Managed pages
Version 8.0 introduces support
for managed pages, which are portal pages that are stored in Web Content
Manager. By managing portal pages from within Web Content Manager, you can
apply web content features like workflow, version control, and syndication to
portal pages
OpenID
Starting with Version 8.0 you can
now configure WebSphere Portal to allow external Identity Providers, such as
Google and Yahoo, to authenticate users. You can also configure WebSphere
Portal to allow registered users to define and use their Facebook credentials
to sign on.
With this new feature, transient users, who are trusted and verified from an
identity provider, can access WebSphere Portal without requiring a WebSphere
Portal user account.
Federating tags
Starting with WebSphere Portal
Version 8.0 you can import tags from IBM Connections into the portal tag store.
The previously introduced Tag Center now represents a central place in the
portal that contains tagged content from the portal, Web Content Manager, and
IBM Connections. Users can now, from within the portal, search for tagged
content, independent of whether this content resides in the portal, Web Content
Manager, or IBM Connections. This way, the portal now provides an easy and
convenient approach for searching for content that resides inside or outside of
the portal.
Search optimization
To improve search optimization,
page metadata is rendered as keywords in the HTML. The metadata is taken from
Web Content Manager and includes: title, keywords, category, and more.
Web analytics: Site promotions and overlay analytic
reports
More flexible options to tag
pages, portlets, or web content and measure their usefulness through Campaign
and Custom tags.
New user-friendly overlay statistics provide an inline view to track
effectiveness of a web property.
Community pages: IBM Connections in context
Community pages are portal pages
that are associated with a community in IBM Connections. You create the
association between a page and a community by adding a community association to
the page. You can also create communities automatically by adding a community
association to a page template and then creating a page from the template.
Community pages let you place IBM Connections portlets in the correct WebSphere
Portal and Web Content Manager context.
IBM Forms: Easy form creation
Provides agile, easy to build and
manage web experiences for compelling, interactive data capture/forms that fit
within the overall portal web experience. IBM Forms offers businesses the
ability to respond to changing business requirements without expensive,
time-consuming development cycles. IBM Forms also empowers business users to
build and manage their own applications to collect and analyze structured
information from customers, partners, and employees.
Integrator for SAP: Integrate SAP NetWeaver content
into your portal site
Use IBM WebSphere Portal Integrator
for SAP to integrate content from an SAP NetWeaver Portal into your IBM
WebSphere Portal. You can integrate navigational structures and single content
pieces.
Integrator for SAP integrates the SAP NetWeaver Portal navigation into
WebSphere Portal on a page named SAP navigation. The navigation is
retrieved new from the SAP NetWeaver Portal for each WebSphere Portal session
and used for the duration of that session.
For integrating individual pieces of SAP NetWeaver Portal content, WebSphere
Portal provides a portlet named IBM WebSphere Portal Integrator for SAP.
Unified Task List: Simplified business process
management
Access relevant tasks and
activities for multiple business process management solutions from a single
user interface. The Unified Task List portlet provides a single point of
integration between multiple systems and displays tasks that WebSphere Portal
users must complete to advance workflows.
Web Application Bridge: Easily integrate existing
web application
Use the IBM Web Application
Bridge to integrate all your existing web applications, especially SharePoint
2007 sites, so your global user population can access them from multiple
locations. The IBM Web Application Bridge also supports forms, multiple context
roots, and eventing.
Graphical user interface installation
WebSphere Portal Version Version
8.0 is the first version to adopt the IBM Installation Manager user interface.
The interface replaces the program based on InstallShield MultiPlatform (ISMP)
that installed, updated, and uninstalled previous versions. Installation
Manager is a single installation program that can use remote or local software
flat-file repositories to install, modify, or update new WebSphere Portal
products. It determines and shows available packages -- including products, fix
packs, interim fixes, and so on -- checks prerequisites and interdependencies,
and installs the selected packages. You also use the Installation Manager to
easily uninstall the packages that it installed.
The Solution Installer
Prior to WebSphere Portal Version
8.0, you had to install the Solution Installer from the Solutions Catalog. You
could then use the Solution Installer to install applications into your
WebSphere Portal environment. Now the Solution Installer is installed when you
install WebSphere Portal.
ConfigEngine
You can
run ConfigEngine tasks from a read-only ConfigEngine directory that allows you
to manage multiple profiles from one location or you can run ConfigEngine tasks
from the wp_profile_root
directory that you have used in previous releases. For example, to use the
ConfigEngine read-only directory, run the ConfigEngine task in the ConfigEngine
folder that is on the same level in the directory structure as the default
wp_profile directory. You can substitute the path to the ConfigEngine read-only
directory in any ConfigEngine task in the product documentation.
Configuration wizard
Configure databases, set up
security, migrate to a new version, and more from the updated configuration
wizard. Try out workflows to create customized scripts for your environment for
common configuration tasks, such as changing the portal URI, changing the
portlet URIs, and replacing the WebSphere Portal administrator user ID to
create customized scripts for your environment. Use the web UI for running
ConfigEngine tasks as an alternative to the command line.
