What is the Portal?
The Portal is ISIS’ social network for the global aquarium, zoo and conservation community.
Individual Portal Site are "owned" by delegates from our community- ISIS support staff is not responsible for the management of content on Portal sites, nor are they responsible for the creation or approval of accounts on behalf of Portal Institutions (ISIS MNEMONICS).
At its very basic level, three main functionalities need to be understood to start playing: |
1) The My Account system
2) Site management via the "Site Actions" and "List Actions" menus
3) Content editing via the "WebParts" in Sharepoint |
1) My Account
This is the ISIS Account Management system that controls access to all the services offered in the ISIS Community Portal, it is visible when you log into any Portal page under the "Welcome USERNAME" drop-down menu at the top right of every Portal page.
Grids on the My Account page- what do they do?
The sites you either manage or sites you are just a member or visitor of are visible in the My Sites grid.
When clicking on the Manage Site link (if you Own the site) you are taking to the control page dedication to managing access to the Portal Site you own.
Here you can approve pending requests for site access, proactively add or remove users from your site, and send simple email communications to the members of the site.
The My Account system provides you a glimpse into your institutions membership presence on the ISIS Community Portal in the My Associates grid- all your colleagues who have already signed up on the Portal are visible here.
The system also shows you other sites you can request access to on the ISIS Community Portal in the Request Access grid.
Note, ISIS does not control access to these sites; each has its own list of "Owners" that control access.
Top Navigation:
In the top navigation on the My Account page, you will see links to various other resources.
The My Portal Profile is where you will update your personal information on the "Social Network" database I described in the meeting and the My Account Details link is where you can reset your Email and Name information.
Institutional Administrators- management of the account registration process for Portal
Finally, there are delegates at your institution (typically the ISIS Representative) that is the Institution Administrator for your institution. The way your institution is categorized in the ISIS Community Portal is by you “ISIS MNEMONIC” which is typically your institutions name.
For these very select users, additionally functionality adds the "edit" button next to the usernames in the My Associates grid allowing the admins the rights to administrate the user accounts affiliated with your ISIS MNEMONIC in the Portal.
The role of Institution Administrator also allows them the ability to approve/deny requests from the Pending New Institution Requests grid as they arise for your institution. This grid is populated when a user registers on the Portal in affiliation with your ISIS MNEMONIC- without their approval, the account will never become active.
And finally, being the Institution Administrator shows the Update Profile link in the Top Navigation for your specific "MNEMONIC"...this lists your Institutions primary contact information as registered in the ISIS Community Portal.
2) Site Management
From the Site Actions menu, Site Owners are able to completely customize their Portal site. The full potential of the tool is really too vast to try to state simply, so we leave it to the very basics to start with. The three option to edit your Portal are listed under the "Site Actions" menu:
For more in-depth consideration on "SharePoint's functionality" see Microsoft's support documents:
3) WebParts
All Portal pages are made up of editable regions called "WebParts". These are added from a stock library of webparts that come standard with Sharepoint. This list can be added to and you can custom develop your own webparts...basically, this is where you can make sharepoint into exactly what you need it to be!
More from Microsoft on Web Parts:
While this is a lot of information to process just remember, until you have added content of great importance to your site, you cannot break anything. Feel free to play un-encumbered and without fear!
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