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Save time with a Custom Navigation Collection and Pagelet November 3, 2008

Posted by Tipster in PIA, PeopleTools.
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Frequently when I’m working I find that I’m visiting the same areas within the system regularly, so to make my life easier I’ll often create a Pagelet based on a custom Navigation Collection containing my often used components.  This greatly reduces the number of clicks required for day-to-day work and could be really useful for end users.

NB: Nothing shown here requires the Enterprise Portal product.

An example can be seen here:


Creating the Navigation Collection

First, let’s create the Navigation Collection.  You can have whatever menus/components you want in your collection.

  1. Go to PeopleTools > Portal > Portal Utilities > Navigation Collections
  2. Add a Collection with an appropriate Name and Description
  3. Click Add Folder
  4. Select Menu Folder, from the Employee Portal.
  5. Use the prompt to locate the folder to add, click the plus folder next to a high level menu to expand it and choose a child menu.
  6. Highlight the top level, and click Add Folder again. Repeat the process until you have added all your folders.
  7. I also added a links directly to the Components I used most often, like Process Monitor, and moved them to the top of the list.
  8. Click Save (and remember the name of your new Collection).

Publishing the Navigation Collection as a Pagelet

  1. Go to PeopleTools > Portal > Pagelet Wizard > Pagelet Wizard
  2. Add a New Pagelet and fill out the Title etc
  3. Choose a Data Type of Navigation Collection
  4. Choose a Portal of Employee and prompt to find your Navigation Collection (it seems to prepend ADMN to mine for some reason)
  5. I normally reduce the Max Child Links to 5.
  6. I choose the Menu layout.
  7. I set the ‘Parent Images’ = Small, Turn off ‘Parent Descriptions’ and set the ‘Child Display Type’ = Simple List.
  8. On the final page, check HomePage Pagelet, choose a folder, and set the security required.

That’s your Pagelet done. Now add it to your Homepage.

Adding a Pagelet to your Homepage

  1. From the PIA Homepage, select the ‘Personalize Content’ link.
  2. Place a Check in the Checkbox next to the Pagelet you want, then click Save.
  3. Click the Personalize Layout link.
  4. Select whether you want a 2 or 3 column layout, and move the new Pagelet to the column you wish it to appear in, click Save.

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Comments»

1. Muneer - November 4, 2008

Thanks,
I shall try this, seems very cool.

Reply
2. Dan Koepf - April 27, 2009

OK, as a programmer/developer I’ve added a couple of pagelets to my home page. But now I’d like to migrate my home page to hundreds of users within our organization. It seems like this should be possible with a couple of SQL statements. Does anyone know how to do this? Logging in to each user account and doing it individually seems like way too much work.

Reply
3. Tipster - April 27, 2009

Good point Dan, it is a bit of an omission. I’ve added a quick post on it here:
http://peoplesofttipster.com/2009/04/27/applying-homepage-pagelets-to-others/

Reply
4. Dan Koepf - May 28, 2009

Thanks for that answer. However in the mean time I’ve found another way to do this without resorting to SQL. (I didn’t try your technique) Peoplesoft delivers the ability to require the pagelet. If you navigate to PeopleTools, Structure and Content and then get to the point where you see this on the top line:

Root >Portal Objects >Homepage >Tabs >

And then select the “Tab Content” tab. You can then choose the pagelet behavior “Req-Fix” on the pagelet that you want to force on everyone’s homepage. It worked well.

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5. Tipster - May 29, 2009

Nice find Dan. Thanks for coming back and posting it here.

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