SAP Portal and Knowledge Management

SAP Portal and Knowledge management component of SAP EP provides central and role specific management of unstructured content from various data sources. To run knowledge management, TREX engine is required. This is used for searching the documents.

Following are the functions of Knowledge management

SAP Portal and Knowledge Management

Integrating Reporsitories

As already told, documents are stored in various repositories life file servers etc. In order to access documents and manage them, repository managers are needed. Open application programming interfaces are used to create repository managers.

Navigating in Folders

Users can navigate within the folders of documents to reach the required document. They can access documents based on the role they have. The UI for navigating in folders can be configured.

Search

Search can be performed on the documents name and content. Even websites can be searched using web crawlers.

Taxonomies and Classification

A taxonomy is a hierarchical classification of categories based on content, organization etc.

Knowledge Management Services

Services like subscriptions, ratings, public reviews, feedback, and personal notes are available in the KM component of SAP EP.

Document Creation and Publishing

Based on the permission and role that you have in portal, you can upload documents and create information by filling forms in the portal.

Implementing an External-Facing Portal 

As already known to us that SAP EP is a central point of access to resources of the company be it structured information or unstructured documents. So basically it collaborates all the people and information of the company on single user interface. Using SAP EP, it is also possible to collaborate or to work with people who are not within the company or who are not employees of the company. These people can be vendors or partners.

This is possible by using an external facing portal. Yes, it is possible to project SAP EP as web site. By doing this, standard functions of the browser become applicable to SAP EP also. Just to give an example, user can navigate back and forth using the Back and forward buttons of the browser.

Few of the nice features that can be used while implementing such a portal are Ajax Framework page (AFP), Light Framework Page (LFP), Resource sensitive page builder, JSP Tag libraries, Navigation cache and quick links. We will discuss about each of these features in brief in this blog post.

Ajax Framework Page

This page is based on the Ajax technology. We know that portal or SAP EP runs on portal server that is SAP WAS or web application server. We also know that the user interface of portal consists of masthead, Top level navigation, detailed level navigation and then the main portal area where portal applications or web dynpro applications or applications built using various technologies are shown. Now it may happen that the portal is left idle for sometime and then after an hour or so the user clicks on a link in the TLN or DLN. Guess what will happen ?

The browser will show a page saying “page has expired” or “session time out etc” ? The answer is NO. All the standard components of user interface of SAP EP will remain intact ie the masthead, TLN, DLN etc will remain in which ever condition they were. And the action of click on a link on the DLN or TLN or anywhere on the UI of portal will start appropriate navigation. This is AJAX technology. And such a page built using AJAX technology is called Ajax framework page. This improves server scalability, speeds up navigation, and enhances the user experience.

Light Framework Page

Light framework page is shipped with standard SAP EP installation. Light framework page does not contain many frames as the standard one contains (masthead, top level navigation, detailed navigation). It is single frame page. This is why it uses less resources to render portal content. It does not use HTMLB and client side eventing. The EPCFLevel property is set to 0 in portalapp.xml file when using external facing portals. For light framework page, light content is developed in portal content studio. So basically light iviews are created. Light iviews do not use HTMLB. The users of external facing portal are anonymous users.

They are stored in the company’s user store. Portal administrator can assign roles to these anonymous users. Anonymous users can additionally register themselves on the portal to get access to more portal content. Heavy content like web dynpro views and KM iviews etc should not be displayed on a external facing portal else the performance of the portal will be pathetically slow.

Quick Links

To each navigation node in portal, a quick link can be assigned. Quick link is nothing but a direct URL to the navigation node. For example, there is a navigation node called “Ticketbooking” within the portal.

Navigation Cache

Navigation cache should be turned on after the installation of SAP EP. This caches the navigation hierarchies and navigation nodes. So when a user navigates to a particular iview or page, corresponding navigation node is stored in the cache. And when another user having same role logs in, his navigation to the cached nodes is quicker. This is recommended in a external facing portal implementation.

Also See:SAP Project Systems – Step by Step Configuration