Overview of Portals

The word portal is defined as a doorway, an entrance, or a gateway. Similarly, a web portal acts as an entrance or a gateway to content and applications that users most often access.

Portals provide the following benefits to the user:

- Aggregation – The user can go to a single place for all content and applications.
- Customization – The preferences for a user determine how the portal looks and feels.
- Personalization – The user can get content that is specific to their interests and needs.
- Organization – The user can arrange the content and applications to make better sense of the information.
- Integration – The user can work with multiple applications and content sources in a unified fashion.

Portals typically include the following features and benefits:

- Search – Enterprise and web-based search facilities
- Content Management – Creation, management, and delivery of content
- Content Repurposing – Including content from multiple disparate data sources

Portals optionally include the following features and benefits:

- Workflow – Business process management
- Single Sign-On – Allows users to log on once for all applications within the portal

Related Topics:

- Overview of Delegated Administration
- Overview of Entitlements
- Overview of Interaction Management
- Overview of Content