Draft In-Progress - September 01, 2021
Overview
This College Portal Administration guide is intended for college portal administrators who want to:
Configure their college's theme (logo, name, background image and colors)
Configure their college's portal communication and messaging
Tenant Admin Tab
The Tenant Admin tab (as shown below) is the landing page for the college portal administrator following login.
[ screen shot of landing page ]
Behind the scenes, the CCC MyPath portal serves as the large container for each college's portal. Within each college portal the college administrator configures the look and feel and content on the Tenant Admin tab. Each of the panels in the Tenant Admin tab represent configuration "services" that are available to all colleges for this purpose.
The college portal's end user, currently only students, sees a different view of the college's portal when they log in. The image below is an example of the college students' portal view.
[ screen shot of student end-user home page ]
Authenticating with College IdP
In order to be included in the California Community College Portal, your college or district needs to have an Identity Provider (IdP) set up. Your individual account must be associated as a Tenant Admin in the portal. If your college/district does not have an IdP, please contact the California Community Colleges Technology Center to discuss your options.
Portal Basics
A portal is a web site that acts as a container for consolidating information and/or services from a variety of sources so that they appear as one cohesive site. The CCC MyPath portal contains individual and unique college or district portals within it. Each individual college portal contains built-in portlets within it for managing their portal. This includes the ability to create new portlets that display information or services to the college end- users.
Plainly put, portlets are:
Web applications that accept client requests and respond with information
Designed for uniformity • Displayed to appear as one web page in the context of the portal
Note: The portal supports custom portlets and/or connected web applications. One may be easier than the other to implement. The California Community Colleges Tech Center expects most colleges to begin using the portal with the built-in portlet features first.
An example of portlets includes the advisor cards (Explore Careers, Choose A College, Apply For College, Pay For College) that display within each unique college or district portal, as in the image above. The advisor cards are a built-in feature in the CCC portal that provide student-tailored information via links in each card.
College administrators and students both log in to their college/district portal via single sign on (SSO). Only the college administrator and its students (to whom it gives access via IdP authentication credentials) can access the college/district portal page. The required login credentials and authentication are explained in more detail in Authenticating With College IdP.
Portal Multi-Tenancy Features
Each college/district portal is contained by the larger CCC MyPath portal. Administrative access to each portal is restricted to the college portal administrator for that college. From a software application point of view, the CCC MyPath portal is one application that serves every college/district. In technical terms, each college or district portal is called a "tenant" of the CCC MyPath portal. As such, the larger portal supports what is referred to as "multi-tenancy."
Portal multi-tenancy means the following universal features are available for each individual college or district portal:
A dedicated portion of the CCC MyPath portal
Access to portal data (portlets) and basic functionality (login, searching, etc.)
Portal page configuration (controlling what displays and how it looks)
Portal page user management (i.e. which authenticated users see what)
Software updates to the portal are applied for all college/district portals at once
Delegated Administration
Each college/district portal is contained by the larger CCC MyPath portal. Administrative access to each college/district portal is restricted to the college portal administrator for that college. As a college portal administrator, you have access to the following functions:
Administration
Tenant Portal Administration
Manage Portlets
Manage this Skin
Manage Content Header Images
Manage Public Documents
Fragment Administration
Advisor Card Administration
Admin Messaging Log
Survey Administration
Additional portlet access
App Launchers
Content Portlets
Nav Menu
Supported Roles and Source
Your "role" in the Portal is determined by your Identity Service Provider (IdP). Each college/district portal's administrator will define those roles as part of setting up their IdP. When first integrating with the CCC MyPath portal, your college/district will most likely include an IdP role for the college portal administrator and students. Later, your college/district may want to add one or more college staff IdP roles. See Authenticating with College IdP.
Basic Portal User Experience
The basic portal user experience depends on your role when you log into the college portal. The common portal experience includes searching, navigation, and linking to content. The college administrators customize the look and feel and content of their portal and configure which portlets display to students.
College students log in to a college portal and interact with each of the portlets.
General Portal Navigation
These portal navigation items are the same no matter if you're the college portal admin or a student:
Log into the portal. A header bar displays that includes the CCC MyPath logo next to a search bar.
Enter a search term in the Search bar and click the Search icon retrieve search results. An auto-suggest feature displays common search options beneath the search window as you type. See Searching the Portal for details.
Click the CCC MyPath logo in the upper left corner from anywhere in the portal to return focus to the home screen.
Scroll down the page to see more items.