WebSphere Portal

 

IBM Application Portlet Builder

The Application Portlet Builder enables users to create portlets that can access and manipulate data in an enterprise application, without requiring programming knowledge of the system. By selecting business objects available from the enterprise application, users can specify which data fields should be displayed in your portlet. When the portlet is created, the portlet can be made available to portal end users.

Application Portlet Builder supports the following enterprise applications:

 

Use Application Portlet Builder

Users can view and modify the information from their enterprise application in the view mode of portlets created with Application Portlet Builder. Users might have to supply the user ID and password they use to access the enterprise application. Administrators can specify connection information and vault slot preference in configure mode.

Test assumptions

The JDBC builder does not support the following databases:

 

Set up Application Portlet Builder

Client requirements

The portlets built with the Domino and JDBC builders supports browsers and devices capable of rendering HTML and WML markup. The following table provides detailed information.

Minimum requirements for HTML
Markup level HTML 4.01 Transitional
Java applet

None
JavaScript

1.3
<iframe>

Domino only: Yes
Style sheets

Portal styles only
Software This portlet has been tested on the following browsers:

  • Internet Explorer Version 6.0
  • Netscape Version 7.0
Accessibility

Yes
Minimum requirements for WML
Markup level

  • WML 1.1
Other You must install WebSphere Portal Fixpack 4.2.1 for WebSphere Portal 4.2, or install the Click-To-Action Version 4.1.1 portlet for WebSphere Portal 4.1.x.
Software Nokia 3.0 Simulator

Single sign-on is supported through the Portal Server Credential Vault. A user's credentials are stored in a slot assigned to each portlet. Initially, a separate slot is created for each portlet. However, a portlet's configuration mode can be used to set the name of a specific slot. If the same slot is used for all portlets that connect to the same application, a user's credentials need only be entered once.

See the WebSphere Portal documentation for information on using the Credential Vault.

Server requirements

Application Portlet Builder requires WebSphere Portal 4.1.2 or later. In addition, Application Portlet Builder requires one of the following enterprise applications:

  • JDBC connection to Oracle or DB2 via WebSphere data source
  • Lotus Domino Enterprise requires WebSphere Portal 4.1.2 or later and Domino V 5.11 or V6.

 

Deployment/Installation

Application Portlet Builder requires several configuration steps that must occur before the portlet can be deployed in the Portal Server environment. Configuration steps specific to a particular enterprise application are noted.

Websphere Application Server Configuration for a Database Provider

  1. Start the Administrator's Console.

  2. In the left hand panel expand Resources.

  3. Select JDBC Providers.

  4. In the right hand panel specify the cell or node scope by browsing or entering it in the input field.Click Apply.

  5. Click New to create a JDBC Provider

  6. Use the drop down list, select the appropriate provider and click on the Apply button. Use the appropriate configuration information listed below for your provider:

    • DB2

      • Select DB2 JDBC Provider.
      • Set property Classpath to the location of db2java.zip

    • Oracle

      • Select Oracle JDBC Thin Driver
      • Set property Classpath to the location of classes12.zip

    • Cloudscape

      • Select Cloudscape JDBC Provider.5.0
      • Set property Classpath to the location of db2j.jar. The default location is <WAS_HOME>/lib.

  7. Save your changes to the Master Configuration.



Websphere Application Server Configuration for a Data Source

  1. Start the Administrator's Console.

  2. In the left hand panel expand Resources.

  3. Select JDBC Providers.

  4. In the right hand panel specify the cell or node scope by browsing or entering it in the input field.Click Apply.

  5. Select the appropriate JDBC provider.

  6. Select Data Sources in the Additional Properties table for the provider.

  7. Click on the New button to create a Data Source.

  8. Enter a value for the property Name.

  9. Enter a value for property JNDI Name.

  10. Click Apply.

  11. Use the following to configure the appropriate provider:

    • DB2

      1. Select Custom Properties under the Additional Properties table.

      2. Enter the database name for property databaseName. Click OK.

      3. Enter the DB2 server port number for property portNumber. The default is 50000. Click OK

      4. Save your changes to the master configuration.

    • Oracle

      1. Select J2C Authentication Data Entries under the Related Information table.

      2. Click on the New button.

      3. Enter a value for the property Alias.

      4. Enter the database user ID for property User ID.

      5. Enter the database password for property Password.

      6. Click OK.

      7. Save your changes to the master configuration.

      8. Navigate back to your data source in the Administrator's Console.

      9. Select the Authentication Alias you just created for both Container and Component using the drop down list.

      10. Click Apply

      11. Select Custom Properties under the Additional Properties table.

      12. Enter the database name for property databaseName

      13. Enter the Oracle URL for property URL. The format is jdbc:oracle:thin:@myServer:1521:myDatabase, where myServer is the server name, 1521 is the port it used for communication, and myDatabase is the database name.

      14. Save your data source configuration.

    • Cloudscape

      1. Select Custom Properties under the Additional Properties table.

      2. Enter the database name for property databaseName. For example, <WAS_HOME>/bin/DefaultDB.

      3. property Connection Attributes: If your cloudscape database needs to be upgraded, enter upgrade=true to permit the upgrade. In this case you will not be able to get a schema list from the database when using the builder. The SystemErr.log will have an exception and indicate upgrade=true needs to be set for this database.



Notes:

  1. After creating the appropriate provider and data source, it will be necessary to stop and restart both the WebSphere application server and the WebSphere_Portal application server.

  2. For remote DB2 databases, the database connection needs to be set up using the DB2 Client Configuration Assistant. The database alias name entered here is the database name used for the data source. Note that "Test Connection" might fail because there is no awareness of the remote user ID and password. This authentication is handled when configuring the portlet and portlet builder.

  3. For Cloudscape, only one open conncetion is permitted on a database at a time. If you successfully test the connection using the test connection button on the Cloudscape data source, you might need to restart the server.

  4. If you are using Cloudscape viewer and you upgrade you might no longer be permited to view this database. This is because the viewer tool says the tool needs an upgrade to view the upgraded database.

  5. This portlet uses the WebSphere JDBC data source so it can take advantage of connection pooling. You must consider how many portlets you run versus the size of your connection pool, since each portlet uses a connection. The connection is used and then released. If you run a large number of these portlets, you might need to increase the size of your connection pool.

  6. The JDBC portlet will not allow you to update or delete records for tables that do not have primary keys. When you attempt to delete or update records for a table that does not have primary keys, you see the following message:

Fatal error occured in BusinessObject Framework. Please see log for details.

In the log you will see one of the following messages along with a stack trace:

  • Update is not supported for tables that have no primary keys.
  • Delete is not supported for tables that have no primary keys.

 

Configure for Domino

  1. Make sure there is a Domino server available and note the port number where the Domino server is running.

  2. In the Domino server document->Internet Protocols->HTTP, set Allow HTTP clients to browse databases to "Yes."

  3. Start Domino server.

  4. Type "load http" in the Domino server console window. Wait until this loads.

  5. Type "load diiop".

  6. Install WebSphere Portal server.
    If Domino server and WebSphere Portal Server are installed on the same machine, change the Domino server's http port number so it does not conflict with the http server in WebSphere Portal Server. Remember this port number.

  7. Install Click-to-Action if it is not installed with WebSphere Portal Server.

  8. Install the WebSphere Struts framework if it is not installed with WebSphere Portal Server.

  9. Install BOBuilderPortlet.war and DominoStruts.war.

  10. Create a page on the portal.

  11. Add the Portlet Builder for Domino portlet to the newly created page.

  12. Log out of WebSphere Portal and log back in.

  13. Switch the browser to the newly created page. If all the steps are successful, you will be able to create a new portlet using this page.

Parameter Value
Domino Server Name Name of the Domino Server you are using.
Domino Database Name Name of the Domino Database you are using.
Domino User ID User ID
Password Password