2 Creating and Building a New Portal

Use the portal creation wizard to create a new portal, then add and edit portal pages, and publish them for portal users.

Permissions:

To perform the tasks in this chapter, you need the application-level permission Create Portals. This permission is given by default to the following roles: Administrator, Application Specialist, Authenticated-User, and Portal Creator. After you create a portal, you are given the Portal Manager role in the portal. You can create pages in a portal if you are the portal manager or member with Basic Services: Edit Page Access, Structure and Content permission in the portal.

See About Roles and Permissions for a Portal.

Topics:

• About Creating a New Portal

• Creating a New Portal

• Creating Pages When Creating a New Portal

• What's Next?

2.1 About Creating a New Portal

When you create a new portal, you select a portal template to provide a starting point for your portal. You can use a built-in portal template, or create your own custom portal templates using an existing portal as the basis for the template. After creation, portals can be customized, including the navigation controls, the color scheme, and the look and feel of any task flow or portlet, all from within the browser.

When you create a portal, you become the default portal manager, and assigned the Portal Manager role. In this role, you have the Manage Security and Configuration permission in the portal, which provides full control over the portal presentation and content, as well as administrative responsibilities. When a new portal is created, WebCenter Portal creates default portal roles with default permissions. The portal manager assigns portal members to these roles and modifies the default permissions as required, or creates new custom roles.

Note:

As a portal creator, you always have the Manage Security and Configuration permission in the portal. You retain this permission even if your default Portal Manager role is changed to one with fewer permissions, or if your custom role is modified to alter your permissions.

If a tool is enabled in a portal template, then that tool will be enabled in any portal based on that template. When a tool is enabled in a portal in this way at the time it is created, WebCenter Portal handles any necessary configuration with the back-end server at first use, not at portal creation. This is known as "lazy provisioning" and speeds the successful creation of a new portal by deferring the provisioning of tools until they are first used. When you manually enable tools in a portal, WebCenter Portal immediately handles any necessary configuration with the back-end server.

Note:

When you move around in WebCenter Portal, use application navigation rather than your browser’s Back button. Using application navigation keeps you reliably in the application context and prevents a loss of functionality that has been observed when browser navigation is used.

2.2 Creating a New Portal

WARNING:

• If you are using Internet Explorer, turn off Compatibility Mode before trying to use WebCenter Portal to create a new 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 doesn’t function properly if you try to view WebCenter Portal in multiple browser tabs or windows simultaneously.

To create a new portal:

1. Open the portal creation wizard in either of the following ways:

   • In the portal browser, click Create Portal.

     Figure 2-1 Portal Browser

     
     Description of "Figure 2-1 Portal Browser "

   • From the Portals menu, select Create Portal.

   The portal template selection screen displays.

   Figure 2-2 Select a Portal Template

   
   Description of "Figure 2-2 Select a Portal Template"
2. Choose Your Portal Template. Explore the portal templates available to you to use as the basis for your new portal. When you first install WebCenter Portal, there is one default portal template available, named Portal.

   Note:

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

   • If the template you select is made private by another user after you select it, but before you have completed creating the portal, the template becomes invalid for your use and an error occurs.

3. Select a portal template to display its details in the portal specification screen.

   To browse and select a different portal template, click the left and right arrows to scroll through available templates, or click Template Gallery to return to the full gallery display of all portal templates.

   Figure 2-3 Portal Specification Screen

   
   Description of "Figure 2-3 Portal Specification Screen"
4. Title and Description. Modify the default portal title if desired and, optionally, enter a description and keywords for the portal.

   The title that you enter here is the display name that displays at the top of the portal and other places where portals are available for selection, such as the Portals menu and portal browser. Portal titles can contain alphanumeric characters, underscores, spaces, multibyte characters, and special characters such as & and #. The maximum allowable length is 200 characters. The following reserved keywords are not allowed as the full portal name either in upper or lowercase, 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. For example, the Title My Mega-Portal generates the internal name MyMegaPortal. The URL to this portal is http://host:port/webcenter/portal/MyMegaPortal.

5. Keywords. Enter any keywords related to the content of the portal to make it more easily discoverable in search results. Keywords are individual words. To enter multiple keywords at once, separate them with a space. Press Enter to save your keywords.

   To remove an existing keyword, click the Delete icon on the keyword.

6. URL. Modify the default URL for the portal if desired. The internal name of the portal is derived from this field.
7. Choose an access level for the portal:

   • Public (default): Anyone can visit the portal, whether they are a registered WebCenter Portal user or not. When this setting is selected, the Public-User role in the portal is automatically granted View Pages and Content permission in the portal, which allows public users to view pages, lists, events, links, and notes. To allow public users to view announcements, discussions, and documents, you need to grant these permissions. Public users do not have edit, create, or manage permissions in the portal.

   • Private: To access the portal, membership is required (either through invitation or self-registration if enabled). The portal will be shown in the list of available portals in the portal browser and will appear in search results.

     Note:

     The Administrator role provides a user with administrative permissions in a private portal (such as managing membership), but does not allow access to a private portal’s page contents.

   • Hidden: To access the portal, membership is required (through invitation). The portal will not be shown in the list of available portals in the portal browser and will not appear in search results.

     Members can access the portal through direct URL.

     Note:

     Hidden portals can be viewed through WebCenter Portal administration on the All Portals page by users with the permission Portal Server-Manage Configuration or Portals-Manage Security and Configuration, such as a system administrator. While these users can manage the portal (change settings and membership), they cannot see the portal pages and content unless they are a portal member.

   Note:

   The selected access level overrides the access level specified by the portal template that you selected. For example, if you select a portal template that specifies Public access, then select an access level of Private for the new portal, the portal is private. No public metadata is copied from the portal template, and public users have no access to the portal. Similarly, when you select a portal template that is Private or Hidden, then select Public for the new portal, public users can visit the portal.

8. Pages. Click to view the page tree for the new portal.

   Note:

   By default, all new portals have a Home page. The built-in Blank page style is applied to the Home page. It is not possible to change a page style for a page after creating the page, but you can create a new Home page in the portal editor to replace the default Home page, selecting a new page style. The portal template you select may also include additional built-in system pages, which you will see listed under Pages.

9. If shown, use the Add More Pages input area to create pages for the new portal. Pages created in this way are immediately available in your portal upon creation. See Creating Pages When Creating a New Portal.
10. Click Create Portal.

    WebCenter Portal creates your new blank portal, and displays it in the portal editor.

    Figure 2-4 Portal Editor: New Portal

    
11. To view and work with your new portal in the portal browser, click the Back to Portals icon at the top left of the window.

    Figure 2-5 Portal Editor: Back to Portals Icon

    

    By default, your new portal displays in the portal browser as a color tile, overlaid with the portal name and an acronym depicting the first two letters of the portal name. The color is randomly assigned.

    Figure 2-6 Default Display of Portal in Portal Browser

    
    Description of "Figure 2-6 Default Display of Portal in Portal Browser"

    You can begin to populate, customize, and manage the portal:

    • What's Next?

    • Editing a Portal

    • Administering a Portal

2.3 Creating Pages When Creating a New Portal

If supported by the portal template you use to create a portal, you can create pages for the new portal in-place while creating the portal, using special syntax in the portal creation wizard. The built-in portal template named Portal supports this capability. Other built-in templates do not support creating pages in-place during portal creation.

To create pages later for an existing portal, see Creating Pages or Subpages in a Portal.

Note:

When you create pages while creating a new portal, as described here, there is no opportunity to select a page style for the pages. The built-in Blank page style (see Table 19-1) is applied to these pages and to the Home page. It is not possible to change a page style for a page after creating the page, but you can create new pages to replace these pages, selecting a new page style.

To create pages when creating a new portal:

1. In the portal creation wizard, click Pages to show the existing pages in the portal, inherited from the portal template (Figure 2-7).

   Figure 2-7 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard

   
   Description of "Figure 2-7 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard"
2. To create a set of top-level pages for the portal, type the page names in the Add More Pages input area, separated by commas (as shown in Figure 2-8) or type the name of each page on its own line.

   The name that you enter here displays at the top of the page and other places where pages are available for selection, such as in the page navigation for the portal. The page name and description are searchable and appear in search results. Keywords are used for search only.

   Note:

   • There are no restrictions on the characters you can use in page names.

   • If you enter a name that duplicates an existing page name, WebCenter Portal automatically adds a numeric suffix to the page name and creates the new page with the modified name. For example, if MyPage exists, and you try to create a new page named MyPage, WebCenter Portal renames the new page MyPage1.

   • You can give a page the same name as any system pages (for example, Activity Stream, Announcements, Discussions, Documents).

   • While there are restrictions on naming files (including wiki documents), there are no naming restrictions for wiki page names. Thus, while any of the following characters can be used to name a wiki page, the page title will include the character(s) but the associated wiki document will replace the illegal character with _.

     ? # & \ / * " | < > : ^
     

     For example, if you create a wiki page named "What's In a Name?", the page will have this title, but the associated wiki document will be named _What's In a Name__.

   Figure 2-8 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard: Basic Syntax

   
   Description of "Figure 2-8 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard: Basic Syntax"
3. Optionally, click see more options to view syntax and examples to:

   • create a more advanced page hierarchy including subpages

   • add a link in the page navigation to certain system pages

   • rename a page that came from the portal template

   Type the syntax according to the on-screen instructions (Figure 2-9).

   Figure 2-9 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard: Advanced Syntax

   
   Description of "Figure 2-9 Creating Pages in Create Portal Wizard: Advanced Syntax"

   Using this syntax, you can immediately create the new portal prepopulated with a page navigation, as shown in the example in Figure 2-10.

   Figure 2-10 Page Navigation in New Portal

   
   Description of "Figure 2-10 Page Navigation in New Portal"

2.4 What's Next?

You have created a portal, and you now want to populate it. You may be in a situation where you need to set up a department portal quickly, and have content and links to add, so you can have something to show your managers before the end of the week. You have some ideas about how you want it to look, but what components and instructions do you use to accomplish your vision? Table 2-1 attempts to answer the questions you may be asking, and refers to documentation that provides the information you need.

Table 2-1 Building Out a Portal

Task	If I want to ....	What do I need to understand and do?
Adding Content	Populate my portal with content (and understand what kinds of things I can add to my portal)	Content in a portal is added to pages, which are exposed as the portal navigation items (tabs along the top of the portal, or links in a side navigation pane). The new pages that you create in a portal are independent of the portal template that you selected to create the portal. You can create a new page, and design it however you want it to look. For example, if you want it to be wiki page, you can select the Wiki Page page style in the page creation wizard. If you want to start with a blank page and add several areas to it, you can create regions on a blank page, and add desired components to each region. For information about creating a new portal page, and choosing a page style that exposes the page the way you want your portal users to see it, see Creating Pages or Subpages in a Portal. For information about editing a page and adding content to it, see Editing a Portal Page. For information about some of the components you can add to a page, see About the Built-In Resource Catalogs.
Adding Content	Allow other users to edit a page in my portal and add content, such as links and text	To allow other users to edit a portal page, you must give those users edit permissions on the page. Each page can be given its own set of permissions, or you can give permissions to edit all pages in the portal, then individually customize permissions for specific pages. To set permissions for all pages in a portal, you assign the permissions to a user role (such as Participant role). See Viewing and Editing Permissions of a Portal Role (you probably want to select the permission Edit Page Access, Structure, and Content). To set permissions on a single page in a portal, see Setting Page Security. To limit editing access to just one component on a page, you can associate a security-related EL expression with the component instance. See Setting Component Access.
Editing the Layout and Structure of a Page	Change the layout of a page	See Changing Page Layout.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, create a nested page hierarchy	You can create a two-level hierarchy in your portal navigation in either of the following ways: Create subpages, which by default automatically adds them to the portal navigation hierarchy beneath their parent page. See Creating a Page When Viewing a Portal. Adjust the portal navigation manually by moving the pages as desired. See Adjusting Page Order and Hierarchy in the Portal Navigation.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, add a link to an existing page (including a wiki or blog page) in my portal	By default, portal pages are automatically added to the portal navigation when they are published (see Publishing a Portal Page). Personal pages, system pages, and business role pages are not automatically added to the portal navigation. For information about the different types of pages in WebCenter Portal, see What Are Pages? If a portal page is not shown in the portal navigation, it has likely never been published, or it has been hidden. To show the page in the portal navigation, edit the properties of the page and select the Visibility property. See Showing or Hiding a Page in the Portal Navigation. If you want to expose a personal page, system page, or business role page, or add a portal page to a second location in the portal navigation: In the portal editor, select an existing navigation item, then click its Actions icon () and select Add, then Page Link. Select any of the available pages to add the page to your navigation. The page is added to the portal navigation: See also, Adding an Existing Page to the Portal Navigation.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, add a link to an existing page (including a wiki or blog page) in another portal, choosing whether to show or hide the other portal's navigation when viewing the page	To create a link to a page that exists in the connected content repository, outside of your portal: In the portal editor, select an existing navigation item, then click its Actions icon () and select Add, then Link. Set the Path property to the URL of the target page. See Pretty URLs for Pages in a Specified Portal. If you enter the URL of the target page as shown in the browser address field, the target page displays within its portal, as shown in this example using top navigation: To hide the target portal navigation and show only the target page, edit the target page and copy the value of its Path property (on the Advanced tab of the page properties) into the Path field of the navigation item. When you click the navigation item, the page displays without its enclosing portal, as shown here: Note: If you add a link to a wiki document rather than a page, you cannot use this method to hide the target portal navigation for the wiki. Instead, add a new page containing the wiki document, as described in the rows below for "Working with Wikis and Other Documents." Then, edit the page and copy the value of its Path property (on the Advanced tab of the page properties) into the Path field of the navigation item.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, add non-page navigation items, such as content item, content query, folder, separator, and so on	See Adding Items to the Portal Navigation. Note: If you create a Content Item link to a document/wiki, the target will not expose editing controls.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, create a menu or label, which can be expanded to reveal associated target locations	In the portal editor, select an existing navigation item, then click its Actions icon () and select Add, then Folder. Name the folder, then add beneath it navigation items such as page links (see Adding Items to the Portal Navigation). You can also drag and drop existing navigation items under the folder. The menu is added to your portal navigation:
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, rearrange pages	See Adjusting Page Order and Hierarchy in the Portal Navigation.
Modifying Navigation	In my portal navigation, delete a page link (without deleting the page itself)	To hide a page in the navigation, see Showing or Hiding a Page in the Portal Navigation. Note: To delete a page, see Deleting a Page.
Modifying Navigation	Change the portal navigation from side to top tabs, or vice versa	The tabs along the top and side can be changed by simply changing the page template for the portal, overriding the page template established by the portal template that was used to create the portal. See Changing the Page Template for a Portal. See also, About the Built-In Page Templates.
Working with Wikis and Other Documents	Add a new wiki page to my portal (make the entire page a wiki)	Create a new wiki page using the Wiki page style. See Creating a Page When Viewing a Portal. Tip: To work with wikis, make sure that the Documents tool is enabled. See Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal. See also Adding an Existing Wiki to a Portal.
Working with Wikis and Other Documents	Display available documents in a folder structure with document management controls on a page in my portal	See Enabling Document Management.
Working with Wikis and Other Documents	Add an existing document to a page in my portal, without editing controls	To add an individual document to a page, without editing controls, add the document in a Content Presenter task flow. See Publishing Content Using Content Presenter. Note: You can expose the page in the portal navigation using a Page Link. Another way to expose a document/wiki in the portal navigation, without editing controls when it is viewed, is to add it as a Content Item to the portal navigation. See Adding Items to the Portal Navigation.
Controlling Default Focus	Move focus to the top of a target document/wiki from the default focus at the bottom (Comments tab), removing all tabbed panes at the bottom.	In the page editor, click the View Actions menu for the Content Presenter task flow, then select Parameters. In the Parameters dialog, add to the Features Off property: sidebars.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Add users to my portal to establish the portal membership	See Setting Up Membership Options for a Portal. For more information about portal roles and members, see Managing Members and Assigning Roles in a Portal.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Invite users to my portal, giving them the option to become members	See Setting Up Membership Options for a Portal. For more information about portal roles and members, see Managing Members and Assigning Roles in a Portal.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Broadcast messages to all portal members	Add an Announcements task flow to a page or add the Announcements page in the portal navigation (Page Link). For more information, see Adding Announcements to a Portal Tip: To work with announcements, make sure that the Announcements tool is enabled in Tools and Services.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Provide a discussion forum for portal members to pose questions and discuss answers	Add a Discussions task flow to a page or add the Discussions page in the portal navigation (Page Link). By default, WebCenter Portal creates a single discussion forum for a new portal after discussions is enabled. You can optionally modify the default setting to allocate multiple discussion forums to the portal. See Adding Discussion Forums to a Portal Tip: To work with discussions, make sure that the Discussions tool is enabled.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Display an events calendar Display my personal Outlook calendar	To view portal events on the Events page or task flow, see Showing Events on the Events Page in a Portal. To view portal events from other portals, see Displaying Multiple Calendars in an Events Task Flow. If you use Microsoft Exchange Server, you can maintain a calendar of your personal events, external to WebCenter Portal events, that you can include on a page in the Home portal. For more information about logging in to your personal calendar, see Showing Events on the Events Page in a Portal. Tip: To work with events and calendar, make sure that the Events tool is enabled. See Enabling and Disabling Tools and Services Available to a Portal.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	View the activities of members	To add an activity stream or recent activities to a portal, see Adding Activities to a Portal.
Sharing a Portal and Portal Activities with Others	Get RSS feeds	To publish content from WebCenter Portal or view news feeds from external sources on your portal pages in an RSS viewer, or both, see Adding RSS Feeds to a Portal. Tip: To enable RSS, see Enabling or Disabling RSS News Feeds for a Portal.