Portals

Customer, Vendor and Reseller Portal Web pages can connect to multiple sites, to display and update data from those sites. Portals have a primary site, where key data such as items and item categories is maintained by SyteLine users. Some data is obtained strictly from the primary site; other data comes from all sites.

These methods of retrieving and maintaining data to or from multiple sites are used:

• Use a multiplex data source, known as a portal site group, to retrieve or save data simultaneously to or from all sites tied to the portal, or to execute a method simultaneously in each site.
• Use RemoteMethodCall to affect or retrieve data to or from multiple sites.
• Use SyteLine _all tables to obtain multi-site data by connecting to a single site.

Define portal data source configurations through the Portal Manager, to include databases for each site in the portal site group:

• One of the data sources must be named PrimarySite, which points to the single SyteLine database where all portal-enabled items and item category hierarchies must be defined. Other data must also be maintained in this primary site.
• One of the data sources must be named PortalSiteGroup. This data source must include the primary site and all other sites that the portal can access. The PortalSiteGroup is the default data source.
• If there is only one site in the portal site group, both the primary site and portal site group data sources must be defined and must point to the same site.
• If one of the sites to be exposed to the portal is a master site, then usually the portal site group must be a site group in which the master site is included.

  In this case, we recommend that the primary site of the portal be the same as the master site, although this is not required. If you make them the same site, you can use the Multi-Site Items, Multi-Site Customers, and Multi-Site Vendors forms in the master site (primary site) to maintain data across the other sites in the intranet. A master site user can then copy items from the non-master sites to the master site, which is useful because all portal-exposed items must be listed in the primary site’s item_mst table.

• If a master site exists, and users are shared through the Intranet Shared User Tables form, then the primary site must be the master site, in most cases.

  Note: For on-premise environments: If you use the master site for user and license records but not for transactions, then the portal primary site may be a site other than the master site. Also, as long as users are shared through the Intranet Shared User Tables form, the master site does not have to be included in the portal site group. When users are added from the portal, they are automatically added to the master site and assigned a portal license.
  Note: For cloud environments: If you use the master site for user records but not for transactions, then the portal primary site may be a site other than the master site. Also, as long as users are shared through the Intranet Shared User Tables form, the master site does not have to be included in the portal site group. When users are added from the portal, they are automatically added to the master site.

In the Site Groups form, define a group that is assigned to the portal. This group is identified as the portal site group in the Portal Parameters form. This group must include all sites that contain information that is displayed in the Customer Portal or Vendor Portal.