Best Practices for Portal Document Management Alan Levine Technical Director Oracle Consulting Session id: 40293 Jerome Garrett Chief, Metadata Branch

Best Practices for Portal Document Management

Alan LevineTechnical Director

Oracle Consulting

Session id: 40293

Jerome Garrett Chief, Metadata Branch

U.S. Census Bureau

Agenda

U.S. Census Bureau Portal Background Taxonomy Implementation User Interface Search and Retrieval Content Loading Portal 3.0.9.x to 9.0.2.6 Migration

Agenda


Why Does Census need Portals?

85% of data is unstructured*– Formal documents, meeting minutes, notes,

spreadsheets, presentations, … Need a tool that supports consistent search

and retrieval of unstructured data Want to eliminate the “Web Master

Bottleneck” Desire to capture the metadata (data about

the data) from unstructured content

*Source: CIO Insight, May 2003

Census Bureau Oracle Portal History

2000– First WebDB 2.2 implementation at Census

2001– 4 Portals in production (WebDB 2.2)– Migration to Portal 3.0.9.x

2002– 8+ Portals in production– Taxonomy 1.0

2003– Migration to Portal 9.0.2.6 started– Taxonomy 2.0

Portal Usage at the Census Bureau

Document Repository– Organizational repository– Specialty areas such as Quality Management,

Project Management, Software Engineering

Organizational Intranet presence Web site consolidation Help Desk Message Archive Front end to custom applications

Census Bureau Examples …

Field DirectoratePortal

Project ManagementRepository Portal

Quality ManagementRepository Portal

Human ResourcesDivision Portal

Current PopulationSurvey Portal

Agenda


Taxonomy Overview

What is a taxonomy*?– Method of classifying content and assigning

relationships– Division of content into ordered groups or

categories How will a taxonomy improve use of a Portal?

– Helps with organization of content into a hierarchy of folders

– Provides alternative ways of locating documents via use of searchable attributes

*Source: dictionary.reference.com

Census Bureau Taxonomy 1.0

Initial attempt to standardize document attributes across multiple Portals within the Census Bureau

Based on Portal out-of-the-box attributes and the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

Currently used in two production Portals at Census

Dublin Core Metadata Initiative

An open, international, consensus-driven association of metadata practitioners

Promotes the widespread adoption of interoperable metadata standards

Develops specialized metadata vocabularies See www.dublincore.org for more information

*Source: www.dublincore.org

http://www.dublincore.org/

A metadata standard for cross-domain information resource description

Dublin Core metadata can be assigned to any type of resource including documents

Consists of fifteen elements

Some overlap with Portal attributes

Title

Contributor

Source

Creator

Date

Language

Subject

Publisher

Relation

Description

Format

Coverage

Type

Identifier

Rights

Title

Contributor

Source

Creator

Date

Language

Subject

Publisher

Relation

Description

Format

Coverage

Type

Identifier

Rights

DCMI Element Set

Copyright © 1995-2003 DCMI All Rights Reserved.

http://www.dublincore.org/about/copyright/#copyright

http://dublincore.org/

Taxonomy 1.0 Implementation

Mapped DCMI Element Set to Portal out-of-the-box document attributes

Created custom attributes for non-mapped DCMI elements (10 out of 15)

Created BOC File, BOC Text, and BOC URL custom item types using Portal attributes and DCMI Element set

Removed File, Text, and URL as item types from Content Areas / Page Groups

Census Bureau Taxonomy 2.0

Shortcomings of Taxonomy 1.0– Lacked Census Bureau specific attributes– Was not easy to locate documents using Census

terminology

Taxonomy 2.0– Superset of Taxonomy 1.0– Adds Census specific document attributes– Will be more widely adopted

Taxonomy 2.0 Implementation

Comprised of four groups of attributes– Base Document Attributes (16)– Additional Dublin Core Attributes (8)– Project Management Attributes (3)– Census Software Process Improvement Attributes (3)

Only four required attributes Centrally maintained and “pushed” to target Portals Will be rolled out under Portal 9.0.2.6+ Some re-mapping of existing attributes will be

required

Taxonomy 2.0: BoCFile Item Attributes

Taxonomy 2.0: BoCFile Item Attributes

Example:Adding a BoC File Item



Agenda


Portal 3.0.9.x User Interface

Wanted to mix content (documents) and portlets on the same pages

Used Folder Portlets to expose Content Areas Often used Tabs to expose multiple content

areas via the same Page

Folder Portlet Example

Folder Portlet Challenges

Not all content management functionality exposed via the Folder Portlet

Needed to provide links into Content Area interface

Required training users in two interfaces Needed to provide navigation back to the

Page interface

Portal 9.0.2 User Interface

New terminology for 9.0.2– Folder == Page– Content Area == Page Group

All content management functionality now available via the Page interface

Non-technical users still want to view a hierarchy of pages as folders

Managing all content in a single Page Group is easy More challenging to expose multiple folder hierarchies

(Page Groups) via Tabs on a single page Requires use of Page Portlets in 9.0.2

Publishing Page Portlets

PageGroup 1

PageGroup 2

Publish Root Pageas a Portlet

Place Page Portletson “container” Pages

Page Group 0, Page X, Tab A Page Group 0, Page X, Tab B

Publish Root Pageas a Portlet

Page Portlets Uncovered

9.0.2.2 & 9.0.2.3– Only use Page Portlets for read only access– Edit functionality often takes the user outside the context of

the current page– ZIP and WebDAV limitations

9.0.2.6– Allows “in-place” editing of content including document

create/update/delete and page creation/deletion– Users can work within the Page Portlet and not leave the

context of the container page– ZIP and WebDAV fully supported

Page Portlet Example(in Edit mode)

Simplifying Page Portlet Use

Goal – provide a consistent user interface for non-technical users throughout a Page Group

3.0.9– Folder Portlets did not expose significant functionality– Most functionality controlled by styles– Users could easily create folders and documents

9.0.2– Far more functionality exposed to the non-technical user– Use Page Templates to provide a framework for managing

content on pages and providing consistency

Page Templates

Provide users with a standard structure for pages within one or more page groups

Strict enforcement or allow users to add to the templates

Control of page elements such as– Placement of navigational aides– Page Region attributes– Access control

Simple Page Template

Page Path (Bread Crumbs)

Sub-Pages (Folders)

Documents

Quick Picks

Provides basic functionality for document management

Page TemplateExample

Agenda


Search and Retrieval: 3.0.9

Relied on simple custom search Portlet– Modified HTML from the standard Search Portlet and

published as an HTML Portlet

Advanced Search available but not heavily used Used standard Search Results Page Experimented with the custom search API

Search and Retrieval: 9.0.2.6

All search interfaces based on the Custom Search Portlet

– More powerful and flexible than Advanced Search

Created “Basic Search Portlet” by modifying the HTML of a Custom Search Portlet

– Published as an HTML Portlet

Created “Advanced Search Page” by using Custom Search Portlet

Agenda


Content Loading

Loading 100’s or 1000’s of documents one at a time is time consuming

Much time is spent creating folders/pages, browsing for files on your PC, and waiting for the files to be uploaded

Portal supports use of ZIP files and WebDAV to simplify bulk loading of content

Still need to set attributes of individual items once loaded

Using ZIP Files

Supported since Portal 3.0 Two step process

1. Upload a ZIP file as a “ZIP item”2. Expand the ZIP item inside of the Portal

Automatically creates a folder/page hierarchy based on folder hierarchy in ZIP file

Automatically loads the items in a ZIP item into the appropriate Portal folders/pages

Warning: You are taken out of the context of the Portlet after expanding a ZIP item from a Folder/Page Portlet

Example:ZIP File Contents

Example:Create ZIP File Item

Example:Create ZIP File Item

Example:ZIP File Item Loaded

Example:Unzip file contents

Example:Unzip Log

Example:Unzip file contents

Using WebDAV

Functionality– Load and browse documents from Windows

Explorer– Edit items “in-place”

Enabling WebDAV– Out-of-the-box with Portal– Map Windows Web Folder to Portal

Example: WebDAVAccess to Portal

Agenda


Migration to Portal 9.0.2.6

Why Migrate? How to Migrate? How is Content Management impacted by the

migration?

Why Migrate to 9.0.2.6

Portal Enhancements such as …– WebDAV– Elimination of Content Areas– More robust user interface tools

9iAS R2 Features– Single Sign-On and OID integration– High Availability– Section 508 (Accessibility)

3.0.9.x

How to Migrate to 9.0.2.6

Migrate all at once– More room for error– More time consuming to

resolve issues– Big Bang Approach

3.0.9.x

DatabaseSSO

Middle TierRepository

Migrate incrementally– Issues easier to resolve– Built-in checkpoints mean less work

to redo– Increased probability of success

MigrateDatabase

Rununder

R2

MigrateSSO

MigrateRepository

Incremental 9.0.2.6 Migration

Patch Portal up to at least 3.0.9.8.3 (if necessary) Migrate 3.0.9.8.x Portal repository database from

Oracle 8.1.7 to Oracle 9.0.1.4 (if necessary) Run 3.0.9.8.x Portal repository under 9iAS 9.0.2

Middle Tier Install 9.0.2.6 middle-tier software Migrate SSO to 9.0.2.5 Upgrade Portal Repository from 3.0.9.8.x to 9.0.2.6 Upgrade Portal Repository database to Oracle 9.2

(optional)

Post 9.0.2.6 Migration Steps

Follow required steps from the documentation Additional user interface cleanup

– Much less than expected

Custom Portlet cleanup– A bit more than expected– Deprecated API’s were the main issue

Migration Concerns

What happens to my content areas? How will I manage so many pages after the

migration? What happens to my folder portlets? Will I have to re-map all of my folder portlets to their

respective pages? Will the migrated folder portlets still have the same

look and feel? How long will it take to recreate the same look and

feel after the migration?

Pre-Migration

Post-Migration

Pre-Migration

Post-Migration

Pre-Migration

Post-Migration

Content Area Migration

Content Areas become Page Groups Page Template created for each Page Group

– Page regions based on layout of Content Area– Attributes match Folder Styles

Folder Portlets become Page Portlets– Appropriate regions selected for display in Page

Portlet

Migrated Content Area

Page Template forPage Group

Select Regions forPage Portlet Display

Summary

Use a taxonomy to assist users with navigation and searches

– Too many mandatory attributes can discourage Portal use– Too few attributes might not add value– Sell the value of the taxonomy to your user community

Bulk upload tools reduce data load time– Still need to set document attributes

WebDAV simplifies document updates– Edit-in-place via Windows Explorer

Summary

Use Page Templates to provide a consistent user interface

– Within and across Page Groups– Make it easy enough for non-technical users

9.0.2 Custom Search Portlet offers significant improvements over 3.0.9 Advanced Search

Move to 9.0.2.6 for Document Management– Incremental migration is easiest

Requirements will change– Stay in touch with your user community

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Thank you.

Session id: 40293

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