Who’s Who

The WebCenter Portal documentation is organized so that the tasks in a particular guide address a specific user persona. Each persona is associated with a set of skills required to work with WebCenter Portal, from basic to advanced.

This preface introduces you to the WebCenter Portal personas and describes the ways in which they might interact with WebCenter Portal. Each persona is assigned a default role provided out-of-the-box with WebCenter Portal. The default roles are given a unique set of permissions appropriate for the work that each persona will typically do. Note that you can modify these default roles or configure new roles to meet the unique needs of your organization.

The people who interact with WebCenter Portal typically work together as a team that is comprised of the following personas:

• Knowledge Worker

• Application Specialist

• Web Developer

• Developer

• System Administrator

This guide is aimed at the system administrator persona.

Knowledge Worker

Karen is a knowledge worker who typically uses WebCenter Portal to contribute and review content, participate in social interactions, and leverage the Home portal to manage her own documents and profile.

At the application level, Karen has permissions such as those granted to the default Authenticated-User role, which may be customized for the specific needs of the organization. At the portal level, the portal manager will likely assign Karen a role that includes View Pages and Customize Pages permissions.

For more information about roles and permissions, see About Roles and Permissions for a Portal in Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Knowledge Worker Tasks in WebCenter Portal

Tasks that are typical of a knowledge worker like Karen include:

• Editing and updating pages for which she has been assigned content contribution permissions

• Connecting to and collaborating with other WebCenter Portal users by sharing information, files, and links; and by interacting through mail, message boards, wikis, and blogs

• Uploading, sharing, and managing documents stored in Content Server

• Joining a team or project portal

• Keeping up with changes in WebCenter Portal by receiving notifications when content is updated, viewing the activities of the portals she is a member of and users she’s connected to, and monitoring WebCenter Portal RSS feeds

• Staying organized through the use of favorites, notes, calendars, lists, links to portal objects, and tags

As Karen becomes more familiar with the functionality available in WebCenter Portal, she may begin to perform more advanced tasks, such as creating portals. As a more advanced knowledge worker, her role may evolve to overlap with application specialist tasks.

Information targeted to knowledge workers like Karen is in Using Portals in Oracle WebCenter Portal. Advanced tasks that overlap with those of an application specialist are covered in Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Application Specialist

Ari is an application specialist who works in WebCenter Portal to create and administer portals, their structure (hierarchy of pages, navigation, security), and their content (components on a page, layout, behavior, and so on). In a typical project, Ari coordinates the efforts of Karen (knowledge worker), Wendy (web developer), and Dave (developer).

At the application level, Ari has permissions such as those granted to the default Application Specialist role, which may be customized for the specific needs of the organization. In a portal that Ari creates, he performs actions available to the Portal Manager role to manage the portal.

For more information about roles and permissions, see About Roles and Permissions for a Portal in Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Application Specialist Tasks in WebCenter Portal

Tasks that are typical of an application specialist like Ari include:

• Planning and creating new portals

• Editing and administering the portals he owns

• Creating and building portal pages using the page editor and the resource catalog to add and configure page components

• Creating and managing portal assets, tools, and services

• Managing shared assets and portal templates across all portals

Information targeted for application specialists like Ari is in Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal. To work with his personal view of the Home portal, Ari will also refer to Using Portals in Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Web Developer

Wendy is a web developer who focuses on delivering a consistent, branded look and feel to all portals. Wendy provides graphics designs and HTML markup from which Ari (application specialist in WebCenter Portal) or Dave (developer in JDeveloper) can create content or page style templates, skins, and so on. Once these assets are created, Ari can leverage them to create portal pages. Wendy typically does not interact with WebCenter Portal directly.

Web Developer Tasks in WebCenter Portal

Tasks that are typical of a web developer like Wendy include:

• Developing a corporate portal look and feel

• Designing new page templates

Information targeted to web developers like Wendy is in Creating a Look and Feel for Portals in Building Portals with Oracle WebCenter Portal.

Developer

Dave is a developer who is primarily responsible for developing components (such as task flows, page templates, and content templates), which are published and leveraged by Ari (the application specialist). Dave works with JDeveloper to develop and extend assets for use in WebCenter Portal.

Developer Tasks

Tasks that are typical of a developer like Dave include:

• Developing custom assets such page templates and resource catalogs for portals in WebCenter Portal

• Developing Java portlets

• Developing and deploying task flows, managed beans, and other custom components

• Developing custom personalization components

• Maintaining the source control system

• Maintaining a build system

Information targeted to developers like Dave is in Developing for Oracle WebCenter Portal.

System Administrator

Syed is a system administrator who fields requests from IT employees and business users to set up new machines; clone or back up existing applications systems and databases; install patches, packages, and applications; and perform other administration-related tasks. As the system administrator, Syed works with other tools such as Fusion Middleware Control and command line tools. He leverages Enterprise Manager to configure portal settings, and also configures integrations such as WebCenter Content and other Fusion Middleware products and Oracle applications.

In WebCenter Portal, he has permissions such as those granted to the default Administrator role, which provides exclusive access to administer and set global options for all portals (including the Home portal).

For more information about application level roles and permissions, see About Application Roles and Permissions in Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal.

System Administrator Tasks

Tasks that are typical of a system administrator like Syed include:

• Uses WebCenter Portal administration to administer all portals (including import and export of portals) and security site-wide

• Uses WebCenter Portal administration to manage site-wide system pages, business role pages, and personal pages

• Leads security, taxonomy, metadata, workflow, governance

• Uses the management console for administrative functions

• Executes command line utilities for administrative functions

• Installs and configures production versions of developers’ efforts

• Performs patching of the production versions and the operating system

• Creates clones and backups of the production versions

• Performs restores of production versions

• Monitors the operating system for issues with the production version

• Deploys and redeploys applications

Information targeted to system administrators like Syed is in Administering Oracle WebCenter Portal and WebCenter WLST Command Reference.