Web IT is a Web Portal Management solution for establishing leading workspace portals, online communities and E-marketplaces. Web IT enables portal owners to distribute the portal management process so that stakeholders, partners, clients or suppliers can play an integral part in managing and participating in the operations of the portal. Web IT delivers a strong mix of content management, collaboration and applications tools over a distributed management environment.

Web IT can be integrated with Procure IT (B2B module) or OpenMalls (B2C module) to establish comprehensive E-commerce enabled portals. To maximise the benefits of such a technology investment, Web IT is supported on an ongoing basis with regular updates and upgrades.

Features - Management of Dynamic Site Structures & Navigation

Web IT is capable of managing any Web site irrespective of its size or growth. By using tools incorporated into Web IT, a site administrator can easily add, edit, administer and delete pages based on templates at any time with minimal technical knowledge and no re-programming. Web IT have intelligent linking built in so that any changes to the site's structure can be reflected in the site's navigation automatically. For example, when a new page is added to the site, the entire Web site's navigation will automatically reflect this change. Similarly, if a page is deleted or the name of a page is changed, the entire Web site will reflect such changes automatically and dynamically.

A Web IT site administrator can concentrate on the task of administrating, without worrying about content manipulation or linking a site's navigation. This allows an administrator (or administration team) to easily maintain even the most complex and fastest growing sites. The site administrator only needs to maintain the site structure and assign editing and other privileges to the various personnel responsible for managing the content throughout the site.

Features - Management of Users

Web IT manages users by categorising them into groups and companies. The portal administrator can add unlimited number of companies, groups and users as required.

By allowing unlimited number of companies, groups and users to be created, a portal is able to manage users in an infinitely flexible way. This enables the site administrator to assign tasks to various users allowing them to be responsible for specific processes in the operation of the portal. The following diagram illustrates the permissions that can be selected within a user group (note that some of these permissions will not be applicable to every deployment).

Features - Integrated Security

Web IT incorporates a fully comprehensive security system to ensure that only authorised users can access information and administration tools as assigned by portal owners. In total, there are over 37 permissions that can be specified in setting group permissions. However, in general, security implementations are administered at three levels:

• Viewing - read access to content (Web pages and files) contained in the portal.
  
• Editing - write access to update and create content (Web pages and files).
  
• Administration - access to various administration tools as assigned by portal owners.
  

Features - Template Development

Unlike conventional templates, Web IT templates can incorporate a diverse range of designs and functionality. A Web IT administrator can simply "plug-in" discussion forums, chat rooms, mailing lists or interactive calendars into a Web site using Web IT templates. Web IT templates can also be produced to accept automated information feeds (such as news and stock pricing) to generate the desired Web pages "on-the-fly" in any manner required.

The development of templates is based entirely on client requirements on a project-by-project basis. The design requirement of such templates can only be fully established after consultation with your OpenSearch project team.

The example below illustrates a simple series of templates used to generate news pages on a Web site.

• From the content entered by the content editor (4) & (5) the system can automatically update (1), (2) & (3).
  
• Other common dynamic templates are: discussion forums, project profile and member's profile.
  

Features - Content Editing

Creating or updating content with Web IT is extremely powerful and user-friendly. Dependant on the design of the template, updating can take place within simple Web forms or within the in-built WYSIWYG HTML editor. The WYSIWYG HTML editor (see Figure 1) enables "rich format" content to be entered into the system by relatively inexperienced users within a familiar "Microsoft Word" style interface.

Features - Document Sharing

Web IT provides a multitude of file sharing options to share and manage public or private documents. Document sharing can be built into templates or a File Manager module can be specifically deployed for more complex file sharing requirements. Features such as file versioning, time stamping and integrated user permission management are standard for this module.

Some typical customisation options are presented below:

Features - E-commerce Enablement

Web IT can be integrated with Procure IT or OpenMalls to establish a comprehensive E-commerce platform to operate a business-to-business E-marketplace or business-to-consumer virtual shopping mall. These applications allow portals to offer a wide variety of E-commerce related services including:

• E-commerce tools to enable members to develop and manage their own online stores.
  
• Suppliers to supply products and services to the portal (and its members) in a business-to-business trading environment.
  
• Buyers to purchase from the portal (and its members) in a business-to-business trading environment.
  

Hosting & Browser Compatibility/Requirements

Sites operating in the Web IT environment can be browsed by anyone using a version 4 or above browser. However, users wishing to participate in any editing or administration functions must use Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or above. Netscape browsers cannot be used for Web IT editing or administration functions.

Web IT must be hosted on server(s) within the following environment (minimum).

• Pentium 3-800 with 256 MB RAM & 2x 30 GB HDD or more
  
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  
• Microsoft SQL Server 7.0
  
• Minimum of two IP addresses

Contact OpenSearch for more information.