Terms and concepts

Primary site

In IPF portal documentation, primary site is referenced in these ways: Primary Site and PrimarySite with no space.

Portal site group

In IPF portal documentation, portal site group is referenced in these ways: portal site group and PortalSiteGroup with no spaces.

Portal site group refers to the group of all sites in your implementation that will provide data for a portal. Even if only one site provides data for the portal, it must be assigned to a portal site group record.

Content version

A content version is a package of portal application code. It includes the pages, layouts, styles and other components used by IPF portals. New application features and issue fixes from Infor are delivered in updated content versions. It is important to have a standard procedure on a periodic schedule for implementing new content versions.

New content versions are imported using the Portal Manager. They are then activated for use in selected portals. This allows you to run different portals on different levels of application code. For example, you could keep production portals on one version and update test portals to review a newer version.

Personalizations and customizations for your portal are made in content versions. Infor content versions cannot be modified directly. Instead, you must enable a portal for development; create a custom content version with a unique originator, which identifies the content as your own; and then modify the content as needed. The custom content version contains the customized components, which override the standard content version components.

At a high level, this is the expected development cycle for a custom content version:

• Enable a test portal for development and create a new content version.
• Make and review modifications.
• Close the content version for development.
• Create a production portal.
• Add and activate the custom content version, as an override to the standard content version, in the production portal.
• When revisions are necessary, make a copy of the closed custom content version, giving it a new version number.
• Add the new version to a portal through content activation and enable it for development.

Feature

If you have multiple portals, the Default feature is assigned to components that can be used in all portals. The other features are assigned to components that should be used only in a specific portal. For example, the Announcements page layout is the same in all portals, so it is associated with the Default feature. The On Time Delivery page layout is used only in a Vendor Portal, so it is associated with the Vendor Portal feature.

When you create a custom content version, you must specify a feature to assign by default to any new components created during development. In most cases, you can specify Default as the feature to use, for these reasons:

• Typically when you create a component, you start with an existing component and either copy it or save it with another name. Any time you start with an existing portal component, the component retains its original feature, regardless of what you specify as the default feature for the custom content version. Only when you add a new component does the specified feature get assigned to the component by default.
• You can review and change the feature for a portal component in the editable originator at any time.

For the components of a particular feature to be visible on the portal website, that feature must be included and active in the portal content. For example, if you create a custom content version for a Vendor Portal, but activate only the Default feature, any components that are associated with the Vendor Portal feature will not be visible on the website. You must add and activate the Vendor Portal feature.

Enabled/closed for development

In the Portal Manager, you can enable and close the portal for development, and you can enable and close content versions in that portal. These are separate actions.

Enabling the portal for development makes certain tools available for use in the Portal Manager. When you enable the portal for development, you must at the same time select or create a custom content version, which allows you to modify the portal content. When you close the portal for development, you can no longer work on content versions in its Portal Manager, even if the content versions are still enabled for development.

Closed portals can be reopened by selecting an existing active content version or by creating a new one. A closed content version can never be reopened.

Managed schema

Managed schema is the group of table and index definitions delivered with an Infor content version. Managed schema allows for local portal data storage, rather than storage in the integrated back-office application, for certain types of data. For example, LocalDataStore is a managed schema data source.

Whenever you adjust the configuration of the portal content activations or data sources, IPF confirms that the schema for the data store types in the database match what is delivered with the activated content. If any discrepancies are found, you are prompted to apply the necessary schema updates.

Schema updates are critical. All portals that are meant to use the same release and schema must be updated when you are prompted to apply schema to managed data sources.

For more information, see "About managed schema" in the portal customization guide.

Host vs. domain

The host is the name of the machine where the portal is found. It is the first part of the URL; for example, www.infor.com. The domain is everything to the right of the first dot in the host name.

Minimum IPF version

The minimum IPF version indicates the minimum architecture version that must be used with a selected content version. For example, say there are two versions of the IPF architecture installed in your environment. The newer version includes code to allow for new features on the portal. You want to create a custom content version so you can modify an existing portal page to highlight these features in some way. When you create the new content version, you would need to specify the newer architecture version as the minimum IPF version, so the new features are always used with this custom content.