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ADMINISTRATOR GUIDE
VERSION 4.0 | 2014
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Copyright © 2008 – 2014. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, for any purpose without the express written permission of Precurio. Information in this document is subject to change without prior notice. Certain names of program products and company names used in this document might be registered trademarks or trademarks owned by other entities. Precurio is a trademark of Precurio Software Openfire is a trademark of Jive Software Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation For Sales and Technical Support: Tel: +1 (855) 737 6327 [email protected]
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 GETTING STARTED 5
1.1 Overview 5
1.2 Creating Departments and Locations 5
1.3 Creating Roles and Restricting Access 7
1.4 Automatically set default role for new users 10
1.5 Modifying your intranet appearance 10
1.6 Important Configurations 11
2 UNDERSTANDING THE DASHBOARD 12
2.1 Overview 12
2.2 Changing From Trial Mode to Live 12
3 CONTENT MANAGEMENT 13
3.1 What are Intranet Contents? 13
3.2 What is a page and what is content? 13
3.3 Sites 13
3.4 Customizing the Site Template 18
3.5 Content Categories 18
3.6 Managing Menus 19
3.7 Company Links 20
4 USER AND GROUP MANAGEMENT 21
4.1 Understanding Groups 21
5 INTRANET CONFIGURATION AND SETTINGS 29
5.1 Overview 29
5.2 General Settings 29
5.3 Configuration Notifications 31
5.4 Themes and Branding 35
5.5 Backup and Restore 38
5.6 Frequent Questions 39
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1 GETTING STARTED
1.1 Overview
The Administrator Guide is to be used as a reference guide for Precurio Intranet Administrators. It contains answers to most questions that have been asked by administrators during our 7yrs experience working with System Administrators. This section (i.e. “Getting Started”) details the actions that you are likely to perform as administrators on a freshly installed Precurio Intranet. By the time you are done with this section, your intranet should be ready for user tests and acceptance. As the intranet administrator, this is a checklist of tasks that needs to be performed after successful installation of Precurio.
Create departments and Locations
Control access/privileges to certain part of the intranet through Roles
Automatically make certain roles applicable to new users.
Modify/Improve on the appearance of your intranet (Colors, logo etc.)
Configure Email Notifications (Email Subjects, Templates etc.)
If after going through this guide, you still have questions, feel free to start a
discussion on our community site, where we exchange ideas and solutions with other intranet administrators like yourself.
1.2 Creating Departments and Locations
Creating a department in Precurio is very straightforward. Simply follow these steps; 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Departments. The Department list page is
displayed.
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2. Click button to create a new department. This opens up the Add
Department page.
3. Enter the name of the department in the Title field.
4. Enter a brief description about the department in the Description field. 5. Select the checkboxes of the corresponding users to be included in the department
from the Members section. 6. If this is a child department (For example, in most companies Audit department is
under Finance), select the parent department from the Parent dropdown list.
7. Click to create the department. Once successfully created, the department is listed in the Department List page.
Creating a Location is similar to creating a department described above, simply go to Admin > User Management > Locations and follow the same steps.
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1.3 Creating Roles and Restricting Access
Certainly, you do not want your users to have access to every area of the application. Precurio uses the Roles Based Access Control (RBAC) approach to restricting access.
All you need to do is create roles, assign access rules to the role and assign the role to users. To create a new role, you follow similar steps involved in creating a department; 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles. You will see a list of Roles. Three Roles
are pre-installed on the system; you can inspect these roles to really understand RBAC (Role Based Access Control).
2. Click button to create a new role. This opens up the Add Roles page.
3. Enter the name of the role in the Title field. 4. Enter a brief description about the role in the Description field. 5. Select the checkboxes of the corresponding users to be included in the role from
the Members section.
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6. If this role should have a parent, select the parent role from the Parent dropdown list.
Child roles will inherit access rules from their parent. For instance, The Staff role is a
parent to the Administrator role, so the Administrator roles inherits access from the
Staff, which is another way of saying the Administrator has access to whatever the
Staff has access to.
7. Click to create the role. Once successfully created, the role is listed in the Role List page.
Note: Selecting the “Is Default” checkbox makes the role a default role. Hence when a new user is created, the role will be automatically assigned to the user. Once the role is successfully created, the administrator can set access levels to the role. To set the access level
1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles > Setup Rules (click the Setup Rules link of the corresponding role). The Setup Access Rules page is displayed.
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The list on the leftmost column indicates the “Resources”, while the other columns indicate the “Privileges”. Access Rules is all about assigning certain Privileges to certain Resources. Privileges correspond to the “actions or activities” that can be performed by a user. 2. To edit an access rule, click the “Edit” link on the rightmost column. You will then
be able to control privilege access to the resource.
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3. Click to update the changes to the rule.
1.4 Automatically set default role for new users
The administrator can set default role for the users, meaning, whenever a new user is created a default role is assigned to the user. Please refer to creating role for information on how to create a new user. Once the role is created, select the “Is Default” checkbox to make the role a default role to be assigned for the new users.
1.5 Modifying your intranet appearance
Most organizations will prefer if the intranet “looks like them”. You want your intranet to reflect your organization’s brand and culture. To customize the appearance of your intranet, you first have to go through the available themes. Go to Admin > System Setup > Appearance. The Themes list page is displayed.
Activate each Theme by clicking the “Activate” link. At the same time open a new tab on your browser to preview the home page look of each Theme. Once you find a theme close to what you want in structure, you can then go ahead to customizing that
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particular theme. To customize a theme, you need to understand the Precurio Theme Architecture. If you will prefer not to tamper with vendor code, or want a more professional theme, please see section requesting custom theme.
1.6 Important Configurations
1.6.1 Intranet Base URL
This is the URL of the intranet that is used to access the intranet site.
1.6.2 Email Domain
Domain name is an identification of one or more IP address. The portion of the text that comes after the “@” symbol in an email is the domain name. Refer Setting Email Domain for more information.
1.6.3 Time Zone
Based on the location, the administrator has the privilege to set the time zone. Refer to setting time zone for more information.
1.6.4 Configure Email Notifications
A user is able to perform various activities on the intranet, and some of these activities should generate an email notification to other users. For instance, when a user creates a task and assigns to another user; the other user should get an email notification. As an administrator, you can configure every part of the email notification, including the email subject, email content, and even the email design template. Please refer to Notifications section for more information.
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2 UNDERSTANDING THE DASHBOARD
2.1 Overview
The Dashboard provides an overview of the information stored in the system and provides an easy way for the administrators to access it. It is designed to project the information from some areas of the system into one view and therefore provides summary level information about the intranet. The Precurio Dashboard displays information related to the following:
• Managing users – Allows the administrators to manage the list of available users
• Managing workflows – Allows the administrators to manage the workflows • Go live – Allows the administrators to place a Go Live request. • Managing sites – Allows the administrators to manage the sites such as
managing the links in the sites, adding new sites, or making announcements.
2.2 Changing From Trial Mode to Live
After weeks of user testing, the intranet project is finally ready to go Live. You want to clear out the test contents, test workflow forms, test groups and generally “RESET” the system. This is where the “Go Live” link on the Dashboard becomes useful. Once you click the Go Live link, the browser takes you to a form on our website that allows you request for a support engineer, who will help you with this process. Note:
This service is free.
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3 CONTENT MANAGEMENT
3.1 What are Intranet Contents?
These are contents that are available on the intranet and which can only be accessed by the authorized persons. They form the backbone of today’s corporate intranet.
3.2 What is a page and what is content?
A page is a type of content, which contains information that does not require any user feedback such as comments or reports. Examples of pages are “About Us”, “Company History”, “Contact Us” etc.
3.3 Sites
Sites (sometimes referred to as Departmental Sites) are sub sites within the intranet used for publishing department information. Sites are very useful for departments who intend to have a special place on the intranet for publishing internal information. Our motivation for this feature is to avoid the department information getting lost within the myriad of information available on the intranet. Departments that commonly use this feature are Human Resource, IT and Marketing.
3.3.1 Creating a New Site
To create a new site 1. Click Manage Sites from the Dashboard. The following screen appears.
2. Click Add. The following screen is displayed.
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3. Enter the name of the site in the Site Name field. 4. Enter a description of the site in the Site Description field. This description is
displayed to users. 5. Click Create Site. The following page is displayed. 6. The Site details page comprises the following tabs:
Settings – In this tab, details such as the site name and the description of the
site are provided. Also, the welcome page and resources folder related to the site can be defined.
Page – This tab allows the administrator to create the pages in the site.
Announcements – This tab allows the administrator publish department
announcements or information.
Links – This tab allows the administrator to define the links that would appear in the department site. This links are usually links to external resources used by the department.
Gallery – This is where the administrator can create photo albums. For
instance, Marketing may want to display photos of the just completed product launch.
7. Once all the information is entered, you can select the Publish this site checkbox and click the Update button to publish the site.
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3.3.2 Adding Announcements
After successfully creating the site, the administrators can add important announcements in the sites. Announcements are used to notify the users about
notices, important news or messages. To include the Announcement 1. Go to Content Management > Sites. Select the site by clicking on the title. 2. Click Announcements tab. The following page is displayed.
3. Click Add to add a new announcement. The following page is displayed.
4. In the Announcement tab, enter the name of the announcement in the Title field. 5. The administrator can enter the details of the announcement in the Body section.
The formatting of the contents is done in the Body section, which has the toolbar.
6. Select the required category of the announcement (Articles, Internal Adverts or News and Announcements) from the Categories section.
7. Click to publish the announcement in the site.
3.3.3 Creating a Photo Gallery
The administrator not only can create announcements in the site, but can also create a photo gallery which can be published in the site. To create a photo gallery 1. In the site configuration page, click Gallery tab. The following page is displayed.
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2. Click Add to create a new gallery. The following page is displayed.
3. Enter the name of the album and description in the corresponding fields. On
entering the information, click to create a new album. This creates
only the album and no photos or images will be available. Once the album is successfully created, it is listed in the gallery list page.
4. To add photos to the album, click the name of the album and the following page is
displayed.
5. Click Add Photos to add photos to the album. The following popup window is
displayed.
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6. The administrator can drag and drop the required files or click the Click here to
select files link to upload the photos. 7. Click Submit Files to create the gallery.
3.3.4 Adding Resources to a Site
Resources are documents and most times, the need for a department site is driven by the need to publish a series of department specific documents e.g. Memos and Policies (By HR). To add resources to a site, first create a folder on Document Manager and upload all your department documents into that folder. Once you are done, go to the Site Settings page and select the resource folder from the dropdown.
3.3.5 Publishing the Department Information
Once the site has been filled with the information, pages, links and resources; the administrators can then publish the department information. This published information can be viewed by all users on the intranet.
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3.4 Customizing the Site Template
The look and feel of the site in Precurio can be modified, for example, you want the site to occupy the complete page or you want the content to be organized in a
different way. This can be done by modifying the template (using PHP, HTML and CSS). Only the site administrator has the privilege to modify the template. The templates used by the department sites are available in “precurio\application\default\layouts\[THEME]\templates\site.phtml”. Note: If the default theme is not used and if you cannot find the “site.phtml” file in the current theme, it indicates that the current theme did not override the default site template. Hence you need to copy the file from the “default” theme to your current theme.
The style and formatting of the content area below the main menu (marked in red) is controlled by “site.phtml”. By modifying this file, the structure of the department sties can be modified If you are not comfortable working with the vendor codes, the administrator can place a request to modify the template by sending an email to [email protected]. Note: This service is included as part of our theme customization service.
3.5 Content Categories
3.5.1 Understanding Categories
Categories are helpful to group related contents together and enable the users to know what the post is about. The administrators can create categories and group related posts under the categories.
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3.5.2 Restricting Access to Content Categories
Usually, Contents exists within the container of Categories. Examples of Categories could be “Articles”, “Management Blog” etc. Sometime, you want to restrict access
to some contents, use the Content Categories to achieve this. To restrict access to a content category; simply edit the Category (Admin > Content Management > Categories) and enter the group(s).
3.6 Managing Menus
Menus form the navigation system of your intranet. In Precurio, a Menu is basically a link that appears on the main navigation (which is usually on the top or left, depending on the theme).
3.6.1 Building your intranet navigation
Menu design significantly impacts the usability and success of intranets. As an administrator, you must organize your top menus in such a way that users are able to get to important sections quickly. To start building your navigation; Go to Admin > Content Management > Menus/Navigation.
3.6.2 Restricting Access to Certain Menus
Once in a while, you want to do not want all users to see a certain menu, for example, Admin. To restrict the access to a Menu, simply tie the Menu to a resource; Go to Admin > Content Management > Menus/Navigation. Select the menu you want to restrict.
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1. Select a resource from the Tie to a Resource dropdown list. Only users that
belong to Roles with access to the selected resource will be able to see the menu.
2. Click .
3.7 Company Links
This area is actually used to manage the “Company Links Widget” on the intranet home page. The administrators provide a list of useful links to external websites that contain the company information. This provides an easy access to the content that is available in other external websites. To create company links; Go to Admin > Content Management > Company Links > Add.
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4 USER AND GROUP MANAGEMENT
4.1 Understanding Groups
A "Group" is simply a container for users, i.e. any collection of users is a group. Therefore a "Group" can take different forms. It could be a Role, a Department or a Location. So when you create a Role, you have essentially created a group that can be used to control user access. When you create a Location, you have essentially created a group that can appear in location select/dropdowns. And when you create a department, you have essentially created a group that can appear in department select/dropdowns. To recap, Roles, Locations and Departments are essentially different kinds of groups. Note, it is possible for a Group not to take any form at all, in which case it is just a group and has no specific purpose apart from being a collection of users.
4.1.1 Roles, Departments, Locations
As mentioned above; Roles, Departments and Locations are essentially types of groups and the process for creating them is similar. To add a Role 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles. The following page is displayed.
2. Click . The Add Roles page is displayed.
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3. Enter the name of the new role in the Title field. 4. Enter a brief description of the role in the Description field. 5. From the Members section, select the users to be assigned to the created role.
The users are selected by selecting the checkbox corresponding to the user.
6. Select the Parent for the role and click .
4.1.2 Teams
A Team is also a type of group, but one that the administrator has no control over. It is used within the context of Team Rooms (or project workspace) and created by users that need to collaborate (share documents, assign tasks) amongst themselves.
4.1.3 User Access Management
One of the most common tasks administrators generally perform is managing users. That is, creating new users, updating user information and most importantly, giving or restricting access to certain parts of the intranet. For more information about restricting user access, please see topic “Creating Roles and Restricting Access” of the Getting Started chapter.
4.1.4 Examples of common access rules
Let us discuss some of the common access rules that are used by the administrators.
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4.1.4.1 Restricting Access to the Admin Section
This option allows the administrators to restrict access to the admin section to the normal users. To restrict the access
1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles and create a new role. 2. Once the role is successfully created, assign the users to the role. 3. Then click Setup Rules. The Setup Access Rules page displayed. 4. In the Setup Rules page, click Edit link corresponding to the Admin Area row. The
following page is displayed.
5. In the Privileges section deselect the checkbox corresponding to the actions.
6. Click to update the changes. Once saved, the users assigned to the
role do not have access to the Admin section.
4.1.4.2 Stopping Some Users from Adding Tasks
This option allows the administrators to restrict the users from adding new tasks. To restrict the users from adding the task 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles and create a new role. 2. Once the role is successfully created, assign the users to the role.
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3. Then click Setup Rules. The Setup Access Rules page displayed. 4. In the Setup Rules page, click Edit link corresponding to the Task row. The
following page is displayed.
5. In the Privileges section deselect the checkbox corresponding to the add option.
6. Click to update the changes. Once saved, the users assigned to the
role do not have access to create a task.
4.1.4.3 Restricting users from creating content
This administrator can restrict the user from creating any new contents. To restrict the users from creating content 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles and create a new role. 2. Once the role is successfully created, assign the users to the role. 3. Then click Setup Rules. The Setup Access Rules page displayed. 4. In the Setup Rules page, click Edit link corresponding to the Content row. The
following page is displayed.
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5. In the Privileges section deselect the checkbox corresponding to the add option.
6. Click to update the changes. Once saved, the users assigned to the
role do not have the privilege to create new content.
4.1.4.4 Restricting users from deleting content
This administrator can restrict the user from deleting any existing content. To restrict the users from deleting content 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles and create a new role. 2. Once the role is successfully created, assign the users to the role. 3. Then click Setup Rules. The Setup Access Rules page displayed. 4. In the Setup Rules page, click Edit link corresponding to the Content row. The
following page is displayed.
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5. In the Privileges section deselect the checkbox corresponding to the delete
option.
6. Click to update the changes. Once saved, the users assigned to the
role do not have the privilege to delete the content.
4.1.4.5 Restricting users from creating events
The administrators can restrict the users from creating any new events. To restrict the users from creating events This administrator can restrict the user from deleting any existing content.
To restrict the users from deleting content 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Roles and create a new role. 2. Once the role is successfully created, assign the users to the role. 3. Then click Setup Rules. The Setup Access Rules page displayed. 4. In the Setup Rules page, click Edit link corresponding to the Events row. The
following page is displayed.
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5. In the Privileges section deselect the checkbox corresponding to the add option.
6. Click to update the changes. Once saved, the users assigned to the
role do not have the privilege to create any new events.
4.1.5 Frequent Questions
How to know if a user is a member of a group Login to the admin module and go to User Management > Groups. Click the group name link to open the group details. Check to see if the checkbox corresponding to the user name is selected in the Members section. If the user is selected, then the user is a member of the group.
Alternatively, go to User Management > Users, search for the user and click on the user. You should see the groups the user belongs to. How to make new users automatically become members of a group This is a common request by the administrators, who would like the new users automatically get assigned certain roles. This is very common when integrating with Active Directory or when the user registration is enabled. To make the users automatically become members of a group 1. Go to Admin > User Management > Groups.
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2. Select the required group or role. 3. Select the “Is Default” checkbox to make the new users become members of a
group or role that is marked as default. How to reset user password Password resets can only be done by the administrators. To reset a user password, go to Admin > User Management > User. Click on the user to open the user details. Enter the required password in the Password field and click the Reset Password button.
Why can’t I manage Teams? As mentioned earlier, Teams are a form of groups, which are created by users within the context of Team Rooms (or project workspaces) for the purpose of sharing documents, tasks and discussions amongst themselves. To make sure the team is guaranteed of their privacy, even the administrator has no control over what happens in there. Neither can the administrator assign members to a team. Only members of team can include new members. How do I manage users if I integrated with Active Directory When Precurio is integrated with Active Directory, there is no need to manage users (i.e. create or delete users or reset password) in Precurio, such activities will not even work. Precurio relies fully on the active directory to handle user authentication. Users can still update their details on Precurio. How do I manage groups if I integrated with Active Directory When Precurio is integrated with Active Directory (AD), Precurio relies on the Active
directory for roles management. The following are the important points to note:
All AD groups are not automatically imported upon integration.
AD groups are imported on a per user basis. That is, as users login, the user groups are imported into Precurio. Which means, the only way an AD group appears in Precurio is if a member of that group has login on Precurio.
Most times, AD contains groups with weird names that you do not want to appear
on Precurio. Deleting the groups on Precurio will stop them from being imported again.
AD groups are imported as Standard groups (i.e. not roles or locations or departments), so you have to edit each AD group to convert it to the appropriate group type. BUT DO NOT RENAME AN ACTIVE DIRECTORY GROUP! Precurio uses the group name to determine uniqueness.
It is always advisable to convert each imported AD group into a Role, and delete
the ones that are unnecessary.
Do not create Roles on Precurio. Precurio will sync user roles each time a user logs in, and roles not found in Active Directory are automatically removed from user groups.
Departments and Locations can be created on Precurio.
5 INTRANET CONFIGURATION AND SETTINGS
5.1 Overview
As an Administrator, you are unlikely to frequent these parts often, especially after the initial setup. But for completeness sake, we are going to discuss some of the important sections. The System Settings area allows the administrator make changes to important settings like Company Name, Email Notifications, Time zone, Email Server Integration, etc.
5.2 General Settings
The administrator has the privilege to modify the general settings of the intranet.
5.2.1 Changing the Intranet Name
1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Settings. The system settings page is
displayed.
2. Enter the new name of the intranet in the Company Name field and click
Save. The name of the intranet will be changed to the new name.
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5.2.2 Setting an Email Domain
Setting the correct Email Domain will allow users login with usernames like “beatrice.cook” instead of using their full email like
“[email protected]”. In our example, the correct email domain will be “@mycompany.com”
5.2.3 Choosing default language
This option allows the administrator to set the default language for the intranet site. The default language will control the home page and will be the default language for new users.
Note: ALL users will still be able to choose their own language upon login.
5.2.4 Setting your time zone
This option allows the administrator to set the time zone for the intranet. For a list of support time zones, please visit this page.
5.2.5 Configuring your mail server
Your mail server is used by the software to send notifications of intranet activities to users. The settings for your mail server are something you will have to request from your IT administrator. Here are a couple of things to note; 1. The Administrator’s Full Name is used as the “from” field in emails. (i.e.
Users will receive emails as being sent by this person) 2. You can check always check your settings anytime, using the “Send Test
Mail” feature. Simply click the Send Test Mail link.
5.2.6 Configuring Your Live Server
The live server is responsible for instant messaging. So to enable the intranet chat feature, you have to setup your live server.
Precurio uses Openfire Server as its live server. Openfire is a popular real time collaboration server based on the XMPP/Jabber protocol. The process for setting up Openfire and integrating it with Precurio is beyond the scope of this document. This is usually performed by our support personnel upon purchase.
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5.3 Configuration Notifications
Notifications are alerts that are triggered when an activity is performed. In Precurio, each activity notification can be configured. There are currently 2
forms of notification i.e. Email and Feed. If you want notification by SMS, you can always request this as a customization service. To configure notifications; 1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Notifications. You will see a list of activities
that trigger notifications.
2. Select any activity. For example, if we select the “COMPLETE TASK” activity
(which is triggered when a user completes a task). The following page is displayed.
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5.3.1 Understanding the format numeric placeholders
The following are the numeric placeholders that are used. {1} - name of actor: This is the full name of the person that performed the activity or triggered the notification. For example, the user that completed the task. {2} - pronoun i.e. his or her, depending on gender of actor. {3} – URL: This is the URL to the object of activity. For example, URL to the completed Task. {4} - name of subject : Full name of the person that is affected by the activity.
That is, the person receiving the notification. For example, the user who created the Task and assigned to the actor. {5} - the id of the actor: Not used often (Used mostly by Integrators). {6} - the id of the subject: Not used often (Used mostly by Integrators). {7} - web URL of the application: This is the Base URL of the intranet. Usually the URL entered on your browser to access the intranet. Not very useful, since placeholder {3} already provides URL to the object. {8} - a label for the activity: This is the activity object name; I.e., the event name, task name etc. {9} - URL to the actor profile: This is the URL to the user profile page of the Actor.
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5.3.2 Changing your email notification templates
You can modify the design of the email notifications that are sent from the intranet, for example, you can choose your own colors, or add information at
the header or footer. This can be easily done using Precurio with the help of PHP, HTML and CSS knowledge. The template used for email notification can be found in “precurio\bin\email_template.tpl”. The email_tempate.tpl file contains a lot of HTML and CSS codes, but what you need to be concerned about are the placeholders (different from placeholder in notifications settings). The following are the placeholders in the email template:
a) {:subject} - This is the subject of the email, dynamically generated based on notifications settings (Admin -> System Setup -> Notifications).
b) {:logo} - The full URL to the company logo. c) {:salutation} – E.g. “Hello” or “Dear”
d) {:message} – This is the actual content of the email, dynamically generated based on notifications settings (Admin -> System Setup -> Notifications).
e) {:valediction} – E.g. “Regards” or “Cheers” f) {:from} – The person sending the notification. Remember the emails are
typically “no-reply” emails. So the sender is usually something like “Notification Bot”, “Intranet Team” etc.
g) {:wgt_recent_contents} – This is a list of recent contents on the intranet, dynamically generated.
h) {:twitter_page} – This is the URL to the company twitter page. i) {:linkedin_page} – This is the URL to the company LinkedIn page. j) {:current_year} – This is the copyright year; dynamically generated. k) {:company_name} – The name of the company; dynamically generated.
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All placeholders contain values. It is also possible to change the values of some placeholders, which are not dynamically generated. You can find default values for some placeholders in “precurio\bin\template_config.php”. The template_config.php file can be used to modify static placeholders like {:salutation} or {:twitter_page} and can even be used to include non-existing placeholders like {:facebook_page}. If you do not fancy working with vendor codes, you can easily ask us to perform this service by sending an email to [email protected]. Note: This service is included as part of our theme customization service.
What to do if you do not receive emails If you do not receive emails, the first step that you need to perform is to check the mail server settings. 1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Settings > Mail Setting Tab. 2. Click the Send Test Mail link feature to verify if the email settings are
correct.
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3. If Email settings are correct, then check to see if the mail daemon is
running. The mail daemon is simply a cron job. If you are running windows make sure
“precurio/bin/run-queue.bat” is added to the Task Scheduler and running properly. If you are using Linux/Unix make sure “precurio/bin/daemon.php” is running as a cron task. Also, you can the respective script as standalone (run-queue.bat in command prompt. daemon.php in terminal) to confirm there are no errors being throw. If you are still unable to get emails, send an email to [email protected] to request expert help.
5.4 Themes and Branding
5.4.1 Understanding Precurio theme architecture
The Precurio theme architecture has been designed to make every view in Precurio customizable. You can completely change the look and feel of the entire page. The themes folder is located in “layouts” and this can be found in “precurio/application/default/layouts”. Precurio comes preinstalled with 3 themes and there are 3 sub-folders within the “layouts” folder.
default
sample
zamani The default folder is the “Default” theme, which contains all the templates, forms and views used in Precurio. Every other theme extends the default
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theme. The “extensibility” concept is demonstrated in the other two themes, where it is only views that need to be customized that actually exists in the other themes. There a 3 files which are of major importance in Precurio themes.
main.phtml : This file controls the layout of the intranet. It contains the
header/top section, the content/mid section and the footer. If you need to customize the layout/structure of your intranet, this is the file to modify.
admin.phtml : This file controls the layout for the administrator view. This is the reason the administrator part has a different look from the main intranet.
login.phtml : This file controls the appearance and layout of the login page.
The “templates” folder contains the template files for each module, using which you can easily customize the appearance of all the intranet modules.
Most theme files contain in a description of what aspect of the view the control. So when in doubt, check the first 2 lines of the file. A careful study of the zamani theme will give you a better understanding of the Precurio theme architecture.
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5.4.2 Requesting custom theme for your brand
If you do not possess the in-house skills necessary to customize your theme or if you are not willing to play around with the codes, then you can easily request a
theme customization service. Simply send an email to [email protected] with the subject “Theme Customization Request”. With our theme customization service, we help you brand your intranet in your company brand colors. This also includes email notifications, the departmental sites and extranet sites.
5.4.3 How to change the intranet logo
If you wish to change the intranet logo that is available in the site, a new logo has to be uploaded which will replace the existing logo. Only the administrators have the privilege to change the logo of the intranet site. To change the logo 1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Appearance. The following page is
displayed.
2. Click . The following popup window is displayed.
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3. Click to select the logo to be uploaded.
4. Click . This replaces the current logo with the new logo that is uploaded in the intranet.
5.5 Backup and Restore
This option allows the administrators to take regular backup of the intranet. The backup is particularly useful when it is required to restore the site (when the site crashes).
5.5.1 How it works
Only the administrators have the privilege to take backup of the intranet. 1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Backup/Restore. The Backup / Restore list
page is displayed.
2. Click button. The following popup window is displayed.
3. By default a name for the backup is displayed in the Enter a name for your
backup field. You can retain the as it is or change the name.
4. Click . On successfully completing the backup process, the zip file is displayed in the Backup / Restore list page.
5. To restore the intranet site, select the checkbox corresponding to the zip file and click Restore link. The confirmation window is displayed.
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6. Click Restore to restore the site.
5.6 Frequent Questions
What is a “Base Url” or “Intranet Url” The Base URL is simply the URL used by users to access the intranet. For example, http://intranet.mycompany.com, OR http://www.mycompany.com/intranet/public/ . How to update your intranet OR apply a patch? We work on improving the software everyday of the year, so you will get updates to your software regularly. These updates usually come in form of patch zip files. Using the upgrade tool in the admin, administrators can easily perform an update of the system. 1. Go to Admin > System Setup > Upgrade. The following page is displayed.
2. Click to select the required zip file to upgrade the site.
3. Click . This applies the upgrade to the intranet site.
This upgrade option does not work on Linux/Unix due to lack of permissions to write on some of the folders. In such scenarios, it is better to perform the update manually. To perform the manual update, unzip the patch file, open file “upgrade.bat” with a text editor and manually perform each instruction.
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