2 Exploring WebCenter Portal

This chapter describes how to get started in WebCenter Portal, including how to register yourself (if necessary), working in the Home portal, searching, saving favorites, setting preferences, and accessing help.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Permissions:

The tasks described in this chapter are available to any WebCenter Portal user minimally assigned the role Authenticated-User; that is, any user who is logged in.

Notes:

  • If you are using Internet Explorer, turn off Compatibility Mode before trying to access WebCenter Portal. In Internet Explorer, from the Tools menu, select Compatibility View Settings. In the Compatibility View Settings dialog, deselect all the options, and click Close.

  • WebCenter Portal supports only single browser tab or window viewing. It will not function properly if you try to view WebCenter Portal in multiple browser tabs or windows simultaneously.

2.1 Registering Yourself with WebCenter Portal

Your system administrator may provide the opportunity to self-register to the WebCenter Portal. Self-registration enables you to create your own login credentials and enter the WebCenter Portal from there forward as an authenticated user. The privileges of authentication are many: your own view of the Home portal, access to other features based on your assigned user role, a broader range of available interactive features, to name a few.

Note:

Whether self-registration is available depends on how your system administrator configures the application.

To register yourself as a WebCenter Portal user:

  1. Open WebCenter Portal.

    For example:

    http://host:port/webcenter

    Where <host>:<port> refers to the host name and port number of the system where WebCenter Portal is installed. By default, WebCenter Portal is installed on port 8888.

  2. Click the Register link on the application Welcome page (Figure 2-1).

    Note:

    Your system administrator can customize the look and feel of the Login page, but the information depicted in Figure 2-1 is essentially the same whatever the customization.

    Figure 2-1 The Register Link on the Welcome Page

    Description of Figure 2-1 follows
    Description of "Figure 2-1 The Register Link on the Welcome Page"

  3. On the resulting Self-Registration page (Figure 2-2), enter your user information:

    Fields marked with an asterisk require a value.

    Tip:

    Your system administrator can customize the Self-Registration page, so it may not appear as depicted in Figure 2-2.

    Figure 2-2 WebCenter Portal Self-Registration Page

    Description of Figure 2-2 follows
    Description of "Figure 2-2 WebCenter Portal Self-Registration Page"

    Before you begin, you should know that the user name and password policy is set by the underlying identity store. Your system administrator may customize the Self-Registration page to include information that explains your organization's user name and password policy.

    1. Enter your preferred user name in the Choose User Name field.

      Note:

      'If your company uses email addresses as user names, enter your email address.

    2. Click the Check User Name Availability button to ensure the uniqueness of your chosen user name.

      If the name you entered is in use, provide another user name and test that. Continue this cycle until the check assures you that your entry is unique.

    3. Provide a password in the Choose Password field.

    4. Reenter the password in the Re-enter Password field.

    5. Enter your first name in the First Name field.

    6. Enter your last name (that is, your surname) in the Last Name field.

    7. Enter your company email address in the Email Address field.

      Note:

      You can create only one user account per email address.

  4. Click the Register button.

    If the data you entered is accepted, a log-in dialog opens, enabling you to log in to WebCenter Portal.

    Note:

    By default, if a user name with the same mail ID exists, when you click Register, a dialog opens informing you that the mail ID exists. The dialog includes a button for sending a message to the mail ID associated with the existing user name.

    Because you are not yet authenticated, your message is sent to a public mail box, provided your system administrator has configured public mail credentials.

    Note that this default behavior may be overridden by customizations provided by your portal developers.

2.2 Working in the Home Portal

The Home portal (Figure 2-3) is the area where you have access to WebCenter Portal activities, your personal documents, available portals, and your profile. You can also create your own personal pages in the Home portal, and system administrators can expose system pages and business role pages to selected audiences.

Note:

Your system administrator may choose to prohibit the creation of personal pages.

Figure 2-3 The Home Portal

Description of Figure 2-3 follows
Description of "Figure 2-3 The Home Portal"

This section includes the following topics:

2.2.1 Accessing the Home Portal

Depending on the navigation model, you may have a number of ways to access the Home portal. The following are examples of some of these ways:

2.2.2 Pages in the Home Portal

By default, the Home portal includes the following pages:

Some pages are hidden by default:

  • Portal Templates: This page is intended for advanced users who build portals and custom portal templates. For more information, see the "Working with Portal Templates" chapter in Oracle Fusion Middleware Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal.

  • Tag Center: Allows you to view and manage tags on WebCenter Portal objects. Tags provide a means of applying your own meaningful terms to and bookmarker application objects, making them easy to locate the next time you go looking for them. For more information, see Chapter 32, "Using Tags and Bookmarks."

  • WebCenter Portal Impersonation: Lets you assign the right for someone else to impersonate you and lets you impersonate a user for whom you have been given impersonation rights. For example, impersonation might be useful if a customer support representative needs to perform actions on your behalf to understand issues you are experiencing, a system administrator might need to perform operations on your behalf, or you might be delegated someone else's responsibilities while they are away. For more information, see Chapter 8, "Using WebCenter Portal Impersonation."

For instructions on how to show these pages in the Home portal, see Section 5.2, "Showing or Hiding Pages in Your View of the Home Portal."

2.2.3 What You Can Do In the Home Portal

You can perform the following actions in the Home portal:

Depending on the pages and portal components available to you through the Home portal, you have access to the tools and services described in the following chapters:

Tip:

Some tools and services are active only in portals other than the Home portal, such as discussions, events, announcements, and lists.

2.3 Searching WebCenter Portal

WebCenter Portal provides global (application-wide) search (Figure 2-6). For information, see Chapter 6, "Searching for Information."

Figure 2-6 Search Box

Description of Figure 2-6 follows
Description of "Figure 2-6 Search Box"

2.4 Saving Favorite Web Pages

Use Favorites (Figure 2-7) to keep your own personal list of favorite web sites and pages to access from any browser you choose. For information, see Chapter 27, "Managing Your Favorites."

Figure 2-7 Favorites Menu

Description of Figure 2-7 follows
Description of "Figure 2-7 Favorites Menu"

2.5 Setting Preferences

Your personal preferences, accessed through the Preferences link (Figure 2-8), provide easy configuration settings for tailoring the application to your particular working style. These include settings for your preferred application display language; your preferred application look and feel; your WebCenter Portal password; and the like. Additionally, WebCenter Portal preferences provide an accessibility setting to optimize the application user interface for use with a screen reader, such as JAWS. For information, see Chapter 3, "Setting Your Personal Preferences."

Figure 2-8 Preferences Link

Description of Figure 2-8 follows
Description of "Figure 2-8 Preferences Link"

2.6 Accessing WebCenter Portal Online Help

Wherever you see a Help link or a help icon, click it to access help.

The Help link (Figure 2-9) opens the application's main help page. From there, you can navigate to topics of interest.

Figure 2-9 Help Link

Description of Figure 2-9 follows
Description of "Figure 2-9 Help Link"

Help icons (Help icon), located throughout the application, open help topics that provide context-sensitive help (describing the user interface from which you launched help).