Manage portal resources with policies

 

+
Search Tips   |   Advanced Search

 

Overview

Use policies to specify and apply common and specialized settings that determine the how portal resources function for different classes of users.

A policy is a collection of settings that influences the behavior of a portal resource and the experience that users will have when working with the resource.

Policy settings for a resource type can control the behavior of a resource for different classes of users.

Policies affect the following portal resources...

• users and groups
• composite applications
• client types
• page themes

Policies are grouped according to the types of resources that apply the policies and follow a hierarchical model that supports inheritance.

For each type of portal resource one can specify policy settings that support business processes. We can refine the main policies that are provided for portal resources by creating child policies that inherit or override the policy settings of the parent policy.

You reuse common and specialized business logic when you select the policy rules and conditions that constitute child policies created from parent policies. When you edit the policy settings of a resource, we can choose to preserve or break the inheritance of policy setting values between parent and child policies.

The policy settings for a particular type of portal resource are defined in the XML document that specifies the policy type, its settings, its rules, and its targets. Policy rules contain the business logic, expressed as conditional statements, that drives the business processes and determines how portal resources function for a class of users. The policy definition contains references to one or more rules that describe the actions that will occur on a target user or object when specific conditions exist. The events or conditions that must be evaluated for the resource and the actions performed on the resource are expressed in the rules and presented in the policy settings. The policy settings for a resource are evaluated by the Personalization rules engine. When you create or modify child policies, you work with the Personalization browser, which provides the rule editor and rule selector for working with policy rules.

Policy definition XML is installed with other portal configuration properties during IBM WebSphere Portal installation and can be modified using the portal XML configuration interface. We can also import and export a policy definition using the drop-down menu of the policy in the Resource Policies portlet. Using the Javadoc of the Policy Manager API, application developers and data integrators can create new policy type definitions, extend the policy type definitions provided by the product, and add policy value sets to collections of policy settings. Portal deployers can use the XML configuration interface to create policy types, import and export policy definitions, remove policy types, replace policy types, and restore default policy types.

You assign users permission to work with policies as you do any other portal resource: Use the Resource Permissions portlet to assign user roles for working with policies.

• Policy principles
  Understanding the hierarchy of policies and how inheritance works between parent and child policies is fundamental to managing the portal resources.

• Policy rules
  Before you work with policies, it is important to understand the principles of policy rules and how conditional expressions in the rules for a particular type of portal resource can be applied and managed. You will also want to know how policies for portal resources use the IBM WebSphere Portal Personalization Navigator, Personalization Editor, and the Personalization rules engine, particularly the correlation of concepts and terminology.

• Users, tasks, and tools
  Consider the tasks that users might perform and the tools that are available to them when they work with policies for portal resources.

• Working with policies
  Use the Resource Policies portlet to work with policy types for portal resources. For some procedures, you will use Resource Permissions and Personalization.

• Policy settings for Mail
  Review the policy settings for the Common Mail portlet.

• Policy cache properties
  Review the cache properties for Policies that are stored in portal_server_root/shared/app/config/services/CacheManagerService.properties.

• Sample Policy XML configuration files
  Use these samples with the XML configuration interface as an alternative to the Resource Policies portlet and the policy editor that are available from the Access section of the Administration page of the work site. Exporting and importing policy XML files is useful when deploying policies on multiple servers and when staging a portal from development and test servers to a production server. The policy XML configuration samples allow us to extend policy definitions and to create or customize policy types and policy settings for portal resources. To work with the Policy Manager API, refer to the Javadoc information for the package com.ibm.policy.manager in the directory portal_server_root /doc/Javadoc/api_docs.

 

Related concepts

Access rights
Personalizing

 

Related reference:

Theme policies