Analyzing and Presenting Business Data

Objectives

In this session, you will learn to:

Introduce portal sites
Develop a portal site

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Introducing Portal Sites

An organization grows only if it caters to the needs of all the

business stakeholders associated with it.
The needs of various stakeholders are:
Employees: Need access to the relevant information from
anywhere and at anytime
Customers: Need information about the product and services
offered by an organization
Promoters and executive management: Needs information to
monitor the growth, and to compare organization’s
performance with competitors
Business partners: Need business information to explore
opportunities

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Introducing Portal Sites (Contd.)

Portal sites:
Connect people to business critical information, expertise, and
applications.
Provide a single access point over the Internet\Intranet that
enables the stakeholders to quickly access relevant business
information.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Types of Portal Sites

Depending upon the range of users, portal sites are

categorized in the following types:
Horizontal portal sites:
Service a broader range of users and industrial sectors.
Include websites such as search engines and news sites.
Vertical portal sites:
Deal with a specific industry or topic of interest.
Provide users with information and features specific to the needs
of a particular industry.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Types of Portal Sites (Contd.)

The following portal sites cater to the needs of the various

business stakeholders:
Business-to-Employees (B2E) portal sites
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) portal sites
Business-to-Business (B2B) portal sites

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Types of Portal Sites (Contd.)

Business-to-Employees (B2E) portal site:

Is designed for B2E processes.
Enables the employees to access, and share information within
the enterprise.
Provides access to:
Business data
E-mails
Organizational news
Organizational search

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Types of Portal Sites (Contd.)

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) portal site:

Is consumer-oriented.
Is designed for B2C processes.
Helps the customers to be aware of the new products and
services offered by an organization.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Types of Portal Sites (Contd.)

Business-to-Business (B2B) portal site:

Is meant for different business organizations.
Includes online marketplaces.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site

Features of a portal site depend upon the stakeholders, it is

created for. Some of the common features are:
Document management
News management
Reports management
Search management
Subsites management

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site (Contd.)

The document management feature:

Is generally included in collaboration portals that are used by
enterprises for collaboration between the employees.
Enables users to maintain and share documents.
Is an important feature of a B2E portal site.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site (Contd.)

The news management feature:

Can be used in B2E as well as in B2C portal sites.
Is used for publishing news articles and links to news articles.
Helps business stakeholders to update themselves with
important and latest information regarding the organization.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site (Contd.)

The reports management feature:

Is important for all types of portal sites.
Enables business stakeholders to see reports for various
purposes.
Enables users to use dashboards and KPIs (Key Performance
Indicators) for:
Organizing and presenting real-time information in an
easy-to-analyze format.
Monitoring personal or organizational goals.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site (Contd.)

The search management feature:

Is common to all types of portal sites.
Is used to search contents within a portal site.
Also provides advance search, which can be used to narrow
down the search.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Common Features of a Portal Site (Contd.)

The subsites management feature:

Enables you to list and categorize sites.
Helps you to organize different sites by grouping them into
categories.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Developing a Portal Site

Portal sites have emerged as an essential requirement for

business organizations.
Creating portal sites is a time-consuming process because
it requires programming as well as designing skills.
Various tools that reduce the effort and time in creating
portal sites are there. One such tool is MOSS 2007.
MOSS 2007 provides a framework for creating portal sites
with minimal or no coding.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Components of a Portal Site

To develop a portal site, you need to first decide upon the

basic structure of the site.
The basic structure involves the appearance and the
components that are required to display information in a
site.
A portal site comprises of the following components:
Frond-end
Back-end
Security
Subsites

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Components of a Portal Site (Contd.)

Front-end:
Refers to that part of an application, which is used to display
information or gather inputs from a user.
Refers to the user interface of a portal site.
Is created by using the following visual components:
Web Page: A Web page is a resource of information that can be
accessed through a Web browser.
Web Parts: Web Parts are reusable components that can present
information such as pictures, static text, or information from
worksheets or databases.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Components of a Portal Site (Contd.)

Back-end:
Comprises of the components that process the output from the
front-end.
Security:
Is required to prevent unauthorized access to the confidential
information of an organization.
Can be achieved by using the authentication feature of a portal
site.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Components of a Portal Site (Contd.)

Subsites:
Are used when information about the business units of an
organization is to be displayed in a portal site .
Enable an organization to separate business unit information in
its portal site.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Exploring the User Interface of a Portal Site

The user interface of a portal site contains the following

components:
Navigational components: Are used to move from one Web
page to another
Search components: Enable a user to search for specific
contents in a portal site
Login components: Provide the options for logging in and
logging out of a portal site

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Customizing a Portal Site

A portal site is customized according to the requirements of

an organization.
A portal site can be customized by using the following
components:
Views: It allow a user to look at the same data in different
ways. It enables you to customize information in a data
repository according to your preferences.
Themes: It is a set of design elements such as colors and
fonts. It provides a consistent appearance to a site.
Personalization: It is the process of customizing a portal site
according to specific users or roles.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Creating a Portal Site by Using MOSS 2007

Portal sites can either be created by using a template, if

provided, or by creating it from scratch.
MOSS 2007 provides the following templates to create a
portal site:
Collaboration portal: It is a site hierarchy that is meant for
collaboration between the teams in an organization.
Publishing portal: It is a site hierarchy that is meant for
publishing information and Web pages with approval
workflows.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Creating a Portal Site by Using MOSS 2007 (Contd.)

A site template:
Is used to create websites that are based on the structure of
the template.
Contains the design, structure, or content of a site.
Enables a user to have a consistent professional look
throughout a portal site.
Provides an efficient way to create site collections because
users need not to set up their sites from scratch.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Demo: Customizing a Portal Site

Problem Statement:
Kimberly’s has certain limitations in their current information
system. To overcome these limitations, Kimberly’s needs to
have a single interface from where they can get all the
business-related information.
The top management at Kimberly’s consults the situation with
an IT consultant, who suggests them to use portal sites. The
Information System developer in the consultant’s company
creates a default portal without any customizations and shows
it to the management.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Demo: Customizing a Portal Site (Contd.)

Problem Statement (Contd.):

Kimberly’s management asks for the following customizations
in the portal site:
The home page of the portal site must have the organization’s
logo at the left side.
The home page of the portal site must have the overview of the
organization.
The theme of the portal site should be appealing.
You need to customize the portal site according to the
management’s requirements.

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Summary

In this session, you learned that:

Portal sites are used to connect people to business critical
information, expertise, and applications.
Depending upon the range of users, portal sites are
categorized into:
Horizontal portal sites: These sites service a broader range of
users and industrial sectors.
Vertical portal sites: These sites deal with a specific industry or
topic of interest.
There are specific portal sites that cater to the needs of various
business stakeholders. These are:
Business-to-Employees (B2E) portal sites - For Employees
Business-to-Consumer (B2C) portal sites - For Customers
Business-to-Business (B2B) portal sites - For Business Partners

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Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Summary (Contd.)

Most of the portal sites consist of some common features such

as:
Document management
News management
Reports management
Search management
Subsites management
A portal site comprises of:
Front-end
Back-end
Security
Subsites

Ver. 1.0 Slide 27 of 29

Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Summary (Contd.)

Most of the portal sites consist of some common user interface

components. These components are:
Navigational components
Search components
Login components
A portal site is customized according to the requirements of an
organization.
The following components can be used to customize a site:
Views
Themes
Personalization

Ver. 1.0 Slide 28 of 29

Analyzing and Presenting Business Data
Summary (Contd.)

To create a portal site, you first need to identify the purpose of

creating the site.
You can either select a template or create a site from scratch.
MOSS provides the following templates to create a portal site:
Collaboration portal
Publishing portal
Site templates are used to create websites that are based on
the structure of the template.

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