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One of the core ideas behind Collaboration Rooms is to provide an easy creation process for new rooms. To enable this, some mandatory technical information and parameters must be predefined. This happens in the Collaboration Room Template. These templates describe the default behaviour and settings of the rooms based on them. Therefore, one can define specific templates for Collaboration Room for all relevant business cases for her company. An example of a business need is the creation of a room to share documents, calendars, news and discussion threads with specific team members.

Example of a Collaboration Room based on a Template:

Another business need example is of sharing a several discussion topics and documents in a community room environment.

To accomplish both of the above, a Collaboration Room template must be chosen to best reflect the types of information the rooms will hold. (SAP will provide general use templates, which can be used or copied and modified for other usages.)

Each Collaboration Room is based on a Room template. A Room template is a blueprint for a Collaboration Room, with room-specific views of the room content. The template combines iViews and pages in a task-specific blueprint, from which the user can generate Collaboration Rooms for corresponding tasks.

Individual roles in a room can have selected views of the content, example, an internal member might be permitted to see a team schedule, whereas an external public role might be limited to published content or discussion and KM quickpoll data. A room administrator would have access to the member invitation, quickpoll administration and other required room tools.

Room templates predefine various technical information to make the creation process of the Room as easy as possible. In most cases each Room template reflects a specific business objective ( e.g. Meeting Template, Project Template, Community Template ).

In general, a Room template is based on three layers: 1. The first layer is mainly based on a common Portal workset. This workset defines the visual layout structure and iView content which should be part of the template. This information is stored inside of the Portal Content Directory or PCD. It is accessed via the Portal Content Catalog or PCC. 2. All information about the attributes of the template, ( e.g. name, description, property mappings,room roles ) are stored inside of the KM layer. It can be accessed via the Room Template Administration Iview. 3. Additionally, all content with which a Room instance should be populated ( persistency stores for documents, etc. ) must be stored inside the KM Repository and linked to the template. It is accessed via the KM content Navigator.

PROCESSES: The following steps and procedures are necessary for the creation and usage of a Collaboration Room template:

Step 1. Prerequisites To access the different tools necessary to fulfil all steps of the template creation process, one needs the following Portal Roles: ( please refer to portal administration and role assignment procedures for EP 6.0, these roles are shipped with the portal, but must be assigned to the necessary users:

1.( Content Administration ). This is a must have role, which allows access to the Portal Content Catalog or PCD. This is where the necessary Portal objects like worksets, pages and iViews are created and maintained.

2.(Collaboration Administration ). This is a must have role, which allows access to the Room Template Manager. This tool allows the creation and maintenance of Room Templates.

3.(Room Creation). This role is strongly recommended. It allows the creation of Room based on templates. This is necessary to test the created Room templates.

4. (Collaboration ). This role is strongly recommended. It allows the access of the Room directory to enter a newly created Room.

5.( Content Administration KM Content ). This role is recommended. If one wants to prepopulate a Room with KM content ( e.g. documents ) s/he must have the role.

6. Please note that these roles are for the creation of templates, and are used primarily by collaboration administrators. Collaboration end users could have roles 3 and 4 to generate and use rooms.

Step 2. Create a new Workset in the Portal Content Catalog or PCD Each Room Template contains a workset including the respective pages and iViews. These elements are stored in the Portal Content Directory or PCD. They can be accessed via the Portal Content Catalog or PCC. To access the PCC, the user must be assigned to the respective portal role ( see prerequisites ). The PCC can be accessed via the Content Administration->Portal Content

In the Worksets folder you have to store all the worksets, which will be used to build a template. The TemplateWorksets folder contains worksets, which are related to a template. Therefore first one places a new workset in the Worksets folder and then creates a Template based on it. During this process the Template Manager copies the respective workset into the TemplateWorksets folder.

To construct the worksets portal content must be used. SAP recommends storing this template content inside of the TemplateContent folder. The Generic folder contains pages and iViews, which can be reused in several templates. SAP provides a basic set of these pages and iViews. The TemplateSpecific folder contains pages and iViews which are special to a dedicated template.

The first step is to create a new workset, which should represent the Room template inside of the PCC. Please store it in the folder: Portal Content-> com.sap.ip.collaboration-> Worksets. SAP recommends using a namespace for each new Workset. SAP reserves the namespace com.sap.netweaver.coll.

Step 3. Create or reuse existing Pages and iViews:

The next step is to define the content (pages and iViews) for that new workset. As described above some content is already provided by SAP in the folder Portal Content-> com.sap.ip.collaboration-> TemplateContent->Generic.

In addition to those elements most templates require additional Pages and iViews. Those elements should be stored in the folder Portal Content-> com.sap.ip.collaboration-> TemplateContent-> TemplateSpecific-> MYTEMPLATE

It’s also possible to integrate content from anywhere else in the PCC into this Workset. Only the workset has to be stored in the correct folder, not the integrated content. Nevertheless the above order allows easier maintenance of the templates; therefore SAP recommends using it.

Step 4. Room Template Creation and Administration:

After finishing the workset, which is the basis of each Room template, the next step is to define the technical attributes and properties of the new Room template. It’s possible to build several Room templates based on the same workset.

The first step is to enter the Room Template Administration. This tool supports the easy creation and maintenance of Room templates. To access the Room Template Administration the user must be assigned to the respective Portal role. It can be found via the Portal navigation: Collaboration Administration-> Collaboration Content-> Template Administration. The Room Template Administration first provides a list with all available templates, (which can be used for modeling).

Step 5. Define General Attributes:

The first wizard screen requests basic information on the Room template. The following information is requested:  Name (mandatory) The name of the new template. The following characters are allowed to be used: 'a-z', 'A-Z', '0-9', '_', '%', '~', '-', '(', ')', 'äöüÄÖÜß', SPACE  Description (mandatory) Description of the template  Owner The owner of the template. The usage of this field is optional. If you use it keep in mind, that the ID of the user is saved.  Access (mandatory) Describes how the Room can be accessed and it’s visibility after creation: o Free The Room has no access control. This means any portal user can enter it. This is especially useful for open communities. The Room is listed in the “Communities” tab in the Room Directory. o Upon Request The Room can only be entered by members. The Room occurs in the “My Rooms” tab for its members and in the “All Rooms” tab for each Portal user (listed Room). Those users can request to become a member of it. o By Invitation Only The Room can only be entered by members. It’s not listed in the “All Rooms” tab but only in the “My Rooms” tab for its members (unlisted Room).  Access is Fixed If this checkbox is marked the creator of a Room cannot change the access mode. Otherwise it’s possible to change the access mode for each Room instance.  Workset (mandatory) All Worksets in the PCC folder mentioned above are listed here. The Room Template will use the selected Workset as a basis.

Step 6. Define Room Roles and Access Permissions to the Room’s Page : Now it’s necessary to define which Room roles should be available to the Rooms based on the Template. The Room role is a mechanism to define view permissions to the Portal content of the Room. Those Room roles must be assigned to the members of the Room later on.

If you want to add a new Room role, you have to enter the name and description in the lower part of the screen in the field New Role and Description. Choose the button Add. If you want to delete a Room role use the respective context menu. By default you will see three roles, which can nevertheless be deleted if they are not necessary for the template:  Admin Intended to have access to all pages including the Room Administration  Member Standard member of the Room  Public This is a special Room role. It must not be assigned to a user at all. It controls which pages of the Room should be available to every Portal User (public area). In the standard use case this page contains an iView which lists the published documents of the Room. But each template designer can decide to open other or additional pages to the public. The initial role controls which role members are assigned to by default when they are invited to the Room. Of course this can be changed by the Room owner later on for each Room member.

In the last step it’s necessary to define the access permissions by the Room roles to the pages of the workset. Therefore the pages of the selected workset are automatically listed together with the available Room roles. In our example we have added the Room role “MemberAdmin”. The default Role is “Member”. The Admin can access every page (except of Member Maintenance which is a subset of Room Administration). Each Member can access all pages except of the Room Administration. The MemberAdmin can access the same as the Member plus the Member Maintenance. Every other Portal user (->public) can access only the Public Area.

Step 7: Define and create content areas to be used :

A content area or “store” is used as the persistency area for dedicated applications. The most common example is the “cmStore” which is needed to persist documents inside of the Room.

The information about the stores available in the Room can later be mapped to the iViews using this information. Then those iViews can use the stores to persist their data in them. By default SAP provides four content stores:  cmStore To be selected if the template should support the documents application.  cmFormsStore To be selected if the template should support the news application.  cmQuickPollStore To be selected if the template should support the quick poll application.  cmLinkListStore To be selected if the template should support the link list application.

Step 8: Define Mapping Parameters to The Corresponding iViews:

The iViews which are part of the selected workset partially need some additional information to run. E.g. some iViews need a persistency, which we have defined before. Other iViews need the ID of the Room to get some context specific information. Therefore it’s possible in this step to provide Room parameters to the iViews. Those parameters must be mapped to the corresponding iView properties. In general we have three different kinds of Room parameters:  Automatically generated parameters Those parameters are automatically generated by the Room infrastructure. Examples are the Room ID or the ID of the corresponding user groups in the User Management.  Parameters generated thru the Content Store selection For each selected content store two parameters are generated automatically. One represents the RID to the private part and another one the RID to the public part. The private RID must be used for iViews running inside of the Room, the public RID for iViews located at the public pages.  Parameters defined by the Template designer These parameters can be defined and will be requested from the Room creator in the creation wizard. A good example is the cost center, which can be related to a Room. This cost center ID can be requested from the Room creator and can be mapped to a BW iView showing some reports about that cost center.

Step 9 : Test the Room Template

To test the new Room template it’s recommended to create a new Room. You can enter it by default via the navigation path Collaboration-> Room Creation. To access the creation wizard the user must be assigned to the respective Portal role. Select the new template in the creation wizard and don’t forget to assign yourself to the Admin Room Role to be able to access the Room Maintenance. After the Room is created you can either access it from the creation wizard or the Room Directory. To access the creation wizard the user must be assigned to the respective Portal role . If you want to delete the Room you can use the Room Administration. You can reach it via the navigation path Collaboration Administration->Collaboration Content-> Room Administration. To access the Room Administration the user must be assigned to the respective Portal role.

Now, get out there and collaborate!!!

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