1. Understanding Portal Concepts

In this page, you will learn the definition of the concepts used in Portal.

1.1. Investigation

An Investigation is a request performed on a NEXThink Engine in order to retrieve specific information stocked its in-memory database. An investigation could be created in the NEXThink Finder or downloaded from the NEXThink Library. It could be performed from the Finder to receive immediate results or it could be used to compute widgets in NEXThink Portal.

1.2. Widgets

A Widget is an interactive component that provide information in several forms. NEXThink Portal comes with several types of widgets, each one aimed at specific goals. A description of each available widget can be found in the page Using Widgets

1.3. Dashboards

A Dashboard is a container of information in which Widgets can be added and organized in the page.

1.4. Modules

A Module is a container of information in which Widgets can be published and organized in Dashboards.

1.5. Reports

A Report is the result in PDF format of on or more widgets at a given day. Reports can be scheduled and could cover a given period. The content can be organized in chapter and sections. Each user can create its own report using the widgets he can access.

1.6. Categories

A Category is a custom attribute that can be added to a NEXThink object within the NEXThink Engine. For example, we can define a category "Site" for sources.

It means that, for each workstation, one can specify to which "Site" it belongs. This attribute could have as value an element of a list of keywords. The workstation "W1" on the site "S1" will have, for the category "Site", the keyword "S1".

1.6.1. Entities

An Entity is a basic element of the organizational consolidation of workstations. Each workstation is part of only one entity. An entity is a single element that can be found only on one Engine. Entities are materialized by a category on workstations.

1.7. Hierarchy

A Hierarchy is a tree structure where leaves are the entities. It permits to organize and group them. A hierarchy is the central element of Portal, it is the reference to manage access rights and aggregate datas.

1.7.1. View Domains

A View domain represents which data an user has the right to see. It is defined by a node of the hierarchy and optionally by a limit in the depth. For example, a view domain, based on a geographic concept, could limit the view to a continent and allow the user to drill-down on country but prevent to see details by city. A view domain "D1" is said higher than view domain "D2" if "D2" is on same branch of the tree than "D1" (but is not on same node).

1.7.2. Admin Domain

An Administration domain is a part of a hierarchy an administrator could manage. In this case, management means that the administrator could, for example, create users with view domains included it its administration domain or create content focused on it. An administration domain is defined by a node of the hierarchy, the domain is the sub-tree from this node. An administration domain "D1" is higher than an administration domain "D2" if "D2" is on same branch than "D1" (but not on same node).

1.8. Roles

A Role defines the content to which a user will have access. This content could be modules and reports (for Portal) and/or investigations (for Finder). It is important to do the distinction between roles and user access rights; the combination of the two defining the information finally visible for the user. Concerning the Portal, a role defines the modules available for a user and its access rights will limit the information displayed on dashboards. Concerning the Finder, the role could provide an investigations set available and the access rights will limit the returned results.

1.9. User Profiles

An User profile contains the main features of an account type, its access rights (maximum one view domain per hierarchy), its Portal content (modules) and/or Finder content (investigation) in addition of some privileges.

1.10. User Accounts

An Account permits to an user to authenticate itself and access to Finder and/or to the Portal. An user account contains its personal information (name, email, ...), its profile (eventually with parameters) and optionally additional roles.

2. Account types

2.1. Central Administrator

A Central administrator is an administrator having rights to see and administrate all hierarchies. In opposition to local administrators, he has also the right to administrate hierarchies, user profiles and Engines. He has also all rights of a reader.

2.2. Local Administrator

A Local administrator is an administrator who have an administration domain related to all or a part of a hierarchy. He could have or not the right to create user accounts based on profiles which have been given to him. He has also all rights of a reader.

2.3. Reader

A Reader is an user who could only display modules and dashboard. He's usually restricted to an only view domain and could have or not access to the Finder. A reader could be or not granted to access to the gallery in order to add content (created by an administrator) to its Portal.