Exercise 4.1 - Introduction to the Portal

Up till now, you have been using the Hopp Studio to define the mapping and Visual Studio to generate the Source- and Target Engines and deploy these so the Hopp Runtime can find them, load them, and execute them.

The last big component of the Hopp solution is the Portal. The Portal is a web application used for 2 different purposes:

1. Portal Operations is where you go to execute the migration by submitting migration jobs in the Runtime
2. Portal State is where you (and your users) go to see the data events that are the result of the migration

But before we get to that, let's introduce the Portal a bit.

The Portal

The Portal is a web application and is viewed through a web browser of your choice. In the training setup you are using Chrome, but the Portal works in other browsers, for instance, Firefox and Edge - but not Internet Explorer.

The Portal is just that - a Portal. As such, the Portal can host different modules each of which handles different aspects of the migration. Some mandatory modules are delivered out-of-the-box with Hopp, other modules are optional.

In your training setup, the (mandatory) Migration module is the one that contains the Portal Operations and the Portal State and will be the focus of these exercises.

The training environment also includes these optional modules:

• Scope & Test: Manages which Business Areas are in scope for the migration and assists and tracks User Acceptance Test results
• Issue Management: Creates and manages issues, with attachments, states, history, discussion etc.

The optional modules are integrated into the Portal in the training environment but will not be covered further in these training exercises.

As an aside, the Portal architecture is open and extensible. This allows you to implement your own modules - outside the purview of hopp tech - that nevertheless integrate seamlessly into the Portal. In many cases, it is useful to implement a reconciliation module to display proprietary reconciliation information in the Portal.

In Exercise 0.2 - Setup Workshop Environment, we have already explained how to open and sign into the Portal. To recap:

1. Open Edge and navigate to this url: https://localhost:430XX, where XX is your Trainee number - 2 digits (for instance https://localhost:43001 for trainee 01) 
2. Sign in
3. User: TraineeXX (for instance Trainee01)
4. Password: Literally 'password' without the quotes (note that this is a different password from your remote desktop login)

When you have signed in to the Portal, you will land on the Project Board. Click the Workshop card to access the Workshop project:

This will get you to the point where you can work on the Workshop project. 

The Portal Structure

The Portal is a web application and is viewed through a web browser, it is important to define the structure of the Portal and the differences between the Portal Operations, Portal State or the Portal itself.

1. When we mention the Portal we are referring to the Portal as a whole
   
   
2. The Portal Operations is where you go execute all the jobs that will in fact do the data migration. The Portal Operations has its own section in the Portal navigation menu:
   
   
3. Portal State is where you go to process the events and results of the migration and to analyze issues etc. Again, the Portal State has its own section in the Portal navigation menu:
   More on Portal State in later exercises

Context Menus

In general, you will find the actions you can take in the Portal in 2 locations: The Row Context Menu and the Action Context Menu. 

1. The Row Context Menu is visible as 3 dots when you hover the cursor of an item in a list:
   
2. The Action Context Menu is also 3 dots, but is located in the upper right-hand corner of most Portal Operations panels:

Refresh

In most of the panels of the Portal, you will see this Refresh button in the upper right corner.

The Portal is communicating with the Runtime via requests to and responses from a backend API. Due to this fact, some of the panels in the Portal do not update automatically. You have to click the Refresh button yourself to get the latest news from the Runtime.

So, remember, if you again are scratching your head because some panel in the Portal does not show what you expect: Click the Refresh button before you do anything else.

Interface

Take a little moment to familiarize yourself with the Portal interface. It is quite simple.

What happened here?

Nothing much happened, really. We just showed you around the Portal a little bit.