1 Introduction to Portal Express

This chapter provides an introduction toPortal Express. It covers:

• Introduction: What is Portal Express?

• What are Portal Pages?

• Logging into the Viador BI-Portal

• Notes about Browser Caches

Introduction: What is Portal Express?

Portal Express provides a single, unified interface to all the Viador BI-Portal products. Using Portal Express, you can have a single Web browser page that provides access to all your data documents, as well as any documents published to the members of your group. You may also be able to customize the appearance of the Viador BI-Portal, run applications, or upload content, depending on your privileges.

What are Portal Pages?

Portal pages allow you to view, receive, and interact with the data that your company or group publishes to you. When you log into the portal, all of the information you see is presented to you on one or more portal pages. Portal pages are basically containers for information-they provide a way for companies to group information logically, and to publish that information to groups of people who should have access to it.

Logging into the Viador BI-Portal

Your Viador BI-Portal administrator will provide you with the URL (Web address) of the Viador BI-Portal login page. This is the only Web address you need for all Viador BI-Portal products; be sure to add it to your browser's Favorites or Bookmarks menu. Your administrator will also give you a Viador BI-Portal user name and password.

To log into Portal Express, open the URL with your Web browser. You will see the login screen. Note that your administrator may have customized this screen's appearance. The default login screen is displayed below:

Figure 1: The Viador BI-Portal Default Login Screen

To log into Portal Express:

1. Enter your user name in the User name field.

2. Enter your password in the Password field.

3. Click the Login button.

Note: If you are running Microsoft Internet Explorer, a dialog box may be displayed asking if you wish to close the window. This message is generated by Internet Explorer. Choose Yes to close the login window-you will then enter the Viador BI-Portal. If you select No, the login window will remain open, but the Viador BI-Portal will still be launched.

Notes about Browser Caches

Web browsers store recent versions of Web pages and Java applets. This improves performance, since the browser can often avoid having to download the same information over and over. The following notes explain when you should and should not clear your browser cache:

• Do not clear the Web cache while you are running any Viador BI-Portal component-this can make your browser session unstable.

  If you need to clear the cache, it's safest to log out of the portal, close all browser windows, restart the browser, and clear the cache before you restart the portal.

• Do clear the Web cache after your administrator has updated versions of the Viador BI-Portal, and before you run the new version for the first time.

  Note: Clearing the cache under Netscape does not remove style sheets (".css" files) or JavaScript files (".js" files). These files should be removed from the cache folder manually.

Setting your Browser to refresh every time you visit Portal Express

In order to view changes made to your Viador BI-Portal, be sure to set your browser to refresh at every visit to the page. Otherwise, your browser may automatically use a cached file. To do this, choose Every visit to the page in your browser's settings dialog box.

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