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Using Portals to Manage Content
Patricia Egen
Patricia Egen Consulting, LLC
www.egenconsulting.com
[email protected]
Agenda
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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
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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
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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
Example of a Portal Format
Search
A Custom
Web page –
possibly your
Company
website
Or a News
Frame
Calendar
Tasks/ToDo’s
Use portlets on your main
portal to group common
objects and data
Awareness
Quick
Links to
company
apps,
intranet
pages
Corporate Calendar
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Task List
Corporate WebSite
Mail Inbasket
Company Intranet
Human Resources
Product Catalogs
Company News
Procedures/Policies
Documentation
Pricing Tables
Customer Records
Marketing Brochures
Reports
Task List
Corporate Calendar
Mail Inbasket
Master Calendar
Database
To-do and task
list files
Disparate Data
Repositories
Notes
databases
AS/400
Application
DB2 Database
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ct
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Port
Feeds to
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Company Intranet
Human Resources
Product Catalogs
Company News
Procedures/Policies
Documentation
Pricing Tables
Customer Records
Marketing Brochures
Reports
Mail database
(Domino,
Exchange,
iNotes, Other)
Access
database
Corporate WebSite
Internet
Building Portals –Servers & Tools
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Lotus Domino and Notes
Websphere Portal Builder
Microsoft Sharepoint
BroadVision
Epicentric Foundation Center
iPlanet Server
Oracle
Plumtree Studio Server
Tibco
BEA
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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