Understanding Portlets

Overview of Portlets

Portlets are the rectangular display components of the portal, and are used to organize a portal's contents on a page. Each portlet is surrounded by a border and has a title bar that contains a label and icons. Here is a sample portlet that contains links to Web sites that provide business or world news.
Portlet With Links to Web sites
Note: All users can add portlets to the portal.
For instructions about adding any of the portlets that are described here, see the online Help that is provided with the portal. (See the topic “ About Portlets ” in the Help.)
The portal supports the following basic types of portlets:
  • custom-developed portlets
  • portlet templates (editable portlets)
  • predefined portlets that are provided with the portal
  • SAS BI Portlets
The following sections describe these different types of portlets.

Custom-Developed Portlets

You can create custom portlets by using the portlet development kit. For more information, see Developing Portlets for the SAS Information Delivery Portal.

Portlet Templates (Editable Portlets)

A portlet template enables users to create their own portlet instances. When a user creates a portlet that is based on a portlet template, the user selects the template from a drop-down list. Here are the portlet templates that are provided with the SAS Information Delivery Portal:
Portlet Templates
Template Name
Description
Alerts Portlet
Available with SAS Shared Services, which is included in the SAS Enterprise Intelligence software bundle.
Report Portlet
SAS Information Delivery Portal 4.3 and later do not use Visual Data Explorer to display information maps.
The 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.
Business Intelligence Dashboard Portlet
Displays one or more graphical indicators. If your installation includes SAS Business Intelligence Dashboard, which is included in the SAS Enterprise Intelligence software bundle, then you can add dashboard portlets to portal pages. An indicator is a composite of one or more related objects. Each indicator has a data source, one or more gauges, hyperlinks to additional information, and range settings for the gauges. You must make the data sources available before users can display dashboard content.
Collection Portlet
The Collection Portlet contains a list of content items. The SAS Information Delivery Portal enables you to create your own collection portlets for your portal pages. In these collection portlets, you can add an entry for any content item that you are authorized to access.
WebDAV Content Portlet
Displays the contents of an HTML fragment that is stored in the portal's WebDAV repository. You must add an HTML fragment to WebDAV before it becomes available for use. An HTML fragment is an HTML file that does not include opening and closing HTML tags, HEAD tags, or BODY tags, and which can be displayed successfully in the cell of an HTML table.
When preparing the HTML fragment, you should be aware of the following considerations:
  • If the HTML fragment contains style definitions with class names that also occur in the portal theme, then the appearance of the portal might be affected when the portlet is displayed.
  • If the HTML fragment contains JavaScript, use namespaces for the JavaScript functions to prevent conflicts with portal processing.
  • If the HTML fragment contains text in a language that uses multibyte characters (such as Japanese, Korean, Simplified Chinese, or Traditional Chinese), then you must convert the text to UTF-8 in order for the portlet to work correctly.
For more information, see the "WebDAV Content Portlets" topic in the online Help.
WebDAV Graph Portlet
Displays a graph that uses data from the portal's WebDAV repository. You must create the data files that are used for the graphs and add those data files to WebDAV.
WebDAV Navigator
Enables a user to explore the contents of a WebDAV repository.
When a user adds one of these portlets, the user can view only the WebDAV content that the user is authorized to access.

Predefined Portlets That Are Provided with the SAS Information Delivery Portal

A predefined portlet is automatically deployed when you install the SAS Information Delivery Portal. These portlets often cannot be edited. Predefined portlets also include portlets that you or someone else created previously and that are available for general use. Authorized users can edit those portlets.
Users can search for and add a predefined portlet to their pages in the portal.
The following table shows the predefined portlets that are deployed when you install the portal.
Predefined Portlets
Portlet Name
Description
Stored Process Alerts Portlet
Displays an electronic notification when a stored process has finished running in the background.
Bookmarks Portlet
Enables users to view and work with content that they have found by using the Search tool and have bookmarked for later use.
Information Maps Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore information maps in the metadata repository.
Personal Repository Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore the contents of their personal WebDAV repositories.
Publication Subscription Portlet
Lists all of the publication channels that the user subscribes to and enables users to view content that has been published to them.
Reports Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore reports in the metadata repository.
Results Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore stored process results in the WebDAV repository.
Stored Process Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore stored processes in the metadata repository.
Tree Navigator Portlet
Enables users to explore all content items (that they are authorized to access) in the metadata repository.
Welcome Portlet
Displays localized text by using the user's locale (language and country) preference. The Welcome Portlet is not interactive.

SAS BI Portlets

SAS BI Portlets are available in the October 2009 Release and later. For a detailed description of the SAS BI Portlets, see SAS BI Portlets. The following table shows the predefined SAS BI portlets that are deployed when you install the SAS BI Portlets.
SAS BI Portlets
SAS BI Portlet Name
Description
SAS Collection Portlet
Enables users to create a list of heterogeneous SAS content items that can be accessed by a launching a content viewer.
SAS Navigator Portlet
Enables users to navigate repository folders in the metadata server and locate SAS content items such as reports and stored processes.
SAS Report Portlet
Enables users to display SAS reports in static HTML format.
SAS Stored Process Portlet
Enables users to display SAS reports in static HTML format.
SAS BI Dashboard Portlet
Enables users to display the SAS BI Dashboard.
SAS Diagnostics Portlet
Enables administrators to display details about the portal environment.
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