Using Portals to Manage Content

Patricia Egen

Patricia Egen Consulting, LLC

www.egenconsulting.com pregen@egenconsulting.com

Agenda

• What is a Portal

• What kind of Content

• How to Arrange the Content

• Tools to build Portals

• Examples

• Questions/Answers

What is a Portal

• To make sure we’re on the same page (or is that portal), this is what a portal means during this presentation

• A common place to find information

• A point and click entry place to other places

• Easy access to data

• What you want, where you need it, when you need it.

• According to Webopedia:– A Web site or service that offers a broad array of resources and services,

such as e-mail, forums, search engines, and on-line shopping malls. The first Web portals were online services, such as AOL, that provided access to the Web, but by now most of the traditional search engines have transformed themselves into Web portals to attract and keep a larger audience.

Portals According to IBM

• A 2001 presentation by IBM on iSeries says Portal stands for:– P = Personalization for the end user

• Personal or community desktop

– O = Organization of the user's desktop• Consolidated access to data in a layout that suites them

– R = Resource division determines "Who Sees What"• Membership services and layered authentication

– T = Tracking of activities• The more the portal is used, the more it can be tailored

– A = Access to heterogeneous data stores• RDBM, e-mail, news feeders, web servers, various file systems

– L = Location of important people and things• Realtime access to experts, communities, and content

Portals versus Websites

• Portals do not replace Websites

• External users still need access to your home page

• Portals are designed to be access points to specific information and places

• Portals work well in intranets and extranets

Buzz Word Bingo

• The following terms are often used when discussing portals– eB2B (Business to Business)

– CRM – Customer Relationship Management

– Click-stream processing for e-commerce applications

– Analytical applications

– Business-intelligence tool

– Data warehousing

– Knowledge management.

Portal Content - Intranet

• Collaboration tools– Email, calendaring, instant messaging, online

meetings, video conferencing

• Documentation– Manuals, engineering documents, corporate

directories

• Sales and Marketing– Product manuals, pricing, inventories, brochures

• Procedures and Forms

Portal Content - Extranet

• Collaboration tools– FAQ’s and Discussion databases

• The author of The Clue Train Manifesto claims in his book that people are more inclined to search for discussion groups and lists for information than to dig down through a myriad of pages at an overloaded website

– Online meetings, video conferencing, instant messaging• “Can we help you?” – if yes, than an instant message pops up on a

support person’s portal and the customer gets personal service

• Documentation– Product Manuals, engineering documents

• Sales and Marketing– Brochures and Top Sellers

Content Arrangement – Part 1

• For an intranet, personalize the content• The portal should know who is knocking on the door, validate

they have the right password, and then get access to their preferred objects

• Provide access to personal mail in-baskets, calendars and task lists and to-dos

• For an extranet, using passwords for your customers and clients you can do similar personalized portals

• Use registration databases that allow external users to set their passwords and choose their preferences

• Portals like Yahoo and MSN do this for their customers to generate return traffic. The same thing can happen at your installation for the same reasons.

Content Arrangement – Part 2

• Use a consistent format – then change the data in the mini modules– Use lots of white space

• Know your customer – even internal ones– If you build it they will come – this really is true in a

well thought-out portal.• Time is precious; making information access quick is key to

improving business interactions

– You probably already know frequently requested or accessed databases and files.

• Use these as prime candidates for your Portals

Content Arrangement – Part 3

• News feeds, NNTP, are perfect vehicles to generate current events items for a portal.– Prime the portal by putting in News Feeds with

information or issues key to your industry

• Use awareness tools such as NetMeeting, SameTime, and instant messaging to find people quickly.– Place the links in portlets on your portal

A Custom Web page –

possibly your Company website

Or a News Frame

Calendar

Tasks/To-Do’s

Quick Links to company

apps, intranet pages

Awareness

Example of a Portal Format

Use portlets on your main portal to group common

objects and data

Search

Corporate Calendar

Mail Inbasket

Company Intranet Human Resources Product Catalogs Company News Procedures/Policies Documentation Pricing Tables Customer Records Marketing Brochures Reports

Corporate WebSite

Task List

Company Intranet Human Resources Product Catalogs Company News Procedures/Policies Documentation Pricing Tables Customer Records Marketing Brochures Reports

DB2 DatabaseAS/400

Application

Accessdatabase

Notesdatabases

Disparate DataRepositories

Mail Inbasket

Mail database(Domino,

Exchange,iNotes, Other)

Corporate Calendar

Master CalendarDatabase

Feeds to Portal Section

Corporate WebSite

Internet

Task List

To-do and tasklist files

Building Portals –Servers & Tools

• Lotus Domino and Notes

• Websphere Portal Builder

• Microsoft Sharepoint

• BroadVision

• Epicentric Foundation Center

• iPlanet Server

• Oracle

• Plumtree Studio Server

• Tibco

• BEA

• DataChannel Rio• Viador E-Portal Suite• XML• JAVA• DHTML• Cascading portals• Portlets• Security modules

Domino-based Portals – Part 1

• The Lotus Domino family has a wide range of products that can help you build a secure, personalized portal

• Domino Server– Web serving Notes databases

• Procedures, Documentation, Discussion Groups

– Email, Calendars, Tasks, Directories

– Secure access using password, digital signatures, encryption, SSL and X.509 authentication

– Access to DB2 on the AS400 adds your AS400 applications to the portal

– Build your portal using Domino Designer and HTML.

Domino-based Portals – Part 2• iNotes

– Looks just like the Notes client but is accessed via the web– Java servlets that are accessible using URL’s embedded in HTML

applications. Each component can be individually accessed

• SameTime– Awareness and instant messaging

• SameTime can be invoked via a URL from your Portal• See who is online and available for a meeting

• QuickPlace– Meeting and teamrooms that can be invoked via a URL allow you to

have personalized rooms for your intranet and extranets

• Websphere integration– Domino provides collaboration to the Websphere Portal Server

A Few Examples

• Here’s a demo of some Portal Examples built using Domino and Notes