Chapter 3 Understanding Communities and Collaboration

This topic describes the community and collaboration features that Portal Server provides for the Desktop to enhance the productivity of enterprises and their end users.

This topic provides the following sections:

• Services for End-User Communities

• Channels for End-User Collaboration

Services for End-User Communities

Portal Server enables end users to set up and participate in online communities, which are associations of members and services. Communities provide services and content on a long-term basis or a short-term basis. Three end-user roles are defined:

• Member—An end user who belongs to a community and interacts with a community's services and content

• Owner—The community member who starts and removes a community

• Visitor—An end user (and non-member) who views a community's services but does not interact with the services

The following community services are available:

• File Sharing—Community members can share files, create folders, and upload and download documents.

• Wiki—A wiki container and portlets enable a community to provide an interactive site for community-related content. Community members can edit existing pages and files, and community members can add new pages and files.

• Events and Tasks—Community members can use a community calendar built on Sun^TM Calendar Server software to track and edit community projects, tasks, and events.

• Survey and Polls—Community members can respond to surveys and view the results of surveys and polls. Question formats are multiple choice, yes or no, and open-ended.

• Discussions—Community discussions allow members to create, read, rate, replay, search and subscribe to online exchanges by community members.

• Search—Community members can search for content within the community's pages.

• Community Information—Community members can view general information about the community. Community owners can delete the community.

• Membership—Community members can view members who subscribe to the community. Community owners can delete members and transfer community ownership to another member.

Portal Server provides three templates for controlling which services a community provides and how the services are presented on the standard Desktop. The portal administrator uses the command-line interface to manage the templates.

Channels for End-User Collaboration

Portal Server offers four channels that enable end users to do the following:

• Communicate effectively and efficiently with others who use the same applications

• Organize and schedule tasks and appointments

The channels are the following:

• Mail—Displays mail messages sent to end users. Allows end users to view and manage mail messages.

• Address Book—Displays name and address entries. Allows end users to view and manage the entries.

• Calendar—Displays calendar events and tasks. Allows end users to view and manage the events and tasks.

• Instant Messaging—Displays the presence status of users with access to Sun Java^TM System Instant Messenger. Allows end users to conduct real-time communication with other end users on their contact list.

These portlets are not specific to portal community pages. They are also available for portal pages delivered to organizations, suborganizations, and roles.

End users use the Desktop to access these channels. By designing each channel's edit page, administrators control whether the end user can edit the communications channels. Options granted to end users are limited or extended. The administrator:

• Can configure channels to work without the need for end-user server configuration

• Can select which specific features end users can edit by using the channel's Edit button

• Can allow end users to configure a second channel, such as a mail application, on the Desktop, if a site provides more than one instance of a particular application