Understanding Enterprise Portal Branding

This chapter discusses:

• Uses for branding.

• Branding components.

• Items you can brand.

• Items you cannot brand.

• Branding across remote nodes.

Uses for Branding

A brand is a trademark or distinctive name that identifies a product or a manufacturer. You can extend the concept of brand to create distinctive Web sites designs for your company. PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal provides you with the ability to quickly implement a portal with your own "look and feel," or branding.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal ships with nine predefined branding themes. You can use these themes as they are and apply your own images, text, links and more to match the needs of your audience. You can also create your own themes.

You can apply branding themes based on portal registry, site, or user role. Enterprise Portal Branding is useful for:

• Any portal that faces multiple audiences and requires a different look for each.

  You can use branding themes for your company's primary Web site by using a single portal database to present different user experiences and deliver centrally managed content appropriate for each user group.

  For example, a company can use branding to provide different user experiences for the general public, customers, suppliers, job applicants, prospective customers, and partners. A university system can use branding to provide different user experiences for campuses, students, faculty and alumni.

  The homepage header images and links can be different for each user group, thereby delivering an experience designed especially for their needs. For example, you could create a guest theme for public or general Web traffic, and then once a user logs on, the user's assigned role could drive a different theme.

• Reducing costs.

  Enterprise Portal Branding saves the development costs of creating separate Web sites and portals. Enterprise Portal Branding enables you to run one portal database and share a common IT infrastructure, and thereby enables you to save the development costs of creating separate Web sites and portals. You can support different themed experiences for user groups, thereby leveraging IT personal and hardware resources. Moreover, you can delegate theme creation and administration away from IT and development personnel to less-costly resources who better understand user populations and can configure and assign themes.

• Ensuring standardization among department intranet sites.

  Intranet sites likely need to follow general corporate design standards. With Enterprise Portal Branding, sites created with Enterprise Portal Site Management can inherit a basic design, yet override key elements, such as logos and header links.

Branding Components

This section discusses the components and terminology used in Enterprise Portal Branding.

Branding Themes

A branding theme is a compilation of HTML, text, images, style classes and other objects that, when assigned to a portal, provides a distinct portal "look and feel." Changing a theme can be as simple as changing the logo displayed in the header HTML, or selecting a different style sheet to change the color scheme or text font. It can also be as complex as replacing delivered PeopleSoft objects to create new custom-built designs.

Themes contain a set of styled objects including:

• Homepage and target page headers.

• Homepage footer.

• Homepage style sheet overrides.

• Navigation menu overrides.

PeopleSoft delivers a selection of predefined themes, headers, footers, HTML Layouts, and style sheets, so you can perform test configuration right out of the box.

As delivered, one theme is active (Tools 8.4x Delivered theme) and is considered the default theme for any active portal registries in the database. If desired, you can define multiple themes and then assign them to appear based on a hierarchy of user role precedence, portal name, or sites. Each theme and its components carry effective dating, which allows work-in-progress and the staging of future changes to coexist with actively deployed themes.

If none of the existing theme parts meet the branding needs of your organization, you can create and implement your own. Enterprise Portal Branding does not provide the interfaces for a non-programmer to accomplish this HTML design. Once a custom HTML design is written, you can bring the HTML code into the database for use with the Enterprise Portal Branding. The code must incorporate the system elements that are the foundation of Enterprise Portal Branding.

System Elements

Branding system elements or elements are the distinct entities or components within a portal header or footer. PeopleSoft delivers 100 hard-coded elements which serve as the foundation for HTML layouts.

System elements are set dynamically. They can either turn into an HTML element, such as an image or hyperlink, or into a portion of HTML, such as a table row or table. They are usually dynamic, for one of the following reasons:

• There are entities such as images or hyperlinks that are configured by the portal administrator to achieve a desired look and feel (administrator defined).

• There are non-static URLs or conditionally-used JavaScript processed by the portal (system defined).

Only those elements designated as configurable are variable and can be assigned user-defined values.

There are generic types of elements that an administrator may choose to utilize within a portal header or footer, including:

Enterprise Portal Branding utilizes a few other types of elements to group objects or treats them specially.

HTML Layouts

An HTML layout is a predefined arrangement of standard elements. Rather than building the custom HTML objects from scratch, you can select an HTML layout from predefined choices. Within each layout choice, you can turn sections on or off, and customize them by assigning your own images and adding hyperlink URLs.

For instance, an HTML layout may have placeholders for two logo images on the top-left and top-middle of the header. There might also be placeholders for two rows of links — one for the standard links like Home and Signout, and another set of links for other intranet sites. If your specific header only has one logo image in the upper-left and one set of links for Home, Signout, and so forth, you could still base the header definition upon this HTML layout. The unneeded placeholders for the extra images or links would not be used.

Since PeopleSoft delivers several HTML layouts, PeopleSoft recommends that you leverage one that is close to your desired layout or placements.

Homepages

A homepage is the opening or main page of a Web site, intended chiefly to greet visitors and provide information about the site.

Homepages in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal are non-frame-based HTML.

Transaction/Target Pages

A transaction page or target page is the destination of a navigational link. Most of the time, the transaction page or target page is an application or PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture page.

PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture pages are frame-based, meaning that the header, left navigation area and main body are contained in separate frames.

Headers

A header displays static information across the top of a Web page. A header typically includes a unique design identifying the site, logo, search bar and frequently used links.

Footers

A footer displays static information across the bottom of a Web page. A footer typically includes links to privacy statements, terms of use, copyright information, and site maps.

In Enterprise Portal Branding, footers are not displayed on transaction pages.

Bars

Bars are rows of hyperlinks or text elements. They can appear on headers and footers, and include navigational links, personalization links and corporate contact links.

The appearance of menu item-related links configured in bars is conditional upon the user having permission to navigate to any given menu item. If the user doesn't have permission to access a menu item, it doesn't appear in the Menu pagelet and it will not appear in the header either. The same applies for My Links. If a user does not have permission for the feature, the My Links dropdown list does not appear in the header for the user. This is demonstrated in the header PAPPBR_THEME5G_TOOLSCLASSIC, where My Links is configured in the header. However, the Guest user does not have permission for this feature, so it does not appear in the header for that user.

Menu Styles

A menu style is a set of the style sheet, style classes and images applied to the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal menu pagelet display.

Menu Overrides

A menu override is a set of configured style and image values that override and apply to the delivered PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal menu design.

Portal Home

The portal home is the default tab on the homepage for the default portal.

Site Home

A site home is a default tab or entry page for a portal site created with the Enterprise Site Management Create New Site wizard.

Items You Can Brand

Enterprise Portal Branding enables you to configure items such as headers, footers, and menus. You then assemble the items into themes, and then assign them according to portal registry, site, or user role.

Note. You may remove and replace PeopleSoft logo images. Doing so will not violate your software license and service agreement and is authorized only for PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal licensees.

Headers, Footers and Menus

The following table lists branding items you can configure.

Enterprise Portal Sites

When implementing portal sites using Enterprise Portal Site Management, PeopleSoft enables you to retain the primary enterprise portal brand on the site, display a distinct site brand, or display a mix that includes some aspects of the enterprise portal brand in the site brand.

In situations where the site inherits the theme of the main enterprise portal, users receive access based on the roles defined for the enterprise portal. Note, however, that the site administrator may be able to override specific elements for the portal site.

See Site Management.

Items You Cannot Brand

The following items are not incorporated into Enterprise Portal Branding configuration pages. Therefore you cannot dynamically display them based upon the portal site or user roles, as with the items you can brand discussed in the previous section.

Some homepage items can be styled using attributes on the content reference entry in the portal registry. Depending on how you designate your changes, the changes can be applied at a portal site, homepage tab, or individual pagelet level.

See Enterprise PeopleTools 8.46 PeopleBook: PeopleTools Internet Technology, "Changing the Portal Interface," Customizing Homepage and Pagelet Objects

While you can modify pagelet icons and PeopleTools-level HTML objects, such as homepage layout, pagelet frame, pagelet border, and so on, these elements cannot be applied differently based on user role. One style must be applied throughout, without custom coding.

PeopleTools Portal Objects

Within PeopleTools, the objects shown in the following table are set at the portal database level only. You cannot parameterize and configure them to be called differently at runtime from the portal application pages. The calls to these objects are currently made in PeopleTools C code to provide the best performance.

Do not make customized code changes to these objects to incorporate them into the branding model. Doing so could make upgrading difficult.

Note. You can override PeopleTools-level objects via content reference attributes. You cannot override PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal-level objects via content reference attributes. Changes to PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal objects should be treated as standard customizations to PeopleSoft Application Designer objects, such as HTML objects, PeopleCode, and so on.

Branding Across Remote Nodes

Remote nodes, such as remote sites, remote content providers, external URLs, and so forth, are applications outside of a PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal which provide content to the portal via links. Remote content is rendered or controlled from the outside application, not the local enterprise portal environment. Once a user navigates to remotely-provided content, portal branding may fall away in favor of the content provider’s look, if the remote site takes over the rendering of the entire browser window.

In HTML-based templates, like the homepage, PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal generates or aggregates the HTML for the entire page and sends it to the browser as one page. Thus, there is a greater amount of control over the HTML, and therefore the look and feel. In frame-based templates, typically seen with transaction pages, the portal typically controls the administrative frames, such as the header and left-hand navigation. However, the target frame or page is usually managed by the remote site. The frame acts independently of the others, so the portal does not filter or influence any of the look and feel of the remote site. If the portal renders the frames for the header and left-hand navigation, then the remote site is only influencing the target page frame. However, if the remote site "breaks" its frame, its HTML may be coded to take over the entire browser window. In this case, the portal header is lost and the branding of the remote site takes over.

Branding Behavior With Remote Transactions

All branding applies primarily to content references registered in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal database. The portal brand may also "wrap" remote content, if that remote content appears within a frame that is separate (and typically under) a header frame that is rendered or controlled by the portal.

PeopleSoft requires that the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal database be a separate database from application databases. For a PeopleSoft business application database that has only a single link registered in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal, the branding of the remote database will control the entire page, including the header. Since this other PeopleSoft application does not include Enterprise Portal Branding, the header and other branding elements will appear as the PeopleTools-delivered defaults.

If you need a consistent portal brand to appear, an approach of registering the content references of the remote application in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal registry may be appropriate. You can load the full navigation or information architecture of the PeopleSoft application into the enterprise portal. Refer to two documents posted on Customer Connection for more details: "PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal 8.4x - Implementing Navigation," and "Portal Packs and Enterprise Portal: Managing Information Architecture Using 8.4x/8.1x Content Providers."

With the local registration of remote pages or content you will retain the enterprise portal branding for the portal homepage header, footer, and pagelets. However, the contents of the transaction page will be controlled by the remote content provider, such as another PeopleSoft Pure Internet Architecture (PIA) application or another web site.

If you choose to set up a single link in the enterprise portal to another PeopleSoft application, then navigating to that link will result in a page or homepage where the remote application is rendering the entire browser page. Therefore, the header is not rendered with the enterprise portal branding. To retain the portal branding on the header, you can customize the portal templates in the remote application database so that the header is generated by PeopleSoft Enterprise Portal.

For instance, the Enterprise Portal homepage (HTML.PORTAL_HP_USER_TEMPLATE) uses the following reference for the header:

<Pagelet Name="UniversalNavigation">
   <SOURCE Node="LOCAL_NODE" 
      href="s/WEBLIB_PORTAL.PORTAL_HOMEPAGE.FieldFormula.
      IScript_HPDefaultHdr"/> 
</Pagelet>

In the remote database, you need to change the node to reference the enterprise portal, not that local node, which in this case is the remote application. Thus, a remote application or database could theoretically get an enterprise portal header.

You should consider and pursue this type of customization only with staff that has ample knowledge and experience in this area.