Tools and Services

WebCenter Portal offers tools and services that allow portal members to collaborate and communicate. If WebCenter Portal is installed and configured correctly and your system administrator has set up valid connections to the required external back-end servers, tools and services are available for use in a portal.

Some tools and services are provided out-of-the-box and others require additional configuration. More

Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal

To enable or disable a tool or service in your portal:

1. To enable a tool you want to use in the portal, select the check box next to it.

   Note:

   If the back-end server is not configured by your system administrator and an active connection is not present between the application and WebCenter Portal, the tool or service will not be available in the portal.

2. Click OK to dismiss the warning about giving users the appropriate permissions to work with a tool.

   Notice that Disabled updates to Enabled next to the tool and the configuration fields for that tool or service appear.

3. Optionally, configure selected tools and services as required.
4. To disable a tool, deselect the check box next to the appropriate tool.

   Notice that Enabled reverts to Disabled.

   Note:

   Unlike the other tools and services, if Mail is configured by the system administrator, the Mail service cannot be disabled by the portal manager.

5. Grant appropriate permissions for each member role on the Roles page to allow portal members to access the enabled services.

Creating and Managing Portal Event Categories

Portal event categories let users group certain events together (for example, team meetings, personal appointments, customer meetings, and so on).

Categories can have any name and an optional color associated with it. If a color is selected, events belonging to the category are displayed in that color on the Events page or in an Events task flow.

To create and manage event categories in a portal:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Events.
2. Click OK to dismiss the message about giving portal users permissions.
3. To create a new portal event category, click Create .
4. In the Create Category dialog, enter a Category Name, and select a color for the event category, then click Yes.

   The category to which an event belongs also displays when a user hovers the mouse pointer over the event on the Events page or in an Events task flow. Users can also filter the Events page or an Events task flow to display events belonging to one or more specific categories.

5. To edit or delete a portal event category, select the category, then click either Edit or Delete.

Configuring the Mail Distribution List for a Portal

Mail distribution lists provide an efficient mechanism for portal communication. WebCenter Portal creates a default distribution list for each portal when the Mail Server is Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Active Directory Server (ADS) is installed, with the active directory connection details (LDAP) provided in the mail server connection settings.

More

Instead of using the default distribution list, you can modify the distribution list for portal mail, as follows:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Mail.
2. (Optional) To change the current portal mail distribution list:

   • Click the Search for Distribution Lists icon to search and select the name of the new Distribution List.

   If the Distribution List field is left blank, the compose mail dialog will not include a distribution list in the To field.

3. Select Keep the DL synchronized with portal users to synchronize the specified distribution list with the portal membership.

   Selecting this option automatically updates the custom distribution list by deleting mail addresses of members who cancel membership in the portal, and adding mail addresses of new members.

4. For Send Mail Options, select any combination of the check boxes:

   • Select Include the distribution list to populate the To field of the compose mail dialog with the value specified in Distribution List (either the default portal mail distribution list, or a custom distribution list you specify).

   • Select Include all members and groups that have associated mail addresses to populate the To field of the compose mail dialog with the mail addresses of all portal members and groups that have associated mail addresses.

   • When groups defined for the portal do not have associated mail addresses, select Include all members in groups that do not have associated mail addresses to populate the To field of the compose mail dialog with the mail addresses of all portal members with an associated mail address from every group in the portal (without an associated mail address).

5. Click Save.

Elasticsearch: Configuring the Search Scope with Elasticsearch

To set the search scope in WebCenter Portal:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

   The right pane shows the search option that has been configured for WebCenter Portal. Your search environment varies depending on the type of search configured.

2. Select the desired Search Scope to show results from either the current portal only or from all portals (including the Home portal).
3. Click Save.

Oracle SES: Reverting to Searching Without Facet Support

With Oracle SES release 11.2.2.2, search includes facet support. However, you can revert to using the non-faceted search task flows.

Tip:

Although you can revert to using search without facet support, Oracle does not recommend doing so. For the best performance and scalability, use Oracle SES release 11.2.2.2 with facet support.

To revert to non-faceted search:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

2. If selected, deselect the Use new search task flow with facet support check box to have this portal use the Search - Non-Faceted Search task flow (which uses refiners instead of facets).

3. Click Apply.

   The next time this page is accessed, the remaining settings on this page are grayed-out, and you must configure search settings with Search - Non-Faceted Search task flow parameters.

Tip:

For best performance and scalability, as well as facet support and easier configuration using the Search - Faceted Search task flow is recommended.

Oracle SES: Configuring the Filtering Dropdown In Faceted Search

The Result Types and Filtering section lets you choose which types of results to display in search results and what, if anything, to include in the filtering drop-down. Filtering allows users to narrow their search results using a filter list in the search results or in the global search box.

To configure the filtering selections:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

2. Make sure that the Use new search task flow with facet support check box is selected.

3. Clear the Enable filtering drop-down check box to remove the filtering drop-down from the global search box.

4. Select which result types to include in the drop-down, as well as in the filter list to the left of search results and the order in which they display, by moving them back and forth between the Available Result Types and Included lists.

   Note:

   Only metadata of portals and pages is searched (not portal content or page content), and by default, these result types are excluded for a portal. To include the metadata of portals and pages in search results, add Portals and Pages to the Included list.

5. Click Save.

Oracle SES: Configuring Search Scope with Facet Support

Faceted search allows you to find  information by applying multiple filters, such as search by author, portal, or last modified date. In WebCenter Portal, you can configure the search scope to use facet support.

To configure search scope to use facet support:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

2. Make sure that the Use new search task flow with facet support check box is selected.

3. Select the search scope to show results from either the current portal or from all portals, including the Home portal.

4. Click Save.

Oracle SES: Configuring Facets

Faceted search allows you to find  information by applying multiple filters, for example, search by author, portal, or last modified date. In WebCenter Portal, you can configure the search scope to use facet support.

The Facets section lets you choose which facets to display with search results for this portal. Facets let users navigate indexed data without running a new search. Faceted navigation within search lets users clarify exactly what they are looking for, or even discover something new.

To configure facets:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

2. Make sure that the Use new search task flow with facet support check box is selected.

3. View the Available Facets column.

   Note:

   The system administrator must first configure facets (including the required Scope GUID and ServiceID facets) in Oracle SES. The system administrator creates, modifies, and removes facets in Oracle SES. (WebCenter Portal does not detect changes to facets until the Search administration page is open.). If the Available Facets column is empty, the system administrator has not configured facets.

4. Change the order in which the facets display by moving them back and forth between the Available Facets and Included lists. For example, if you move Portal to the Available Facets list, then the Portal facet does not appear on the search results page.

5. Click Save.

Oracle SES: Enriching Search Results Using Custom Attributes

In the Custom Attributes section, you can select which custom search attributes should appear in search results and the order in which they appear. When the Tools and Services - Search administration page is opened, WebCenter Portal makes a call to Oracle SES to fetch available custom (as opposed to standard) attributes.

To enrich search results using custom attributes:

1. On the Tools and Services page, select Search.

2. Make sure that the Use new search task flow with facet support check box is selected.

3. Select from the list of Available Attributes and move them to the Included column so that they appear in search results and use the up/down arrow keys to specify the order in which they should appear.

   Note:

   • If you had search attributes configured in a previous WebCenter Portal release (configured with Search task flow parameters), then after upgrading you must set these custom attributes again in Oracle SES and on the Search administration page. The new Search - Faceted Search task flow supports custom attributes set on the Search administration page (not task flow parameters).

   • The search results page shows the translated names for custom attributes as specified in Global Settings - Translate Search Attribute Names in the Oracle SES administration tool. The custom attribute name is the translated name in the user locale. However, the Search administration page shows the base names (that is, the non-translated names) for custom attributes.

   • Attributes must be added to the Metadata List parameter in the Content Server.

4. Click Save.