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Understanding search forms in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.7 Kathleen Murray Software Engineer IBM Software Group Mulhuddart, Ireland June 2009 © Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2009. All rights reserved. Summary: This white paper describes the search forms encountered when using IBM® Workplace Collaborative Learning™ 2.7 and how to use them, including information on the search syntax supported, ACLs, and custom fields. Contents 1 Overview.......................................................................................................................... 2 2 Portlets containing Search forms ..................................................................................... 2 3 Course Management searches .......................................................................................... 3 3.1 Search by user ........................................................................................................... 3 3.2 Search by course ....................................................................................................... 5 3.3 Search filtering .......................................................................................................... 7 4 Searching the Course Catalog .......................................................................................... 9 5 Catalog Management searches ....................................................................................... 13 5.1 Keyword search ...................................................................................................... 13 5.2 Advanced search ..................................................................................................... 14 5.3 Scheduled Offering search forms............................................................................ 15 6 Search within reports ..................................................................................................... 18 6.1 User search .............................................................................................................. 18 6.2 Course search .......................................................................................................... 19 7 Resource searches .......................................................................................................... 19 8 Search within the Users portlet ...................................................................................... 22 8.1 Manage Users portlet .............................................................................................. 22 9 Search within the Skills portlet ...................................................................................... 25 9.1 Skills Management portlet ...................................................................................... 25 9.2 Career Development portlet .................................................................................... 29 10 Other considerations .................................................................................................... 30 10.1 Search syntax ........................................................................................................ 30 10.2 Access control lists ............................................................................................... 31 10.3 Custom fields ........................................................................................................ 31 11 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 34 12 Resources ..................................................................................................................... 34 About the author ............................................................................................................... 35

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Page 1: IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2public.dhe.ibm.com/software/dw/lotus/WCL2.7_SearchFinal.pdf · 1 Overview IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.7 (hereafter called “Collaborative

Understanding search forms in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.7 Kathleen Murray Software Engineer IBM Software Group Mulhuddart, Ireland June 2009 © Copyright International Business Machines Corporation 2009. All rights reserved. Summary: This white paper describes the search forms encountered when using IBM® Workplace Collaborative Learning™ 2.7 and how to use them, including information on the search syntax supported, ACLs, and custom fields. Contents 1 Overview.......................................................................................................................... 2 2 Portlets containing Search forms ..................................................................................... 2 3 Course Management searches.......................................................................................... 3

3.1 Search by user ........................................................................................................... 3 3.2 Search by course ....................................................................................................... 5 3.3 Search filtering.......................................................................................................... 7

4 Searching the Course Catalog.......................................................................................... 9 5 Catalog Management searches....................................................................................... 13

5.1 Keyword search ...................................................................................................... 13 5.2 Advanced search ..................................................................................................... 14 5.3 Scheduled Offering search forms............................................................................ 15

6 Search within reports ..................................................................................................... 18 6.1 User search.............................................................................................................. 18 6.2 Course search .......................................................................................................... 19

7 Resource searches .......................................................................................................... 19 8 Search within the Users portlet ...................................................................................... 22

8.1 Manage Users portlet .............................................................................................. 22 9 Search within the Skills portlet ...................................................................................... 25

9.1 Skills Management portlet ...................................................................................... 25 9.2 Career Development portlet.................................................................................... 29

10 Other considerations .................................................................................................... 30 10.1 Search syntax ........................................................................................................ 30 10.2 Access control lists ............................................................................................... 31 10.3 Custom fields ........................................................................................................ 31

11 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 34 12 Resources ..................................................................................................................... 34 About the author ............................................................................................................... 35

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1 Overview IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.7 (hereafter called “Collaborative Learning”) contains many search forms throughout its UI. This document lists all the Collaborative Learning portlets that contain various search options along with the type of search encountered. Further information is supplied on each of these searches, including how menu options work, the search syntax supported, and how results are displayed. Also included is additional information to consider when you use these search forms, for example, ACL’s and Custom Fields.

2 Portlets containing Search forms Table 1 lists the Collaborative Learning portlets and their associated search forms. Table 1. Collaborative Learning portlets and associated search forms Portlets Search Encountered Course Management

• Results & Courses • Enrollments & Invitations

• Search by User o Basic o Advanced

• Search by Course o Basic o Advanced

Course Catalog • Basic • Advanced

Catalog Management • Masters Catalog

o Manage Masters

• Offerings Catalog o Manage Offerings

o Scheduled Offerings

• Keyword • Advanced

• Keyword • Advanced

• Instructor Search – Offering Level • Location Search – Offering Level • Room Search – Booking Level • Instructor Search – Booking Level

Reports

• Manage Reports

• User Search • Course Search

Resources • Manage Resources

o Manage Location o Manage Room o Manage Vendor o Manage Instructor

• Location Search • Room Search • Vendor Search • Instructor Search

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Users • Manage Users

• User Search

Skills • Skills Management

• Career Development

• Job Search • Skill Search • Course Search • User Search

3 Course Management searches The following sub-sections describe the two search options available within the Course Management area. Both the Results and Courses and Enrollments and Invitations contain the same two search options, “by user” and “by course”. Managing results by user lets an administrator or instructor specify the user first and then specify a single course in which that user is enrolled. Managing results by course lets an Administrator or Instructor specify the course first, and then specify one or more users who are enrolled in that course.

3.1 Search by user To manage results for a given user or to enroll a user in a course, the first step is to search for a user. You do this by selecting an attribute by which to search and then specify a value for this attribute. Attributes include: Simple Search:

• All Attributes example: Sales (any user attribute value) • First Name example: Fred • Last Name example: Jones • User ID example: fred_jones

Advanced Search:

• First Name • Last Name • User ID • Common Name • City • State • Country • Office Phone • Email Address • Organization • Department Number • Role • Skill

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The values of these attributes are contained within user records in the learning database (USR database table) and can be viewed in the Users portlet within Collaborative Learning. When using Advanced Search, you can combine any number of attributes to refine your search, and you can easily delete them by selecting the bin/trash icon next to the condition. Here is an example of using Advanced Search:

1. Within the “Search by user” section, click the Advanced Search link. 2. From the drop-down list, select the First Name attribute and enter the value

“John” (see figure 1). 3. Click the Add a Condition link. 4. From the second drop-down list, select the Last Name attribute and enter the

value “M*”. 5. Click the Add a Condition link. 6. From the third drop-down list, select the Organization attribute and enter the

value “ibm.com”. Figure 1 shows all three conditions using the Advanced Search. Figure 1. Advanced Search conditions

7. Now click the Search button. 8. The search returns all rostered users with first name =John, last name = any last

names beginning with “M”, and within an organization = ibm.com (see figure 2).

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Figure 2. Search by User results

9. Select a user from this list and click the Manage button. A list of courses in which that user is enrolled appears within the Results and Courses portlet, or the Search by Course option appears in the Enrollments and Invitations portlet.

To go back to using the basic search, simply select the Simple Search link, or use the topmost breadcrumb links.

3.2 Search by course To manage results for a user(s) in a given course or to enroll users in a particular course, the first step is to search for a course. You do this by selecting an attribute on which to search and then specifying a value for this attribute. Attributes include the following: Simple Search:

• All Attributes example: Java (any term or phrase can be specified) • Course example: Java™ Basics (Course Title) • Course ID example: JV101 (Course Code)

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• Curriculum example: Test Curriculum (Curriculum Title) • Curriculum ID example: curr001 (Curriculum Code) • Certificate example: Test Certificate (Certificate Title) • Certificate ID example: cert001 (Certificate Code)

Advanced Search:

• Keyword • Title • ID • City • State/Province • Country • Description • Start Date • End Date • Language • All Attributes

These attributes take the values from the course details created in the Catalog Management portlet and can be viewed by administrators or course managers. When using Advanced Search, you can combine any number of attributes to refine your search. When combining course attributes, you also must select from the following conditions:

• Contains. The attribute chosen contains this value. • Contains this phrase. The attribute chosen contains this phrase. • Does not contain. The attribute chosen does not contain this value. This

condition is available only when a second attribute is added to refine the search. This is because the condition is not allowed to be used alone and must be combined with something meaningful.

NOTE: The “Type” attribute is added to the list of searchable options from the second condition onwards. Here is an example of using the advanced search:

1. Within the Search by Course section, click the Advanced Search link. 2. From the drop-down list, select the Title attribute, select Contains, and enter the

value “Java” (see figure 3). 3. Click the Add a Condition link. 4. From the second drop-down list, select the Title attribute, select Does not

contain, and enter the value “Basic”. 5. Continue adding conditions as follows:

• City attribute, select Contains, and enter the value “Derry”. • Description attribute, select Contains this Phrase, and enter the value

“Advanced Java Programming”. • Start Date attribute, select “is”, and enter the value “21/04/2009”.

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Figure 3. Search by Course results

6. Click the Search button. 7. The search returns all available courses in the course catalog with a title that

contains “Java” but not “Basic”, being taught in the city of Derry, description that contains the phrase “Advanced Java Programming”, and has a start date of 21/04/2009.

8. Select the course returned and click the Manage button. 9. A list of users enrolled in this course is returned within the Results and Courses

portlet, or the Search by User option appears in the Enrollments and Invitations portlet.

NOTE: Searching for a course in this portlet uses a full text (FT) query search, so it follows the rules set out in Section 10.1, “Search syntax,” at the end of this document.

3.3 Search filtering This functionality allows the admin or instructor who is managing results to filter the list of already returned courses or users, narrowing down the search further. You can do this when searching by user or searching by course. When searching by user:

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1. Enter user information to search and click the Search button. 2. Select a user name and click the Manage button. 3. A list of courses in which the student is enrolled displays. 4. You also see the Find button on the right-hand side. This functionality is used to

filter through the courses displayed and pinpoint an exact course. 5. You can filter by using the following options:

• All Attributes – enter any term within the course details • Course Name • Course ID • Certificate Name • Certificate ID • Curriculum Name • Curriculum ID

6. Enter a search value into the dialog box to match the attribute by which to filter;

the results are displayed as shown in figure 4. Figure 4. Filter through course results

When searching by course:

1. Enter course information to search and click the Search button. 2. Select a course and click the Manage button. A list of users enrolled in the

course is displayed. 3. You will also see the ‘Find’ functionality on the right-hand side. This is used to

filter through the users to pinpoint an exact user or group of users. 4. You can filter using the following options:

• All Attributes – any user search term • First Name • Last Name • User ID

5. Enter a search value into the dialog box to match the attribute by which to filter.

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6. The results are displayed, as shown in Figure 5. Figure 5. Filter through user results

4 Searching the Course Catalog The Course Catalog portlet lets you search or browse for available courses and other learning modules and display information about the modules found. When you search for modules containing a specific word or phrase, using the All Attributes field, results are sorted by relevance, with those courses containing the most occurrences of your search term appearing at the top of the list. The modules found during a search are available for that user to take. Modules that do not display during a search are courses that may have already expired, courses that are set to “Inactive”, or physical-type courses that do not yet have any scheduled offerings associated. The Course Catalog contains a number of options/attributes available to search, including: Basic Search:

• All Attributes – any word or phrase to find all courses containing that word or phrase in any field. You can use different search operators here, which are explained later in the Search Syntax section.

• Course Name • Course ID • Curriculum Name • Curriculum ID • Certificate Name • Certificate ID

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Advanced Search:

• Keyword • Title • ID • City • State/Province • Country • Start Date • End Date • Description • Language

When using Advanced Search, you can combine any number of attributes to refine the search. When combining course attributes, you also must select from the following conditions:

• Contains. The attribute chosen contains this value. • Does not contain. The attribute chosen does not contain this value. This

condition is only available when a second attribute is added to refine the search. This is because the condition is not allowed to be used alone and needs to be combined with something meaningful.

• Exact Match. The attribute chosen contains this value as an exact match. NOTE:

• The “Type” attribute is added to the list of searchable options from the second condition onwards.

• Searching for a course in this portlet uses a full text (FT) query search, so it

follows the rules set out in Search Syntax section later in this document. After you’ve entered your search criteria in the options available, click the Search button to perform the search on the course catalog. A list of results displays along with the amount of results, which can be displayed over several pages, depending on the quantity of the results found and how many can be displayed per page. To navigate through the search results, click the Next | Previous || Next | Last links as you go through each page. Note that “0 results found” always displays if the user does not have access to the offerings catalog; moreover, no course folders will display, so the user cannot browse through the catalog. Further details are in the Other Considerations – ACL’s section of this document. Another option available here, once a search has been completed, is that you can sort the results either by Name or by Type. Simply select your option from the drop-down list, as shown in figure 6, and the search results will be automatically updated.

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Figure 6. Sort Results by

When sorting results by Name, the results are listed alphabetically. When sorting results by Type, results are listed in the following order:

1. Curriculums are listed first, if contained in the results 2. Certificates 3. Online/Virtual Courses 4. Physical Courses 5. Blended Courses

Here’s an example of using the Course Catalog search:

1. Using Basic Search, enter the term “Java”, using the All Attributes field; all courses that contain the term “Java” are returned (see figure 7).

Figure 7. Basic Search Catalog results

2. Now, to refine the search further, click the Advanced Search link.

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3. In the first search condition, select “Title” from the drop-down menu and enter a value of “Basic” (see figure 8), to find any basic Java courses.

4. Click the Add a Condition link to add a second search option. Select “City” from the drop-down menu and enter a value of “Belfast”. This should find the Java courses that are being taught in Belfast only.

5. Click Add a Condition again to add a third search option. Select “End Date” from drop-down menu and enter a date (using the date picker) of April 14. This should find the Java courses that have an end date before April 14.

6. Click the Search button to refine the search with these conditions; the courses found that satisfy these conditions are displayed.

Figure 8. Advanced Search Catalog results

7. Now click the View Details link to find out further information about the course and its offerings. The Course Details page displays (see figure 9).

8. To view further offering and booking details, select the offering from the list and click the View Details button; enrollment is provided in either of the two View Details pages.

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Figure 9. Course Details page

5 Catalog Management searches Whenever you want to manage course masters or course offerings, there are three options available:

• Select the folders that contain the course • Use Keyword Search • Use Advanced Search

5.1 Keyword search For this search, you enter a course keyword to find the course or group of courses with this keyword. This search matches the value entered to that of the course keyword added during registration. You are also able to choose to run the search from the current folder or from all folders. If you enable the “Search from current folder” option, the search will only check courses within the current folder. If you don’t select a folder, all folders are searched. Figures 10 and 11 show the course lists before and after the keyword search is performed, respectively.

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Figure 10. Courses listed in folder before keyword search

Figure 11. Courses listed after keyword search

5.2 Advanced search Using this search, you can search on a combination of attributes including the following (see figure 12):

• Keywords • Course Number • Title

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• Language • Description • Type • Can be Scheduled – Any, True, or False. This value is selected when creating

the course master. • Delivery Medium – Any, Blended, Virtual, or Physical.

Figure 12. Advanced search screen

Again, as with the keyword search, you are able to choose whether you want to run the search from the current folder or from all folders. NOTE: The searches within this portlet do not use full text (FT) query search; therefore, an asterisk ‘*’ can be used on its own to find all courses in the catalog.

5.3 Scheduled Offering search forms Whenever you wish to manage course offerings for a classroom course and create scheduled offerings with booking requirements, the following search forms are encountered. At the Offering level: • Instructor search. You can add instructors who will be listed as teaching this

offering (see figure 13).

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Figure 13. Offering level Instructor Search screen

• Location search. You can add a location name as to where the offering is going to

be taught (see figure 14). The locations found in the search will already be added within the Resources portlet.

Figure 14. Offering Level Search Location screen

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At the Booking level, the application checks for conflicts in the resources associated calendar. • Room search. Searches for a room that can be booked for this booking duration

(see figure 15). Figure 15. Booking level Room search

• Instructor search. Searches for an instructor available to be booked for this booking

duration (see figure 16). Figure 16. Booking level Instructor search

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6 Search within reports When you wish to generate reports, for example “Course progress by User”, a search is usually encountered. The most common searches within this portlet are:

• User searches • Course searches

6.1 User search This search includes a number of user attributes that can be used in combination to find the students on which you wish to report. The attributes included in this search include (see figure 17):

• First Name • Last Name • User ID • Common Name • Email Address • Organization • Department Number • Role • Skill

Figure 17. User Search within Reports portlet

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6.2 Course search This search requires some course information to be provided in order to find certain courses for reporting purposes. The attributes involved in this search include (see figure 18):

• Keyword • Starts After – when given, this should find courses that start after this date • Ends Before – when given, this should find courses that end before this date • Course Number • Course Title • City • State/Province • Country • Course Type – Course, Certificate, or Curriculum

Figure 18. Course Search within Reports portlet

NOTE: The searches within this portlet do not use FT query search; therefore, an asterisk ‘*’ can be used on its own to find all courses in the catalog.

7 Resource searches When an administrator wants to manage any resources available in the system, a search is required to find the resource. There are four different resource searches, each of which can take either a single option or a combination of fields:

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• Location search. Enter the Name and/or City/State and Country of the location (see figure 19)

Figure 19. Resource –Search Location screen

• Room search. Enter the Name, Capacity, or Number of Computers, and choose the

room type (see figure 20):

o Classroom o Conference Room o Auditorium o Lab

Figure 20. Resource – Search Room screen

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You can also find a room within a certain location, thereby searching for a location and then searching for the rooms within this location. There is also the option to find a contact and list all rooms that this contact manages.

• Vendor search. Enter the Name and/or City/State/Country of the vendor (figure 21) Figure 21. Resource – Search Vendor screen

• Instructor search. Enter First Name, Last Name, and/or Second Name. You can

also search for a vendor and then list all instructors within this vendor, along with the option to search for instructors by selecting an instructor group, skill, or zone (see figure 22).

Figure 22. Resource – Search Instructor screen

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Again, the searches within this portlet do not use FT query search; therefore, an asterisk ‘*’ can be used on its own to find all resources in the system. NOTE: Access Control Lists (ACL’s) are used to control access to rooms and locations. If no results are returned when you do a resource search, verify that you’ve been added to the ACL. More information on this can be found in Section 5, Access Control Lists, of the developerWorks® white paper, “User Management in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning V2.7”.

8 Search within the Users portlet The Users portlet contains many search pages, but only one search type is available here and that is a User search. This search is used for many reasons including finding users to roster, searching for rostered users to manage roles and permissions, and managing partitions.

8.1 Manage Users portlet This portlet contains three areas of User search: • Roster Users • Manage Users • Manage Partitions Roster Users This area includes two searches and takes the information from the User Registry:

• User search (roster one or more users), as shown in figure 23. Figure 23. Roster Users

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• Group search (roster one or more groups), as shown in figure 24. Figure 24. Roster Groups

Manage Users This area includes only one User search (see figure 25). This information is taken from our User Registry and the USR database table to find its results, like all user searches found throughout the UI. Figure 25. Manage Users

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This search is used to find rostered users, manage the roles assigned, and to “de-roster” a user from this portlet. Manage Partitions Partitioning lets you segregate users in such a way that users in one logical division (for example, organization, organizational unit, or department) have no visibility to the users in another logical division. If a user has not been assigned a partition, they will be able to search for users who exist anywhere in the user registry. To limit how much of the user registry a user can access, the administrator can create a partition, assign this partition to the user, and assign this new partition to other users as well. This area includes User searches within the following links:

• Manage Attribute-Based Partitions by User • Manage Directory-Based Partitions by User

Figure 26. Manage Partitions User Search

For more information on user search, rostering, and partitioning, refer to the developerWorks white paper, “User Management in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning V2.7.”

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9 Search within the Skills portlet The skills area contains two portlets, Skills Management and Career Development, each containing a number of search options.

9.1 Skills Management portlet The administrator can create a job, skill, and rating scale within this portlet as well as associating a job to a skill, a skill to a course, and a rating scale to a skill. All these functions will encounter a search at some point. Under the Skills Dictionary tab, there are a number of search screens: Job view. The jobs page is used to create new jobs, work with existing jobs, and associate skills with jobs. To search for existing jobs:

1. Click the Find Jobs button; the Search page appears, as shown in figure 27. 2. Here you can enter a Job name, Job description, and/or Job ID. (An asterisk ‘*’

can be used on its own in all fields, to find all jobs available in the system. Figure 27. Find Jobs page

3. Click the Search button to find jobs. 4. Now select a job from the results displayed and click OK; the job details display

(see figure 28). 5. From this screen you can also associate a skill to this job, so a skill search is

encountered.

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Figure 28. Job details

6. Click the Add Existing Skills button; the Find Skills screen displays. 7. Here you can enter the skill details or simply use the ‘*’ to retrieve all skills. 8. Select a skill and click OK; the skill is now listed within the Job details. 9. Click the Save Job and Skills button to save this association.

Skills view. The skills page is used to create new skills, work with existing skills, and associate rating scales with skills. To search for existing skills:

1. Click the Find Existing Skills button; the search page appears (see figure 29). 2. Here you can enter a Skill name, Skill description, and/or Skill ID. You can also

enter any term in the Search All field to find all skills containing that word or phrase in any field.

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Figure 29. Find Skills page

• The asterisk ‘*’ can be used on its own in all fields to find all skills available in the system.

3. Click the Search button to find skills. 4. You can then select a skill from the results displayed and click OK; this will

display the skill details. Note that these searches do not use FT query search; therefore, an asterisk ‘*’ can be used on its own to find all skills/jobs in the system. Under the Courses tab, there are some more search options. The functionality within this tab enables the user to associate courses with skills and to view the skills and courses that are associated with a job. To associate courses with a skill, select “A Skill” from the drop-down menu, as shown in figure 30. Figure 30. Courses tab

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1. Click the Find Skill button to enter into search mode; the Find Skills search page displays.

2. Enter specific skill information, if known, or enter ‘*’ in any field to search for all skills in the system.

3. Click the Search button to begin searching; the results are displayed, with the number of results also shown.

4. Select a skill and click OK; the skill details are displayed (see figure 31). 5. Within this page you can associate a course to this skill by entering into another

search page. Figure 31. Skill details

6. Select a proficiency level within the skill and then click the Add Courses button. 7. The Find Courses search page displays, as shown in figure 32. The options

available for search include:

• Search all – any term or phrase can be entered to find all courses with this term or phrase

• Description • Type – Course, Curriculum, Certificate, Online (Virtual) Course, Classroom

(Physical) Course, LVC (Live Virtual Classroom) Course • Name • Number (Course number/ID)

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NOTE: Searching for a course in this search page uses a full text (FT) query search, so the asterisk ‘*’ cannot be used on it’s own like the other searches in this portlet. It can, however, be used to represent part of a string, for example, cou*. Figure 32. Find Courses Page

8. Click the Search button to start the search; results are displayed, with the number of results found also shown.

9. Select a course and click OK; the course is now associated to the skill. 10. Click OK again to save these changes.

9.2 Career Development portlet This portlet lets you add specific skills and jobs to employees, so a user search is required. To search for rostered users/employees, click the Find Employees button on this page.

You can search based on any of these attributes—single option or combination (see figure 33):

• Search all – any word or phrase to find all users containing that word or phrase in any field. You can use different search syntax operators here, which are explained in Search Syntax section.

• First name • Last name • Common name • User ID • Email address • Department number • Organization • Job • Skill

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• LDAP Attribute – allows you to select people from the LDAP directory using LDAP attributes.

Figure 33. Find Employees

Also in this search page, you can indicate how many “Results per page” are displayed by entering a number in the Results per page field. The results are displayed in alphabetical order by first name.

10 Other considerations Lets’ discuss some other considerations before concluding.

10.1 Search syntax As the course catalog grows, the results list returned from a search can become large, so you may want to refine your search. Operators/Search syntax lets you combine words relating to specific courses while excluding any terms in courses that you don’t want returned, thus making the results more specific to the course you wish to search for. Collaborative Learning uses the same supported syntax as Portal Search Center, which follows the guidelines as described in SIAPI query syntax, including:

• A single word (for example, Java). • A partial word ending in the asterisk (*) wildcard (for example, Ja*) to specify that

the source must contain at least that portion of the word. • A phrase enclosed in quotation marks (for example, “Basic Java”) to specify that

the source must contain the entire phrase. Only courses containing all phrase terms in the same order will be retrieved.

• Multiple words separated by spaces (for example, Test Java) to specify that the source must contain at least one of the words (the operation is typically handled

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using the ‘OR’ operator, finds results that contain either term but doesn’t need both).

• A word proceeded by the plus signs (+) to specify that the source must contain all of the words (for example, +Test +Java , will return all courses with “Test” and “Java” together in the same course but will not return courses with only one of these terms).

• A word proceeded by the minus sign (-) to specify that the source must not contain that word (for example, Java -Test, will return all course with ‘Java’ but does not contain the term ‘Test’). It is important to note here that you must find some results before you can begin to exclude results.

The operators are evaluated in the order in which they are presented; for example, in the case of “+java –database” the + operator will be evaluated before the – operator. This supported syntax can be used in any of the searches that use a FT search. NOTE: The SIAPI syntax is not used by any of the database searches.

10.2 Access control lists ACLs are used to control access to the masters and offerings folders, as well as to resources such as rooms and locations, since these functions are part of the system and are, by default, available to users with all roles. When using any searches that involve finding courses or resources, ACL’s will come into play. If the user carrying out the search has not been added to the Offerings Catalog ACL when trying to find courses, then the user will not be able to find any search results. The same goes for finding resources. An access level of Read is the minimum access level needed to find courses. The administrator usually should give student users Read access to the Offerings Catalog. For more information on ACL’s and how to add them, refer to Section 5 of the User Management in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning V2.7 white paper. Note that “0 results found’ always displays if the user does not have access to the offerings catalog. Likewise, no course folders are displayed in the course catalog so that the user cannot browse through the catalog.

10.3 Custom fields The addition of custom fields in the UI is supported in Collaborative Learning 2.7.x, and since custom fields can be created as being “searchable”, they can be used in course or resource searches. When course offerings include searchable custom fields, the addition of these custom fields to the search form include the following: • Catalog Management > Manage Offerings > Advanced Search. In this search

page the custom field is displayed (see figure 34), and you have the option to add a value to this field to further refine your search results.

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Figure 34. Manage Offerings > Advanced Search showing searchable custom field

• Course Catalog > Advanced Search. The advanced search drop-down menu lists

the custom field (see figure 35). Figure 35. Course Catalog > Advanced Search

• Course Management > Search by Course > Advanced Search. The advanced

search drop-down menu lists the custom field (see figure 36).

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Figure 36. Course Management > Advanced Search

When a room resource includes searchable custom fields, the custom fields are added to the following search forms: • Resources > Manage Rooms (see figure 37). Figure 37. Resource > Manage Rooms

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• Manage Offerings > Offering > Scheduled Offering > Add a Booking Requirement > Select Room (see figure 38)

Figure 38. Adding Booking requirement

11 Conclusion This white paper provides the information you need to understand how the various search form fields and conditions work together and the search syntax supported. The search forms discussed include the following:

• Search by User and by Course within Course Management • Basic and Advanced searches within Course Catalog • Catalog Management, Resource and Report searches • User searches • Job, Skills and course searches within Skills Management

We also covered some other considerations when using search forms, including ACL’s (controlling the information returned in a search) and custom fields (additional fields that can be added to the search forms). 12 Resources • Participate in the discussion forum. • Read the developerWorks® Lotus article, "Introducing the new learning content

management features in IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning V2.7."

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• Refer to the IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.7 Information Center. • Read the developerWorks white paper, “Results management in IBM Workplace

Collaborative Learning V2.7.” • developerWorks Lotus Learning product page.

About the author Kathleen Murray is a Software Engineer at the IBM Dublin Software Lab. She joined IBM in 2003, working on Workplace Messaging 1.1 and Workplace Collaborative Learning for 5 years, and has been one of the lead testers involved in the past three releases of the product. She currently works on the LotusLive Meetings and Events test team. In 2006, Kathleen co-authored the IBM Redbooks® publication, IBM Workplace Collaborative Learning 2.6. She holds a First Class Bsc(Hons) degree in Computing Science and a Diploma in Industrial Studies, and has also attained certification in Java Developer (SCJP). Trademarks • developerWorks, IBM, Redbooks, and Workplace Collaborative Learning are

trademarks or registered trademarks of IBM Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both.

• Java and all Java-based trademarks and logos are trademarks or registered trademarks

of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States, other countries, or both. • Other company, product, and service names may be trademarks or service marks of

others.

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