What is a portal?

In Intrexx, "Portal" is both a key term and a key concept. A portal is the "container" that encompasses all other objects (applications, processes, users, etc.). The term appears frequently in the Intrexx Portal Manager user interface and serves as a central entry point for various activities and features.

Portal and Platform

General Language Usage

In everyday language, "portal" and "platform" have the same meaning when used in connection with Intrexx. For example, an intranet serves as the central platform within a company for employees. Here, he can find all the information he needs and use apps that are relevant to him, among other things. Here, he can interact with other departments and initiate processes.

Technical

In technical contexts, it may be necessary to distinguish between a portal and a platform. The platform serves as the foundational layer of Intrexx, on which multiple portals can be built and operated.

Portal in Portal Manager

When you start Intrexx Portal Manager, the first thing you need to do is create a portal or log in to a portal. Any actions you take afterward—such as creating an application or a process—are performed in the portal you are currently connected to.

The goal of your work in Portal Manager is to develop applications, implement processes, and so on, so that they can then be made available in the browser, where portal users can access them.

Portal in the browser

The portal created in Portal Manager can be accessed in a browser.

Portal users have access to the applications, processes, etc., that were developed in Portal Manager. The visual layout was also configured in Portal Manager.

Since the portal is accessed via a browser (or on a web server), its features can easily be made available to any number of portal users within your organization (intranet) or outside your organization (extranet).

Interaction Between the Portal in Portal Manager and the Portal in the Browser

When you create a portal in Portal Manager, you do so based on a portal template. Several templates are available in the Intrexx Portal Manager. These may be empty or may already contain applications provided by Intrexx. Once the portal has been created, it will be available for editing in the Portal Manager. At the same time, the portal is available on a web server, so it can be accessed in a browser immediately after it is created.

If you have developed new applications or made changes in Portal Manager and then save them, they will be available to portal users after refreshing the browser.

Components of the Portal Manager

Below is a brief overview of the modules available in Portal Manager.

Application Designer ( "Applications" Module)

Intrexx is a low-code development environment that allows you to create full-featured applications using drag-and-drop. Just like in a modular system, you have access to elements such as buttons, text fields, editors, and so on. If you'd like more customization, you can write your own code and integrate it into Intrexx.

Key components of the applications are data groups, pages, and elements. The data collected by the browser is stored in the data groups. Pages containing the appropriate elements are available for viewing and editing the data.

Process Designer (Process Module)

In the Intrexx Process Designer, you can transform manual business processes into digital and automated processes. In doing so, you define events, such as the occurrence of a specific time or a change to a data record. As soon as these events occur, the processes defined in the Process Designer are triggered fully automatically. This could involve, for example, writing a data record, generating a document, or updating your dashboard in the production environment.

Data Designer (Integration Module)

You can integrate a wide variety of external data sources into a portal. This ensures that portal users can access data in their browser from a central location within the company, presented in a consistent format. For example, data from SAP and Microsoft Exchange can be displayed side by side as if it were all from a single source.

Users (Users module)

Users are managed in the portal. On the one hand, there are users who are authorized to use the Intrexx Portal Manager, and on the other hand, there are users who are authorized to use the portal in a browser. Roles and permissions can be assigned to users, allowing for granular control over access to the portal in the Portal Manager and in the browser. This way, everyone sees only what they're allowed to see in the browser. And in Portal Manager, users can only perform the actions for which they have permission.

Design (the "Design" module)

The portal in the browser typically follows the corporate design of the company that operates the portal. The "Design" module is available in Portal Manager for this purpose. There, you can configure all the necessary settings (CSS) so that the portal meets the visual requirements. You can set up a uniform layout for the entire portal, including all applications, or configure different settings for individual applications.