Patent Application
20050182742
A web portal typically includes a hierarchy of viewable pages. Each page may include a link to another page within the portal or to a different portal. Portals are created and managed by manipulating information in a database which requires a high degree of technical sophistication. Portal creation and management is expensive because the services of a software developer are often employed. A way to simplify portal creation and management is required.
The present invention is directed towards providing a system and method for managing a portal. According to one aspect of the invention, an element is selected from a navigational hierarchy. The element is associated with a location accessible from the portal. The navigational hierarchy is identified with metadata in a database. An action to be performed on the selected element is selected. Metadata associated with the selected action and the selected element is retrieved from the database. If the action is associated with a link, the location identified by the link is linked to. Otherwise, the action is performed with the retrieved metadata and the metadata in the database is updated based on the performed action.
According to another aspect of the invention, portal management is performed using a portal manager in communication with a user interface. The portal manager includes an element database. Metadata associated with elements accessible from the portal is stored in the element database. A navigational hierarchy of the elements accessible from the portal is displayed on the user interface. The navigational hierarchy of the elements is arranged in accordance with metadata in the element database.
According to another aspect of the invention, a security module authorizes user access to an element in the navigational hierarchy.
According to yet another aspect of the invention, the element and the action are selected using a web browser.
According to a further aspect of the invention, metadata associated with elements may be stored in and retrieved from a cache.
Generally, the present invention is directed towards providing a system and method for managing a portal. A portal server application includes a portal manager in communication with a user interface of a web browser. The portal manager includes a database for storing metadata related to elements accessible from a portal. The user interface displays a navigational hierarchy of the elements that a user is authorized to access from the portal. The navigational hierarchy of elements is arranged in accordance with metadata in the database.
Portals conceptually provide a single point of access to aggregated information. The portal concept has been applied to general audiences on the Web (“Internet portals”), to organization-private web sites (“intranet portals”), and to specialized online communities of practice (“vertical portals” or “vortals”).
An intranet (often referred to as a private network) is the generic term for a collection of private computer networks within an organization. Intranets generally use standard network technologies such as Ethernet, TCP/IP, web browsers and web servers. An organization's intranet often enjoys Internet access that is firewalled from public access so that computers inside the intranet cannot be accessed directly from the public network. Although many schools and non-profit organizations have deployed intranets, intranets are predominately used as a corporate productivity tool that aids in the dissemination of private information. Besides email and groupware applications, intranets generally include access to internal web sites to disseminate information.
A common extension to an intranet, an extranet opens holes in the firewall to provide controlled access to outsiders. Extranets are computer networks that allow controlled access from the outside, generally for specific business or educational purposes. Extranets are extensions to, or segments of, private intranet networks that have been built in many corporations for information sharing and e-commerce. Most extranets use the Internet as the entry point for outsiders, a firewall configuration to limit access, and a secure protocol for authenticating users.
The primary goal of most portals is ease-of-use. Besides having a single point of access—a virtual front door—portals generally try to provide a rich navigation structure. Portals using web pages for their user interface will, for instance, often include numerous hyperlinks on the front page. An example portal is a web site, such as yahoo.com, where many elements are aggregated such as featured content, numerous hyperlinks, search capability, stock quotes, and customization content based on user locale. The customizable content can be identified with a user by a secure login procedure, an insecure login, the use of cookies, as well as other mechanisms to identify the user.
Illustrative Operating Environment
With reference to
Computing device 100 may have additional features or functionality. For example, computing device 100 may also include additional data storage devices (removable and/or non-removable) such as, for example, magnetic disks, optical disks, or tape. Such additional storage is illustrated in
Computing device 100 also contains communication connections 116 that allow the device to communicate with other computing devices 118, such as over a network. Networks include local area networks and wide area networks, as well as other large scale networks including, but not limited to, intranets and extranets. Communication connection 116 is one example of communication media. Communication media may typically be embodied by computer readable instructions, data structures, program modules, or other data in a modulated data signal, such as a carrier wave or other transport mechanism, and includes any information delivery media. The term “modulated data signal” means a signal that has one or more of its characteristics set or changed in such a manner as to encode information in the signal. By way of example, and not limitation, communication media includes wired media such as a wired network or direct-wired connection, and wireless media such as acoustic, RF, infrared and other wireless media. The term computer readable media as used herein includes both storage media and communication media.
Portal Management
Areas are locations within the portal that may be accessed by the user. An area organizes portal content by user-defined criteria. Area database 208 contains metadata associated with areas 216 in navigational hierarchy 204. The metadata provides information about the hierarchy of the area such that a user may navigate the portal from a web browser without the use of external tools.
Listings include internal links to a page or a resource (e.g., a relative link), external links to a page or a resource (e.g., a uniform resource locator (URL) link to the Internet), and hyper text markup language (html) text (e.g. an announcement. One area may have more than one listing associated with it. Listings associated with an area may be labeled and grouped. For example, in a programming area the listings may be grouped according to programming language.
Navigational hierarchy 204 is a centralized navigational structure for browsing the portal and related content. Navigational hierarchy 204 indicates how the areas that may be viewed within the portal are organized such that places within the portal may be easily described and located. In one embodiment, as shown in the figure, five areas (e.g., Home, News, Search, Sites, and Topics) may be accessed and viewed in the portal. However, additional areas may be included. Likewise, areas may be removed from navigational hierarchy 204. When an area administrator modifies navigational hierarchy 204 on one page, the update is reflected on every page in the portal.
Some areas, such as News area 216, include several subareas (e.g., Company News, Industry News, Local News, Topic 1, and Topic 2). Subareas may be referred to as children or descendent areas. News 216 is referred to as the parent of Industry News subarea 218.
When a user requests to view a page in the portal, the display shown on user interface 202 is created using web form controls to establish the components of the user interface such as navigational hierarchy 204 and areas 206. Metadata associated with the components is obtained from area database 208 and listing database 210 are utilized by the portal server application to arrange the components on user interface 202.
Area cache 212 and listing cache 214 are optional components that may be located in memory of portal manager 200. Caches 212, 214 facilitate performance and security of the portal. Caches 212, 214 area arranged to store a subset of the metadata when the metadata is retrieved from area and listing databases 208, 210. Thus, the next time that the same metadata is requested, the database need not be accessed because the information is already available in caches 212, 214. If the requested data is not in the cache, the data is retrieved from the database and a copy of the data is then stored in the cache.
In an example portal scenario, users are repeatedly viewing the same pages. Caches 212, 214 eliminate repeated data retrieval steps to enhance overall performance. The first user to access the page initiates retrieval from databases 208, 210. When another user accesses the same page, the page renders faster because the data is readily accessible from caches 212, 214.
Portal security may be based on the following forms of user authentication: anonymous authentication, basic authentication, integrated authentication, and certificates authentication. The authentication method is selected by configuring the portal.
Anonymous authentication provides access to users who do not have registered accounts on the server computer (e.g., web site visitors). An anonymous account is created for web services. The anonymous account is impersonated when the portal receives an anonymous request. Anonymous access to the portal may be enabled or disabled.
Basic authentication is an authentication protocol supported by most web servers and browsers. Although basic authentication transmits user names and passwords in easily decoded clear text, it has some advantages over more secure authentication methods. Basic authentication works through a proxy server firewall and ensures that a web site is accessible by almost any web browser. Basic authentication used in combination with certificates authentication can protect the user names and passwords, making user information more secure.
Integrated authentication encrypts user names and passwords in a multiple transaction interaction between client and server. Thus, integrated authentication is more secure than basic authentication. However, integrated authentication cannot be performed through a proxy server firewall, and some web browsers (most notably, Netscape Navigator®) do not support it.
Certificates authentication provides communications privacy, authentication, and message integrity for a TCP/IP connection. By using the security sockets layer protocol, clients and servers can communicate in a way that prevents eavesdropping, tampering, or message forgery. Certificates authentication helps secure authoring across firewalls and allows more secure remote administration of software services.
When data associated with an area is retrieved from databases 208, 210, all of the subareas and listings associated with the area may be stored in caches 212, 214 whether or not the user is authorized to access the subareas and listings. Caches 212, 214 then determine which areas and listings the user is authorized to access such that only the authorized listings and subareas are displayed on user interface 202. Since all of the subareas and listings associated with an area are stored in caches 212, 214, a subsequent request at the same page from a user having different security permissions is more likely to be satisfied directly from caches 212, 214. The request may yield a completely distinct set of subareas and listings based on the security permissions. The request is fulfilled quickly because the relevant information is retrieved from caches 212, 214 such that data retrieval from databases 208, 210 is not necessary.
Each area has security settings associated with it that establish a user's scope of permissive activity. The security settings of an area may be inherited from its parent area by default. An area that inherits security settings from its parent may be moved within the navigational hierarchy such that the security settings of the area are dependent on a different area from the original parent. The moved area inherits the security settings from its new parent area as defined by the changed hierarchy. Security setting inheritance may be interrupted by directly changing the security settings associated with the area resulting in changes to inherited security settings associated with subareas.
Each area in the navigational hierarchy may have an assigned security role. Examples of security roles include reader, contributor, area administrator, and site manager. In one example, areas accessible by everyone default to the reader role. A user who is authorized to access and manage the entire site is assigned the site manager role. An area administrator is authorized to manage area settings. For example, the area administrator may have facility to add links and pages to the authorized area, and assign security roles to an area for viewing by a select group of users.
Security privileges may be granted on a per area basis. In one embodiment, an area may be assigned more than one role. For example, some users may be assigned a reader role to an area, while other users are assigned a contributor role. Contributors are authorized to submit links and pages to the area administrator for approval or rejection, also referred to as filtering.
In one embodiment, listings and areas that a user is not authorized to access do not appear on the user interface and are masked out of an unauthorized user's view. For example, a link to a management console that a site manager uses for filtering is only visible on the site manager's user interface. Furthermore, a user is denied access to an unauthorized listing or area even if the user attempts to directly link to the secure area in an attempt to override security permissions by entering a URL link to the listing or area in the web browser.
Areas and listings may be time stamped such that they have scheduled appearances and removals. An area administrator may create an area or listing and assign a date when it becomes published on the portal. Users cannot access the area or listing using the navigational hierarchy until the assigned date. Similarly, an area or a listing may be assigned a removal date such that the area or listing is removed from the navigation control on the assigned date. In one embodiment, the area or listing may be directly accessed on the browser via the URL even though the area or listing is not accessible on the portal via the navigational controls.
The API set provides for the creation, updating, and deletion of areas and listings in the navigational hierarchy, and the security features such that the user interface only displays the authorized areas and the listings. The APIs cache the area hierarchy for users that only have read privileges. Users with write privileges bypass the cache and may access live data such that a current view of the area hierarchy is presented on the user interface.
Proceeding to block 1102 an element within the navigational hierarchy is selected. The selection may be accomplished using a keystroke, a command, a string, a direct link to a URL, or a selection means such as a mouse. The elements may be areas, subareas, and listings within the portal as previously described.
Moving to block 1104, the user selects an interaction to be applied to the element. Upon selecting the interaction, the process moves to block 1106 where metadata associated with the selected element and the selected interaction is retrieved from a database. A subset of the retrieved metadata may be stored in a cache such that the next time the interaction is selected, the metadata may be directly retrieved from the cache.
Transitioning to decision block 1108, a determination is made whether the interaction is associated with an action. The action may include one of the following: delete element, edit element, change security settings associated with element, move element, filter (i.e., approve/reject) element, create a new listing/subarea in an area associated with the element, time stamp element, and create a new element in the navigational hierarchy.
If the interaction is not associated with an action, the process proceeds to block 1116. If the interaction is associated with an action, the process moves to block 1110.
Continuing to block 1110, the action associated with the interaction is performed on the element. Moving to block 1112, the database entries related to the element are updated in accordance with the performed action. Advancing to block 1114, the navigation hierarchy is displayed on the user interface based on the updated database. The process then terminates at an end block.
Returning to block 1116, a feature associated with the interaction is accessed. The feature may be a link, resource or web page that is external to the portal (e.g., internet) or internal (e.g., intranet). The process then terminates at the end block.
The above specification, examples and data provide a complete description of the manufacture and use of the composition of the invention. Since many embodiments of the invention can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, the invention resides in the claims hereinafter appended.
