Understanding Oracle Instant Portal users

There are four kinds of users in Oracle Instant Portal:

• Oracle Instant Portal administrators, who have full control over the entire portal
• Users with Manage privileges, who have control over a single page
• Users with Contribute privileges, who can add and modify content to pages
• Users with View privileges, who can see pages, but cannot add to them.

The kind of user you are can vary, depending on the page. For example, you might have View privileges on the Marketing page, but Contribute privileges on the Sales page. All privileges are granted at the top-level page level, and extend to the page's child pages as well. So, if you have View privileges on the Marketing page, you also have View privileges on all of its children, and on their children as well.

View Privileges

Every user who can log on to an Oracle Instant Portal automatically has view privileges on at least the home page. Every user can:

• Log in/log out of the portal
• Edit his or her profile
• Search for content

Users who have View privileges for any page in the portal can:

• View content on the page, as well as all child pages beneath it
• Flag content to appear in the Favorite Content area, which appears on the home page

Contribute Privileges

A user with Contribute privileges can do everything a user with View privileges can do. In addition, users who have Contribute privileges on a page can:

• Add, edit, or move items on the page
• Delete items from the page, even those contributed by someone else
• Cut/copy/paste an item (must have Contribute privileges on the target page as well)

Manage Privileges

A user with Manage privileges can do everything a user with Contribute privileges can do. In addition, users who have Manage privileges on a page can:

• Set privileges for a page (and thus, the child pages beneath it)
• Change the name of a top-level or child page
• Delete a top-level page
• Add, delete, edit, and change the order of child pages
• Cut/copy a child page
• Re-parent a child page to another top-level page (provided the user has Manage privileges on both top-level pages)

Oracle Instant Portal Administrators

An Oracle Instant Portal administrator is either the user who created the portal, or a user who has been given Manage privileges on the home page. Having Manage privileges on the home page automatically entitles you to Manage privileges on every page within the portal. An Oracle Instant Portal administrator can do everything listed thus far. In addition, the Oracle Instant Portal administrator is the only user who can:

• Create a top-level page, or change the order of them
• Change the style for the portal
• Customize the banner
• Add, change, or delete user accounts
• Add Email or URL items to the home page
• Create other administrators

Notes

• During the Oracle Application Server Standard Edition One installation process, the following user/groups are created:
  • User called PORTAL, who has full privileges over all Oracle Instant Portals.
  • User called ORCLADMIN, who has full privileges over all Oracle Instant Portals.
  • Group called OIP_USER_ADMINS (List of users who can create new Oracle Instant Portals and perform user administration. Both PORTAL and ORCLADMIN are members of this group.)
  • Group called OIP_AVAILABLE_USERS (List of users who can access Oracle Instant Portals, which appears in the Manage User Rights dialog. Neither PORTAL nor ORCLADMIN are in this group; thus, they do not appear on the Manage User Rights dialog. This protects these important user IDs from accidental deletion.)
• When a user is granted Manage privileges on any portal's home page, he or she is granted full privileges over that particular portal. The user cannot edit, delete, or even view any other Oracle Instant Portal, unless he or she has been granted explicit permission to do so. However, the user can do the following:
  • Create new users.
  • Delete any user in the Manage User Rights dialog, even those he or she did not create. (For this reason, it's wise to restrict the number of users who have Manage privileges on a home page.)
  • Create new Oracle Instant Portals.
• If you want a user that was created through OracleAS Portal to have access to an Oracle Instant Portal, you must first add the user to the OIP_AVAILABLE_USERS group. Then use the Manage User Rights dialog to grant the appropriate privileges to the user.

Related Topics

• Creating a user account
• Deleting a user account
• Understanding security in Oracle Instant Portal

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