What is a portal?
A portal (sometimes called an Intranet or an Extranet) provides an easy to implement, cost effective method to provide a robust information sharing web site for any company or organization. Since the service is Internet based and our source code licenses are very cost effective our products provide a very inexpensive way for companies to provide world class services to all employees.
With our source code licenses you will find that you have a portal comparable to those found in Fortune 100 companies at a very minimal cost. Your total investment is based on the cost of a source code license plus any custom development you might want to undertake.
And with the two different "flavors" of portals offered by Webauthor you will surely find one with the features you want (click on appropriate links to the left) and at a price point that makes a lot of sense.
How does a portal work with my existing E-mail capability?
Our portals provide a robust set of services working in conjunction with your existing E-mail services. We use E-mail for providing some of the communication services in your portal.
If you already have a POP mail server or if you use Microsoft Outlook our portal is designed to integrate your mail service directly into your customized portal - and that capability is ready "out of the box". You will have only one place to go to maintain all of your mail services - fully integrated with your new portal. We can also work with your IT staff to integrate our portals with any mail services you already use.
Is there a demo available?
Yes, a fully functional demo of our portal service can be found by clicking on the PortalXM Demo link to the left. In addition, when you click on the PortalXM Features link you will get detailed explanations of each of the standard and advanced modules available in our portal source code licenses.
What do my employees get when they use a portal?
They get access to a complete portal that provides extremely valuable business services. If they want to find a fellow employee the on line information is just a click away. Comprehensive task and contact managers are instantly available. Complete calendar functions with automated reminders are also a standard part of the system.
Administrators can post messages for everyone on the portal to see and review. You can post documents that are "sharable" by all of your users. It is virtually impossible to describe all the benefits of using a portal but you will quickly find that it becomes an indispensable business tool allowing you to lower costs, increase productivity, and leverage existing assets to enhance and build your business.
Do I need any special hardware, software, or Internet access?
No, our entire system is built to capitalize on your standard technology infrastructure. Unless we are hosting your new portal (see Portal Solutions) you will need to provide the necessary hardware, software, and Internet access. For more details on hardware and software recommendations please see the PortalXM or PortalXM-Lite link to the left.
It is imperative that each of your users already have access to an Internet E-mail account. Since these are available at no charge on the Internet or if you already have and E-mail server in place we can integrate with your existing E-mail services (POP 3 or Outlook). Anyone with standard Internet access from the office, road, home, library or cyber café can access their portal account.
Do my employees or I need to learn anything new to use your portals?
No, all of our systems are designed to function in an intuitive fashion. If your employees can read and follow instructions then they should have no problem using their new portal. However, you might want to consider rolling out your new portal with just a few modules at first and add more functions as time goes on. Our usability studies indicate that generally no training is required.
For those who want context sensitive help that capability can be added to any of our source code licenses. You can then write and administer your own help function ideally suited to your individual needs.
Does use of your portal include Internet access for my users?
No, we assume that each of your users already have Internet access. Many small organizations use AOL or other Internet Service Providers on a dial up basis. Others have their Local Area Networks (LAN's) connected to the Internet through higher speed connections. Our portals are designed to work well in either environment but it obviously works better if you have a faster connection to the Internet. If you need Internet access look in any phone book yellow pages under "Internet" or "Internet Services" for a list of local providers.
What if I want to your portal run on my own Local or Wide Area Network?
Our source code licensing programs are designed specifically for that use. Our customized portals have supported global companies with up to 10,000 employees.
What about cookies, do you use them on your portals?
Cookies are pieces of information that a Web site transfers to your computer's hard disk for record-keeping purposes. Cookies can make the Web more useful by storing information about your preferences on a particular site. The use of cookies is an industry standard, and many major Web sites use them to provide useful features for their customers. Yes, we do use them but only on a very limited basis. Most of the cookies we use are automatically deleted when your user signs off of their portal.
How do you handle security on your portals?
Our portals provide security at several levels:
Individual Access: Every portal user must sign on with their own E-mail address as an ID and a password that they select for themselves. During the setup process they are cautioned not to use the same password they use on any other system. Should they ever not remember their password we have built in systems allowing them to get their password sent to them via E-mail.
Access Rights: Only authorized users have access to your portal. Since your organization's site administrators control access by other users, other portal users in your organization see only what they are authorized to see.
Secure Transmission: Available in all of our portal services is Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). If you add SSL to your portal all communications are protected by powerful SSL encryption technology. The same security used by your financial institutions and banks to transmit your private data.
For more comprehensive information on our security features press the PortalXM Features link to the left and review the information on the appropriate modules.
In addition, our source code can be integrated with almost any security model that your IT staff has implemented. We have worked with many world class organizations to implement single sign in and other advanced security models.
Can your portals be used on my organizations LAN if we have a firewall or other security practices in place?
Yes, we will work with your technical team during the initial deployment and advise them of the technical specifications on how to integrate our portal with your own existing services. With each PortalXM software license time is included to allow for this integration.
Didn't you offer an Application Service Provider portal service?
Yes, for almost six years we offered the ability to have a portal on a per user per month pricing model. This is called an Application Service Provider (ASP). Although we found that model fairly successful we discontinued our ASP service in 2004. Those customers who used our ASP services were migrated to their own source code licenses. Some elected to have us continue to host their portal while others moved to a LAN/WAN implementation on their own servers.
Do you have special pricing for non-profit organizations?
Unfortunately no. Our pricing models and discounted packages of services already offer very good value and we are unable to discount them further.
Do I need a special web browser to use the Company Intranet?
You need at least a fifth-generation browser, such as Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5.x or greater, or Netscape Navigator/Communicator 6.x or greater (excluding beta versions). We recommend the Microsoft browser but fully support Netscape as well. You can go to the web sites of each company to download the latest version of their browser.
If in your organization you have a need that requires a different browser, or hardware platform to be supported that can be accomplished. It usually requires very little modifications to our source code to meet almost any need.
