43 Adding Announcements to a Portal

This chapter describes the announcements feature and how to set up announcements in a portal for participants. Announcements offer a quick, convenient way to create and broadcast messages instantly or at a specified future time. Portal moderators provide portal participants with access to the Announcements task flows or page (console).

This chapter includes the following topics:

• Section 43.1, "Prerequisites for Announcements"

• Section 43.2, "About Announcements"

• Section 43.3, "Modifying Announcement Forum Settings for a Portal"

• Section 43.4, "Adding an Announcements Page to a Portal"

• Section 43.5, "Adding an Announcements Task Flow to a Page"

• Section 43.6, "Setting Announcements Task Flow Properties"

• Section 43.7, "Working with the Announcements Task Flow"

Permissions:

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you need the portal-level permission Manage Security and Configuration or Manage Configuration. A portal moderator has this permission by default.

Additionally, you need the following permissions:

• Create, Edit, and Delete Announcements or Create and Edit Announcements

• To add the announcements task flows to a page, you need the portal-level permission Basic Services: Edit Page Access, Structure, and Content (simple permissions) or Create, Edit, and Delete Pages (advanced permissions).)

For more information about portal-level permissions, see Section 29.1, "About Roles and Permissions for a Portal."

43.1 Prerequisites for Announcements

For announcements to work, the system administrator needs to perform the following task for WebCenter Portal:

• Install and configure the Discussion Server and make sure that the connection between the two applications is active. Discussions and announcements require a single connection to WebCenter Portal's Discussion Server. For more information, see the "Managing Announcements and Discussions" chapter in Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

See Also:

"Troubleshooting Issues with Announcements and Discussions" section in Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

To make announcements available in a portal, the portal moderator or anyone with Manage Security and Configuration or Manage Configuration permission must perform the following tasks:

• If not already enabled, enable the Announcements tool, as described in Section 39.2, "Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal."

• Optionally, modify announcement forum settings, as described in Section 43.3, "Modifying Announcement Forum Settings for a Portal."

• Provide access for users to announcements in either of the following ways:

  • Provide users with the pretty URL to the Announcements page (see Section A.7, "Pretty URLs for Pages in a Specified Portal").

  • Add a page link to the Announcements page in the portal navigation (see Section 43.4, "Adding an Announcements Page to a Portal").

  • Add the Announcements task flow to a page in the portal (see Section 43.5, "Adding an Announcements Task Flow to a Page").

Note:

For information about the announcements feature and how to use announcements, see Section 43.7, "Working with the Announcements Task Flow."

43.2 About Announcements

WebCenter Portal provides the ability to post announcements about important activities and events to all authenticated users. For example, an application specialist can announce the availability of a new feature or the plan to take a portal offline temporarily for maintenance or the system administrator can announce the plan to shut down WebCenter Portal for maintenance (Figure 43-1).

Figure 43-1 Sample Announcement in the Announcements - Quick View Task Flow

Description of ''Figure 43-1 Sample Announcement in the Announcements - Quick View Task Flow''

Announcements are integrated with many other features, such as Activity Stream, RSS, and Instant Messaging and Presence, and you can link announcements to other tools, such as events and discussions. For example, if your company is announcing a new product, you can link from the announcement directly to a discussion forum, where potential customers can ask other customers about the product, or link to an instant messenger where customers can chat with a customer service representative about the product. Announcement titles are searchable with Oracle WebCenter Portal live search, and announcement titles and text are searchable with Oracle Secure Enterprise Search.

Announcements are limited to the portal where you create them. In the Home Portal, announcements are for WebCenter Portal (or application-wide), and are available to all logged-in (authenticated) users.

The Announcements tool is enabled in portals created with certain templates. If the Announcements tool is not included in the portal template, then you need to enable it in the portal. For information about enabling announcements in a portal, see Section 39.2, "Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal." The Announcements task flow must also be in your resource catalog. For information see Section 23.5.1, "Adding a Resource to a Resource Catalog."

As the portal moderator, you will need to provide users access to the Announcements task flows in one or more of the following ways:

• By providing users with a pretty URL to access the Announcements page or console. For more information, see Section A.7, "Pretty URLs for Pages in a Specified Portal."

• By creating an Announcements page in the portal, as described in Section 43.4, "Adding an Announcements Page to a Portal."

• By adding the task flows to a portal page, as described in Section 43.5, "Adding an Announcements Task Flow to a Page."

43.3 Modifying Announcement Forum Settings for a Portal

Both announcements and discussions use the discussions server to store data. By default, WebCenter Portal creates a single announcement forum for a new portal after announcements is enabled. For more information, see Section 39.2, "Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal." After enabling announcements, you can optionally modify the default settings to allocate a different forum for the portal (described in this section).

For more information about configuring and managing announcements, see the "Managing Announcements and Discussions" chapter in Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

To modify the announcement forum settings for a portal:

1. On the Tools and Services page (see Section 7.8.1, "Accessing Tools and Services Administration for a Portal"), select Announcements (Figure 43-2).

   Note the default forum ID specified for the portal.

   Figure 43-2 Portal Announcement Forum Settings

   
   Description of ''Figure 43-2 Portal Announcement Forum Settings''
   
   

2. Click Choose a forum for Portal icon next to the Forum ID field if you want to change the default Forum ID.

   See Section 46.4, "Publishing Portal Mail in a Discussion Forum" for more information.

3. Select another forum and click Select, or click Create Forum to create a new forum.

   If you create a new forum, enter the Forum Name and click Create.

   The Forum ID field is updated to show the updated forum ID.

   • All announcement views in the portal will show data from the new forum.

   • All new announcements for this portal will now be stored under the new forum ID.

   • All existing announcements and edits to those announcements for this portal will still be stored under the old forum ID.

   • Existing permissions are not copied to the new forum ID, so you must provide participants with the required permissions to work with announcements.

4. Click Save.

43.4 Adding an Announcements Page to a Portal

To provide navigation to the Announcements page in a portal, you can add a page link to the portal navigation, as described in Section 13.2, "Adding an Existing Page to the Portal Navigation."

Note:

The Announcements page (or console) is not automatically exposed when the tool is enabled or when the portal is created. However, if the portal template exposes the Announcements page, the portal will also automatically expose this page.

43.5 Adding an Announcements Task Flow to a Page

For the steps to add an Announcements or Announcements - Quick View task flow to a page, see Section 14.2, "Adding a Component to a Page."

Note:

The presence or location of the Announcements task flow in the resource catalog depends on how the resource catalog is configured. For example, in the Default Portal Catalog, the Announcements task flow is included under the Alerts and Updates folder.

The Announcements - Quick View task flow is not available in the Default Portal Catalog provided with WebCenter Portal, so you will only see an entry for it if it has been added to a custom resource catalog that has been made available to the page.

For more information, see Section 23.5.1, "Adding a Resource to a Resource Catalog" (in the Add Resource Catalog Item dialog, select Task Flows, then Design Time, then Announcements - Quick View). To use the custom resource catalog for editing portal pages, make sure it is Available, and set for use by pages in the portal, as described in Section 7.3.5, "Changing the Resource Catalogs for Pages and the Page Template for a Portal."

The Announcements task flow is displayed on your page, as shown in Figure 43-3.

Figure 43-3 Announcements - Quick View Task Flow on a Page

Description of ''Figure 43-3 Announcements - Quick View Task Flow on a Page''

Users with Edit privileges can access the task flow's region parameter through the Component Properties dialog in Composer to specify the ID of the forum under which announcements must be created and stored.

Note:

The Announcements - Quick View task flow opens in a portal, regardless of the forum ID specified.

For more information about setting task flow properties, see Section 43.6, "Setting Announcements Task Flow Properties."

43.6 Setting Announcements Task Flow Properties

The Announcements task flows have associated properties, which users with sufficient privileges can access from the Component Properties dialog in Composer (Figure 43-4).

Figure 43-4 Announcements Task Flow Component Properties

Description of ''Figure 43-4 Announcements Task Flow Component Properties''

For information about accessing the Component Properties dialog, see Section 14.3, "Modifying Component Properties."

The following sections provide information about properties of Announcements task flows and describe the properties on the Parameters tab.

• Section 43.6.1, "About the Announcements Task Flow Properties"

• Section 43.6.2, "Announcements Task Flow Parameters"

43.6.1 About the Announcements Task Flow Properties

The properties on the Parameters tab of the Component Properties dialog control the default task flow content. For descriptions of the parameters on this tab, see Section 43.6.2, "Announcements Task Flow Parameters." For some task flows, parameters on this tab facilitate the wiring of the task flow to page parameters and page definition variables. For more information, see Chapter 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and ADF Components."

Changes to the properties on the Display Options, Style, and Content Style tabs affect the appearance and behavior of the task flow for all users. These properties are common to all task flows. For more information, see Section 14.3, "Modifying Component Properties."

The content of the Events tab depends on the events supported by the task flow. For more information, see Section 14.3.7, "Working with Component Contextual Events."

The Child Components tab displays all of the components contained within the current component. It provides controls for rearranging, showing, and hiding child components. Not all components contain children. So this tab may be omitted. For more information, see Section 14.3.5, "Working with Child Components."

All properties on the Parameters and Display Options tabs provide access to an Expression Language (EL) editor, which you can use to select or specify a variable value instead of a constant value. Click the icon next to a property, then select Expression Builder to open the editor.

Note:

When you enter EL on the generic Display Options tab in the Component Properties dialog, the parser reports an error only if it detects invalid syntax, such as a missing closing bracket. Validation is performed only on syntax, not on the expression value. Generic Display Options are those cataloged in Table 14-1, "Display Options Properties".

EL validation is not performed on non-generic display options.

If you need EL assistance, an application developer can provide an EL expression; see the "Expression Language Expressions" appendix in Developing Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal and Oracle JDeveloper.

43.6.2 Announcements Task Flow Parameters

Table 43-1 describes the properties that are unique to the Announcements task flows.

Table 43-1 Announcements Task Flow Parameters

Parameter	Description	Task Flow
Expand All Announcements in Extended Mini View	Select to display details for all announcements in the extended quick view. The default value is deselected, in which case announcements display the announcement title only.	Announcements - Quick View
Number of Expanded Announcements	The number of announcements to display announcement details. Announcements exceeding this value display the announcement title only. Use only when Content View Only is deselected. Express values using the following formats: Constant—Express a constant value, such as 2 or 5. Page parameter—Enter a page parameter to grab the value from the page on which the task flow is placed. For more information, see Section 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and ADF Components." EL expression—The default. Enter an Expression Language (EL) expression.	Announcements - Quick View
Content View Only	Select to remove the announcement title and display just the announcement content. Leave unchecked to render the title. When selected, the values for Announcement Length and Number of Expanded Announcements are ignored.	Announcements - Quick View
Hide Toolbar	Hides the Announcements toolbar.	Announcements - Quick View
Navigate to Announcement Viewer	Select to navigate to the announcement resource. Default behavior (deselected) is to launch in a popup window.	Announcements - Quick View
Number of Announcements on Extended Mini View	The number of announcements to show in a page on extended mini view.	Announcements - Quick View
Forum ID	The ID of the forum under which announcements are created in the back-end discussions server. In WebCenter Portal, this property is blank by default. However, internally it maps to the forum ID associated with the current portal. For Home portals, global (system) announcements are returned. You can edit this property to specify a different forum ID.	Announcements - Quick View Announcements
Announcement Length	The number of characters to show in announcement details. Use only when Content View Only is deselected. If no value is specified, then WebCenter Portal displays 200 characters. This parameter takes effect with Number of Expanded Announcements. Express values using the following formats: Constant—Express a constant value, such as 200 or 500. Page parameter—Enter a page parameter to grab the value from the page on which the task flow is placed. For more information, see Section 19, "Wiring Pages, Task Flows, Portlets, and ADF Components." EL expression—The default. Enter an Expression Language (EL) expression. The value you enter for Announcement Length is ignored if Content View Only is selected.	Announcements - Quick View
Number of Announcements to Show	The number of announcements to show on the quick view.	Announcements - Quick View

43.7 Working with the Announcements Task Flow

Both the Announcements and the Announcements - Quick View task flows display current announcements. The Announcements task flow additionally offers tools for managing announcements within the task flow. With the Announcements - Quick View task flow, you must click the Open Announcement Manager icon to manage announcements.

The Announcements - Quick View task flow includes numerous parameters to customize your view. For example, administrator can remove the link to the Announcement Manager. This lets you present announcements to end users where manage controls are not needed. The task flow lists 10 announcements by default, but you can change this number and change how much of the announcement is displayed. The More Announcements link opens a popup window containing the complete list of all announcements with pagination behavior. This is called the Extended Quick View (or Extended Mini View).

As the portal moderator, you can perform all the tasks with announcements:

• View announcements in the Announcements task flow—All participants in Home portals and portal moderators. For more information, see Section 43.7.1, "Viewing Announcements in the Announcements Task Flow" and Section 43.7.2.1, "Viewing Announcements in the Quick View Task Flow."

• Create announcements—All participants. For more information, see the "Creating an Announcement" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

• Edit announcements—Creator of the announcement, discussions server administrators in Home portals, and portal moderators. For more information, see the "Editing Announcements" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

  Note:

  If participants have Create, Edit, and Delete Announcements permissions, they can edit any announcement in the portals in which they have access. If they have Create and Edit Announcements permissions, they can edit only those announcements that they created.

• Delete announcements—Discussions server system administrators in Home portals and portal moderators. For more information, see the "Deleting an Announcement" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

  Note:

  If participants have Create, Edit, and Delete Announcements permissions, they can delete any announcement in the portals in which they have access. If they have Create and Edit Announcements permissions, they can delete only those announcements that they created.

• Send mail—All participants. For more information, see the "Sending Mail from an Announcement" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

• Find or create links—All participants. For more information, see the "Linking Announcements" section in Using Oracle WebCenter Portal.

This section contains the following subsections:

• Section 43.7.1, "Viewing Announcements in the Announcements Task Flow"

• Section 43.7.2, "Working with the Announcements - Quick View Task Flow"

43.7.1 Viewing Announcements in the Announcements Task Flow

The Announcements task flow not only provides the tools to create, edit, and delete announcements, it also provides controls for determining when an announcement is published and when it expires and is consequently removed from the task flow. It provides Show lists for personalizing your view of announcements. After you create an announcement, you are offered the option to mail or link the announcement.

Depending on the privileges you have on the page and whether the required services are configured in WebCenter Portal, you may see only a subset of these options in the Announcement Manager. For example, the Delete icon, by default, is displayed only to users with manage privilege.

Discussions server administrators in Home portals and portal moderators can access the Announcements task flow.

To view announcements in the Announcements task flow, either select the Announcements task flow on a page, or select the Announcements page.

Figure 43-5 shows some announcements in the Announcements task flow.

Figure 43-5 Announcements in the Announcements Task Flow

Description of ''Figure 43-5 Announcements in the Announcements Task Flow''

Tip:

The way you access this page depends on the page template in use. For example, in a side navigation template, you may access it through a Manage menu.

You can also navigate to this page using the direct URL provided in Appendix A, "WebCenter Portal Pretty URLs."

43.7.2 Working with the Announcements - Quick View Task Flow

The Announcements - Quick View task flow is essentially a viewer for convenient access to current announcements. More robust features, for such actions as creating and editing announcements, are offered in the Announcements task flow.

By default, announcements in the Announcements - Quick View task flow show announcement titles as links. But you can configure the task flow to display only announcement titles, titles with some amount of content, or only content.

See Also:

Section 43.6, "Setting Announcements Task Flow Properties"

This section contains the following subsections:

• Section 43.7.2.1, "Viewing Announcements in the Quick View Task Flow"

• Section 43.7.2.2, "Managing Announcements in the Quick View Task Flow"

43.7.2.1 Viewing Announcements in the Quick View Task Flow

The Announcements - Quick View task flow provides a read-only view of the announcement title.

To view announcements in an Announcements - Quick View task flow:

1. In the Announcements - Quick View task flow, click the announcement you want to view (Figure 43-6).

   Figure 43-6 Announcements - Quick View Task Flow

   
   Description of ''Figure 43-6 Announcements - Quick View Task Flow''
   
   

   The announcement details display in the Announcement dialog (Figure 43-7). Similar to the announcement content displayed in the Announcements task flow, this dialog displays content with all the formatting that was applied to it.

   Figure 43-7 Announcement Accessed from Quick View Task Flow

   
   Description of ''Figure 43-7 Announcement Accessed from Quick View Task Flow''
   
   

2. Click Close to exit the dialog.

43.7.2.2 Managing Announcements in the Quick View Task Flow

You can manage announcements in the Announcements - Quick View task flow with the Announcement Manager. The Announcement Manager provides the functionality to create an announcement or from existing announcements the ability to edit, delete (if users have the permission to do so), send mail, and create links in the Announcements task flow.

Administrators can remove the link to the Announcement Manager. If your administrator allows this functionality, then you see the Open Announcement Manager icon (Figure 43-8).

The Announcement Manager allows users to create new announcements, edit existing announcements, delete (if users have the permission to do so) announcements, send mail to portal members (showing the content and a link to the announcement), and link announcements with other assets.

Figure 43-8 Open Announcement Manager Icon

Description of ''Figure 43-8 Open Announcement Manager Icon''