How-to Guide

SAP NetWeaver ‘04s

How to Create
a Room
Template
Version 1.00 – March 2006

Applicable Releases:
SAP NetWeaver ’04s
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1 (Business) Scenario
Room templates predefine technical information to make the creation process of a room
as easy as possible. In most cases, each room template reflects a specific business
scenario (For example, Meeting Template is designed for the requirements of standard
meetings).
In the following scenario it is planned to offer a room template that creates the following
pages for building up a “virtual working environment” for project team members:
• Project Home Page
• Documents Page
o Consist of a documents iView to store documents of the project team.
Within the project folder a sub folder structure should be published as
initial content.
• Tasks Page
• Room Administration Page

2 Introduction
Every room is based on a room template. A room template is a blueprint for a room with
room-specific views of the room content. The template combines iViews and pages in a
task-specific blueprint, from which the user can generate rooms for corresponding tasks.

2.1 Structure of Collaboration Room Templates

In general, a room template consists of three layers:

− The first layer is mainly based on a common portal workset. This workset defines
the visual layout structure and iView content that is to be part of the template.
This information is stored in the Portal Content Directory (PCD). It can be
accessed from the Portal Content Catalog (PCC).
− All information about the attributes of the template (for example, name,
description, mappings, and room roles) is stored inside of the KM layer. It can be
accessed from the Room Template Administration iView.
− Additionally, all default content e.g. documents which should be available after a
new Room instance is created, has to be stored in the KM Repository and has to
be linked to the template. It can be accessed from the KM Content Navigator
(under Content Administration
KM Content).

There are two options how you can create a room template:
1. Duplicate an existing room template and change it.
2. Create a new room template.
If you can reuse most of the content of an existing template the first option is useful as
you can reduce the effort of configuring extensions and mappings.

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2.2 Best Practices
Some points should be considered when designing room templates:
• Build rather small room templates and enhance existing rooms during lifecycle
with room parts
• A small template fits to the basic needs of several stakeholders and
reduces the amount of needed room templates
• This offers a higher flexibility of room owners
• Start the implementation project with a minimal number of room templates and
room parts.
• Keep the design of templates simple and consistent:
• All pages should have a similar structure
• Place maximum two iViews per inner page
• Define a Room Information iView for each page (Room Title, picture, etc.)

Room Information iView

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3 The Step By Step Solution
This section describes step by step the necessary actions for creating a room template.
The described example is based on a duplicate of one of the templates delivered by
SAP, the “SAP_Project_Template_2”.

The step by step description and screenshots are based on an NW2004s NetWeaver
portal, but the configuration is similar on EP6.0/NW04.

For the configuration which is described here, please be sure that you are logged on with
at least the following administration roles: Content Administrator and System
Administrator.

3.1 Duplicate an existing Room Template

In the following steps you duplicate the SAP Collaboration Room Template
SAP_Project_Template_2 and reuse the following pages:
• Project Home
• Tasks
• Admin: Room

1. Duplicate the room template

• Select Content Administration

Collaboration Content
Room
Template Administration
• Duplicate the
SAP_Project_Template_2

2. Edit the duplicate of the template

• Change the name to Project
Rooms
• Change the description
according to the screenshot
• Leave all other entries of the
General tab unchanged
You´ll adapt the data on the other tabs
like Roles and Parameters after having
changed the workset in the Portal
Content Directory .

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3.2 Configure portal content in the Portal Content Directory

If you duplicate a room template all Portal specific content is also duplicated in the Portal
Content Directory.
All changes have to be done in the duplicated workset placed in the Template Worksets
folder. In the example below you need to perform the following steps:
• Delete unnecessary pages
• Create new iViews/pages, or reuse existing content and add them to the template
workset

3. Change the duplicated workset

• Select Content Administration

Portal Content
• Open the folder
com.sap.ip.collaboration
• Template Worksets
• Open the Project_Rooms
workset and delete the following
pages:
o Documents and Links
o Calendar and Sessions
o Project Members
o Search Room
o Admin: Members and
Room Relations
4. Create a new Document page
• Create in the
com.sap.ip.collaboration folder a
new subfolder named
CustomerSpecific
• Create a new page named
Document in the
CustomerSpecific folder
Choose Light: 1 Column (Full Width) as
page layout.
• Add the iView Room Information:
Extended via Delta Link to the
page. You’ll find the iView in the
folder Template and Part
Content -> Generic -> iViews
• Add the Documents iView to the
page as copy. You’ll find the
iView in the folder Template and
Part Content ->Homer -> iViews

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 Save the page.
Edit the assigned iView and
change the LayoutSet
Parameter to ConsumerExplorer.
This is necessary as another
LayoutSet is needed for that
scenario.

Hint: Reuse primaliry content (iViews

and pages) delivered SAP placed in
the Template and Part Content
folder.
5. Change the template workset
• Open the Project_Rooms
workset in the folder Template
Worksets
• Add the new Document page to
the workset via Delta Link

3.3 Create preconfigured Content (optional)

You can create and configure initial content - like folder structures, documents etc. – for
rooms. In order to publish initial content in rooms, you need to reference it within the CM
Room Extension.
This step has to be fulfilled as it is a mandatory part of the scenario in this guide.

However it is not generally necessary for the creation of a room template and is therefore
marked as optional step.

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6. Create a folder structure as template
• Select Content Administration

KM Content
• Navigate to folder path
/root/room_extensions
• Create a folder named Template
with the following subfolders:
o Projectphase1
o Projectphase2
o Projectphase3

7. Create a Template Configuration

• Select System Administration

System Configuration

Knowledge Management

Collaboration
Room

Extensions
Cm

Templates
Collaboration
Room Template
• Create a new object
“Collaboration Room
Template” with the name
ProjectRoom_Template and
the path:
/room_extensions/Template
For the Bundle Files, the Key for
Description and the Key for Label
enter undefined.

This configuration object needs to be referenced in CM Room Extension configuration

as described in the following steps.

3.4 Configure the Room Template in the Room Template Administration

iView

This step describes how to configure the template in the Room Template Administration
iView. As according to this example three of four pages are reused from the original
room template, the corresponding mapping and extension configuration can be reused.

The newly created “Document” page consist of a “Room Information” iView that displays
Room details and a KM Navigation iView “Documents” . The
“Documents” iView is to build a room specific content folder for project specific
documents within the rooms.
For the correspondent KM Repository folder you need to perform the following
configuration steps:

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 • Define an external parameter “foldername” that allows a room owner to
configure the name of the project folder within the room creation process.
• Add a CM Room Extension configuration entry responsible for the
creation of the folder in the CM backend system and for the setting of KM
permission on folder level.
• Assign the preconfigured folder structure (see 3.3) in the CM Room
Extension to assure that this initial content is published in the project
folder.

8. Check the configuration of the

General and Role data
• Select Content Administration

Collaboration Content
Room
Template Administration and edit
your Project Rooms template.
• Check in the General tab if you
want to keep the entries.
• In the Roles tab you should
remove the project lead role.
• Assign the “Document” page to
the Member role.

9. Configure an external parameter

• Open the Parameter tab
• Add a new external parameter:
• foldername
• Add as description: Please fill
in a name for your project
folder

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10. Configure the extensions
• If you open the Extension tab
you can find all original
extensions that were used for
the original template.
• Remove the following entries:
o Documents
o Events
o Linklist
o Session
• The configuration entries
Milestones and News are
needed for the Project Home
page.
11. Add a new configuration entry of
the CM Room Extension
• Name: Documents
• Add the Extension Point
On_Create_Room

12. Configure the Input Parameter

Store
• Select the Documents store.
Hint: Sap delivers predefined stores.
New ones can be configured in the
Collaboration Configuration under
System Administration
System
Configuration
Knowledge
Management
Collaboration
Room

Stores

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These stores define preconfigured
folders in the CM repository, in which the
extension creates the subfolders for data
from rooms or room parts.
In the example (see screenshot to the
right) there are three different folders
created under workspaces that might
come from different rooms.

13. Configure the Input Parameter

Template
• Select ProjectRoom_Templates
ProjectRoom_Templates is the
configuration object created in
section 3.3. It points to
preconfigured content , which is to
be published in the room folder.

14. Configure Input Parameter

Workspace Name
• Select the external parameter
“foldername” created in a
previous step.
The Workspace Name will be the
name of the folder displayed in the
collaboration room. As it is an
external parameter it will be defined
in the creation phase of each room.

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15. Configure the Input Parameter
Access
• Select “Private” from Value Help
Private means that the permissions
are set for room members. Public
would mean that the everyone group
would get read permission, which is
the correct configuration for the
public documents area within rooms.

16. Configure the Input Parameter Entry

Point
• Leave it with “No Value” which
means by default “Yes”.
If you enable the Entry Point
parameter, the created folder is
displayed within the Entry Points
Current Room and My Rooms.
• Dependence: Leave it with “No
Value” as there are no
dependencies.

17. Configure the Output Parameter

Workspace Path
• Check the Mapped checkbox
and name it documents_path
This output parameter will be used
for the mapping of the iView
parameters.
Click OK.

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18. Add the ON_DELETE_ROOM
Extension Point
Go to the cmRoomExtensionSP2FP
of Documents and add
ON_DELETE_ROOM extension
Point.
You don’t need to do specific
configuration for that Extension
Point.
19. Configure the parameter mappings
1. Go to tab Mappings
• You can configure the necessary
iView parameter mappings page
by page
• As the first three pages are
copied from an existing template,
the mapping parameters are
already configured
2. Open the page “Document” and
maintain the following entries:
iView:
com.sap.netweaver.coll.RoomI
nformationExtended
com_sap_netweaver_coll_inform
ation_roomid = room_id
iView:
com.sap.netweaver.coll.docu
ments_2_level
path = documents_path
roomed = room_id
StartUri = documents_path

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20. Configure permissions
• Go to tab Permissions
• You can leave the Permissions
screen empty
Permissions can be set if you want to
restrict the usage of the Template for
the Collaboration Room Creation. No
configuration means that there is no
restriction.

3.5 Validate the new Room Template

If you have created your room template you can validate it to check basic configuration
settings. If the validation doesn’t report errors you should still test the template by
creating a room based on it.

21. Validate Template

• Select Content Administration ->
Collaboration Content -> Room
Template Administration
• In the context menu or your
template select Validate
• You get a report that shows you
warnings (exclamation marks)
that can be cleaned up. The
warnings are referencing on
iViews and pages that were
deleted after copying the original
Collaboration Room Template.
• The information (i) section can
be ignored also

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22. Create a room
• Select Content Administration

Collaboration Content
Room
Creation and create a room with
the newly created
Project_Rooms Template
• Open the room and check if
everything is working.

If you navigate to the Document

page you should access the
room Folder with the name you
have assigned by creating the
room (HowtoGuide in the
example). Please check also for
the availability of the initial folder
structure maintained in 3.3

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