Transcript Portal101-WhatDoesAPortalLookLike

Introduction
What Does a Portal Look Like?
“Portal 101” Seminar
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Yahoo Results: Portal York Region
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Yahoo Results: Portal Toronto
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Yahoo Results: GIS Portal
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So When is a Portal not a Portal?
• Everyone claims to have a portal
• The value of the term is therefore diluted
• Let’s identify what is important about a Portal,
and use the right term for other things
 Website
 Gateway
 Portal
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Website - Defining Characteristics
• Direct source of information
• Not dynamically generated content
• Principally text in HTML with associated images, and
other media files
• Uses hyperlinks to navigate within, and sometimes out of
the website
• Principal focus is itself, rather than referencing other
resources
• Provider of syndicated content (ideally)
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Website – York Region
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Gateway - Defining Characteristics
• Primarily a collection of set hyperlinks to online resources
of perceived value to the end-user
• Coupled with descriptions of the referenced resources
• The majority of the resources belong to others
• Often the collection is for a single topic or theme
• Often aided by a search engine that auto-imposes a filter
on that topic
• Can remote search other online catalogs (ideally)
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Gateway – Ontario Seniors’ Info
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Portal - Defining Characteristics
• Account-based (Security)
 capable of supporting “single sign-on”
• Personalizable
• Customizable
• Aggregates and integrates
 User of syndicated content
• Exposes transactional services
• Search, structured and unstructured
• Notification – push approach
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Hierarchy of Portal Types
derived from: Ovum's taxonomy of portals
Portal
Public Web
Marketspace
MegaPortals
Yahoo
Excite
InfoSeek
etc
Vertical
Portals
Enterprise
Corporate
B2B
Geospatial One Stop
Conservation GeoPortal
Partner
Portals
Intranet
Internet
Complete
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B2C
Corporate Internet Portal
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Personalization: User Registration
From the Portal account registration process…
 You entered your date of birth • you are now pre-set with some resource links related to
seniors
 You flagged that you’re visually impaired • you are pre-configured with the accessible version
 You provided the address of your place of work • We encourage you to take the bus to work - here is the
transit routes and nearest bus stop to your home
 You registered that you wish to be notified by email of
upcoming events –
• the email will sent here ________ for each new event
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Customization
Now that I am logged in…and know what I can do…
 I wish to change my page layout and add a second
page
 I wish to have Serif font
 I wish to have community safety notices on my home
page
 I wish to be email notified in a weekly summary of
upcoming events
 I wish to add a map of my local waste disposal sites
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Aggregation & Integration
Using the Portal tools available….
• I want to have subscribed information relating to Family
prominently available - a “channel” so to speak
• I just made a custom map using various data sources
 and will save it for use later
• I just configured an advanced search tapping into multiple
catalogs
 and will save it to re-apply later
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Transactional Services
and Single Sign-On
Now that I’m logged in…
 I wish to see what Library books I have signed out
• and will schedule a renewal
 I wish to see my municipal tax account balance
• and update my account for pre-authorized payment
 I wish to see the status of my public service inquiries
and complaints
• and submit a new one about the Transit website being
down!
 I wish to see what swim programs my kids have taken
• and will then register for the upcoming relevant program
presented
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Illustrative Difference
Corporate Internet Portal
Websites
Gateway
internal
transactional
system
public
information
subscribe
bounce
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Summary
• Portal means more than Gateway
• Required: a good understanding of the
 qualitative benefits from an end-users perspective, and
 quantitative benefits from an internal agility perspective
• “Install it and they will come” without a plan is not advised
• Is it effective to have a multitude of ways in?
– for we will always have Google, IE Favourites, and
Notepad
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