IcePORTAL is built upon the Microsoft SharePoint Services product.  This means that most of the features and techniques for adding users, configuring your web site, or managing web parts is the same as for any other SharePoint site (and books or reference materials you may own).

Your IcePORTAL web page should be preconfigured by IceWEB Customer Service with at least one primary user/network account name and password.  If you have other IceWEB Online services, this account name and password may be the same.  As the “administrator” for your company portal, you should be the first to log in and add additional users, assign user privileges, and add/change the web parts/modules.  You can change the default color or theme as well as import existing documents, employee directories, and other data you wish to have available on your IcePORTAL.

There are too many configuration and customization options available for IcePORTAL and Microsoft SharePoint to cover them all in one document. There are numerous third-party books and reference materials available to assist you in customizing your portal.  You may also contact IceWEB Customer Service to answer your questions, seek advice on how to organize your “portal”, or how to adjust views and fields within your portal.

Steps to Configure/Customize your IcePORTAL:

1) From your web browser, go to the URL of your IcePORTAL.  This URL along with an initial administrator account and password will have been provided to you by IceWEB Customer Service or in an automatically-generated email from IceWEB when you first placed your order for services.  A login window should appear asking you for your user ID/account and password.   

2) Screen Layout:  Now you will see the main page of your IcePORTAL site (example shown below).  On the left side of the page is your Quick Launch bar where you can navigate to most of your portal content.  You can also click on the Home tab or other tabs (just below the IceWEB logo/banner on the example below.  Additional tabs can be added for different departments or sub-sites that you create.  At the top right of the page is the Site Actions drop down menu which is used for creating new content and making changes to the overall portal site (just for administrators of your portal to use).  The main “body” of the screen shows multiple web modules or “web parts” as SharePoint calls them.  These parts can be configured, removed, rearranged, or replaced with other web parts from a built-in library of modules.

Some templates include search options. In the example above, you can search on key words or other data within your IcePORTAL by using the search bar located on the top right of the screen.

One key to understanding the main portal layout and usage is that each view (with Announcements, Company Events, Links, and Employee Out Board web modules shown in the above example) can be customized.  A view shown on the main web page may show only current items and not events whose data has past.  To see the complete list of company events (even older items), for example, you would need to click on the Company Events title in the Quick Launch bar (left side of screen) or the Company Events title located above the sample holidays that are shown. 

3) Add/Change Users:  One of the first things you may need to do as an administrator of your company portal is add or configure user accounts for employees you will be allowing access to your IcePORTAL.  Each person who will access your portal will need an IceMAIL account/mailbox first.  Once the account has been added to IceMAIL via the web-based control panel, you will then be able to add this user to your IcePORTAL site if desired (i.e. you do not have to give all of your IceMAIL users an IcePORTAL login capability).

To add/change user settings in IcePORTAL, click on the Site Actions drop down menu at the top right of the main portal page. Then click Site Settings and then People and Groups.  You can then choose the New button to add news users or groups to your IcePORTAL site. 

From the “Add Users” screen, you can enter one or more account names for your employees/users or search and select them from the address book  icon.  Normally, the user name(s) you would enter are the full email address for each employee/user (e.g. jsmith@abccompany.com).  Once you have entered one or more names, click the “check name” icon  which will confirm the accounts/names exist.  As stated earlier, these user names must have IceMAIL mailboxes before adding them to IcePORTAL.

On the “add users” screen above, you can define what permissions each new user is to have for your IcePORTAL site.  By default, each new user will be added to the “Members” group which means they can read and contribute information to the portal.  You can select from other default groups called owners (for administrators) or visitors (read-only privileges).  You can also give users specific permissions instead of just assigning them to a group.  Only certain users should be given “Administrator” rights (or assigned to the Owners group) as this allows them to make any changes or even delete entire pages from your IcePORTAL site.

Finally, you can choose to send a “welcome” email to all of the new users .  Simply adjust the subject line and/or body of the message.  When you press the OK button on the button right of the screen, your new users will be added and the welcome message(s) sent.

4) Customize Your Portal:   You can also adjust the colors within your portal by changing the Theme.  The Theme can be changed by accessing the Site Actions menu (top right of your portal screen) and then clicking Site Theme to show the screen below.  There are a variety of themes available.  Customize colors or company logos can be added to the site by contacting IceWEB Customer Service.

5) Customer Lists, Libraries, Modules:  The primary way to get the most out of your IcePORTAL system is to add web parts/modules, create custom lists, document libraries, and sub-sites.  Clicking on Create from the Site Actions drop down menu on the top right of your portal will display a list.  This list contains all of the types of modules/web parts or sub sites that you can create.  From this list, you can create new document library giving it a unique name to which you can optionally give unique permissions so only certain users can view or add/change files.  You can also create company calendars, customer contact lists, picture libraries, or custom forms.

Within each module (whether a document library, contact list, discussion board, issues list, etc.), you can adjust the individual fields and Views.  The fields can be as basic as single-line text entries for a First Name or Last Name or as complex as a checkbox/radio-button with pre-defined categories.  You can also have fields that allow looking up information (such as looking up names from the employee directory list) from other sections within the portal.  To add or modify fields within an existing form, click on the Settings link at the top of each list/library/module such as the example shown here.

Below is a list of the types of content that can be created within IcePORTAL along with a brief description of each.  When deciding what type of list, library, or module to create, consider which of these pre-defined web module types best fits your need and then customize the title and fields within the new list, for example, to match you requirement.  For example, If you wish to track customer support calls/tickets, you might select an “issues list” template since it will already have most of the common fields and features you are looking for.  You might, however, decide that you want to track your customer service calls in a discussion thread format in which case you would base your new list on a “discussion” template.  Then you would customize the title of the “discussion” to say “Customer Service Tickets” and then add or adjust fields within the discussion thread to have the categories, priorities, or other fields that make sense for your new list/module.  Everything is done right from the IcePORTAL user interface and without learning any programming languages.

6) Add or Rearrange Web Modules: To add new web modules (e.g. a contact list, calendar, etc.) to the main page of your IcePORTAL, click on Edit from the Site Actions drop down menu at the top right of the page (under the search bar).

The web parts or modules will now appear outlined in two columns (in this example).  You can drag an existing web part from one column to the other or rearrange them vertically as you wish.  You can also minimize a web part or remove entirely by clicking on the “x” in the top right of each web part.  To add a web module (that already exists) to appear in one of the columns, click the “add a Web Part” button at the top of one of the columns as shown in the example below.