OracleAS Portal
Registering a WSRP Producer or Web Provider on OracleAS Portal / Verification Server

Introduction

Welcome to the new OracleAS Portal Hosted Verification Service!  The OracleAS Portal / WSRP Verification Server is a hosted pre-release version of OracleAS Portal capable of communicating with WSRP producer/portlets. You can also register portlets based on Oracle's APIs as well (Web providers).   It allows WSRP producer/portlet vendors to verify their portlets interoperate with Oracle's portal.  The site allows authenticated OTN members to register their WSRP producer or Web provider and its associated portlets to a portal page in a sandbox isolated from other testers.  This article describes how to register WSRP producers, add portlets to a page, update your producer registration, and how to get started debugging by checking the communication between your producer and Oracle's WSRP portal.

Register Your Producer/Provider | Add Portlets to a Page | Update Your Producer | Troubleshooting WSRP producers

Terminology Note

At various times during this process you will encounter the term "Provider".  A Provider is OracleAS Portal's term for the entity that represents a group of portlets which can be registered with the portal.  Its meaning and use are synonymous with WSRP's term "Producer".

4 Easy Steps

• Login to the site using your OTN account information.
• Register your producer using the Remote Providers portlet on the Register WSRP Producer or Web Provider tab..
• Add portlets from this producer to your personal test page.
• For WSRP producers: If you encounter problems along the way, begin your investigation by viewing the WSRP communication being sent back and forth between OracleAS Portal and your producer. 

Assumptions

1. Your producer or provider is accessible over the internet.
2. You have one of the following URLs to register
   1. You have a WSDL URL to use to register your producer.

Note:  If you don't have your own WSDL URL, but would like to view the registration process and add portlets to a page, use Oracle's Sample WSRP Producer.  The URL for its WSDL is:   http://portalstandards.oracle.com/wsrp/jaxrpc?WSDL

2. You have a Web provider URL to use to register your provider.

Note: URL should be similar to:  http://portalstandards.oracle.com/jpdk/providers/sample

Login

To be able to register your producer and add portlets to your personal page, you will need to login to the portal using your OTN (Oracle Technology Network) account information.  If you have an OTN account simply click on Login at the top right of the page.  If you do not have an OTN account, go to the OTN membership page and register.  Registration is quick, simple, and free.

Register Your Producer/Provider

Once you have logged in, you can now register your producer.  To register your producer:

• Click on the Register a WSRP Producer or Web Provider tab.
• Click on the link in the Remote Providers portlet called Register a Provider.
• Step 1 of 3:  Enter basic information about your producer.
  • Display Name: Enter the name you want displayed.
  • Timeout:  Use the default or type in the number of seconds for Portal to wait.
  • Timeout Message:  Use the default Message or type in your own message to be display if your producer/provider times out.
  • Implementation Style:  WSRP or Web.
• Step 2 of 3: Enter the URL of your WSDL document or Web provider.
• Step 3 of 3:
  • For WSRP: If your producer contains registration properties, you will be able to enter values for those properties on this screen. Otherwise, click Finish.
  • For Web:  click Finish.

You should now see the Registration Confirmation screen.  If registration was successful, the following message is displayed: 

Registration of the provider "MyProvider" was successful.  [Where "MyProvider" is the name provided during registration]. 

Congratulations, you have successfully registered a WSRP producer or Web provider.  You now have two options:

• Click OK to exit this screen and go to the My Portlets tab to begin adding portlets to your page.
• Click on the here link (current screen) if you would like to edit your producer. View information on how to Update Your Producer/Provider.

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Add Portlets to a Page

Now that you have successfully registered your producer, you can view your portlets by adding them to a page.

• Click on the My Portlets tab.
• Two portlets have been added to the page already as a convenience.  Click on Customize at the top right of the page.
• Click on the Add Portlet icon .
• In the Add Portlets screen, click on New.
• Select the producer/provider you just registered.
• Select one or more portlets and then click OK.
• Click on Close to view your portlets.
• You should now see your portlets on the page.

You can continue to customize your page by adding & removing portlets.  The customization is on a per user basis, so only you will see your portlets and the customizations you have made.

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Update Your Producer/Provider

Whether you need to refresh your WSRP producer or Web provider after making changes or would like to update the registration information in OracleAS Portal, the steps are very simple. 

If you would like to edit your producer or provider's basic registration information such as connection information, registration properties, or view user categories, use the information below:

• WSRP
  • Type (or search for) the producer name in the Remote Provider portlet and click on Edit.  The Edit Provider Registration screen consists of 4 tabs.
    • Main: Change the basic information for the producer.
    • Connection: Change the URL for the WSDL document. Also view the different port types exposed by the producer.  Review the WSRP spec for more information on port types.
      • Click on Edit in this screen to update the URL.
      • Update the URL and click OK.  This will change the URL and refresh the producer.
    • Properties: Enter values for registration properties.  If your producer has registration properties, you can add or change the values here.
    • User Categories: Map WSRP producer user categories to portal groups.  Some standards user categories are mapped to Portal groups by default.  Because this is a hosted environment, you will not be able to update the mapping at this time.
• Web
  • Type (or search for) the provider name in the Remote Provider portlet and click on Edit.  The Edit Provider Registration screen consists of 3 tabs.
    • Main: Change the basic information for the provider.
    • Connection:  Update the URL, login, session, proxy information for the provider
    • Access:  Update the security information for your provider

Click OK when you have finished editing your producer/provider.

If you have made changes to your WSRP producer or Web provider and need to refresh and re-sync the information, you can do so using the any one of the following options:

• Type (or search for) the producer name in the Remote Providers portlet and click on Refresh.
• Refresh directly from your portlet.
• Type (or search for) the producer name in the Remote Providers portlet and click on Edit. On the Connection tab, Edit the URL of the WSDL document or Web provider and click OK to refresh the producer.

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Troubleshooting WSRP producers

If you are having problems with displaying your WSRP-enabled portlets on OracleAS Portal, there are a couple of options to help:  TCP Monitor and using our discussion forums.

TCP Monitor

Whether developing or debugging providers, it is useful for developers to be able to verify the WSRP communication that is occurring between their provider and the portal instance. This can be done with the use of some software called a TCP Monitor, which allows you to watch, and if necessary record, the communication between the Portal and a WSRP provider. This communication goes beyond recording the output of portlets when responding to runtime show requests; it includes the SOAP communication used to register providers, call session initialization, etc.  For more information on using a TCP Monitor, review Monitoring the WSRP Communications

Discussion Forums

If you are still having issues with registering your producer, getting your portlet to work on OracleAS Portal or anything related to WSRP-enabled portlets, you can use the Oracle discussion forums to get assistance from the OracleAS Portal team.  The OracleAS Portal Developer Kit forum is the place for any issues related to building custom portlets for OracleAS Portal.  For issues related to the Verification Server or displaying WSRP-enabled portlets on OracleAS Portal, please begin the subject of your thread with "WSRP". 

For example:  WSRP: My producer fails to register on the site.

To use the forums, you need to be logged in using your OTN account information (go to Login, for more information on getting an OTN account).  To navigate to the PDK forum, go to OTN and click on Join Discussion Forums, select Product, select Application Server, and select Portal Developer Kit (PDK).

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