3 Working with Portal Templates

This chapter introduces the out-of-the-box portal template provided with WebCenter Portal, and describes how to work with portal templates and create new custom portal templates. This chapter is for users who have permissions to create and work with portal templates in the Home portal.

This chapter includes the following topics:

• About Portal Templates

• Viewing Available Portal Templates

• Creating a New Portal Template

• Viewing Information About a Portal Template

• Searching for a Portal Template

• Renaming a Portal Template

• Setting Up Access to a Portal Template

• Publishing or Hiding a Portal Template

• Deleting a Portal Template

Permissions

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you need the application-level permission Create Portal Templates. Note that the Portal Creator role does not have this permission by default. This permission is granted to all Authenticated-Users by default. Users with the permission Create Portal Templates can create a new portal template, rename, hide, or delete a portal template that they created. To publish a portal template for others to use, you additionally need the application-level Portal Templates: Manage All permission.

To view and manage all portal templates, including private portal templates created by other users, and import or export portal templates, you need the Application Specialist role (or the application-level Portal Templates: Manage All permission). See Managing All Portal Templates.

For more information about permissions, see About Roles and Permissions for a Portal.

3.1 About Portal Templates

When you create a portal (see Creating a New Portal), you can base it on one of the built-in portal templates, your own custom portal template, or a published portal template created by others. Portal templates provide a consistent look and feel and an efficient way to get started in creating a portal that is configured as required for your specific needs.

A portal template may include custom attributes that can be set as needed during the creation of a new portal based on the template. For example, a portal template for product development team portals may provide an attribute that can be set to a specific product ID to populate the portal appropriately when it is created.

After you create a portal based on a particular portal template, you can modify the portal as desired, such as changing the page template and skin used by the portal, which affects the look and feel of the portal. In this way, your portal may evolve to look very different to the original portal template design. You can subsequently save such a portal as a new custom portal template if you wish to use it as the basis for new portals.

To learn more about portal templates, refer to the following sections:

• About the Built-In Portal Template

• About Custom Portal Templates

3.1.1 About the Built-In Portal Template

WebCenter Portal provides a single built-inportal template that you can select when creating a new (see Creating a New Portal):

• Portal—Generic template for building a new portal, designed to accommodate the latest features of WebCenter Portal.

3.1.2 About Custom Portal Templates

You can create a custom portal template to allow users to quickly create new portals designed to solve a business process need.

A custom portal template may be simple, or may include robust functionality such as:

• Preseeded data, such as discussions, documents, lists, member information (including roles), pages, or assets. When you select such a template to build a new portal, the new portal includes all the preseeded data.

• Permissions, either simple permissions or advanced permissions, if advanced permissions are specified in the base portal from which the template is created.

• Limited available page styles and resource catalogs in order to create a safe environment for users to build portals with little support. Such a portal template could even include necessary custom documentation and references.

• If custom page permissions are specified for roles or individual users in a portal that is used to create a new portal template, then only the custom page permissions specified for the roles (not users) are included in the portal template (and subsequently in a portal that is created using the portal template).

• Custom java code that executes when you select the template for a new portal. For example, custom code may include logic to automatically create a mailing list for a new portal. For more information, see Developing Shared Libraries in Developing WebCenter Portal Assets and Custom Components with Oracle JDeveloper.

3.2 Viewing Available Portal Templates

To view the portal templates available to you:

• In the Home portal, click the Portal Templates tab to view the Portal Templates page (Figure 3-1).

  If the Portal Templates tab is not exposed in the Home portal, open the Personalize Pages page and select the Show Page check box for the Portal Templates page.

  Tip:

  The way you access the Personalize Pages page depends on the page template in use. For example, you may access it through an Actions menu.

  Figure 3-1 Portal Templates Page in Home Portal

  
  Description of "Figure 3-1 Portal Templates Page in Home Portal"

3.3 Creating a New Portal Template

You cannot modify the out-of-the-box portal templates described in About Portal Templates, but any user with the Portal Templates-Create permission can create a new portal template in the Home portal. This portal template is available to the user who created it, and anyone with whom it is shared (see Publishing or Hiding a Portal Template).

To create a new portal template, you start by creating a portal based on an existing template (see Creating and Building a New Portal), and customize it according to your requirements. Then, you can create a new portal template based on the customized portal that you have developed. During the creation of a portal template, you can select to copy the discussions, documents, lists, member information, roles, or pages from the source portal. The security settings, including Advanced Permissions (if applicable), for the source portal are also copied by the template.

Note:

When creating a new portal template, the template does not inherit announcements from the source portal.

If you have the application-level Portal Templates-Manage All permission, you can publish your portal template for others to use; otherwise, it remains private and hidden from others.

Note:

The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to create or manage portal templates.

Users with the permissions of the default Application Specialist role (or the application-level Portal Templates-Manage All permission) can create portal templates to be made available at the application level, and import and export custom portal templates, including seeded data. For more information, see Managing All Portal Templates.

To create a portal template:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates).
2. Click Create to open the Create dialog (Figure 3-2).

   Note:

   If you have not created any portals, and do not have Portal Templates-Create permissions, the Create link is not available.

   Figure 3-2 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Setup Step

   
   Description of "Figure 3-2 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Setup Step"

3. In the Setup step, enter a suitable Portal Template Name and (optionally) Description.

   Enter a name that describes the portal template and other WebCenter Portal users will recognize. You can later rename the template, as described in Renaming a Portal Template.

   Portal template names can contain only alphanumeric characters and underscores (spaces and special characters, such as & and #, are not allowed). The maximum allowable length is 200 characters. The following reserved keywords are not allowed as the full portal template name in either upper or lower case, or a combination of both—admin, builder, group, groups, home, last, page, pages, my portals, my spaces, portal, portals, space, spaces, system, webcenter, webcenter administration, WebCenter Portal, webcenter portals, webcenter space, webcenter spaces. These reserved words are allowable as part of a longer name (for example, Sales Group).

   Note:

   WebCenter Portal removes any unsupported special characters (such as -) and character spaces in the display name specified here to derive the initial internal name for the portal template. For example, a display name My Mega-Template generates the internal name MyMegaTemplate.

4. From the Category list, select a category under which to list the portal template when creating a portal, or leave as <None> if no category is suitable, then click Next.

   In the portal creation wizard, the portal template will be listed under the selected category heading, or under More... if you do not select a category.

5. In the Portals step (Figure 3-3), select a portal from the list (which displays portals that you created or have permissions to manage) to use as the basis for the new portal template, and then click Next.

   Figure 3-3 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Portals Step

   
   Description of "Figure 3-3 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Portals Step"

6. In the Content step, select the services that contain data that you want the portal template to copy from the source portal (Figure 3-4).

   Note:

   • The security settings of all pages in the new portal template default to Inherit Parent Security so that the pages in all portals created from the portal template initially inherit access settings from the permissions established for the portal.

   • Portal templates cannot copy announcements data from a portal.

   • List definitions are always copied; checking Lists in this step specifies that you want to copy the list data, too.

   • By default, all portal assets are copied. For a full list of portal assets, see About Assets. If you do not want your template to inherit all portal assets, you can later edit the portal template to remove individual assets (such as task flows or data controls) that you do not want to include.

   • If you select Members Info, the Roles Info option is also selected. By selecting Members Info, you are copying the portal members and custom roles from the portal you selected as the basis for the new template into the new template that you are creating.

   • If you select Roles Info and do not select Members Info, you are copying only the roles into your new template. Only the custom roles that are included in the portal you selected as the basis for the new template are copied into the new template.

   • If Advanced Permissions has been specified in the portal that is used to create a new portal template and you select both Members Info (and by default Roles Info) or only Roles Info when creating the portal template, then the specified advanced permissions are included in the portal template (and subsequently in a portal that is created using the template).

   • If custom page permissions are specified for roles or individual users in a portal that is later used to create a new portal template, then only the custom page permissions specified for the roles (not individual users) are included in the portal template (and subsequently in a portal that is created using the portal template).

   Figure 3-4 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Content Step

   
   Description of "Figure 3-4 Create a Portal Template Dialog: Content Step"

7. Click Create.

   • The new portal template displays on your Portal Templates page in the Home portal.

   • By default, the template is private, which means that other users will not see it on their personal Portal Templates page in the Home portal.

   • However, users granted the Portal Templates-Manage All permission can view and manage private templates on the application-level Portal Templates page. For more information, see Managing All Portal Templates.

8. To publish your portal template to make it available to all WebCenter Portal users, select the template name, click the Actions menu, and select Make Public. If you have this permission,

   Note:

   You must be granted the application level Portal Templates-Manage All permission to make the template public.

   The template is published and displays on the Portal Templates page in the Home portal for all users.

3.4 Viewing Information About a Portal Template

Note:

The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to view or manage portal templates.

To view information about a portal template:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates).

   Figure 3-5 Portal Templates Page in Home Portal

   
   Description of "Figure 3-5 Portal Templates Page in Home Portal"
2. Click in the row of the portal template that you want to learn about, then from the Actions menu, select About Portal Template.

   The About Portal Template dialog opens (Figure 3-6).

   Figure 3-6 About Portal Template Dialog

   
   Description of "Figure 3-6 About Portal Template Dialog"
3. Explore the information in the About Portal Template dialog:

   • Name: Internal name of the portal template displayed in the URL to the portal template. You cannot change the internal name of a portal template.

   • Display Name: Display name of the portal template. This name displays in places where the templates are available for selection, such as the portal creation wizard and the Portal Templates page. You cannot change the display name of an out-of-the-box portal template. To change the display name of a custom portal template that you create, see Renaming a Portal Template.

   • Internal ID: ID of the portal template, which other applications may use to reference this portal template.

   • Description: A description of the portal template, specified when creating the portal template. You cannot modify the description of a portal template, unless you rename the template, where you can enter a new description in the Rename dialog, as described in Renaming a Portal Template.

   • Created By: User name of the portal template creator.

   • Date Created: Date and time that the portal template was created.

3.5 Searching for a Portal Template

Global search does not search portal assets, such as portal templates, page templates, resource catalogs, navigation models, and so on. The Filter field on the Portal Templates page is useful for searching for portal template names or descriptions when your application includes a large number of portal templates.

Note:

The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to view or search for portal templates.

To search for a portal template by a string in the Name or Description:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates).
2. In the Filter field, enter a search string.
3. Click the Filter icon (Figure 3-7).

   Figure 3-7 Filter Icon

   

   The Portal Templates page displays portal templates where the search string is found in the Name or Description.

4. To clear the current search string and display all portal templates, click the Clear Filter icon (Figure 3-8).

   Figure 3-8 Clear Filter Icon

   

3.6 Renaming a Portal Template

To rename a portal template that you created or have permissions to manage:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates) and select the portal template.
2. From the Actions menu, select Rename Portal Template Display Name to open the Rename Portal Template Display Name dialog.
3. In the Display Name field, enter a new name for the portal template.
4. Optionally, enter a Description.
5. Click OK.

3.7 Setting Up Access to a Portal Template

You can grant specific users and groups view-only or manage access to a portal template that you created or have permissions to manage.

Note:

The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to work with portal templates.

To set up access to a portal template that you created or have permissions to manage:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates) and select the portal template.
2. From the Actions menu, select Set Template Access.

   The Set Template Access dialog opens (Figure 3-9).

   Figure 3-9 Set Template Access Dialog

   
   Description of "Figure 3-9 Set Template Access Dialog"
3. In the Set Template Access dialog:

   • Click Add Users to open the Search Users dialog where you can select from a list of users or search for a user name.

   • Click Add Groups to open the Search Groups dialog where you can search for a user group.

   For tips on searching for a user or group in the identity store, see Searching for a User or Group in the Identity Store.

4. For each user or user group listed in the Set Template Access dialog, specify which level of access to grant (one permission per user or user group):

   • Select the View check box to grant view-only access to the portal template, allowing them to perform the following tasks on the portal template:

     • Viewing Information About a Portal Template

     • Searching for a Portal Template

   • Select the Manage check box to grant full access to the portal template, allowing them to additionally perform the following tasks on the portal template:

     • Renaming a Portal Template

     • Setting Up Access to a Portal Template

     • Publishing or Hiding a Portal Template

     • Deleting a Portal Template

5. Click OK.

3.8 Publishing or Hiding a Portal Template

Note:

To publish a portal template, you need the application-level permission Portal Templates-Manage All. The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to work with portal templates. Users with the Portal Templates-Create permission can create, rename, hide, or delete a portal template, but cannot publish a template without the Portal Templates-Manage All permission.

For more information about permissions, see About Roles and Permissions for a Portal.

When you create a portal template (see Creating a New Portal Template), it is private by default. This means that only you as the template creator can see the template on your personal Portal Templates page in the Home portal. Other users will not see the private template on their personal Portal Templates page in the Home portal. However, the application specialist (or users with application-level Portal Templates-Manage All permission) can view and manage all private templates on the application-level Portal Templates page. For more information, see Managing All Portal Templates.

To publish or hide a portal template that you create, when you have the application-level Portal Templates-Manage All permission:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates) and select the portal template.
2. From the Actions menu, select either of the following:

   • Make Public to publish the template to all WebCenter Portal users.

   • Remove Public Access to remove the template(s) from the portal template lists in the Home portal for all users, except yourself (as the template creator) and those users to whom you have specifically granted View or Manage access in the Set Template Access dialog (see Setting Up Access to a Portal Template).

     Note:

     If another user is in the process of creating a new portal (see Creating a New Portal), and you remove public access from the portal template selected for the portal before the user has completed creating the portal, the template becomes invalid for the portal and the user receives an error.

3. In the confirmation prompt, confirm your selection.

3.9 Deleting a Portal Template

Note:

Out-of-the-box portal templates cannot be deleted. The Portal Creator role does not have default permissions to work with portal templates. However, application specialist (or users with Portal Templates-Manage All permission) can hide the out-of-the-box templates from everyone's view using the application-level Portal Templates page, as described in Publishing and Hiding Portal Templates.

Deleting a portal template does not affect the portals that were created using the portal template.

To delete one or more portal templates that you created or have permissions to manage:

1. In the Home portal, go to the Portal Templates page (see Viewing Available Portal Templates) and select the portal template(s).
2. In the confirmation prompt, click Delete.