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HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
HCL Digital Experience 8.5
Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
Administering
Use the administration tools that are provided with the portal to do various day-to-day administration tasks. There are two methods for editing portal setup: using the administration portlets or the XML configuration interface. The administration portlets are a convenient way to make real-time updates to the portal's configuration. While the XML configuration interface is suited to more advanced administration, including batch processing of updates.
Portal administration tools
Learn about the different tools that you can use to administer your portal.
The XML configuration interface
Use the XML configuration interface (XML Access) for exchanging portal configurations.
Working with the XML configuration interface
You can use the XML configuration interface to export and import HCL Digital Experience configurations. This way you can configure selected features or areas of your portal. You can also transfer a complete configuration from one portal to another.
Using the XML configuration command line client
You access the XML configuration interface using a command line tool. This command line client is a separate program that connects to the server. Connecting to a remote server makes it possible to configure the portal remotely. You use the command line syntax of the XML configuration interface.
Registering predeployed portlets
You can manually predeploy portlet application WAR files using the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console. You can later register and configure the predeployed portlet applications into HCL Portal, together with other J2EE resources and artifacts, by using the XML configuration interface.

HCL Digital Experience Product Documentation
Welcome to the product documentation for HCL Digital Experience. Find information about how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend solutions.
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5
- HCL Digital Experience 9.5 [Legacy Content]
- HCL Digital Experience 9.0
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 9.0 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
- HCL Digital Experience 8.5
  Learn how to install, configure, troubleshoot, maintain, and use Version 8.5 of HCL Web Content Manager and HCL Portal Server, Enable, and Extend.
  - Overview
    HCL Digital Experience (formerly IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM Web Content Manager) empowers you to create, manage, and deliver engaging omnichannel digital experiences to virtually all audiences with responsive content, targeted offers, seamlessly integrated applications, and consistent branding across channels (web, mobile. and hybrid mobile/web applications and more).
  - Roadmaps to deploy your system
    Review the roadmaps to understand the common deployment, configuration, migration, and integration patterns.
  - Roadmaps to create your website
    Review the roadmaps to understand how to create your website.
  - Online Help
    This Online Help is made available in the HCL Digital Experience Help Center for quick references on how to install, configure, maintain, and use HCL Digital Experience.
  - Installing
    HCL Digital Experience provides flexible deployment options that range from proof-of-concept where you can examine and test functionality to a highly available and scalable production environment. Review the planning information to learn more about hardware and software requirements, high availability, scalability, supported topologies, and much more. Select your operating system and then select the installation pattern that most reflects your business needs.
  - Configuring
    Run the following tasks after you install and deploy HCL Digital Experience. They address tasks that are typically run one time and have a global effect. Some configuration changes are made more frequently or do not have a global effect. These tasks are addressed in the Administering section.
  - Backup and restore
    Backup and recovery of data files and databases is an essential operation for any business system, particularly for data and applications that run in production environments. Create and follow a plan for backing up and recovering data on all tiers of your HCL Digital Experience deployment. IBM Installation Manager must also be included in backup and recovery planning. If you back up the HCL Portal file structure and then install a fix pack, your HCL Digital Experience and IBM Installation Manager become out of sync after you restore the HCL Portal file system. This condition is not recoverable.
  - Migrating
    Successful migration requires significant planning and preparation, understanding the tools that are involved, and careful execution of the appropriate steps in the order provided.
  - Integrating
    Integrate HCL Digital Experience with software such as HCL Sametime to enable your users to collaborate more easily. You can also use the unified task list portlet to integrate HCL with your backend business process software, such as IBM Process Server.
  - Administering
    Use the administration tools that are provided with the portal to do various day-to-day administration tasks. There are two methods for editing portal setup: using the administration portlets or the XML configuration interface. The administration portlets are a convenient way to make real-time updates to the portal's configuration. While the XML configuration interface is suited to more advanced administration, including batch processing of updates.
    - Portal administration tools
      Learn about the different tools that you can use to administer your portal.
      - Portal administration portlets
        Administration portlets are supplied with HCL Digital Experience. Use them to perform administration tasks and actions on portal resources, give other users limited access rights on selected resources, and deploy custom portlets, themes, or skins.
      - The XML configuration interface
        Use the XML configuration interface (XML Access) for exchanging portal configurations.
        About the XML configuration interface
        The XML configuration interface provides a batch processing interface for portal configuration updates. It allows you to export an entire portal configuration or parts of a configuration, for example specific pages, to an XML file. You can then re-create the exported configuration from such a file on another portal.
        Changes to the XML configuration interface for this version of HCL Portal
        Learn about the changes that were made to the XML configuration interface from earlier versions to current versions of HCL Digital Experience. This information can be useful to you if you migrate your HCL Portal from one version to a later version.
        Working with the XML configuration interface
        You can use the XML configuration interface to export and import HCL Digital Experience configurations. This way you can configure selected features or areas of your portal. You can also transfer a complete configuration from one portal to another.
        Using administrative portlets for XML configuration
        XML configuration through administrative portlets allows you to export and import configurations. You can export a page or an entire page hierarchy by clicking the Export icon in the Manage pages administration portlet. You can also import an XML configuration file by using the Import XML portlet.
        Using the XML configuration command line client
        You access the XML configuration interface using a command line tool. This command line client is a separate program that connects to the server. Connecting to a remote server makes it possible to configure the portal remotely. You use the command line syntax of the XML configuration interface.
        Command line syntax of the XML configuration interface
        The command line syntax for working with the XML configuration interface can vary, depending on your portal installation environment and configuration.
        Transferring portal configuration data by using the XML configuration interface
        When you use the XML configuration interface to transfer HCL Portal configuration data, you export or import an XML script file. In most cases, you can use the result file from an XML export for an XML import. Sometimes you can use the export result file directly, sometimes you must modify it.
        Creating and modifying resources
        In addition to copying and restoring configurations of existing portal resources, you can use the XML configuration interface to install new resources in the portal. You can also use the XML configuration interface as an alternative to the portal administrative user interface for running some administration tasks.
        Activating and deactivating portlets, portlet applications, and web applications
        You can change the states of portlets, portlet applications, and web applications between active and inactive by using the portal XML configuration interface.
        Scheduling the delayed cleanup of portal pages | HCL Digital Experience
        You can use the example XML script Task.xml to schedule the cleanup of pages that have been marked for deletion.
        Registering predeployed portlets
        You can manually predeploy portlet application WAR files using the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console. You can later register and configure the predeployed portlet applications into HCL Portal, together with other J2EE resources and artifacts, by using the XML configuration interface.
        Removing users and groups
        Depending on circumstances, you might want to remove users or groups from your HCL Portal that are no longer used or required. You can use the XML configuration interface (XML Access) to list such users and groups. You can also remove only some selected users and groups, and keep others for further use.
        Preparing the deletion of orphaned resources
        You can use the XML configuration interface to delete orphaned data from your HCL Portal.
        Generating a complete XMLAccess export of a Portal configuration
        To help troubleshooting a HCL Portal issue, you might be asked by HCL Software Support to generate or collect a full or complete export of your Portal configuration. The complete export can be generated by using the XML Configuration Interface, commonly known as XMLAccess.
        XML configuration reference
        Learn more about XML input structure, XML tags for portal resources, attributes for special purposes such as locale data, object IDs, and more. Also find information about action attributes that determine the type of processing that the XML configuration reference applies to the portal resource. There are syntax restrictions that you need to consider as well as information about how to determine the object IDs for portal resources.
      - Portal Scripting Interface
        You can use the Portal Scripting Interface to configure your portal by running scripts from a command line.
    - Web content administration tools
      HCL Web Content Manager includes tasks and tools to help maintain your content management system. For example, use the member fixer task to resolve renamed or deleted users and user groups. Use the workflow checker and updater tools to modify workflow security settings, reschedule pending actions, and add workflow to items. HCL Web Content Manager also includes tools to assist with library and item management, and item and version history management.
    - Starting and stopping servers
      Various installation and configuration tasks require you to start and stop IBM WebSphere Application Server and the HCL Digital Experience application servers, deployment managers, and node agents.
    - Users and groups
      HCL Digital Experience offers you centralized administration of users and user groups, allowing you to better define users and manage user access rights. Users can register and manage their own account information, or an administrator can provision and manage users. Group memberships can be used to give the required permissions to access an object or perform a request.
    - Managing portlets, portlet applications, and iWidgets
      You must do some preparatory tasks before you make your portlets, portlet applications, or iWidgets available to your users by putting them on portal pages. This preparatory task includes installing, deploying, and configuring portlets, applications, and iWidgets.
    - Administering managed pages
      You can run advanced administration tasks for managed pages, such as generating URLs for projects or working with projects by using scripts, or working with vanity URLs.
    - Manage pages portlets
      Use Manage Pages to create, edit, activate, order, and delete pages and external web pages and labels. Available tasks depend on which item is selected. Each page can contain multiple pages. All pages on which you have the User or greater role are displayed in a navigation menu. You must expand pages to access nested pages. The options that you see are dependent upon your access level.
    - Managing theme capabilities
      You can administer the theme module framework. This includes deploying resources that can be cached, configuring capability filters, and disabling the automatic prerequisite loading feature.
    - Managing community pages
      Community associations associate a portal page with a community in HCL Connections.
    - Managing your cluster
      After installing and configuring your clustered environment, you will need to manage the different parts of your cluster to ensure a highly available production environment.
    - Managing your site
      Earlier versions of HCL Digital Experience provided the Resource Manager portlet for performing site management. With Version 8.0 of HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager, this site management functionality has been replaced by the new functionality for managing pages.
    - Tagging and rating
      Get an overview of the administrative tasks related to tagging and rating.
    - Using WebDAV with HCL Portal
      HCL Digital Experience provides a Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV) implementation that individual services can use by plugging into. WebDAV is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allows you to collaborate on editing and managing files on remote Web servers.
    - Virtual portals
      View information on how you can scope your HCL Portal to have multiple virtual portals.
    - Language support
      To reach as many users as possible, HCL Digital Experience supports different languages for different locations. For instance, a large, international corporation might address users in different countries or regions through multilingual websites. In this context the portal can concurrently serve portal views to large numbers of users, each in the user's preferred language.
    - WSRP services
      HCL Digital Experience supports the Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP) standard. By using this standard, portals can provide portlets, applications, and content as WSRP services. Other portals can then integrate the WSRP services as remote portlets for their users.
    - Browser behavior and scenarios
      Browser behavior for the back button, bookmarks and history affect user interaction and cause unexpected results.
  - Securing
    Security tasks include setting up property extension databases and custom user repositories, configuring and activating SSL, and configuring authentication. In addition, tasks such as activating Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) and NIST SP800-131a security modules and configuring external security managers such as Security Access Manager might be required to secure your portal environment.
  - Monitoring
    HCL Portal includes tools and features to help you monitor the portal site.
  - Setting up a website
    Setting up a website includes, creating pages, adding navigation, setting up search, and adding content to the site. Themes are used to customize the portal's look-and-feel. Out-of-the-box templates and the site wizard can help you set up your portal site faster. You can add wikis and blogs to your site and let users tag and rate content on your site.
  - Staging to production
    During portal solution development, the solution is initially developed, tested, and refined on one server or a limited number of servers. The solution is deployed later on live systems, referred to as the production environment. The process of moving the solution from the development environment to the production environment is called staging.
  - Developing
    This section includes developer documentation on extending applications and development assets for HCL Portal and HCL Web Content Manager.
  - Troubleshooting
    This section helps you resolve problems, use diagnostic tools and tracing to capture HCL Digital Experience system errors.
  - Reference
    View information that can help you use the Digital Experience Help Center including directory conventions, terms of use, trademarks, a glossary, and more.
  - Glossary
    This glossary includes terms and definitions for HCL Digital Experience.
  - Content Template Catalog 4.4
    The Content Template (CTC) is a set of templates that accelerate the process of building a website.

Registering predeployed portlets | HCL Digital Experience

You can manually predeploy portlet application WAR files using the WebSphere Integrated Solutions Console. You can later register and configure the predeployed portlet applications into HCL Portal, together with other J2EE resources and artifacts, by using the XML configuration interface.

About this task

To install a predeployed portlet, use the sample file RegisterPreDeployedEAR.xml. You might have to change this sample for your requirements. For more information about how to predeploy portlets refer to the topic about Deploying J2EE resources.