity Stream Preferences to specify who can view your Activity Stream and the types of activities to show. For more information about Preferences relating to Activity Stream, see Section 22.3, "Setting Activity Stream Preferences."
Your system administrator can hide or show various controls on Activity Stream viewers and limit the types of activities and the specific portals that are tracked.
WebCenter Portal provides the following Activity Stream viewers:
-
Activity Stream for viewing application activities and the activities of your connections and for providing access to the attachments added through the Share link (Figure 22-1)
This full view of Activity Stream functionality includes options for liking and commenting on listed activities and for sharing different types of objects, such as images, URLs, documents, and the like. Activity Stream also provides a means of hiding the activities and posts of a given user. You can use Activity Stream Options to show those users you have hidden.
The Activities page in the Home portal combines an instance of Publisher with the Activity Stream viewer.
See Also:
For information about Publisher, see Section 13.7.1, "About Publisher."
-
Activity Stream - Quick View provides a summary view of application activities and the activities of your connections (Figure 22-2).
Unlike the full view of Activity Stream, Activity Stream - Quick View does not display Like, Comment, and Share links. The Activity Stream - Quick View also combines similar activities into one entry. For example, if a user posts two documents, you see one entry that lists both documents; if a user posts two messages, you see one entry that says the user "posted messages," but only the most recent message is shown.
A hierarchy of configuration settings control what you can do with your view of the Activity Stream. Your system administrator sets application-wide values on the Administration page. You can set your own personal values through People Connections Preferences. Your system administrator can set values on a given viewer instance, which affect all users' views of the viewer instance (application customization). You can set values on a given viewer instance, which affect only your view of the Activity Stream viewer (user customization).
Tip:
If you adjust a setting through Preferences that does not seem to affect the behavior of a viewer as you expected, it might be because settings on the viewer instance override Preferences settings.
The Activity Stream viewer provides an Options link for accessing configuration settings for a given instance (Figure 22-3).
Figure 22-3 Options Link for Activity Stream Options
Description of "Figure 22-3 Options Link for Activity Stream Options"
The Activity Stream - Quick View provides access to its own configuration settings through a pencil icon (Change the source, filter, and display options) (Figure 22-4).
Figure 22-4 Pencil Icon and Resulting Configure Dialog
Description of "Figure 22-4 Pencil Icon and Resulting Configure Dialog"
Use these controls to adjust an individual viewer instance with the same kinds of settings that are provided for all of your views of Activity Stream through Activity Stream Preferences (for more information, see Section 22.3, "Setting Activity Stream Preferences" and Section 22.4, "Working with the Activity Stream").
Clicking an object in Activity Stream opens the object. For example, clicking the name of a newly created document in Activity Stream opens the document (see Section 17.6.2, "Opening a File" for more information about file preview in the Document Viewer). Clicking a user name in an Activity Stream opens a user profile pop-up. Clicking an attachment, such as a file or a URL, navigates you to that attachment.
See Also:
You can attach an object to a message streamed from Publisher to the Activity Stream. For more information, see Chapter 13, "Liking, Commenting On, and Sharing Items in WebCenter Portal."
22.3 Setting Activity Stream Preferences
Use Activity Stream Preferences to specify who can view your Activity Stream; the users, categories, and portals for which to track activities; and the activities to show in an Activity Stream view.
See Also:
For information about the types of activities that Activity Stream tracks, see Table 22-1, "Activities Tracked by Activity Stream".
To set Activity Stream preferences:
-
Click Preferences.
-
Click People to display People Connections preferences.
-
If necessary, click the Activity Stream tab to bring it forward (Figure 22-5).
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Under People, specify whose activities to show in your view of the Activity Stream:
Tip:
This setting relates only to the activities that stream from People Connections. Such activities include making connections, posting Feedback and Messages, adjusting your Profile, and so on.
From the Show list, select one of the following options:
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Only Me—Show only your own activities in your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Me and My Connections—Show only your activities and the activities of your connections in your view of the Activity Stream.
-
No Personal—Do not show any user activities in your view of the Activity Stream, including your own.
-
Selected Connection Lists—Show the activities of only those users on the selected connections lists in your view of the Activity Stream.
When you select this option, all available connections lists appear below it. Select one or more connections lists to limit the display of activities to the users on those lists.
Note:
Use this option only after you have created one or more connections lists (for more information, see Section 9.7, "Creating and Managing Groups of Contacts").
-
-
Under Portals, select to show activities from:
-
All Portals—Stream activities from all available portals.
Note:
When All Portals and Selected Connection Lists (from step 4) are selected, the activity stream shows the selected users personal activities and the activities in the portals of which the selected users are members. For example, the activity stream displays an entry when the user creates a portal (personal activity) and displays an entry when an announcement or document is created in a portal of which the user is a member (portal activity).
-
My Portals—Stream activities from the portals of which you are a member.
-
No Portals—Do not stream any activities from portals other the Home portal.
-
-
Under Service Categories, select the category for which to track activities.
Select a check box to track the activity of a particular category; deselect a check box to ignore the activity of a particular category.
Tip:
Selecting No Portals in the previous step affects the outcome of your category selection: despite their selection here, categories publish no activities to your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Under Privacy, identify the types of users who can see your view of the Activity Stream:
-
Everyone—All users, whether they are logged in, can see your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Authenticated Users—All users who are logged in can see your view of the Activity Stream.
-
My Connections—The people to whom you are connected can see your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Myself—Only you can see your view of the Activity Stream.
-
-
Click Save to save your changes.
22.4 Working with the Activity Stream
You can perform user customizations on an Activity Stream viewer that affect only your view of the viewer. Activity Stream viewers provide user customization controls for determining whose activities and what activities are streamed.
Your system administrator can perform application customizations on an Activity Steam viewer that affect everyone's view of the viewer. For example, Activity Stream your system administrator can enable or disable the display of links for liking, sharing, and commenting on individual Activity Stream items. Therefore, some of the actions described in this section might not be available, depending on such customizations.
This section provides information about controlling whose activities and what activities are shown in a given viewer instance, as well as how to like and comment on a streamed item, and how to share a file or URL with other users through the Activity Stream.
This section includes the following subsections:
-
Section 22.4.1, "Selecting the People to Stream in an Activity Stream Instance"
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Section 22.4.2, "Selecting the Portals to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer"
-
Section 22.4.3, "Selecting the Categories to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer"
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Section 22.4.4, "Hiding and Showing the Activities of a Selected User"
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Section 22.4.5, "Hiding and Showing the Activities of a Selected Portal"
-
Section 22.4.6, "Liking and Commenting On Activity Stream Items"
-
Section 22.4.7, "Sharing Files and other Objects Through an Activity Stream Item"
22.4.1 Selecting the People to Stream in an Activity Stream Instance
Use the Options link in an Activity Stream viewer to specify the people from whom to stream activities in your view of the Activity Stream. Use the pencil icon in an Activity Stream - Quick View to perform the same operation.
To select the people from whom to stream activities in your view of an Activity Stream viewer:
-
Go to an Activity Stream viewer or Activity Stream - Quick View.
-
In an Activity Stream viewer, click Options.
In an Activity Stream - Quick View, click the Change the source, filter, and display options icon (pencil).
-
For Activity Stream only: in the resulting dialog, click the Settings tab to bring it forward.
-
Under People, select the people from whom to stream activities:
-
Only Me—Show only your own activities in your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Me and My Connections—Show only your activities and the activities of your connections in your view of the Activity Stream.
-
No Personal—Do not show any user activities in your view of the Activity Stream, including your own.
-
Selected Connection Lists—Show the activities of only those users on the selected connections lists in your view of the Activity Stream.
When you select this option, all available connections lists appear below it. Select one or more connections lists to limit the display of activities to the users on those lists.
Note:
Use this option only after you have created one or more connections lists (for more information, see Section 9.7, "Creating and Managing Groups of Contacts").
-
-
Click Save to save your changes and exit the dialog.
22.4.2 Selecting the Portals to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer
Use the Options link in an Activity Stream viewer to select the portals from which to stream activities. Use the pencil icon in an Activity Stream - Quick View to perform the same operation.
To select the portals from which to stream activities in an Activity Stream viewer instance:
-
Go to an instance of an Activity Stream viewer or Activity Stream - Quick View.
-
In an Activity Stream viewer, click Options.
In an Activity Stream - Quick View, click the Change the source, filter, and display options icon (pencil).
-
For Activity Stream only: in the resulting dialog, click the Settings tab to bring it forward.
-
Under Portals, select to show activities from all available portals in your view of the Activity Stream (All Portals), or omit the display of any portal activities (No Portals).
Tip:
Selecting No Portals affects the outcome of your category selection (see Section 22.4.3, "Selecting the Categories to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer"): despite their selection, categories publish no activities to your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Click Save to save your changes and exit the dialog.
22.4.3 Selecting the Categories to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer
Use the Options link on an Activity Stream viewer to select the categories from which to stream activities. Use the pencil icon on an Activity Stream - Quick View to perform the same operation.
To select the categories from whom to stream activities in an Activity Stream viewer:
-
Go to an Activity Stream viewer or Activity Stream - Quick View.
-
In an Activity Stream viewer, click Options.
In an Activity Stream - Quick View, click the Change the source, filter, and display options icon (pencil).
-
For Activity Stream only: in the resulting dialog, click the Settings tab to bring it forward.
-
Under Service Categories, select the categories for which to track activities.
Select a check box to track the activity of a particular category; deselect a check box to ignore the activity of a particular category.
Tip:
Selecting No Portals (as described in Section 22.4.2, "Selecting the Portals to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer") affects the outcome of your category selection: despite their selection here, categories publish no activities to your view of the Activity Stream.
-
Click Save to save your changes and exit the dialog.
22.4.4 Hiding and Showing the Activities of a Selected User
Some of your connections might post activities with a frequency that is more of a distraction than a help. In this case, or for any other reason, you can select to hide the activities streamed from selected users in your view of the Activity Stream (or from the Activities page in the Home portal).
You can easily reverse this action by showing one or more hidden users through the Options link on the affected Activity Stream viewer.
This section describes how to hide or show the activities of individual users in an Activity Stream viewer instance. It includes the following subsections:
22.4.4.1 Hiding the Activities of a Selected User
To hide the activities streaming from a selected user in an Activity Stream viewer instance:
-
Go to an instance of an Activity Stream viewer.
-
Open the Hide menu next to the user you want to hide, and select the relevant user name (Figure 22-6).
Figure 22-6 The Hide Option in the Activity Stream
Description of "Figure 22-6 The Hide Option in the Activity Stream"
-
Click OK in the confirmation dialog.
The page refreshes, and the viewer no longer shows activities from the selected user.
See Also:
For information about showing a hidden user, see Section 22.4.4.2, "Showing the Activities of a Hidden User."
22.4.4.2 Showing the Activities of a Hidden User
To reinstate the streaming of activities from a hidden user:
-
Go to an instance of an Activity Stream viewer where a user's activities are hidden.
-
Click Options.
-
In the resulting dialog, click the People tab to bring it forward.
-
Next to the person whose activities you want to show, click Show (Figure 22-7).
Figure 22-7 The Options Link and the Show Button
Description of "Figure 22-7 The Options Link and the Show Button"
22.4.5 Hiding and Showing the Activities of a Selected Portal
If there is a portal that streams activities that are not currently of interest to you, you can hide that portal's activities from a selected instance of the Activity Stream viewer (or from the Activities page in the Home portal).
You can easily reverse this action by showing one or more hidden portals through the Options link on the affected Activity Stream viewer.
To hide the activities streaming from a particular portal, the affected Activity Stream viewer instance must be configured to show All Portals or My Portals (for more information, see Section 22.3, "Setting Activity Stream Preferences" and Section 22.4.2, "Selecting the Portals to Stream in an Activity Stream Viewer").
Tip:
Whether the activities streaming from portal are shown can be determined at the application level, in personal Preferences, and on an individual viewer instance by you or by your system administrator. If you find you cannot hide or show activities streaming from portals, it is likely that at one of these levels, the facility to see such activities has been blocked.
This section describes how to hide the activities streaming from a particular portal and how to show those hidden activities. It includes the following subsections:
-
Section 22.4.5.1, "Hiding the Activities of a Selected Portal"
-
Section 22.4.5.2, "Showing the Activities of a Hidden Portal"
22.4.5.1 Hiding the Activities of a Selected Portal
To hide the activities streaming from a selected portal in an Activity Stream viewer instance:
Note:
Your Preference settings may prevent any portal activities from streaming. For information about Activity Stream Preferences, see Section 22.3, "Setting Activity Stream Preferences."
-
Go to an instance of an Activity Stream viewer.
-
Open the Hide menu next to an activity that has streamed from the portal you want to hide, and select the relevant portal name (Figure 22-8).
Figure 22-8 Selecting to Hide the Portal teamsite2
Description of "Figure 22-8 Selecting to Hide the Portal teamsite2"
-
Click Yes in the confirmation dialog.
The page refreshes, and the viewer no longer shows activities from the selected portal.
See Also:
For information about showing a hidden portal, see Section 22.4.5.2, "Showing the Activities of a Hidden Portal."
22.4.5.2 Showing the Activities of a Hidden Portal
To reinstate the streaming of activities from a hidden portal:
-
Go to an instance of an Activity Stream viewer where a portal's activities are hidden.
-
Click Options.
-
In the resulting dialog, click the Portals tab to bring it forward.
-
Next to the portal whose activities you want to show, click Show (Figure 22-9).
Figure 22-9 The Options Link and the Show Button in Activity Stream Options Dialog
Description of "Figure 22-9 The Options Link and the Show Button in Activity Stream Options Dialog"
22.4.6 Liking and Commenting On Activity Stream Items
Provided the Activity Stream viewer has been configured to do so, you and the users to whom you have provided access to your Activity Stream can express a liking for or comment on a particular streamed item.
To express a liking for a streamed item, go to an Activity Stream viewer and click the Like link. You can remove your liking by clicking the resulting Unlike link.
To comment on a streamed item, click the Comment link, enter a comment in the input area, then click Comment to display your comment below the item. The comment display is limited to 500 characters. For each comment you add, a delete icon is provided to enable you to remove your comment.
See Also:
For more information, see Chapter 13, "Liking, Commenting On, and Sharing Items in WebCenter Portal."
22.4.7 Sharing Files and other Objects Through an Activity Stream Item
Provided the Activity Stream viewer is configured to support it, you can share a streamed item with all of the users who are allowed to view your streamed activities. This could be all of your connections or all of the users on a selected connections list. Who an item is shared with is determined by how you or your system administrator has configured Activity Stream.
If you prefer, you can send a streamed item through mail, and consequently select all recipients yourself.
To share a streamed item:
-
Go to the streamed item of interest.
-
Select an option from the Share menu (Figure 22-10).
Figure 22-10 Share Menu on a Streamed Activity
Description of "Figure 22-10 Share Menu on a Streamed Activity"
-
Select This activity to stream a URL to the item (such as a new portal, a new announcement or discussion topic, and the like) to all enabled users.
-
Select Send Mail to send an email with a link to the item to all specified recipients.
See Also:
For more information, see Chapter 13, "Liking, Commenting On, and Sharing Items in WebCenter Portal."
22.5 About Recent Activities
Recent Activities track changes in WebCenter Portal providing a quick and easy way to view any additions or changes to a particular area of WebCenter Portal. Tracked changes include additions and revisions to pages, documents, discussion forums, lists (WebCenter Portal only), and events. (Figure 22-11).
Figure 22-11 The Recent Activities Viewer
Description of "Figure 22-11 The Recent Activities Viewer"
Recent activities can track the following information:
-
Documents added
-
Announcements created
-
Discussion forums created
-
Pages created or modified
-
List definitions created or modified
By default, the Recent Activity list displays 25 recent activities for a given feature. If more than 25 activities have occurred, the Recent Activity list displays the 25 most recent. Your system administrator can change the default value, so your limit might be more or less than 25.
The level of information provided in the Recent Activity list depends on the context in which the list is placed. In a portal page, the Recent Activity list summarizes changes occurring in that portal. In your Home portal, your system administrator must set the Recent Activities viewer properties to specify a portal. The Recent Activity list summarizes changes occurring in the specified portal.
You can use the Recent Activity list as an access point to new and revised content. The Recent Activity list displays new and revised content as links, which you can click to go directly to the content.
Note:
You can track recent activities through your favorite RSS reader. For more information, see Chapter 25, "Monitoring RSS Feeds."
22.6 Working with Recent Activities
You can personalize your view of recent activities, access a changed item, and refresh your view to update the viewer with the latest changes. This section tells you how. It contains the following subsections:
22.6.1 Personalizing the Recent Activities Viewer
The Recent Activities viewer provides a way to specify the range of time within which to view changes and additions to WebCenter Portal. These time-range options display on the Show menu in the Recent Activities viewer toolbar (Figure 22-12).
Figure 22-12 Time-Range Options on the Recent Activity List
Description of "Figure 22-12 Time-Range Options on the Recent Activity List"
Select an option from the Show menu to view recent activities occurring within the selected time range. The time range you select is applicable only to that viewer instance. If you have more than one Recent Activities viewer instance on the page, you can display activities from a different time range in each viewer instance.
Tip:
Ensure that your Preferences reflect your own local time zone. To access your time zone preference in the WebCenter Portal, click the Preferences link at the top of WebCenter Portal, and then select General. For more information, see Section 3.3, "Setting Date and Time Preferences."
The default options on the Show menu include:
-
Today—Displays all activities that have taken place between 12:00AM (2400 hours) and now.
-
Since Yesterday—Displays all activities that have taken place between now and yesterday at 12:00AM (2400 hours).
-
Last 7 days—Displays all activities that have taken place in the last 7 days.
-
Last 30 days—Displays all activities that have taken place in the last 30 days.
Note:
These options are described according to their default meanings. In some instances, an advanced user can provide alternative definitions for them.
22.6.2 Accessing Recently Acted-On Items
The Recent Activities viewer groups the different activities it reports on into nodes that are named for each feature (for example, Pages and Documents; shown in Figure 22-13).
Figure 22-13 Feature Nodes in the Recent Activities Viewer
Description of "Figure 22-13 Feature Nodes in the Recent Activities Viewer"
Expand a node, and access the changed item directly by clicking its link (Figure 22-14).
Figure 22-14 Recent Discussion Link in the Recent Activities Viewer
Description of "Figure 22-14 Recent Discussion Link in the Recent Activities Viewer"
The targets of linked items open on dynamically-generated pages, or in WebCenter Portal, on dynamically-generated, top-level tabs. Link targets appear according to their parent feature. For example, click a Discussions link to access a forum or a specific topic under a forum; click a Lists link to access an updated list of lists or a specific updated list; click an event to display event details; and so on.
22.6.3 Refreshing the Recent Activities Viewer
If you prefer not to wait for an automatic refresh of the Recent Activities viewer, you have the option of refreshing the data yourself by clicking the Refresh icon (Figure 22-15).
Figure 22-15 The Refresh Icon on a Recent Activities Viewer
Description of "Figure 22-15 The Refresh Icon on a Recent Activities Viewer"
The viewer updates and indicates the number of recently-changed items by increasing the value displayed in parenthesis next to each affected feature.