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Understanding the Web Administrator Facility

Callista Connect is a tool designed to supplement the operations of tertiary institution administration with student self service applications delivered via the Web. The suite of applications provides students with a portal to their personal profile and academic details in Callista.

Callista Connect is comprised of four broad components:

• Callista Staff Connect- the web pages and applications enabling staff to query Connect Student information
• Callista Connect Manager - enables the administration of security, applications, global configuration and users. These functions are managed within Callista forms
• Callista Connect Web Administrator - enables the creation of Web pages and delivery of student applications. These functions are managed within Web forms (described in this document)
• Callista Connect Student Applications Suite - the web pages and applications seen and used by student end users
• Agent Connect Applications Suite - the web pages and applications seen by Agents
• Applicant Portal Application Suite - the web pages and applications seen by Admission applicants.

This section deals with Web Administrator functions. In particular:

• What the Web Administrator Does
• Terms Used in the Web Administrator
• How the Web Administrator is Used
• User Responsibilities
• Reference Data and Setup
• The Web Administrator
• Styles
• Web Elements
• File System Web Elements
• Upload File System Web Elements (images)
• Connect Builder

Detailed explanations and instructions for the use of individual web administrator forms can be accessed from the Callista Connect Table of Contents or via the numerous links provided here.

Information regarding Callista Connect security, applications, configuration and messaging is provided separately in Understanding Callista Connect Manager.

What the Web Administrator Does

The web administrator is an integral part of Callista Connect. It is used primarily to create the web pages for delivering an institution's suite of online student self serve applications. These applications enable students to view and update selected Callista held details. Examples are view results, self-enrolment and change addresses. Key Web Administrator functions are:

• Maintenance of reference data and web elements used to define page format and design, such as:
• Styles
• Header templates
• Cascading style sheets
• Creation and maintenance of web elements, used to define the content of pages, such as:
• Font blocks
• Applications
• Creation and maintenance of web pages
• Page, head and body web elements
• Connect Builder

 

Terms Used in the Web Administrator

To understand the web administrator it is necessary to understand several key terms. Details of these terms can be found in the subsystem glossary.

How the Web Administrator is Used

User Responsibilities

Each institution will determine how Callista Connect is applied to its own business practices and requirements. Subject only to the system defined limits of the student applications provided, an institution can customise its student self serve facility according to its own design requirements. In order to provide the appropriate protection for secure applications within the pages created in Web Administrator, Callista Connect Manager security must be used to define access levels, authentication methods and timeouts.

Web Administrator Reference Data and Set-up

Before using the Connect Builder to create Callista Connect web pages, it is first necessary to create requisite web elements for defining the attributes and content of pages. These include styles, headers, footers, cascading style sheets, icons, images, javascript, text blocks and applications. Before an application can be used as a page element, it must be defined in Callista Connect Manager mapped to a system application and created as a web element in the web Administrator.

Styles

Web Styles define the look and feel of the web pages. Styles are used in the Maintain Self Serve Configuration form (SSFF1200) to establish a style for the institution (i.e. applied to all web pages). They can also be applied to individual pages and as part of the PERSONPREF self serve application to enable student users to apply a particular style to the web pages. When applying styles it should be noted that an order of precedence exists:

• Person preference style - set by the user in the PERSONPREF self serve application
• Institution level style - the style set in SSFF1200

Thus, if an institution level (global) style is defined and a student selects a style, then the users page style will take precedence for that page.

Inline styles can also be applied to a web element within a page. If the Style Override indicator has been unchecked for the web element (in the relevant element maintenance form), the inline style will override the global and individual style for the element unless the inline style has been listed as a replacement in the style. For further details on replacement style elements refer to Maintain Style Web Elements.

The Maintain Web Style and Maintain Web Style Element forms allow the user to create and edit styles and web style elements for Callista Connect web pages. Access these pages from the Site Map navigation button in Web Administrator.

Web Elements

Web administrator enables creation of elements or components for incorporation into web pages. These elements define page content. Some of the available elements are applications, Javascript, text, images and icons. Anchors (links) to other pages, elements and files can also be created (for example: course guides, booklists or academic transcript order forms).

• Applications - enables applications defined in Callista Connect Manager to be inserted into web pages. Each application web element MUST have the same name as the self serve element created in SSFF1100. The self serve application in SSFF1100 is mapped to a system self serve application.
• JavaScript - enables Javascript code to be inserted into a page.
• Font - when recording text, HTML tags may be included to create paragraphs, bold, indenting, etc.
• Anchor - enables the creation of links to other web pages, PDF files, images, Javascript functions, etc. If an anchor is associated with a font or image element, the link is active wherever the element appears in a page.
• Footer Templates - enables footer information to placed at the bottom of each web page.
• Header Templates - enables menus, logos etc. to placed at the top of each page.
• Link - used to link external cascading style sheets to web pages.
• Inline Style - used to define style attributes for within a page, application, font etc.
• Frame - used to define a web page into separate areas each displaying different web elements. Used in conjunction with the Frameset web element.
• Image Map Area Tag - used to define links for different sections of a single image.
• Paragraph - used to format blocks of font (text).
• Noframes - used in conjunction with the Frameset web element to provide an alternative method of display for web browsers without frame capabilities.
• Image Map - defines the set of area tags for an image.
• Horizontal Rule - used to define horizontal lines for use in separating sections of a web page.

Some of the available web elements are used to define the page rather than the content of the page. The naming follows standard HTML naming conventions.

• Body - used to define the elements that are displayed in the web page.
• Head - used to define the web elements that control the web page such as inline styles or cascading style sheets.
• Page - used to define the web page.
• Title - allows a title to be placed in the title bar of the web browser.
• Frameset - alternative to the use of body. Used to define frames within the web page.

File System Web Elements

The File System Web Elements option is used to record details of images, icons, header, footer and cascading style sheet files that may be used as web page properties or elements. These are elements created and maintained outside of the web administrator functionality. A directory structure is created to store these items (see Technical Documentation for a further explanation of this). Within the File Systems functionality, these files may be created as elements for use in the web pages. The elements are:

• Images - all images are stored in a directory (or directories) for use as elements. The standard image types are catered for (jpeg, bmp, gif etc). An image map can be applied to an image, sectioning the image into a single or multiple active links.

Upload File System Web Elements 

File system web elements can be uploaded to a virtual directory by anyone with access to the web administrator. Access to the physical directory is not required. The Upload File System Web Elements option in the Site Map menu allows users access the Maintain File System Web Element screen to browse their hard drive or other network directories to locate an image. Use this screen to select an image, record the necessary image details such as element code and description and upload the file. A copy of the image file is placed into the virtual directory for use in other web elements such as a web body element or anchor web element.

Connect Builder

Connect Builder is used to create web pages by adding web elements to the page. Connect Builder is accessed via Connect Builder in the site map menu. Details on how to use this application can be found in the help available with Connect Builder. This help can be accessed in Connect Builder regardless of whether the user has logged in.

Access the Connect Builder from the Site Map navigation button in Web Administrator.

Last Modified on 6 April, 2006