Portals and landing pages

A Portal is a web channel in use by your application. You can use Portals to design custom web interfaces for various Personas in your application. Portals help you to control the content with which each user interacts.

Constellation applications support two types of Portals:

• Standard work Portals that help professional users complete recurrent, complex workflows that require collaboration and in-depth data analysis.
• Self-service Portals that offer a minimalistic design and a more guided experience that helps users, such as employees and customers, complete occasional workflows without distraction.

By default, Pega Platform™ has one standard work Portal for application users: the Web Portal. The Web Portal provides a standard user interface for working on Cases. It is intended to be used by end users on desktop and mobile devices.

For example, the Web Portal allows users to create and process Cases that are assigned to them. A preview of the Web Portal is displayed in the following figure:

Users have different needs that align with the roles they play within the Case management process. To improve their experience, you can design a web interface that provides them with the information and functionalities they need but hides options that are not relevant to their role. This method contributes to a cleaner user interface and makes navigation quicker and more convenient.

Depending on the needs of your organization, you can set up a single Portal and control the visibility of particular UI elements through Personas and access privileges or create separate Portals for individual user groups. In the case of multiple Portals, each version uses the same ready-to-use designs, which provide a reliable basis for a flexible user interface. The streamlined, single-design approach improves run-time performance and reduces development effort.

End users experience the Portal through a browser, regardless of device type (such as a desktop or mobile device). Portal authoring is a simple and intuitive way to create an application Web Channel. You can configure a Portal with predefined Portal templates to set the screen layout and required features. The templates support responsive application development and include a mobile-only layout option.

A Portal consists of landing pages that consolidate information for easy access. To build an application that matches the needs of your users, you create landing pages with lists of data, Widgets, Views, and Insights. Landing pages allow you to present additional resources to users. You can create, configure, and add landing pages to menus within your application to display specific information.

Pega Platform provides out-of-the-box landing pages, including Dashboard, Home, Explore Data, My Work, and Self-service Main page. For example, the Home landing page supports displaying purpose-built Widgets like App announcements, Pulse, and Todo as shown in the following figure: 

You can also create a customized landing page and populate it with fields, controls, and resources to streamline workflows. Choose from various templates, including Default page, Tabbed page, Dashboard page, and Inline Dashboard page.

Landing pages added to a Portal menu are also added to the Portal. By managing the list of landing pages, you can configure the main menu and improve navigation and user experience. As shown in the following figure, you can modify the landing pages in the main navigation for a Portal:

Default landing pages support a classic column-based UI (with or without a banner) or a dynamic layout that lets you drag, drop, and resize components directly in the Preview area. You can align landing pages with current business needs to help users work more efficiently.

The following image shows the preview section of the Default landing page changing based on the selections in the Content section of the landing page: 

The following topic contains information that is important for your understanding for the tabbed landing pages and for passing the System Architect certification exam: Configuring a tabbed landing page.

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