Proven Portals

Dan Sullivan runs his own consulting company, does training for Pluralsight (www.pluralsight.com), and has worked with SQL Server since it was first distributed by Microsoft and ran on OS/2. Dan has spoken and written widely on SQL Server.

Case Studies.


List of Figures.


Preface. @@CHAPTER = Acknowledgments.
I. PRINCIPLES OF PORTAL DESIGN.

1. Creating Frameworks for Organizing Information.


The Need for Structure in Portal Interface Design.



Organizing Content around Taxonomies.



Visualization Tools for Portal Organization.



Emerging Trends and Technologies.



Conclusion.



References.

2. Using a Three-tier architecture.


Tier 1: The Presentation Layer.



Tier 2: The Application Server Layer.



Tier 3: The Enterprise Information Services Layer.



Conclusion.



Reference.

3. Using a Framework for Application Integration.


The Java 2 Enterprise Edition Framework.



The Microsoft .NET Architecture.



Application Integration Services.



Protecting the Integrity of the Portal.



Conclusion.



References.

4. Ensuring Portal Adoption.


Best Practices for Ensuring Portal Adoption.



Root Causes of Poor Adoption.



Conclusion.



References.

5. Measuring Portal Return on Investment: A Crash Course.


The Need for Financial Impact Analysis.



Tools for Analyzing Capital Expenditures.



Calculating a Portal ROI and Related Measures.



Best Practices: ROI and Other Financial Impact Measures.



Conclusion.



References.

II. THE VARIETY OF PORTALS.

6. Characteristics of Effective E-Commerce Portals.


Customer Trust.



Ease of Use.



Multichannel Integration.



Customer Retention.



Support for Self-Service.



Conclusion.



References.

7. Delivering Business Intelligence and Analytics on Demand.


Understanding Operations: Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing.



Characteristics of Data Warehouses.



The Data Warehouse Environment.



Facilitating Operations: Analytic Services.



Conclusion.



References.

8. Effective Knowledge Management Techniques.


Types of Information.



Search Functions: The First Step.



Metadata: Know What It's All About.



Expert Directories: Connecting People to People.



Conclusion.



References.

III. BUILDING YOUR OWN PROVEN PORTAL.

9. Five common Themes in Proven Portals.


Focus on Business Processes.



Emphasis on Easy of Use.



Deep Integration of Applications.



Scalability of Services.



Well-Developed Security Models.



Conclusion.



References.

10. Implementing Your Proven Portal.


Understanding the Business Drivers.



Designing the Portal.



Assessing the Return on Investment.



Incrementally Implementing and Adapting the Portal.



Conclusion.



References.

Bibliography.
Index.