Administering SAS BI Portlets

Introduction to SAS BI Portlets

The October 2009 Release and later releases provide SAS BI portlets that are based on JSR 168 and available in the SAS Enterprise BI Server offering. These portlets are seamlessly integrated into the SAS Information Delivery Portal that runs on JBoss, WebLogic, or WebSphere Web application servers. SAS BI Portlets enable users to access, view, or work with content items that reside in either the SAS metadata server or the SAS Content Server.

Use of SAS BI Portlets with the WebSphere Portal requires the completion of additional configuration and deployment steps before these portlets can be accessed within the WebSphere Portal. See Configuring SAS BI Portlets for the WebSphere Portal.

The sas.biportlets4.3.ear file, which is associated with the SAS BI Portlets, is located in the SAS-configuration-directory \Lev1\Web\Staging\exploded directory.

The suite of SAS BI portlets that are compliant with JSR 168 include the following:

SAS Collection Portlet. See SAS Collection Portlet.
SAS Navigator Portlet. See SAS Navigator Portlet.
SAS Report Portlet. See SAS Report Portlet.
SAS Stored Process Portlet. See SAS Stored Process Portlet.
SAS BI Dashboard Portlet. See SAS BI Dashboard Portlet. This portlet is available with SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3.
Diagnostics Portlet. This portlet is available with SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3. See Diagnostics Portlet.

If SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 runs on a JBoss Web application server, and Secure Sockets Layer is configured in your environment, you should edit the server.xml file to ensure that SAS BI Portlets function properly. For more information, see Enabling SAS BI Portlets for SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 on JBoss.

For information about developing JSR-168-compliant portlets for the SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3, see Developing JSR-168-Compliant Portlets for the SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3.

SAS Collection Portlet

The SAS Collection portlet enables users to create a list of heterogeneous SAS content items that can be accessed by launching a content viewer. The content items are a subset of items supported by the SAS Information Delivery Portal. Portlets, pages, and page templates are not supported. Publication Framework packages are not supported directly. However, users can display packages indirectly by using a channel. A federated search interface enables users to remove or add items.

SAS Navigator Portlet

The SAS Navigator Portlet enables users to navigate repository folders in the metadata server and locate SAS content items such as reports and stored processes. Users can also access WebDAV folders and their contents available on the SAS Content Server. In an edit mode, users can customize the folder location in the tree, and control the types of content items displayed in this portlet.

SAS Report Portlet

The SAS Report Portlet allows users to display SAS reports in static HTML format. Using this portlet, users can drill within SAS Web Report Studio to take advantage of all reporting capabilities such as editing, sorting, and linking reports.

SAS Stored Process Portlet

The SAS Stored Process Portlet enables users to display stored process output. In the edit mode, users can manage parameters that are used when running the stored process.

SAS BI Dashboard Portlet

The SAS Dashboard Portlet enables users to access the SAS BI Dashboard. This portlet allows users to display a dashboard that is created with the SAS BI Dashboard.

Beginning with SAS BI Dashboard 4.3, the SAS BI Dashboard portlet is installed along with the other SAS BI Portlets. However, this portlet cannot be configured for HTML or Flash interface via the SAS Deployment Wizard or Configuration Manager in SAS Management Console.

The interface for the SAS BI Dashboard portlet follows these rules:

The view mode displays the format in which the dashboard was saved.
The edit mode always displays in a Flash interface.

Diagnostics Portlet

SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 includes the Diagnostics Portlet. This portlet enables administrators to determine the current state of the portal's environment. Depending on their privileges, users might be able to view a subset of the information that is available to administrators.

Here are some examples of the types of status information that can be obtained from this portlet:

application server type, start date, and JVM version.
active users (logon information, membership in groups).
active system servers. This includes the Stored Process server, port numbers and host names, and active jobs.
list of deployed themes.
checking for SSL.
validation of multicasting to ensure that a multicast host and port are valid and listening for communications.

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