What are the Major Functions of Portals?

The ideal portal is based on following features areas:

– search and routing
– personalization
– warning announcement
– task management and workflow
– collaboration and groupware

Although almost all of the functionality is not new, what is new is the idea that the business enterprise value of the whole is significantly more than the sum of its parts. Thus, a successful portal would not only consist of either a good collaboration support or a good the use of the info sources. Somewhat it contains – just like a successful food preparation recipe – a well-integrated mixture of the basic portal functionalities.

Search and Navigation

This functionality forms the basis for the majority of the successful public web portals meaning that a successful portal should support people in an efficient search for contents.

A website should:

– automatically present its users with the information appropriate to the user’s role

– suggest additional information to the user, and/or allow the user to voluntarily customize the information presented by the portal

– allow the user to search for information that has been not previously known to be highly relevant to the user’s role, but which may be available through the portal

Provide Personalization

Personalization is essential to the delivery of appropriate information to portal users: each user gets only the information which is specifically focused on his or her needs. Personalization should be based on user functions, as well as consumer preferences.

There are several types of personalization:

– Personalization of navigation
– shortcuts to specific information, mostly known as bookmarks or favorites
– Personalization of data/content
– which stocks do I want to see inside my stock ticker
– Personalization of layout

what information shows up where on the display screen, through which format, color or size

An important high-level distinction exists between:

– Design personalization

the initial appearance of the portal, which may be ‘pre-personalized’ based on the user’s role

– Voluntary personalization

where the user is offered a food selection of personalization options to choose from

– Unconscious customization

where the system itself unilaterally makes selections for the consumer according to ‘guesses’ about user choices.

On a Web site, personalization is the process of tailoring pages to individual users’ characteristics or preferences. Commonly used to improve customer service or web commerce sales, personalization is sometimes referred to as one-to-one marketing; because the enterprise’s Web page is tailored to specifically target each individual consumer. Personalization is a means of meeting the customer’s needs better and efficiently, making relationships faster and easier and, consequently, increasing customer satisfaction and the likelihood of repeat visits.

Provide Notice

Notification (push technology) is referred to as a system in which a user receives information automatically from your network server. Press technologies are designed to send information and software directly to a user’s desktop without the consumer actively requesting it. Thus, the user has the possibility to subscribe to active information sources (such as information feeds and periodically updated reports) and ask to be alerted when documents are updated.

Provide Activity Management and Workflow

Websites providing task management services can help users be a part of and/or manage formally identified business processes.

The work flow functionality allows the automation of business processes. Hence, as part of a workflow-automated business process, a portal will be able to prompt the users when they have got duties to perform.

E. g. Digite Application

Provide Collaboration and Groupware

Knowledge management and groupware ensure that the required information is stored in the right place and in the right mode. By this means the right people are brought together with the right information. Groupware software assists in less official collaboration than workflow tools. As with workflow software, groupware increases the value delivered by many types of specialized portals; for example, it:

– raises the attractiveness of business-to-consumer e-commerce portals

– allows informal communication between providers and customers in b2b e-commerce portals

Supply cycle portals are also dependent on collaboration support in order to help suppliers and their customers manage their relationships. Moreover, collaboration support is a key requirement for knowledge portals.

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