Prerequisite Skills
Summit 2022 Feature
Express Portals streamline and simplify the process of building custom portals in Slate. Before proceeding, familiarize yourself with the best practices for creating portals, as these still apply to the implementation of Express Portals.
Editing an Express Portal. |
Front end view of the same Express Portal. |
Getting Started
We recommend thinking about the following questions and mapping out your own requirements before starting an Express Portal project:
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Determine the purpose of the portal
What is the goal of the portal? Who are its users, and what should they be able to accomplish? The most common types of Express Portals are:
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Event Registration: Allow users to quickly and easily register for events.
- Event Itinerary: Provide event registrants with detailed information about their visit. Using configurable joins exports and dynamic content blocks, these portals can provide students with information about any meetings or classes they'll be attending, or related events that they've registered for.
- Slate Video Landing Page: Create a personalized landing page for Slate Video.
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Determine the functionality
What must users be able to accomplish within the portal? For example, should they be able to claim an interview and submit a report afterward?
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Map out the view
What must a user see on the portal? Do they need to see data that is already housed in Slate (for example, prospect or applicant information, or upcoming events)? Will there be a need to conditionally show or hide parts of the portal depending on who the logged-in user is? Drawing a mockup can be helpful for this step.
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Creating the Portal
To create an Express Portal:
- From the main navigation, select Database, then select Portals.
- At right, select Express Portals.
- Click New Express Portal. An Edit Details pop-up appears.
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Configure the following settings:
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Example Express Portal Setup |
- Click Save to create your new Express Portal.
Express Portal Configuration Page
Unlike traditional portals, Express Portals do not require methods or queries to function. Instead, they use Configurable Joins to pull data from sources as-needed, without the need for advanced configuration. You will configure the Exports you want to use when you configure your Views.
On the main Express Portal configuration page, there are several tools immediately available, including:
- Edit: Alter any of the Express Portal's settings, as described above.
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Embed Portal: Opens the Embed Portal pop-up, which includes an option to allow or disable embedding of the portal, as well as the embed code for copying. - Copy: Make a copy of the Express Portal.
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Palette: - View: Add a new view to the Express Portal by dragging a view from the palette. A pop-up appears:
- Status: Active
- Name: Enter a public-facing name for the view. For example, FAQ.
- Layout: Choose the layout for your view from the list. Dynamic Layout Builder is recommended.
- Header: Segment the views list.
- View: Add a new view to the Express Portal by dragging a view from the palette. A pop-up appears:
- (Not pictured) Impersonate: View the Express Portal from the point of view of a specified user. This option does not appear when Security is set to Anonymous/Guest.
The first View that you add to your Express Portal will become the default view. To change the default view, drag the view you would like to be the default to the top of the views list. Refreshing the page will update the Express Portal and show that the top view is now the default.
Important!
Editing the Express Portal's key will break any existing links to the Express Portal; change this with caution!
Configuring Views
Once you've added one or more views to your Express Portal, double-click the View to open the View Editor. Within the View Editor, you have the following tools available:
- Edit
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Change the View Status (Active/Inactive), Name, and Layout.
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- Changing the default View to Inactive will cause your Express Portal to become inaccessible externally.
- Editing the Layout of an already-built View will cause Slate to reconfigure the existing content to the new Layout; be sure you have the correct desired Layout selected before saving changes!
- In addition to several pre-configured layouts, the option for Dynamic Layout Editor will create a blank layout.
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- View as List
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View all objects on the View as a single list.
- Collapse All
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Make the content smaller for editing (becomes Expand All to return it to full size). This setting does not change what the View looks like to users; it only affects the View Editor.
- Edit Exports
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Choose which Exports to use on this View. Only choose the Exports that you need for this specific view, as choosing too many Exports can cause slowdowns when loading the page.
To put it in pre-Express Portal terms: Edit Exports essentially replaces the Portal Query and Portal Method of a standard Portal.
The available Exports change depending upon the Security setting chosen when creating the Express Portal. If the Express Portal Security is set to Anonymous/Guest, the Edit Export button disappears entirely.
- Palette
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Within the View Editor, you can drag items from the Palette to add them to your View. If you are using the Dynamic Layout Editor, you will need to begin by adding Rows to your view.
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- New Row: Add a new row to segment your content. Dragging a new row into the view prompts you to edit its columns. (Only available for Dynamic Layout Editor type.)
- Static Content: Add content such as images and text boxes that will remain relatively unchanged over time. Supports Liquid Markup, Merge Fields, and custom HTML/CSS.
- Events: Add a widget that displays links to and information about events that meet specified criteria. Additional information can be found in the article Portal Events Widget.
- Form: Embed an existing form on the page using the Forms widget. Additional information can be found in the article Using Slate Forms with Portals.
- Slate Video: Embed Slate Video onto your page using the Widget. Additional information can be found in the article Configuring Slate Video.
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