Note: Vault includes a visual, intuitive Portal Editor to make it easier to create and configure a Portal as it will appear for users. We recommend using the Portal Editor to create and manage your Portals.
With the Portal feature, you can curate and share specific content with your brand teams or medical communications departments in a simplified user interface. Curated content provides users with the most relevant material, and content filters aid users in finding the correct assets. You can easily create, configure, and populate Portals by creating individual Portal object records through Business Admin or a custom tab.
Note: As of the 22R3.4 release, Vault includes two (2) Portal interfaces: the existing Portal, now known as legacy Portals, and the new Brand and Medical Portals. Currently, the updated Portal interface must be enabled by an Admin. See About the New Portal.
How to Enable Portal
To enable the Portal feature in your Vault, navigate to Admin > Settings > Application Settings and select the Enable Portal checkbox. Select the Enable Open Full Portal checkbox to allow users to launch a portal directly by clicking its image on the All Portals page.
About the Portal Document Fields
The Portal (portal__v) and Portal Widget (portal_widget__v) shared document fields are required on all document types available for use with your Portal.
If these fields are not already configured in your Vault, navigate to Admin > Configuration > Document Fields and set each field to Active. Next, assign the shared fields to all applicable document types.
Creating a Portal
To create your Portal, create a Portal object record:
- Navigate to Business Admin > Portals.
- Click Create.
- Enter a Portal Name.
- Optional: Enter a Description for your Portal. This appears in the About section on your Portal Homepage.
- Optional: Enter a Primary Color and Highlight Color. Note that these must be six-letter Hex Color Codes. If you leave these fields blank, your Portal defaults to standard Vault colors.
- Optional: Select a Portal Logo from your Vault library. The logo displays in the Portal’s header and on the Portal Selector page. Your logo file should be an image file (PNG, JPEG, etc.) as opposed to a video file, audio file, or other Vault document. If you don’t choose a logo, no image displays in the Portal Selector, and the standard Vault logo displays on the Portal Homepage.
- Optional: Select a Version for the logo image document. This selection defaults to the latest Steady state version.
- Click Save. To create another Portal, click Save + Create.
When you save your Portal, Vault automatically creates the Portal Widget object records that make up your Portal’s object framework and Portal Homepage. To view your new portal, select View Portal in the Portal record’s Actions menu. Your Portal opens in a new tab.
To configure the object page layout for your newly-created Portal object, select Configure Page Layout from the Actions menu. This only affects the layout of the object record details page, and not the layout of the Portal homepage.
Configuring the Portal Homepage
You can configure and populate the Vault-created Portal Widget object records from your Portal object record to build out your Portal Homepage and Library.
About the Portal Widgets
When you create your Portal, Vault automatically creates the following Portal Widget object records. You can populate some of these with content manually, while Vault automatically populates and updates others.
- Carousel: You can display content as a large click-through banner at the top of the Portal Homepage with the Carousel widget.
- Content Filters: You can create custom views in your Portal Library and then assign them to your Portal. Your Portal users can use these content filters to easily find filtered content. You can also configure the Announcements content filter to create an Announcements page where you can share information with your Portal users.
- Featured Items: You can display the top content that you want Portal users to see in the Featured Items widget.
- Most Popular Widget: Vault automatically updates the Most Popular widget with the Steady state documents assigned to the Portal with the highest number of source file or rendition downloads from your Vault in the Portal in the previous 45 days.
- Recently Added Widget: Vault automatically populates the Recently Added widget with the Steady state documents assigned to the Portal that were added to the Portal in the previous 45 days.
- Coming Soon: Vault automatically populates the Coming Soon widget with the documents assigned to your Portal that are in the In Review or Starting state. This widget provides user visibility into content that will soon be approved and available.
- Most Active Widget: Vault automatically populates the Most Active widget with Steady state documents assigned to the Portal with the most activity, including views, copies, downloads, and rendition downloads, in your Vault and across all Portals. Learn more about the Document Usage object below.
- Most Viewed: Vault uses the Document Usage object to automatically populate the Most Viewed widget with the most viewed Steady state documents associated to the current Portal that exist in your Vault and across all Portals. Learn more about the Document Usage object below.
- Additional Content 1-4: You can manually select content that you want to appear in these widgets. We recommend renaming the widget to reflect the content.
If you accidentally delete a Portal Widget object record, you can recreate it. However, you cannot create more than one of each Portal Widget type. For example, you can only have one Featured Content widget per Portal.
How to Configure a Portal Widget
From Business Admin > Portals, open your Portal object record. Within the Portal record details page, open a Portal Widget record from the Portal Widgets section and click Edit. You can edit the Name and Display Max, and populate the widget. See details below about the Display Max and how to populate a widget. You can also set the Status to Inactive so that the Portal Widget does not display on the Portal Homepage. When you finish configuring a Portal Widget record, click Save. Use the breadcrumb trail to navigate back to your Portal object record.
About the Display Max
The Display Max controls the maximum number of items that appear in a given widget in the Portal Homepage. Each Portal Widget object record has a Display Max, but you can add more documents to a widget than the Display Max so that users with less access to content still see a full Portal widget.
| Portal Widget | Display Max |
|---|---|
| Carousel | 4 |
| Featured Items | 12 |
| Most Popular | 24 |
| Recently Added | 24 |
| Coming Soon | 24 |
| Most Active | 24 |
| Most Viewed | 24 |
| Content Filters | 12 |
| Related Portals | 12 |
| Additional Content 1-4 | 12 |
Document Usage Metrics
Vault includes a Document Usage object that captures metrics to provide a more accurate view of document usage over time. Each time that a user performs specific actions on Steady state documents, such as views, downloads, copies, and rendition downloads, Vault automatically creates a new Document Usage object record.
In Portal, Vault uses Document Usage data to automatically populate the Most Active and Most Viewed Portal widgets. The Document Usage object captures all activity that occurs in your Vault, and not activity in individual Portals. For example, a document’s view count includes views by Portal-only users in the Portal as well as views by all other users in the PromoMats Vault.
Note that if you disable Document Usage Metrics in your Vault, the Most Active and Most Popular widgets won’t appear on the Portal homepage, even if they are set to Active.
Adding Content to Portal
You can add content to specific widgets in your Portal, or to the Portal Library overall.
How to Populate a Portal Widget
When you populate a widget, you create relationships between the various Portal Widget object records and Vault documents. You can add documents to multiple widgets.
- In your Portal record, click a Portal Widget object record in the Portal Widgets section to navigate to that Portal Widget.
- In the Portal Widget object record, click + Create in the Portal Widget Contents section.
- Choose Document in the Select Portal Widget Content Type picklist and click Continue.
- Leave the status as Active.
- Enter an Order. This is the numbering used to display content on the Portal homepage. See details about the Order field below.
- Click the binoculars icon to search for a Document. You can use various filters to drill down into your Library.
- Click the green plus (+) icon to select your document.
- Click Save. To populate more content, click Save + Create.
When you add a document through the Portal Widget Contents section, Vault automatically creates a Portal Widget Content object record, populates the document’s Portal and Portal Widget metadata fields, and adds it to the Documents section in your Portal Widget object record.
Note that Vault automatically populates and updates the Recently Added, Most Popular, Coming Soon, Most Active, and Most Viewed object records.
How to Add Additional Portal Content
You can also add content to your Portal Library without adding it to a Portal Widget object record. Content added to the Portal but not to a Portal Widget appears in the Portal’s search results. Note that you can associate documents to multiple Portals.
- Search for and open a document in your Vault Library.
- Click Edit Fields.
- In the Portal Details panel, select the Portals to which you want to add the document.
- Click Save.
Note that assigning a Portal Widget in the selector does not add the document to that widget. To add content to a Portal Widget, you’ll need to create a Portal Widget Content object record. See How to Populate a Portal Widget for details. You can also assign documents to widgets by creating records directly from Portal Widget Content object.
About the Order Field
With the Order field, you can arrange the content displayed on your Portal homepage by entering a number for the document’s order in the Portal Widget Content object record. Content displays in ascending order on the Portal homepage. For example, if you have two documents with orders 1 and 10, order 1 will display first and order 10 will display second.
About Custom Thumbnails & Panoramic Thumbnails
You can upload specific document renditions for your Portal content to adjust the look of document thumbnails in the Portal Homepage and Portal Library. When available, Vault displays the custom thumbnail in the Portal as opposed to the default thumbnail for the content.
Vault also supports an additional Panoramic Thumbnail rendition type only for the Carousel object record. When creating an image to use as a panoramic thumbnail, keep in mind that the Carousel displays in a 32 x 10 aspect ratio. When available, Vault displays a panoramic thumbnail in the Carousel before any other type of thumbnail. If a panoramic thumbnail is not available, Vault defaults to the next available thumbnail, for example, a custom thumbnail.
To add a custom or panoramic thumbnail:
- Navigate to your document.
- In the Doc Info Renditions panel, click the blue plus (+) icon.
- Select Custom Thumbnail or Panoramic Thumbnail from the drop-down list.
- Choose a file. Note that the file must be an image file or a file with a viewable rendition.
- Click Upload.
You can set a custom thumbnail for a binder by enabling binder thumbnails in your Vault.
About Document States
In the Portal Homepage or Portal Library, users launch a Quick Document viewer when they click content. The Quick Document viewer displays key document details, including the document’s name, status, document type, and description. The color of the document’s status bar can be a visual indicator to users about the document’s lifecycle state. Vault includes standard lifecycle state colors, but you can also define custom lifecycle state colors if you choose.
Content Filters
With Content Filters, you can create a saved, filtered view that displays specific content for your users. Portal users can also see Content Filters in the left-hand panel of the Library. When a Portal user selects a Content Filter, it returns a filtered list of related documents and binders.
Note that the Announcements content filter requires a different configuration method. See details about Announcements below.
How to Create Content Filters
- Navigate to your Portal Library and click All Portal Library.
- Optional: Use the search bar or Advanced Search dialog to set up a search.
- Optional: From the Filters panel, set additional filters.
- From the heading area, click Save View As.
- Enter a Name, Description (optional), and Icon (optional) for the view. The description appears when users click the question mark (?) icon next to the heading when the view is open. The icon appears next to the filter name in the Library and Content Filters widget on the Portal Homepage.
- Click Save. This creates the custom view.
- Select the new custom view in your Portal Library.
- Click the Save View As button, and select Add to Portal in the drop-down menu.
Vault saves your view as a content filter and displays it in the Content Filters widget in the Portal Homepage and Portal Library. If more content filters exist in your Vault than the Display Max allows, you can edit the Order field in the Content Filter Portal Widget Content object records to choose which will display in your Portal. See more details about the Display Max and the Order field above.
Announcements
You can create announcements in the Announcements section of your Portal object record to share information with Portal users across a single or multiple Portals. Content on the Announcements page displays in chronological order from newest to oldest.
When creating announcements, you can schedule them to post in the future by setting the publication date to a future date and time. These announcements do not display on the Announcements page in the Portal until the scheduled date and time.
Note: Vault does not send users notification emails when you add or publish announcements.
Configuring the Announcements Content Filter
To use announcements, you must first create the Announcements page by creating an Announcements content filter:
- Navigate to Portal: Portal Widgets: Content Filters.
- In the Portal Widget Contents section of the Content Filters object record, click + Create.
- Select Announcements in the Select Portal Widget Content Type picklist and click Continue.
- Leave the status as Active.
- Select an Order. See details about the Order field above.
- Optional: Enter a Name.
- Click Save.
Note that you must only create the Announcements content filter once when first setting up your Portal. If you wish to disable Announcements in your Portal at a later time, you can set the Announcements Portal Widget Content object record to Inactive.
Creating New Announcements
After you create the Announcements content filter, you can create announcements from the Announcements section in your Portal object record. To create a new announcement:
- Click + Add.
- Click the Create button in the Search: Announcements dialog.
- Enter a Title. The limit is 128 characters.
- Select a Publish Date. Then, click into the field to edit the publish time. Note that this can be a future date and time.
- Optional: Enter an Author. The limit is 100 characters. If left blank, this field displays the name of the object record creator.
- Optional: Enter Body text for the announcement. The limit is 1,500 characters. We recommend drafting the body text for your announcement outside of Vault, and pasting the text into this field when you are ready.
- Click Save. To create additional announcements, click Save + Create.
Reusing Announcements
You can use one announcement across multiple Portals. To use an existing announcement, select the checkbox next to an announcement title in the Search: Announcements dialog. You can also use the search bar or add filters to find an existing announcement. If an announcement’s checkbox is already selected, the announcement is already associated with the Portal.
You can also create announcements directly from the Announcements object in Business Admin. This is helpful when you want to share an announcement across several Portals. Click into an Announcement object record and click Add in the Portals section to share an announcement with different Portals.
Portal Maintenance
You can maintain and update your Portal by adding new content to your Portal Widget object records. You can also update the Order field on Portal Widget Content object records to change the order in which documents display. See details about the Order field above.
Vault updates the Most Popular, Recently Added, Coming Soon, Most Active, and Most Viewed object records daily. To update manually, select Synchronize Assets in the Portal record Actions menu.
Note: Known Issue: Portal Admins receive an error when attempting to edit the Synchronize Portal Assets job definition.
Assigning User Permissions
You can grant users access to Portals in two ways:
Portal Users
You can set users as Portal-only users when they only require access to your Portal and do not need additional Vault access or in-depth Vault training. These users only see Portals and have no other access to or permissions in Vault. To set a user as a Portal-only user:
- From Admin > Business Admin, navigate to that user’s User object record and click Edit.
- Set the Portal Experience User checkbox.
- Click Save.
PromoMats & MedComms Users
To grant PromoMats and MedComms users access to Portals, you must assign them a security profile with the following permissions:
- Object: Portal: Read
- Object: Portal Widget: Read
- Tab: Portal: Read
Portal Access Control
If you’ve created multiple Portals, you can use Dynamic Access Control or Custom Sharing Rules to grant or deny users access to specific Portals. This is useful if you manage multiple teams, and each team only needs access to the Portal for their brand.
Related Permissions for Creating Portals
The following permissions control your ability to create and edit Portals:
| Type | Permission Label | Controls |
|---|---|---|
| Security Profile | Object: Portal: Read, Create, Edit, Delete | Ability to see, create, edit, and delete Portal object records. |
| Security Profile | Object: Portal Widget: {Portal Widget}: Read, Create, Edit, Delete | Ability to see, create, edit, and delete Portal Widget object records; you need this for each individual Portal Widget object to work with records of the type. |
| Security Profile | Object: Portal Widget Content: {Portal Widget Content}: Read, Create, Edit, Delete | Ability to see, create, edit, and delete Portal Widget Content object records; you need this for each individual Portal Widget Content object to work with records of the type. |