Your complete guide to installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal and estore. Install the Portal & estore as shrink-wrapped software, or as add-ons to an existing Joomla! installation. Then configure and administer them both. This guide takes you step by step through the entire process. Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 Installation
Version 3.6: January, 2009. This document is subject to change without notice. Disclaimer While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy and completeness of information included in this document, no guarantee is given, or responsibility taken, by The Long Reach Corporation for errors and omissions. Copyright 2006-2009 The Long Reach Corporation 6333 Rideau Valley Drive Manotick, Ontario K4M 1B3 www.infoathand.com Produced using Pages 09 on Mac OS X info@hand Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 Installation Guide Page 2
Table of Contents 1.0 Welcome... 4 1.1 About this Guide... 4 1.2 Who Should Read this Guide?... 5 1.3 Additional Documentation... 5 2.0 Installing the Self-Service Portal... 6 2.1 New Installation: Simple Method... 7 Configuring the estore... 12 Linking to info@hand Via Web Services... 12 Synchronizing the estore Product Catalog... 13 2.2 New Installation: Advanced Method... 14 Configuring the estore... 15 Linking to info@hand Via SOAP... 15 Synchronizing the estore Product Catalog... 15 2.3 Upgrading an Existing Installation... 18 Convert Simple Machines Forum (SMF) Data... 18 Install New Portal and Migrate Data... 18 3.0 Administering the Self-Service Portal... 20 3.1 Creating Users... 21 3.2 Adding Content Items... 22 3.3 Setting Company Contact Info... 23 3.4 Managing Requests for Information... 24 3.5 Adding FAQ Info... 26 3.6 Adding Forum Categories and Boards... 27 Table of Contents Page 3
1.0 Welcome Thank you for using the info@hand Self-Service Portal from The Long Reach Corporation. The info@hand Customer Relationship and Business Management (CRBM) system is designed to energise your organisation s efforts to efficiently organise and maintain information that is crucial to many aspects of your business and the Self- Service Portal is a key part of the system s overall capability. The info@hand CRBM system: Provides integrated management of corporate information on customer accounts and contacts, sales leads and opportunities, plus activities such as calls, meetings, and assigned tasks. Offers a Product Catalog, plus the ability to create Quotations, Sales Orders and Invoices using products from the Catalog. Incoming Payments may be received and allocated against invoices, and the system can produce PDF documents for Quotes, Sales Orders, Invoices, Receipts, and Statements. Purchase Orders may also be created, and Outgoing Payments recorded against them. Tracks financial performance of current projects, and organises a history of all project-related documents, status reports and activities. It also provides information about resource utilisation on projects. Supports inbound and outbound email, enables sharing of business documents from HR policies to price lists, manages a photographic staff directory, and organises a calendar of scheduled activities. Offers a series of graphical Dashboards to track your sales pipeline, the most successful lead sources, service statistics, the costs and revenues from ongoing projects, and key financial metrics. Includes the info@hand Plug-in for Microsoft Outlook, the info@hand Self- Service Portal (complete with estore), info@hand Mobile and info@hand PBX all of which are documented separately here. Offers an optional info@hand Finance for QuickBooks add-on - an advanced integration of the QuickBooks accounting system with info@hand, via the QuickBooks Web Connector from Intuit Inc. Most importantly, the system seamlessly blends all of these capabilities into an intuitive and friendly tabbed interface. The instructions in this guide will describe how to install and administer your new Self-Service Portal, and help you get familiar with the fundamentals of how your customers will use the system, and how it is linked to the business information within your info@hand CRBM system. 1.1 About this Guide This guide is current with the details of operation for the info@hand Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 a part of the info@hand CRBM system versions 6.0 and later. Section 1: Welcome Page 4
The information in this guide describes how to install and administer the info@hand Self-Service Portal via a web browser. Readers are not required to have any programming or software development knowledge, but should be generally familiar with the administration of a server running either Windows Server or Linux (depending on the operating system chosen to host info@hand), and how to install new software on their server. The target audience is primarily system and network administrators. 1.2 Who Should Read this Guide? This info@hand Self-Service Portal Installation Guide provides information for two groups of system administrators: System & Network Administrators of businesses that are running the info@hand CRBM system, and are tasked with the installation and configuration of this Self-Service Portal software; and System & Network Administrators of businesses that are running the info@hand CRBM system, and are tasked with managing the Self-Service Portal once it is installed adding data to the portal to define new forum topics, new FAQ categories and topics, and adding new users to the system as required. 1.3 Additional Documentation The info@hand Customer Relationship and Business Management (CRBM) system offers this documentation for the installation and use of its various components: info@hand CRBM System 6.0 User Guide; info@hand CRBM System 6.0 Installation Guide for Linux; info@hand CRBM System 6.0 Installation Guide for Windows Server; info@hand CRBM System 6.0 Installation Guide for Mac OS X; info@hand Mobile User Guide; info@hand Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 User Guide; info@hand Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 Installation Guide; info@hand Plug-In for Microsoft Outlook User Guide; info@hand Finance for QuickBooks Implementation Guide; info@hand PBX User Guide. Section 1: Welcome Page 5
2.0 Installing the Self-Service Portal The info@hand Self-Service Portal, like the main info@hand CRBM system, is built using PHP/ MySQL technology. See the info@hand CRBM System Installation Guide for details of the appropriate revisions of system software (operating system, web server, MySQL database and PHP scripting language) to use for hosting this application. The Self-Service Portal is built using the Joomla! Content Management System. As you install it, you will see on-screen prompts that talk about installing Joomla! as that is basically what you are doing. The info@hand Self-Service Portal is developed currently on Joomla! 1.5.8 but that is subject to revision as later releases of Joomla! become generally available. The Self-Service Portal is available in two forms: In its simplest form, you use a shrink-wrapped version of the portal software to install a very standard Self-Service Portal. This shrink-wrapped installation also installs the info@hand estore (based on VirtueMart 1.1.2 - http://virtuemart.net/), and some changes to it that integrate its operation with info@hand. See section 2.1 for details of this simple installation. The shrink-wrapped installation also installs the FireBoard 1.0.4 Forum software, for creating customer forums and discussion threads (see http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/fireboard/ for more details). In its more advanced form, the components of the Self-Service Portal that link to the CRBM system (Cases, Bugs, Projects, Invoice/Quotes, Knowledge Base, Event Registration, My Contact Info, and Register, plus an administration component) are available separately for integration with a preexisting Joomla!-based site. These components may easily be integrated within almost any Joomla!- based website, but the site must be running Joomla! version 1.5.8. See section 2.2 for the details of this more advanced form of the installation process. Note: This document refers in many places to revision 3.6 of the Self-Service Portal and estore - but you may receive a later maintenance release version of the portal such as 3.7, or 3.8. If so, simply change the references to 3.6 to your later revision, when using filenames which are shown here with 3.6 as part of the filename. If you already have info@hand installed and running with a Self-Service Portal, and need to upgrade the Portal and estore to this latest 3.6 revision, see the instructions in section 2.3. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 6
2.1 New Installation: Simple Method To begin the installation process for the shrink-wrapped Self-Service Portal, first make sure you have already installed your info@hand CRBM system, and that the system is running smoothly. Next within the CRBM system, go to the Admin area, and within System Settings, look for the section entitled Customer Self-Service Portal. Enable the check-box entitled Enable Self-Service Portal Integration. This enables the main CRBM system to communicate with the Self-Service Portal. Also enter the URL for the Self-Service Portal - this is used by automated customer notification emails to point them to updated information, such as updated service Cases. Then set the checkboxes to define the permissions for Unregistered Users, Leads and Contacts within the Self-Service Portal. Portal users linked to Leads within the CRBM will see the menu options selected, and similarly for the Portal users linked to CRBM Contacts, and Unregistered Users (i.e. users that are not logged in). Figure 1: Enable and Configure the Portal Within the CRBM Now take the Self-Service Portal zip file you have downloaded (called IAH-Portal-3.6-xxxx.zip, where xxxx is a 4-digit build number) and unzip it to see the various files you may need for both the simple and advanced portal installations. You will need a file called IAHPortal-3.6-Install.zip for this simple form of the installation. Move it to the server running the CRBM system. Unzip the file into a folder called iahportal. Then move the folder into the root directory of your CRBM system installation. Set the permissions on the directory and the file structure within it to the same values as the rest of the CRBM system installation. (Note: In future versions of info@hand you may find this directory already there - in which case you may skip this step.) Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 7
Now on a client PC point your browser to the normal URL for the CRBM system, with /iahportal/ appended to it. For example if your info@hand CRBM system is installed at the URL http://demo.infoathand.net, then you will use the URL http://demo.infoathand.net/iahportal/. You should see the initial screen of the Joomla! installation wizard, which looks like the figure below. Figure 2: Choose Language On this screen, just select the language you want to use, and click on the Next button at the top right. Figure 3: Pre-Installation Check Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 8
On the screen shown above, you will need all the items in the top panel to be green, but some items in the bottom panel may be red our recommended settings for that panel are as shown above in the Actual column. Click on Next, and you will see the License screen: Figure 4: License Acceptance This screen shows the license for Joomla!. You should read it and ensure that you agree with it before you proceed, by clicking on Next, to proceed to Database Configuration. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 9
Figure 5: Database Configuration On the Database Configuration screen, you usually enter mysql as the Database Type, and localhost as the Host Name. Then enter the MySQL User Name, Password and Database Name. You will need to have created these in advance, using a tool such as phpmyadmin. If you are re-installing, or reusing a database, check Drop Existing Tables in the Advanced Settings. Now click on Next to proceed to the FTP Configuration screen: Figure 6: FTP Configuration Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 10
On the FTP Configuration screen, just leave the settings as they are and click on Next to proceed to the Main Configuration screen. Figure 7: Main Configuration On the Main Configuration screen you need to enter a Site Name, your email address, and a password (twice) for the administrator of the Joomla! installation. Write down your admin password, as you will need it shortly. Then click on the button Install Sample Data - you will receive a message that the sample data was installed successfully. (Note: This is a mandatory part of the installation.) Then click on Next to finish the installation. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 11
Your installation is now essentially complete! Figure 8: Finishing the Installation On your server, within the /iahportal subdirectory, locate the Installation directory, and either rename it or delete it. Now you can click on the Site button to see your new portal site, or click on Admin to carry on configuring your portal. The administration functions may be accessed at any time by using the portal URL with /administrator/ appended to it so for our example the URL would be http://demo.infoathand.net/iahportal/administrator/. Configuring the estore At this point you should likely use the Joomla! administrator site to set your company information for the estore. Select the VirtueMart component from the Components menu, and then from the VirtueMart Control Panel (see Figure 11) select the Store menu option, and then click on Edit Store. Here you can set your company name and address information, as well as a logo to be used on PDFs produced by the estore (there is a link within the shopping cart to produce PDFs). As well, you may set a minimum order value for free shipping, the currency to be used in your estore, and a minimum purchase value. Linking to info@hand Via Web Services Before you can do anything useful with your Self-Service Portal, you must first link it to the info@hand CRBM system via web services. info@hand supports both SOAP and json web services, and Portal 3.6 is the first to use the faster json services to link to the CRM. From the Components tab choose the info@hand Portal menu option, and the Configure sub-menu option. When you select it, you will see this screen displayed: Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 12
Figure 9: Configuring Portal Connection to info@hand Here you must enter the URL for your CRBM, and the username and password for an admin user within the CRBM then click on the Save icon. For the example URL we have been using in this guide, the SOAP URL would be http://demo.infoathand.net/soap.php. Don t forget the soap.php on the end - many people do! Synchronizing the estore Product Catalog You should now perform the VirtueMart Catalog Synchronization function. Select it from the Administrator menu as Components - info@hand Portal - VirtueMart Catalog Synchronization. From the resulting screen (see Figure 12) click on the button Synchronize Catalogue with info@hand. For this initial sync, be sure to choose the Replace option, not Update All Products or Update New Products. You should see messages from the synchronization process similar to those shown in Figure 13. You have now completed installing the shrink-wrapped version of the info@hand Self-Service Portal and estore. Now skip ahead to section 3.0, while we discuss the advanced method of installing the Self-Service Portal and estore. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 13
2.2 New Installation: Advanced Method The simple instructions for installing the shrink-wrapped info@hand Self-Service Portal assume you do not have an existing Joomla!-based portal. These advanced installation instructions assume you do have a pre-existing Joomla! portal installation, and that it is based on Joomla! 1.5.8. 1. To begin the advanced installation process, first make sure you have already installed your info@hand CRBM system, and that the system is running smoothly. 2. If desired, make sure that VirtueMart 1.1.2 is installed. 3. The FireBoard 1.0.4 forum component is also recommended, but not required. 4. Next within the CRBM system, go to the Admin area, and within System Settings, look for the section entitled Self-Service Portal. Enable the check-box entitled Enable Self- Service Portal Integration. This enables the main CRBM system to communicate with the Self-Service Portal. Also enter the URL for the Self-Service Portal - this is used by automated customer notification emails to point them to updated information, such as updated service Cases. Then set the check-boxes to define the permissions for Unregistered Users, Leads and Contacts within the Self-Service Portal. Portal users linked to Leads within the CRBM will see the menu options selected, and similarly for the Portal users linked to CRBM Contacts, and Unregistered Users (i.e. users that are not logged in). Figure 10: Enable and Configure the Portal Within the CRBM Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 14
5. Now make sure that the Legacy Mode system plugin is enabled. 6. Next, locate these four files (provided with your info@hand download links): com_iahportal-3.6.zip, com_iahportalfaq-3.6.zip, plug_iahportal-3.6.zip, and plug_virtuemart.zip 7. These files need to be installed using the Joomla! Extension Manager. From the Administrator Home Page (see Figure 14) select the menu option Extensions - Install/ Uninstall. Using the Install tab, install com_iahportal-3.6.zip, com_iahportalfaq-3.6.zip, and then install plug_iahportal-3.6.zip and plug_virtuemart.zip. 8. Activate the two plug-ins, plug_iahportal-3.6.zip and plug_virtuemart.zip. 9. Now locate the file virtuemart_patch.zip (provided with your info@hand download links). Unzip its contents and then drop the resulting directory structure on top of your Joomla! installation directory. This will replace several VirtueMart files with patched versions, so that VirtueMart will record orders and payments automatically within info@hand. Configuring the estore At this point you should likely use the Joomla! administrator site to set your company information for the estore. Select the VirtueMart component from the Components menu, and then from the VirtueMart Control Panel (see Figure 11) select the Store menu option, and then click on Edit Store. Here you can set your company name and address information, as well as a logo to be used on PDFs produced by the estore (there is a link within the shopping cart to produce PDFs). As well, you may set a minimum order value for free shipping, the currency to be used in your estore, and a minimum purchase value. Linking to info@hand Via SOAP Before you can do anything useful with your Self-Service Portal, you must first link it to the info@hand CRBM system via Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). This is a common web services protocol, frequently used for connecting web-based services. From the Components tab choose the info@hand Portal menu option, and the Configure sub-menu option. When you select it, you will see the screen in Figure 9 displayed. Here you must enter the SOAP URL for your CRBM, and the username and password for an admin user within the CRBM then click on the Save icon. For the example URL we have been using in this guide, the SOAP URL would be http://demo.infoathand.net/soap.php. Don t forget the soap.php on the end - many people do! Synchronizing the estore Product Catalog You should also perform the VirtueMart Catalog Synchronization function. Select it from the Administrator menu as Components - info@hand Portal - VirtueMart Catalog Synchronization. From the resulting screen (see Figure 12) click on the button Synchronize Catalogue with info@hand. You should see messages from the synchronization process similar to those shown in Figure 13. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 15
Figure 11: VirtueMart Control Panel Figure 12: Performing VirtueMart Catalog Sync Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 16
Figure 13: VirtueMart Catalog Sync Complete Now use Joomla! Administration to add the FAQ menu item to the menu. From the top menu, select Menus, mainmenu. Click on the New icon, and on the new menu item screen, select Menu Item Type of IAH Portal FAQ. Now enter a title for the menu item, select an Access Level of Public, and under Basic Parameters select the FAQ section to be FAQ. Now click on Save. Then just carry on with the instructions in Section 3, to configure and administer your newly info@hand-enabled Joomla! portal. Note: If you intend to use the PayPal payment method within the estore, be sure to configure your system so that VirtueMart adds any relevant taxes to purchases before they are passed to PayPal for payment - rather than having PayPal add taxes by itself to requests for payment. The VirtueMart integration checks that PayPal receives the exact amount requested of it, and will cause an error if not. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 17
2.3 Upgrading an Existing Installation To upgrade an older installation of the Self-Service Portal and estore version 2.5.1 to this latest version 3.6, you will need to perform two main migration processes. Convert Simple Machines Forum data to FireBoard data, and prepare an SQL dump for the migration. Install the new Self-Service Portal, and load the migration data. Convert Simple Machines Forum (SMF) Data 1. First, backup the database and file system of your complete info@hand installation. 2. Next, install the FireBoard component. Even though FireBoard is not compatible with the SMF bridge, and therefore will not function, you still need to install the FireBoard component as part of the migration process. 3. Now install the the SMF to FireBoard converter component - com_smf2fb.zip. 4. On the administrator home page, select the menu item Components - SMF to FireBoard - Configuration, and change the table prefix to jos_smf_. Then save the configuration. 5. On the administrator home page, select the menu item Components - SMF to FireBoard - Configuration, and perform these steps in order: (a) Clear data (b) Convert categories (c) Convert users (d) Convert posts (e) Convert attachments (f) Final update 6. Now install the the SMF to FireBoard migration component - migrator.zip. 7. Next, unzip all the files from migrator_plugins.zip into the directory administrator/ components/com_migrator/plugins/. 8. From the Administrator home page, go to Components - Migrator and click on Create Migration SQL File. Then scroll down and click on Start Migration. This process will take a few moments, and then you will see the message Migration Complete! Now click on Download, and then on Download next to the file name. Save the SQL file onto your computer desktop - you will be needing it shortly. Install New Portal and Migrate Data 1. First, perform a new info@hand installation, as documented in section 2.1 - except be sure to use the file IAHPortal-3.6-Upgrade.zip - not the normal new installation file IAHPortal-3.6-Install.zip. Be sure to install into another folder than the iahportal one you likely used for your current installation. Stop when you get to the step which shows the Main Configuration screen, and instead carry on with the instructions provided here. 2. On the Main Configuration screen you need to enter a Site Name, your email address, and a password (twice) for the administrator of the Joomla! installation. Write down your admin password, as you will need it shortly. Then select the check box Load Migration Script and Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 18
set Old Table Prefix to jos_. Also select the check box for This is a Joomla! 1.0 migration script. 3. Now click on the Browse button, and locate the SQL file you saved in section 2.3.1. Then click on Upload and Execute. After this is processed, you should receive a message: Migration Successful - Press Next to Continue. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation. 4. From the Administrator home page, go to Components - VirtueMart. You will be prompted to perform an upgrade, and you should do so. 5. Now use the Administrator home page menu to go to Components - info@hand Portal - Configure, and link your Portal to your info@hand installation using SOAP. (See instructions within section 2.2 above). Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 19
3.0 Administering the Self-Service Portal First login to the administrator site (using the portal url with /administrator/ added at the end) using the username and password shown on the last screen of the installation process. This user has Super Administrator rights as you can see on the screen below. Figure 14: Administrator Home Page This guide is not meant to act as a definitive reference to the administration of a Joomla! site. To administer features of a Joomla! site not specific to the customizations added to create the info@hand Self-Service Portal, you are referred to the Administrator 1.0x manual in the documentation download section at http://www.joomla.org. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 20
3.1 Creating Users The info@hand Self-Service Portal links each portal user (or at least, each one that is to have access to data in the CRBM) to a Contact or a Lead within the CRBM. In this way each Self-Service Portal user can be given unique permissions to the CRBM data. As this link is established, a Portal Only user is created within the CRBM for each Self-Service Portal user with CRBM data access, as the conduit through which the CRBM provides data to the Self-Service Portal. Note: These Portal Only users do not count as licensed users within the CRBM, and they are normally filtered out of the user lists displayed within the CRBM unless explicitly selected. While existing Joomla! administration functions may be used to create a Joomla! user, the Self- Service Portal has an added administration function that lets you create a new Joomla! user, and associate it to a CRBM Contact, all in one step. It is critical that you use this latter Portal User Management function to create new Portal users, not the standard Joomla! function. To use this function, navigate to the list of components shown in Figure 14 above. From this list of components, choose info@hand Portal - Portal User Management. The next screen shows you a list of users. In the top right of the screen, click on the New icon. You will see the screen below: Figure 15: Creating a New User You can type in a new user name and password as shown, and then enter a few letters of the last name of a CRBM Contact for a wildcard search within the last names of the Contacts within the CRBM. Then click on the Lookup button. Choose the Contact you want from the dropdown list displayed if there is more than one match found. Then click on the Save icon. Note: You must enter at least one character in order to perform a lookup, and it must be part of the Contact s last name - parts of the first name will not work. You have just made a new user in the Self-Service Portal, as well as a new Portal Only user within the CRBM and linked them both to the Contact you have selected. The CRBM Contact is also likely to be already associated in turn with an Account in the CRBM. Your new user in the Self-Service Portal will therefore be able to access all Cases, Software Bugs, Invoices, Quotes and Project Information that relate to that Account. And that is the only data they will be able to access within those CRBM modules. They will also be able to access and update their own Contact Information within the CRBM, access Knowledge Base information, and register for Marketing Events. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 21
3.2 Adding Content Items To edit content items, such as the content displayed on the front page of the Self-Service Portal, from the Administrator main view (see Figure 14) select the Content menu and then the Article Manager menu option. This will display a screen similar to that shown here: Figure 16: Content Items Manager From this screen you can add new content items, or edit existing content. As an example of editing content, you could change the text on the front page of the Self-Service Portal by clicking on the content item entitled Welcome to the... This will show this screen: Figure 17: Editing Content Simply edit in the changes you want, and click on the Save icon. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 22
3.3 Setting Company Contact Info From the screen shown in Figure 14, select Components - Contacts - Contacts. You will see a screen much like this: Figure 18: Contact Manager Simply select an item to edit it, or to delete it or add a new item with the New icon. You may also edit the categories for contacts (notice this contact is at Head Office you may wish to add another location) by using the Components - Contacts - Categories menu option. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 23
3.4 Managing Requests for Information The Self-Service Portal option to Request Information produces this screen for the user if they select the option when they are not logged in: Figure 19: Request Info When the user fills in the appropriate information and clicks on the Submit button, they see a screen confirming that a message has been sent to the email address entered for the portal administrator (see Figure 7). For the request above, an email would be sent with the Subject Information request, and the body would be: Name : Michael Whitehead Email address : michael@infoathand.com Organization : The Long Reach Corp Title : President/CEO Phone : 613-692-7818 Fax : 613-692-7818 Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 24
Please tell me all about your products & services! As well, a Lead is automatically entered in the CRBM, with a Lead Status of New, and a Lead Source of Self-Service Portal. Figure 20: Lead Capture Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 25
3.5 Adding FAQ Info FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions) in the Self-Service Portal are content items that are organized by Category, within the FAQs section. Use the Category Manager to add the categories you wish for your FAQs. From the screen shown in Figure 14, select Content - Category Manager. You will see a screen much like this: Figure 21: Category Manager Then just add new content (see section 3.2 above) to the FAQ section, within the FAQ category desired (as shown in Figure 22 below), to build up content for your FAQ pages. Figure 22: Editing FAQ Item Content Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 26
3.6 Adding Forum Categories and Boards To add new categories and forums, first login using an administrator login. Then select the Components - FireBoard Forum menu item. You should see a screen like the one below: Figure 23: FireBoard Administration Click on Forum Administration (menu item or icon) and then on the New icon to create a new forum Category. Your first Category will have No Parent set, as shown in the figure below: Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 27
Figure 24: Creating a FireBoard Category You can then go on to add additional categories within the top level category, and then add forums within the categories. Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 28
The figure below shows what users of the Self-Service Portal see when they select the Forum menu option, once you have some forum categories defined. Figure 25: The Forum Menu Option Section 2: Installing the info@hand Self-Service Portal Page 29
Self-Service Portal & estore 3.6 Installation Guide The Long Reach Corporation 6333 Rideau Valley Drive Manotick, Ontario K4M 1B3 www.infoathand.com