What is a Portal DB provider?

An Oracle Portal DB provider is a container for a set of integrated and shared database portlets designed to solve a business need or task. For example, you could create several human resources database portlets that allow users to add new employee information or look up existing employees. The database portlets in this provider could include:

a form database portlet to add the new employees.
JavaScript shared database portlets that validate entry fields in the form. For example, one JavaScript routine could verify that the employee's social security number is entered in the correct format. Another could ensure that the employee is assigned an ID consisting of 8 characters, all numbers.
a Query by Example (QBE) report database portlet to look up and edit existing employee information.
List of Values database portlet for the QBE report entry fields that contain company job titles and departments.
a link between the form and QBE Report.

To build the above example, you first create the provider that will contain the individual database portlets. Then you open the provider and use the Create function in the Navigator to build the database portlets and tie them together with the link. Any database portlet (except Frame Drivers, Links and Lists of Values) that you create can be made accessible to Oracle Portal users as a portlet provider.

The PEOPLE_APP example shipped with this product uses several Portal database portlets to query and display various views of the SCOTT.EMP database table that contains information about employees. The entry point for the set of database portlets is a form that displays in a portlet. In the figure below, the People portlet has been added to the lower left corner of the page.

Users can search for employees by typing a name in the People field, for example, Clark, then clicking Go. The results are displayed in a report database portlet, as shown below.

The User Name CLARK and the Chart icon are both both hypertext links to another report containing details about Clark and a hierarchy database portlet, respectively. The hierarchy shows Clark's position in an organization chart. Both database portlets are shown below

Both links were created using the Portal link wizard.

Necessary privileges

Those administrators and developers creating providers and database portlets must have the necessary privileges. Privileges can be shared, and the database portlets in a provider can be developed jointly. For example, two developers with Edit or higher access privileges on a database portlet could simultaneously work on the form and QBE report in the above human resources example. Another developer with Create shared database portlet access privileges could build the JavaScripts for validating entry fields.

Providers map to schemas

A schema is a location in the Oracle database where database objects are stored. Every Oracle Portal provider maps to a database schema. This enables Oracle Portal to store database objects associated with the provider.

When you build a database portlet in Oracle Portal, you must specify the name of a provider that will own the finished database portlet. A package will be generated for the database portlet and stored in the database schema that maps to its provider.

Normally, a database portlet is part of only one provider. However, shared database portlets can be shared across providers. If you want to reuse a database portlet in another provider, you must copy it to the schema that maps to that provider.

Inheriting privileges

You can explicitly grant access privileges on the finished database portlet to individual developers or allow them to inherit the privileges of the provider. If you choose the latter, any developer with Edit or higher access privileges on the provider is automatically granted privileges to edit the finished database portlet.