Create and publish customer oriented communications to be displayed on the user portal.

• Create text based or image based communications (formatting including hyperlinks is supported)
• Quick formatting: title / description / predefined icon
• Communications are active for a predefined time-frame (i.e. they have a predefined start and end date)
• Communications can be delivered to users from selected organizations only

The Wiki syntax (in the text of the communication) creates hyperlinks which point to the console!

iTop 2.3.2 and the new portal.

As any other extension:

1. Expand the content of the zip file in the extensions folder
2. Make sure that the web server has enough rights to read unzipped files
3. Remove the read-only flag on the iTop configuration file
4. Run the setup by pointing your web browser to http://<itop>/setup
5. When prompted, make sure that you select Communications to the Customers from the list of extensions to install
6. Complete the installation by clicking “Install!”.

This extensions has no configuration parameter.

To create a new Communication or to view the list of Communications, click on the menu “Communications” under “Service Management”.

The form to create a new communication is the following:

When a communication is “on going”, it is displayed in the portal, at the top of the home page. The text of the communications are truncated in order to preserve a constant height for the communications area in the home page.

The user can click on a communication to display it in a popup dialog. This is especially useful on small screens (mobile phones) where the communication may be truncated.

If there are several on-going communications at the same time, they are displayed one after the other, using a carousel, automatically sliding to the next communication after 5 seconds. Small bullets are displayed at the bottom of the carousel to allow direct access to the Nth communication. The carousel automatically stops sliding when the user positions the mouse hover it.

When there is no on-going communication, nothing is shown in the home page of the portal.

Question: Can I modify the way the Communications are displayed on a Portal?
Answer: Yes, with an iTop extension.

Here is the XML of the Portal CommunicationBrick, with the parameters which can be changed:

itop_design / module_designs / module_design@my-itop-portal / bricks

<brick id="communication" xsi:type="Combodo\iTop\Portal\Brick\CommunicationBrick" _delta="define">
   <active>true</active>
   <rank>1</rank>
   <height>15</height>    <!-- integer , size in em -->
   <width>12</width>      <!-- integer , must be between 1 and 12 -->
   <title>Portal:Communications</title>    <!-- string -->
   <oql></oql>            <!-- Query for the displayed communications 
            (if authorized to the current user, see Communication::IsAllowedToUser).
            Leave empty to preserve the default behavior. Use :now instead of NOW(). -->
   <security>             <!-- Order is deny/allow Pseudo OQL traduction : 
            WHERE user_profile NOT IN (:denied_profiles) AND user_profile IN (:allowed_profiles) -->
     <denied_profiles/>   <!-- OQL query. Used only when not empty -->
     <allowed_profiles/>  <!-- OQL query. Used only when not empty -->
   </security>
</brick>

The default query on OQL is

SELECT Communication WHERE status != 'closed' AND start_date <= :now

Question: Can I display Communications on multiple Portals?
Answer: Yes, with an iTop extension.

You will have to customize the Communication class to add a criteria to specifies the Portals on which a particular Communication should be displayed.

itop_design / classes / class@Communication

      <fields>
        <field id="portals" xsi:type="AttributeEnumSet" _delta="define">
          <sql>portals</sql>
          <values>
            <value id="user-portal">user-portal</value>
            <value id="partner-portal">partner-portal</value>
          </values>
          <is_null_allowed>true</is_null_allowed>
          <dependencies/>
          <tracking_level>all</tracking_level>
        </field>
      </fields>

You must also modify the presentation

itop_design / classes / class@Communication

      <presentation>
        <details _delta="must_exists">
          <items>
            <item id="col:col0">
              <items>
                <item id="portals" _delta="define">
                  <rank>70</rank>
                </item>
              </items>
            </item>
          </items>
        </details>
      </presentation>

Then modify the Portals themselves, by changing the scope of Communications displayed in each portal

itop_design / module_designs / module_design@itop-portal / bricks

<brick id="communication" xsi:type="Combodo\iTop\Portal\Brick\CommunicationBrick" _delta="if_exists">
  <oql _delta="define">
    <![CDATA[SELECT Communication WHERE portals MATCHES ('user-portal') 
             AND status = 'ongoing' AND start_date <= :now]]>
  </oql>
</brick>

• On the itop-portal you will add the condition portals MATCHES ('user-portal')
• on the itop-portal-business-partner you will add the condition portals MATCHES ('partner-portal')