Administrating workspaces

Workspaces collect portlets together into a cohesive set of functionality for users to access.

Workspace administrators can use the workspace definition tools to add portlets to the workspace from the portlet library.

You can standardize the contents of a portlet across all users, or customize them based on the user type or even make a specific version of a workspace for a given user.

In order to create and edit workspaces, you must have the privileges granted by the gPortalPersonalizeUser privilege group.

In order to make the workspaces that you create available to others, you must have the privileges granted by the gPortalAdmin privilege group.

When you create a workspace, it is originally private. That is, it is visible and available only to you.

Creating workspaces

Use the Add Workspace dialog to create a new workspace in your application.

When you first create a workspace, it is private. That is, is it visible and available only to you. After you have designed the workspace, you can make it available to others by publishing it.

To create a new workspace:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Workspace > Add.
   The Create Workspace dialog opens.
3. Provide a caption name for the workspace that you are creating.
   This caption provides the tab name for the workspace as well. You can change the caption later.
4. Click OK.

The new workspace opens in the application. When it is created, it is a private workspace available only to you. You can now edit the workspace, adding portlets to it, and configuring their layout.

Customizing workspaces

Customizing a workspace creates a private copy of that workspace, visible only to you.

You can then use the portal toolbox to customize the workspace, adding and removing portlets, and repositioning them.

To customize and edit a workspace, you must have the privileges granted by either the gPortalPersonalizeUser or gPortalAdmin privilege groups. Additionally, the workspace must have its Allow Customization option selected, and you must be able access the workspace from the application.

Customized portlets and application upgrades

When you use NexJ Studio to upgrade your application, it is possible that the upgrade process overrides workspace definitions. However, any customized workspaces will remain customized, and are unaffected by the upgrade.

Customizing open workspaces

If you have the correct privileges, then you can customize any workspace that you can open in the application as long as the workspace allows customization.

You cannot customize a workspace if you have already customized it, or if you have created a new private workspace with the same name as the workspace you want to customize.

To customize a workspace:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Workspace > Customize.

The customized version of the workspace is created. You can now edit the portlets that are included in the workspace as well as their layout and organization.

Customizing another user's workspace

If you are a workspace administrator, then you can customize workspaces that would normally be accessible only to specific user types, or users.

This ability allows you to take customizations made by others and publish them more widely. It also allows you to maintain and edit workspaces that you previously made available only to specific users and user types.
To customize a workspace accessible to a specific user type or user:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Application > Edit.
   The Edit Application dialog opens. You will use this dialog to access the workspace you want to customize.
3. Click the Tabs tab.
4. In the Available User Types section, select a user or user type who has access to the workspace that you want to customize.
   For example, if the workspace you want to customize is only available to the ASSET_MANAGEMENT_END_USER user type, then select that user type, or select a user of that type.
   The Workspace Tab Hierarchy section lists all of the workspaces available to the user or user type that you have selected.
5. In the Workspace Tab Hierarchy section, locate the workspace that you want to customize
   If the workspace has been enabled for customization, a Customize link appears beside the name.
6. Click the Customize link beside the workspace that you want to customize. You are asked to confirm that you want to make a customized version of the workspace.

After you confirm that you want to customize the workspace, the application restarts and a customized version of the workspace becomes available for you to access, edit, and publish.

Editing workspaces

Edit a workspace by adding portlets to it from the portlet library and by rearranging the portlets that are contained in the workspace.

You can only edit a workspace that you have customized.

Administrators can additionally choose to publish workspaces after they edit them, making the new workspace or new version of a workspace available to the users of the system.

Adding portlets to workspaces

You can add portlets that are registered with the portlet library to your application workspace.

To add a portlet to a workspace:

1. In your NexJ application, open the workspace that you want to add a portlet to.
2. Click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.

3. In the Portlets list, locate the portlet that you want to add. You can use the search bar to filter the list of portlets, using the * character as a wildcard.

   

   Info

   The search string applies only to the portlet caption, not the portlet name.

4. Click the portlet that you want to add and drag it into the workspace. As you drag the portlet around the layout, indicators appear to show you what the workspace layout will look like when you drop the portlet. See Positioning portlets in a workspace for details on where you can drop portlets.

A box appears on the workspace with a title matching the caption of the portlet that you have added. This box is actually a portlet reference into which the portlet loads. The title of the portlet reference can be edited without changing the portlet that it points to.

Positioning portlets in a workspace

When you have a workspace open for editing, you can reposition the portlets inside it.

To move a portlet, click its title bar and drag it to the new position.

As you drag the portlet around the layout, markers indicate how the workspace layout will change when you drop the portlet.
You can drop a portlet into any of the following locations:

• Beside a portlet, which splits the frame that the portlet is in.
• Between two portlets, which add a new frame to the workspace.
• Onto the title bar of a portlet, which adds the portlet as a tab.
• Directly on top of a portlet, which exchanges the location of the two portlets.

Removing portlets from a workspace

When you have a workspace open for editing, you can remove portlets that you previously added or moved.

When you remove a portlet, you are actually deleting the reference to that portlet. The portlet itself is not affected, and remains available in the portlet library.

To remove a portlet, click the Remove portlet icon located in the right corner of the portlet reference title.

Viewing workspace layout details

You can choose to view the details of a workspace's composition and layout in a tree-structure view by using the Workspace editor.

You can also make some changes to the layout, and to the portlet references.

To view workspace layout details:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Application > Edit.
   The Edit Application dialog opens.
3. Click the Workspaces tab.
4. In the Available Workspaces tab, select the workspace that you want to view the layout details of and click Edit.
   The Edit Workspace Properties dialog opens.

5. Click the Layout tab.
   The detailed layout information for the workspace appears in a tree structure, explicitly showing how the splitters and groups in the application are nested. In addition to seeing the layout information, you can expand the tree to see the information about each of the portlet references in the workspace. If you have customized the workspace, then you can also edit the values. For example, you can reorder or regroup your portlets, or completely change the target of a portlet reference.
   When you have finished reviewing the workspace layout, click OK.

   

   Info

   If you want to view the layout details for a workspace that you can access in the application, you can open the Edit Workspace Properties dialog by switching to the workspace and clicking Workspace > Edit in the portal toolbox.

Undoing workspace customization

Uncustomizing a workspace discards your customized workspace and returns your application to the system-defined version.

To uncustomize a workspace:

1. In your NexJ application, open the workspace that you want to uncustomize.
2. Click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
3. Click Workspace > Uncustomize.

The customized version of the workspace is deleted. The portal toolbox remains open, but you are now unable to edit the active workspace.

Publishing workspaces

Publish a workspace to make it available to groups of users on the system.

You can publish a workspace to all users of a specific user type, or to the system as a whole. You cannot publish a workspace to a specific user.

You must be a workspace administrator in order to publish a workspace.

You can publish any workspace that you can open within the application.

To publish a workspace:

1. In your NexJ application, open the workspace that you want to publish.
2. Click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
3. Click Workspace > Publish.
   The Publish Workspace dialog opens.
4. If you want to make the workspace available to everyone:
   1. Click System.
   2. Click Add.
5. If you only want to make the workplace available to specific user types:
   1. Click User Types.
   2. In the Available User Types list, select the user types that you want to publish the workspace to and click Add. You must add each user type to the Target User Types list separately. You cannot multi-select.
6. When you have finished specifying the user types that you want to publish the workspace to, click OK.

If the workspace that you are publishing replaces an existing workspace for one or more user types (or principals) then you are asked to confirm that you want to continue. Continuing replaces any existing workspaces for those user types with the workspace you are publishing. If a user has previously made a customized version of the workspace, publishing will not replace the customized version. However, if the user ever uncustomizes their workspace, they will revert to the version you have published.

After a customized workspace is published, it stops being editable. If you do not publish the workspace to the system or to your own user type, you will no longer see it in the application.

Publishing a workspace to multiple user types has the effect of creating and assigning a copy of the workspace to each user type. From that point on, each copy is considered a separately defined workspace.

Enabling workspace customization

You can enable and disable the ability of users to customize a workspace.

This configuration is controlled by the workspace's Allow Customization option. Workspaces that do not allow customization are sometimes referred to as locked workspaces.

By default, new workspaces are configured to allow users to customize them, as long as the users have the correct privileges.
To enable workspace customization:

1. In your NexJ application, click the Options button

   

   and select Show Portal Admin.
   The Portal Tools menu opens.
2. Click Application > Edit.
   The Edit Application dialog opens.
3. Click the Workspaces tab.
4. In the Available Workspaces list, select the workspace that want to enable customization for and click Edit.
   The Edit Workspace Properties dialog opens.
5. in the Detail tab for the workspace, select the Allow Customization option.

6. Click OK.
   The Edit Workspace Properties dialog closes, returning you to the Edit Application dialog.

7. Continue choosing other workspaces to edit, or click OK to close the dialog and return to the application.

   

   Info

   When you enable or disable customization for a system workspace, the change affects the workspace for all users. However, if you enable or disable customization for a workspace associated with a specific user type, then the change takes place only for that user type. If you want your change to affect all user types, you must make the change explicitly for each type. In effect, each user type has access to a separately defined workspace, with its own Allow Customization setting.