1. Using Portals to Manage Content
Patricia Egen
Patricia Egen Consulting, LLC

2. Agenda What is a Portal What kind of Content
How to Arrange the Content
Tools to build Portals
Examples
Questions/Answers

3. 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 , 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.

4. 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, , news feeders, web servers, various file systems
L = Location of important people and things
Realtime access to experts, communities, and content

5. 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

6. 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.

7. Portal Content - Intranet
Collaboration tools
, calendaring, instant messaging, online meetings, video conferencing
Documentation
Manuals, engineering documents, corporate directories
Sales and Marketing
Product manuals, pricing, inventories, brochures
Procedures and Forms

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

12. Use portlets on your main portal to group common objects and data
Example of a Portal Format
Search
Calendar
A Custom Web page – possibly your Company website
Or a News Frame
Awareness
Quick Links to company apps, intranet pages
Tasks/To-Do’s
Use portlets on your main portal to group common objects and data

13. The Portal Place

16. 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

17. 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
, 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.

18. 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

19. A Few Examples
Here’s a demo of some Portal Examples built using Domino and Notes