Understanding Portals and Zones

Portal Page Structure

A portal page has a main tab and may have additional tabs. The page is constructed by first creating a Standalone portal, which is also the main portal, followed by creating a Tab Page portal for each additional tab and linking it to the main portal. Content is organized on each tab using independent zones.

The entire page is secured by the single application service associated with the main portal.

Portals Are Made Up of Zones

A portal is a page that contains one or more zones, and each zone contains data of some sort. All zones reference a Zone Type. The zone type controls the behavior of the zone and the parameters available to configure the zone.

Not All Zones Make Up Portals

Zones may or may not be associated with a portal. The following describes additional uses of zones:

• A data explorer type of zone may implement a search for an entity on an input user interface map. These zones may be referenced on a FK reference record or directly referenced on a UI map.

• A data explorer type of zone may implement a Business Service. The latter may be used for an internal process or used to build a user interface dropdown.

• A zone may be defined as a Context Sensitive Zone that appears on the Dashboard when a specific page or portal is in context. This type of zone is not linked to the Dashboard portal but associated with the context page or portal’s navigation key.

Configuring Zones for a Portal

The portal includes configuration of how the zones should appear on the portal by default. This includes the following options, all of which may be overridden by an implementation.

• The order in which the zone should appear. An implementation may configure an override sequence to change the order zones on a base delivered portal.
• Whether the zone is visible on the portal. Zones delivered in the base product should be configured to be visible. But an implementation may override this if desired.
• Whether the zone should display initially collapsed or not. A zone’s data is only retrieved when it is expanded. As such, a zone may be configured to be initially collapsed when the data is not needed very often. A user can expand the zone when the information is required. Implementations may change the collapsed setting of a base product portal / zone. Refer to Zones May Appear Initially Collapsed When a Page Opens for more information.

Flexible Layout Control

By default a zone spans the full width of the portal’s display area but can be configured in a number of ways using the layout control features on the portal.

These features allow portal designers to have finer-grained control over how zones are laid out, and enables them to achieve a better user experience and a more optimal layout that reduces unused space.

The following highlight key layout control options:

• In addition to the standard half and full width options, 1/4, 3/4, 1/3 and 2/3 width options are also available.

• Better handling of zones that are dynamically hidden by a visibility script. When a zone becomes invisible its space may be reclaimed by a next zone as long as it is of same width or smaller.

• A zone may define the beginning of a new row. This indication allows for a more fixed layout that is not impacted by hidden zones. The new row indication may establish a layout of one, two or three zones displayed vertically.

• Support the following zone height options:

  • Content (Unlimited Height) lets the height be determined by content.

  • Content (Limited Height) lets the height be determined by content up to a specified maximum limit. This option may be used to achieve a more consistent portal layout, especially when a zone is rendered on long or small devices.

  • Fixed Height sets the zone at a specific height regardless of content.

    This option too may be used to achieve a more consistent portal layout.

  • When a height option is not explicitly selected, zone height is unlimited and determined by content. However, for a data explorer zone, the results grid area itself (not the entire zone) is limited by the zone parameter "height of report" (which has a default value of 50%).

User Preferences

A Standalone portal includes configuration to indicate whether or not the portal should appear on a user’s portal preferences. The portal will not appear on the user's portal preferences if the Show on Portal Preferences setting is set to No. Note that an implementation may change this value for a product delivered portal. This setting is typically enabled for a portal that provides disparate information where not all zones are applicable to all users or where users may wish to adjust the order of the zones. An example of a portal enabled for portal preferences is the Dashboard portal.

The user can override zone oriented configuration for the portal:

• Which zones appear on that portal
• The order in which the zones appear
• Whether the zones should be initially collapsed when the portal opens.
• The refresh seconds. This is applicable to zones displaying data that changes often.

An implementation can optionally configure the system to define portal preferences on one or more "template" users. When a template user is linked to a "real" user, the real user's preferences are inherited from the "template" user and the "real" user cannot change their preferences. Some implementations opt to work this way to enforce a standard look and feel for users in the same business area.

Refer to User — Portal Preferences for more information about how users configure their zones.

Removing Zones From Portal

You cannot remove a base product zone from a base product portal. An implementation may override the Display setting to prevent a zone from displaying on the portal. In addition, you cannot remove a zone if a user has enabled it on their portal preferences. To remove a zone from the portal list, first make sure that no user has it enabled in their portal preferences.

Granting Access to A Portal

An application service is associated with each portal. A user must be granted access rights to the respective application service in order to see a portal.

When you add a new Standalone portal, the system automatically creates its application service behind the scenes and displays it as part of the portal definition. You'll need to use this application service to grant access to the portal. Tab Page portals do not have separate security access. If a user has access to the main stand-alone portal, then the user will have security access to all its tabs.

Please note the following in respect of how application security impacts a user's portals:

• A user's Portal Preferences page only shows the portals configured to show on user preferences and where they have security access.
• The system's menus only show portals to which a user has security access.
• Users can set up favorite links to all portals, but they must have security rights to the portal's application service in order to invoke the favorite link.

Granting Access to Zones

An application service is associated with each zone. A user must be granted access rights to the respective application service in order to see a zone on a portal. Refer to The Big Picture Of Application Security for information about granting users access rights to an application service.

Please note the following with respect to zone application security:

• For most base product portals, all the zones for all the portals reference the same application service that is used to grant access to the portal. In other words, if the user has access to the page, then the user has access to all the zones on all portals for the page. There may be exceptions to this rule for certain portals.
• For a base product multi-query zones, typically the individual query zones and the multi-query zone reference the same application service that is used to grant access to the main (standalone) portal for the page. However, there may be individual query zones provided with a unique application service. This may occur when the query option is unusual and not applicable to all users or even to all implementations. If a user does not have security access to an individual query zone, that option will not be available in the dropdown.
• For base product portals that are configured to show on portal preferences, it is common that the portal contains different types of zones that may be applicable to different types of users. Typically these types of portals will deliver a unique application service for each zone so that an implementation may configure which user groups are allowed to view each zone. For these types of portals, please note the following:
  • A user's Portal Preferences page contains a row for a zone regardless of whether the user has access rights to the zone. Because of this, the system displays an indication of the user's access rights to each zone.
  • If a user's access rights to a zone are revoked, the zone will be suppressed when the user navigates to the respective portal.
  • Revoking a user's access rights does not change the user's portal preferences (i.e., a user can indicate they want to see a zone even if they don't have access to the zone - such a zone just won't appear when the respective portal appears).

Putting Portals on Menus

When you add a new Standalone portal, the system automatically creates its navigation option behind the scenes and displays it as part of the portal definition. You'll need to use this navigation option to add the portal to a menu or to allow any other type of navigation method to the portal.

To add a portal to a menu, you must add a menu item to the desired menu and reference the portal’s navigation option on the new menu item. A portal's navigation option can appear on any number of menu items (i.e., you can create several menu items that reference the same portal).

Your users can set up their preferences to include the portal's navigation option on their Favorite Links. This way, they can easily navigate to the portal without going through menus.

Portal Options

Various portal features are controlled by configuration options, such as the ability to include additional applicable actions on the portal’s actions bar or the ability to include the standard information description of the maintained entity as part of the portal’s title.