Chapter 4. Portal Administration

4.1. Toolbar

The Toolbar offers a convenient way for users and administrators to execute tasks within the portal quickly and easily.

4.1.1. User Actions in the Toolbar

You can use the main menu (located under the product icon) to change the language or skin used in the portal or to sign out.

Site

The Site navigation function shows the different sites available in this Portal and allows users to directly edit the navigation tree.

Group

Using the Group navigation function users can easily see and access pages in the Portal.

Dashboard

You can use the Dashboard to create your own pages of gadgets.

The name shown in the image above is the default and can easily be overtyped when the Dashboard is open.

4.1.2. Administration Actions in the Toolbar

Editor

Portal Administrators have access to another navigation that allows them to; add a new page to the current portal, edit a particular page's properties or to change a page's layout.

This navigation appears next to the Dashboard navigation in the Toolbar and is contextually-named. It will appear as either Site Editor, Dashboard Editor or Group Editor depending on the user's location within the portal.

4.2. Manage Portals

The form to edit the portal properties will appear:

The various tabs available in the edit properties window give access to the properties that can be edited for the chosen portal.

Click Save or Cancel to either set or discard any changes you have made in the portal.

4.2.4. Delete a Portal

To delete a portal, click the Delete icon beside the portal you no longer require.
The confirmation message will appear:
Click OK

4.2.5. Change Portal Skins

Skins are graphic styles used to provide an attractive user interface. Each skin has its own characteristics with different backgrounds, icons, and other visual elements.

Skins can be changed temporarily (and are reset at log-out) or permanently.

Change the skin temporarily

Mouse over the Start menu and click Change Skin.
Select a new skin from the Skin list. By clicking on the skin name a picture will appear in the preview pane.
Click Apply to apply to the portal.

Change the skin permanently

Click Site, the nEdit Portal's Properties.
In the Portal Setting tab, select another skin Skin list
Click Save to finish your change.

More information about adding skins to a portal can be found in the Reference Guide for this product.

4.2.6. Switching between Portals

This function enables you to select and use another portals (gateway, starting site). You can perform this action only when you are assigned the appropriate permission by the administrators.

To switch between portals, mouse over Site on the Toolbar for a list all portals in which you have at least access rights, then click the desired portal. Please wait a few seconds for the change to take effect:

4.3. Manage Navigation Nodes

If you are the portal administrator (or the administrator has granted you the appropriate permission privileges) you can execute all actions related to portal nodes. These actions include adding new nodes or editing, copying, moving, deleting or cloning existing nodes.

4.3.1. Add a new node

Click on Site then click on Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Select a node from list (to create a new node like sub-node of the selected node) or click the Up icon to create a new node at the root level of the portal.
Right-click on the selected navigation or node and select Add new Node option. The Add new node form appears:
The Page Node Setting tab includes:
Uri
An identification of the node. The Uri is automatically created after adding a new node
Node name
The name of the node. This field is required and must be unique. Only alpha, digit and underscore characters are allowed for this field and it must have at least 3 characters.
Label
The display name of the node on the screen. This field is not required and may be changed. This field must have a length between 3 and 120 characters.
Visible
This check box allow to hide (and show) the page and its node at the navigation bar, the page navigation and the site map
Publication date & time
This option allows publishing this node for a period of time. Start Publication Date and End Publication Date only appear when this option is selected.
Start Publication Date
The start date and time to publish the node.
End Publication Date
The end date and time to publish the node.
In the Page Selector tab, you can select a page or not for this node.
Page Id
The identification string of the page.
Name
The selected page's name.
Title
The selected page's title.
You do not have to enter values in these fields. They are automatically populated after selecting an existing page by clicking the Search and Select Page button.
The Select Page form appears:
This window lists all existing pages of Portal or Group with basic information for each page.
To select a page for creating a node, simply select a page from the list or search for a specific page as follows:
1. Enter your page title into the Title field to do search to Title;
  Or, enter the site name into the Site Name field to do search to the page's site name;
  Or, enter values into both fields to futher limit your search results by both Title and Site Name.
2. Select the area in which you wish to search into the Type field.
3. Click to perform your search. All pages matching your search criteria will be listed.
4. Click on the row of the page you wish to select.

After selecting a page, the details of this page will be displayed in the Page Selector form.

After configuring the page node settings, the page selector and the node's icon, click the Save button to accept or the Cancel button to quit without creating a new node.

Note

To select a page, you must be a member in the Access Permission or Edit Permission list of the selected pages. When the page type is 'User', you can not select a page of another users. If you do not have the access permission for any page in the list, please contact your administrator to get appropriate permissions.

4.3.2. Edit a node

This function is used to edit the node setting and re-select a page for a node.

Click Site, then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Right-click the selected node and select Edit this Node option.
This will display a form to edit this node:
In the Page Node Setting tab you can change the value of these fields:
After you finish making the desired changes, click the Save button to accept changes or Cancel button to exit without change.
In the Page Selector tab you can also search and select another page for this node by clicking the Search and Select Page button.
You can see more details on how to select a page for a node in Section 4.3.1, “Add a new node”.
After you finish edit any another page required for this node, click the Save button to accept changing or Cancel button to leave without saving any changes.

4.3.3. Copy a node

These functions are used to reproduce a node to another place.

Click Site, then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Right-click the selected node and select Copy node option.
Select the position that you want to paste this node and select Paste Node option. Click the mark icon to Save.

Note

Two same node names in the same place are not allowed.

4.3.4. Clone nodes

The Clone node function allows you to copy a node.

The differences between clone node and copy node is that the clone node has its own page and which has the same content as the selected node.

Therefore there will be a new page that has the same name as the cloned node's page shown in the page list when you access Manage Pages.

Click Site then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Right-click selected node and select Clone node option.
Select the position that you want to paste this node and select Paste Node option. Click the mark icon to Save.

4.3.5. Cut a node

Click Site then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Right-click the selected node and select Cut node option.
Select the position that you want to paste this node and select Paste Node option. Mark icon to Save.

Note

Two same node names in the same place are not allowed.

4.3.6. Delete a node

Click Site then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Right-click the selected node and select Delete node option.
It will display an alert message confirming the removal of the node. Click the OK button to accept the deletion or Cancel button to quit without deleting the node.

Note

You, even as an administrator, cannot cut or delete FOUR system navigations, including Group Navigation, Portal Navigation,Register and NotFound. Also, you cannot cut or delete these system nodes which have been copied or cloned in the new positions. However, you can cut or delete them through cutting or deleting the node containing them, except system nodes.

4.3.7. Change Node Order

You can easily change the position of nodes in the navigation bar following these steps:

Click Site, then click Edit Navigation of the portal you want to modify.
Select the node that you want to move. Right-click the selected node and then click Move up or Move down
The selected node will be moved up or down within the list.

4.4. Manage Pages

4.4.1. Adding a new Page

4.4.1.1. Adding a new Page using Page Creation Wizard

A page creation wizard is available to administrators in order to create and publish portal pages quickly and easily.

Mouse over Site Editor then select Add New Page.
The wizard window is divided into two sections: the left pane contains the existing page/node hierarchy and the right pane displays the Page Editor.
In the left pane, you can navigate up and down the node/page structure:
In the right pane are the required parameters for a new page:
Current Selected Page Node
The path of the selected node to add a new sub page
Node Name
The node name of the added page. It is required field. This field must start with a character and must have a length between 3 and 30 characters.
Display Name
The display name of the node which contains the added page and must have a length between 3 and 30 characters.
Visible
This checkbox toggles the global visibility of this page.
If checked the page or the page node appears on on the navigation bar, the page navigation and the site map. If "visible" is checked the visibility depends on the "publication date & time" attribute.
If unchecked the page is not shown under any circumstances, even if the publication period valid.
Publication date &time
This option allows publishing the page for a period of time. If this option is checked the visibility of the page depends on the publication period start and end date.
Start Publication Date
The start date and time to publish the page
End Publication Date
The end date and time to publish the page.
Setting Time and Date
You can set date and time by clicking the Start Publication Date field and End Publication Date field and select a date in the calendar pop up
Click Next or number '2' of the wizard steps to go to step 2.
Select Empty Layout or click the icon to see more templates to select.
Click the Next button or number '3' of the wizard step to go to step 3. You can drag portlets from the popup panel into the main pane to create the content of this page.
Applications
Allows listing all existing portlets
Containers
Allows listing all existing containers
Switch View mode
Allows viewing a page in preview mode
Click the Show Container icon if you want to see the existing containers and re-select the layout of the page. You can click on the Switch icon to view the content of this page.
Click Save to accept creating a new page, Back to return the previous step or Abort button to quit without creating a new page.

4.4.1.2. Adding a new Page using Page Management

Mouse over Group in the Toolbar, highlight Administration then select Page Management.
Click Add New Page.
Page Id
A string that identifies the page. It is automatically generated when you finish creating the page.
Owner type
If the page Owner type is portal the page is created for a portal. Therefore only users who have edit permissions on the portal level can create this page type.
The name of the current portal is automatically selected for Owner id ensuring the edit permissions are assigned to users who can edit the current portal.
If the page Owner type is group the page is created for a group. Therefore only users who have manager permissions for that group can create this page type.
Owner Id
The name of the page owner. When the owner type is set togroup, a list of groups will allow you to select one user as the 'owner'.
Page Name
The name of the page. This is a required field and must be unique. Only alphabetical, numerical and underscore characters are allowed to be used for this field and the name must be at least 3 and no more than 30 characters in length.
Page title
The title of the the page. This is an optional field. If you choose to add a title to the page it must be at least 3 and no more than 30 characters in length.
Show Max Window
The option allows users to choose whether the page is shown at maximum size or not.
Enter values for fields in the Permission Setting tab
Access Permission
The content of this tab is identical to the Owner type field in the Page Setting tab. Therefore, all users having access rights for the type selected in the Owner type field will appear in this tab. But users can also change the value of this tab.
Check the check box if you want to share access with everyone or click the Add Permission button to assign permission on group level, then select a group and membership or click the trash can icon to remove a group from the list.
Edit Permission
The content of this tab depends on the value of the Owner type field in the Page Setting tab.
If the Owner type is "group", edit permission is assigned to users who are "manager" of the group that is selected in Owner id. You can only change this value when editing the page.
Click Save.

4.4.2. Edit a Page

To edit page properties, you have to open Page Properties page.

Open Page Properties page by following one of the two ways:
The first way:
- Open the Navigation Management form by doing the steps in Section 4.2.3.2, “Edit Navigation”
- Right-click your desired node and select Edit Node's Page in the drop-down menu:
The second way:
- Mouse over Group in the Toolbar. Highlight Administration and then click Page Management.
- Click the edit icon on the row of page you want to edit in the existing page list.
The edit page will be displayed in the Page Properties window:
The properties presented in the Page Properties window are the same as those outlined inSection 4.4.1.2, “Adding a new Page using Page Management”.
Permission Setting
This form is supported for pages with group or portal ownership types. Because a user page is private, no user, other than the creator, can access or edit it.
Permission on each page is set in two levels: Access right and Edit right.
Access right
The page Access right can be set to specific user groups or set to everyone (this includes unregistered users).
Current access permissions on page are listed and you can remove permissions (by clicking the delete icon) or add further permission (by click the Add Permission button).
Populating the Make it public check box will allow all users (registered or unregistered) to access the page.
Edit right
The Edit right allows users to change information on a page. Edit right only is set for a group of users.
Edit right can be set for one specific membership type within a particular group ( * allows every membership type in a group). If you want to re-assign this right to another group, click Select Permission to choose another one.
Editing page container layout
Click the Show Container icon to show current container layout of selected page on your right and all the container layouts list on the left pane.
If you want to change the current layout, select a layout type from the list on the left pane, then drag the template you want into the right pane. The new container will be displayed on the right pane.
You can change the position of the current container by dragging it to another place on the right pane or remove it completely by clicking the delete icon in the right corner.
Editing page portlet layout
Click the Show Portlet icon to show current portlet layout of page.
If you want to change the current layout, select a layout type from the list on the left pane, then drag it into the right pane. The new portlet will be added and displayed in the right pane. You can change the position of the current portlet by dragging it to the place you want on the right pane, or remove it completely by clicking the delete icon.

4.4.3. View a Page

View any page in the existing pages list by clicking on the View icon corresponding to the page you want to view.

4.4.4. Delete a Page

Go to Group in the Toolbar. Highlight Administration and then click Page Management. You will be presented with a list of all existing pages.
Click the trash can icon in the row of the page you want to delete. It will display the confirmation message.
Click the OK button to complete the deletion or Cancel button to quit without deleting the page.

4.4.5. Drag and Drop the Page Body

To assist administrators to modify or personalize their portal GateIn 3.2 allows you to easily drag and drop page content within the page.

Go to Site Editor in the toolbar and click Edit Layout It will display:
Click the Portal Page, drag and drop within the portal page.

4.5. Manage Users and Groups

Several tools are offered to assist Administrators manage users, groups and memberships easily and effectively.

You first need to:

Mouse-over Group in the Toolbar.
Highlight Organization and then click Users and groups management.

The Organization form will be shown that enables you to manage users, groups and memberships.

4.5.1. Manage users

As an administrator, you can easily find, edit information of user via the User Management tab in the Organization form. By default, all existing registered users will shown:

Administrators can see all existing registered users and search, edit or even delete them. Each user's groups and memberships (roles) in these groups are also available. You cannot add users to a group but you can remove them from the group.

4.5.1.1. Add a user

To add a new user to the portal user lists follow these steps:

Mouse-over Group in the Toolbar.
Highlight Organization and then click New Staff.
The New Staff window will open:
This window has two tabs: Account Settings andUser Profile.
To create a new user all of the fields in the Account Settings tab must be completed.
Further information about the user (such as nickname and birthday) can be added in the User Profile tab. This information is not required for the creation of the account.
Click either Save or Reset to create or discard the new account.

4.5.1.2. Search for users

The Administrator can search for specific users by username, first name, last name or email address.

Select the information type (name, email, etc) to search against
Type in a partial/full string which identifies the user record being searched. Note that wild cards are not supported at this release.
Click the magnifying glass icon to begin the search.

4.5.1.3. Edit user information

Locate the user you wish to edit.
Click the edit icon (next to the trash icon).
Select the Account Info tab to edit the main user information set including first name, last name or email address.
User Name
The User Name field cannot be changed. Other fields First Name , Last Name , Email Address can be changed.
Change Password
The Change Password option allows an administrator to set a new password for a user. When the Change Password option is unchecked, New Password and Confirm Password are hidden. Passwords must contain at least 6 characters and can contain letters, numbers and punctuation marks.
Select the User Profile tab to edit additional information about the user's profile such as the birthdate or the job title as well as some home and business metadata. You may also switch the default display language for that user.
Select the User Membership tab to see a user's group membership information.
User Membership
The User Membership tab displays which group(s) the selected user belongs to. In the above figure, the user "demo" is a member of two groups: "guests" and "users". The parent group of both is "platform".
To remove the user from a group, click the trash can icon.
Click the Save.

4.5.1.4. Delete a user

Locate the user you wish to delete
Click the trash icon corresponding to the user who you want to delete in the main User Management form.
Click OK to confirm.

4.5.2. Manage groups

Select the Group Management tab in the Organization form. This tab is used to add new, edit or delete a group.

By default, all existing groups will be displayed on the left pane. This tab is used to add new, edit or delete a group. The right pane shows information about the selected group including information about the members in the specific group along with a small form to add a new user to a group.

4.5.2.1. Add a New Group

Choose the path to create a new group by selecting the group from the list on the left pane or by clicking if you want to create a group at a higher level. The selected path is displayed in the breadcrumb bar.
Click in the left pane. The Add New Group form will be displayed on the right pane.
Group Name
The name of the new group. This field is required and any length from 3 to 30 characters is allowed. Once saved this name cannot be edited.
Label
The display name of the group. Any length from 3 to 30 characters is allowed.
Description
A description of the group. Any length from 3 to 30 characters is allowed.
Fill in the required fields. Only letters, numbers and underscore characters are allowed for the Group Name field. The name must be unique within the portal.
Click Save

Note

When a new group is added, the group creator will become the manager of that group. The creator's username will be added in the created group with the "manager" membership.

4.5.2.2. Edit a group

Find the group in the existing tree and click the label
Click the edit icon to display the Edit Current Group window.
Make the desired changes in the appropriate fields. You can not change the Group Name, however you may change to the Label field. You are also able to edit the Description field.
Click Save to accept changes.

4.5.2.3. Add a new user to a group

Find the group in the existing tree and click its label. Existing group memberships are listed on the left hand side along with the Add Member window.
Click the magnify glass to open up the User selector.
Refer to Section 4.5.1.2, “Search for users” for instructions on how to locate a user.
Check the box next to the user name then click Add.
Select the membership appropriate for this user. If the desired membership does not appear you may try to click the refresh icon to get the latest list.
Click Save to accept adding the selected user to a specific group with the selected membership type.

Note

By default, the 'manager" membership has the highest right in a group. A user can have several membership types in a group. To do that, you have to use the Add member form for each membership type. After adding, the user's membership information is also updated. You can check it by opening the User Management form and editing the user you just added.

4.5.2.4. Edit the user membership in a group

Click the edit icon corresponding to a specific user with a membership in the Action column.
Select a membership type in the Membership drop-down list.
Click Save to accept adding a new membership, or Reset to clear entered values..

4.5.2.5. Delete a group

Find the group in the tree
Click the trash icon in the row of the membership type you want to delete..
ClickOK .

Note

After being deleted, all information related to that group, such as users and navigation is also deleted. You cannot delete the mandatory groups, including Platform; Platform/guests; Platform/users.

4.5.3. Manage memberships

The role of a user in a specific group is managed using the Membership Management tab.

By default, three membership types are available:Manager, Member andValidator. By definition, Manager has got the highest rights in a group.

4.5.3.1. Add a new membership type

In the Add/Edit Membership form, enter the values for the membership name field (required) and the description field (optional). Only letters, digits, dots, dashes and underscores are allowed for the membership name.
Click the Save to accept adding a new membership, or Reset to clear entered values.

4.5.3.2. Edit a membership type

Click the edit icon corresponding to the membership type you want to edit in the Action column. Information about the selected membership type will be updated automatically in the Add/Edit Membership form.
Make the desired changes to the description. You cannot change Membership name.
Click Save

4.5.3.3. Delete a membership type

Click the trash icon in the Action column.
Click OK

4.6. Manage Page Navigation

Navigation types in GateIn 3.2 are outlined in Section 2.1.4, “Navigation”.

4.6.1. Portal's page navigation

The group /platform/administrators can do actions related to the page navigation of a portal, including adding/deleting portals, editing layout/navigation/portal configuration.

Note

The page navigation of portal is created automatically when a portal is created.
The navigation will be deleted automatically after you have deleted its portal.

4.6.2. User's page navigation

Note

The page navigation of a user will be created automatically when the user is created (registered).
Only the user who is the owner of the user page navigation can edit it.
No one can create a user page navigation so that no one can delete it. The navigation will be deleted automatically when its user is deleted.

4.6.3. Group's page navigation

Each group has only one page navigation. Only managers of the navigation group and users of the administrators group can add/list/edit/delete the navigation or edit properties.

To manage the group's page navigation, click Group on the administration bar.

Group Navigation page will appear:

4.6.3.1. Edit group's page navigation

Click Edit Navigation corresponding to the group navigation you want to edit. The Navigation Management form will appear:

In this form, you can edit the group's page navigation through doing many actions, such as adding a new node to this group, cloning, moving up/down, and more. To learn more about specific actions, refer to Section 4.3, “Manage Navigation Nodes”.

4.6.3.2. Create a new page navigation

Select Add Navigation at the bottom of the Group Navigation form. The Groups list will be displayed with the Add Navigation buttons.
Click Add Navigation corresponding to the group you want to add the new page navigation, for example, the page navigation of Release Team.
After being added, the new group navigation will be displayed in the Group Navigation page:

Each group has only one navigation. If you add a new group navigation that has been existing, one alert message will appear to show that you can not create that navigation.

4.6.3.3. Change priority of page's navigation

This function is to change the priority of a navigation. Only users who have the right can take this action.

Click Edit Properties corresponding to the navigation you want to edit. The Page Navigation Form enabling you to change the priority of the selected navigation will appear:
Select another priority from the available priorities list.
Click Save to accept changes, or Close to quit.

4.6.3.4. Delete a group's navigation

This function is used to delete the existing navigation. It is only supported for the group navigation. A user navigation or a portal navigation will be automatically deleted when the owner user or portal is deleted.

Click Delete Navigation corresponding to the navigation you want to delete.
Click OK to accept deleting in the confirmation message.

After the navigation deletion has been confirmed, the selected navigation will be removed from the Group Navigation page and its nodes/hyperlinks to pages will also be deleted.

4.7. Manage Permissions

Permissions play an important part in accessing and performing actions in the Portal. Depending on these permissions assigned by an administrator, users gain access to various components and actions such as edit portals, pages or portlets.

To manage permissions, you need to learn about the concept mandatory. The mandatory is one of required conditions of system. GateIn provides two types of mandatory, including:

Mandatory membership type: member.
Mandatory groups: /platform/administrators, /organization/management/executive-board, /platform/users, /platform/guests. These groups are set by default in eXo Platform.

Details:

The group /platform/administrators contains portal administrators with the highest rights related to the system, such as creating/editing/deleting new portals/pages.
The group /organization/management/executive-board contains administrators having rights related to management of users and groups.
The group /platform/users contains members of the portal. Any registered users automatically become members of this group.

Seeing a page in public means that you can access that page without signing in. To make a page accessible to the public, you have to follow these instructions:

The current portal in use must be in the public mode (everyone can access).
The node containing the page that you want to see must belong to the public portal.
The page which is selected by the node above must be in the public mode.

Details about permission types and levels can also be found in Section 2.1.7, “Permissions”

4.7.1. Set Portal Permissions

New portals

Click Site in the Toolbar then click Add New Portal. Last select the Permission Setting tab.

Existing portals

On the Toolbar click Site thenEdit Portal's Properties. Last select the Permission Setting tab.

Or hover your cursor over Site on the Toolbar and then select your desired portal from the drop-down menu.

Select Site Editor, then Edit Layout on the Toobar.
Click Site'Config the Edit Inline Composer, then select the Permission Setting tab.

4.7.1.1. Set Access permissions

To access a portal, you must belong to one of the groups that have access permission to that portal.

To set access permissions on a portal, you first need to go to Permission Setting as in the Section 4.7.1, “Set Portal Permissions” and select the Access Permission Setting sub-tab.

Public access

If you do not want your Portal to be publicly accessible, make sure the Make it public check box is clear.

If Make it public is clear, you need to add permissions by member group as follows.

ClickAdd Permission. The Select Permission form will appear:
Select the group that you want to add on the left pane and then select one membership type on the right pane. In the membership types list, the asterisk (*) indicates any membership types of the selected group are allowed.
After selecting a membership type, the selected permission is displayed in the access permission list. You can only select one group with one membership type at a time. If you want to add more, click Add Permission and select again. Repeat the process for as many permission settings as you require.