Frequently Asked Questions About the Engineering Intranet

Viewing Pages on the Intranet

• I am getting prompted for the "CUWebLogin" even if I'm already loged in. Is this normal?
• Who can view pages on the intranet?
  

Getting Started

• Who can create pages on the Intranet?
• I've got an intranet account, how do I get started?
• What training materials are available?
• What are "template files" and what templates are available?

More Advanced Questions

• I want to create an area of the intranet that is restricted to a different group than faculty and staff. How do I do this?
• How do I install the uPortal Groups Channel so I can manage my groups?
• What do the files that start with "incl" do?
  How do I update my Labels, breadcrumbs and menus?

About the Intranet

• What are the goals of the Engineering Intranet?
• Can I find out more about the decision making process that lead up to the Intranet pilot?

Viewing Pages on the Intranet

I am getting prompted for the "CUWebLogin" even if I'm already loged in. Is that normal?

Yes this is normal. If you keep a browser window open, you will have to log into the web site using your kerberos password once every 8 hours, or everytime you close ALL your browser windows.

Here's some more information about this decision. Currently the campus provides two ways to make use of the campus Kerberos infrastructure to restrict access to web pages, SideCar and CU Web Login. The more typical mechanism is to use SideCar. This takes advantage of the single signon capabilities of Kerberos but the current implementation makes web pages load very slowly. Instead we use CU Web Login, which is completely web based, doesn't require you to install SideCar on your computer and is much faster. The disadvantage of this is that you can't take advantage of having previously logged into kerberos.

Who can view pages on the intranet?

Most pages on the intranet are restricted to Cornell faculty and staff. A few additional people who have need to use the intranet are given access manually. These include students working in the Dean's office and student services and contractor's working on projects for engineering.

Some pages are restricted to smaller groups of people. For instance the dean may want to restrict some of his communications to just the academic department director's and chairs.

Some pages are open to everyone including the intranet homepage and some of the intranet support pages.

Getting Started

Who can create pages on the Intranet?

Currently the intranet is a pilot so only a limited number of people have been invited to participate, primarily in the dean's office and student services. We anticipate rolling out access to more units and people starting in the fall of 2003.

I've got an intranet account, how do I get started?

• Make sure you have Macromedia Contribute Installed on your computer. (Email EngrCompSupport@cornell.edu if you need it installed.)
• Follow the instructions to import your connection key.
• Use the web browser built into Macromedia Contribute to navigate to the web page you want to edit and press the "Edit" button. Edit the page using normal word processing skills. Then press the "Publish" button.
• See the FAQ page or the training materials for more information.
• If you need an account to edit web pages on the engineering intranet, email EngrIntranet@cornell.edu.

What training Materials are Available?

See the training materials page for a wide range of materials from online videos to materials used for sit down courses to recommended books. Some of the books are available for check out from the Carpenter Library Reserves.

What templates are there for me to use?

Templates allow you to create files with the standard intranet "look" and functionality. All the pages on the Intranet are created using standard intranet templates.

You can view examples of the templates we currently have available at templates page.

More Advanced

I want to create an area of the intranet that is restricted to a different group than faculty and staff. How do I do this?

By default the intranet is restricted to Cornell faculty and staff. You can have an directory on the intranet created that is more restricted, or less restricted than this. To do this we assign one or more "groups" of people permission to see the directory. The dean's office maintains the following groups centrally, but we can create a "group" to which you can add any set of netids.

Groups maintained centrally:

• All current Cornell students. (permit name: cu.student)
• All current Cornell faculty and staff (this is the default). (permit name: cu.employees)
• Engineering deans (the dean, and the associate and assistant deans). (permit name: engr.deans)
• Administrative staff in the dean's office. (permit name: engr.adminDeansStaff)
• Administrative staff in student services. (permit name: engr.adminStuSvcStaff)
• Academic department directors and chairs. (permit name: engr.acadDirChair)
• Academic department administrative managers. (permit name: engr.acadDeptMgrs)
• Other department administrative managers. (permit name: engr.otherDeptMgrs)

Here are some examples of other permits people have created:

• engr.orgspe and engr.grad_internal -- ORGSPE staff and engr.orgspe.MEC -- Masters of Engineering comittee -- Maintained by Mark Otis
• engr.hr_datamart -- a permit for a group from accross campus invovled with the HR data mart design.

To create a restricted directory email the intranet support staff with the following information:

• Copy the following text into your email once for each restricted directory you want created. Then fill out the requested information.

  ---

• Where the directory should be placed on the Intranet:
• Label for the bread crumb to put at the top of the page:
• Which of the following groups of People should be able to see pages in this directory (list as many of the following as you can given the anticipated use of the page):
  • engr.deans
  • engr.adminDeansStaff
  • engr.adminStuSvcStaff
  • engr.acadDirChair
  • engr.acadDeptMgrs
  • engr.otherDeptMgrs
  • cu.employees
  • cu.student
• If none of the permits above will work for your application, describe the group you want to restrict the pages to, and we'll set up a permit for you. The description should be clear enough so someone else could maintain the group list in your absence.

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The intranet support staff will email back once they create the directory.

If you have not used the centrally maintained groups we will include information on how to add the netIDs to the group we will create for you. To do this, go to the uportal groups channel. You can add the channel to your uportal homepage if you wish. There is also a very old administrative interface to the permit system.

How do I install the uPortal Groups Channel so I can manage my group memberships?

1. Go to uportal.cornell.edu.
2. Click on the Personal tab at the top of the window.
3. Click on the down arrow at the top of the left column and choose Add Content from the drop down menu.
   
4. In the resulting window open up "Applications" and click on the line that says "Group Maintenence", then click on "Subscribe to this Channel.
   
5. The result will be that you are back at the uPortal window with the group Maintenence channel installed. Click on the down arrow for the channel to get help on how to use the channel.
6. Click on the group you want to update and press the "Select Group for Edit" button and add or update the memberships of the group as needed.

What do the files that start with "incl" do?

How do I edit the Label, Breadcrumbs and Menu for my directory?

There are some standard elements that are included on all the pages in a section of the website. These include the label on the upper right of the webpage (in ), the breadcrumbs (in ) , and the menu on the left (in ). Rather than requiring you to type the same information into these locations, we type it once into an "include file" and the template automatically includes it in all the pages in the directory. More information is available on how to edit and create these files.

About the Intranet

What are the goals of the Engineering Intranet?

Can I find out more about the decision making process that lead up to the Intranet pilot?

See the Intranet Pilot Project Website for more information.