Understanding Corporate Portals Key Knowledge Management Enabling Applications

Discusses Corporate Portal’s in relation to specific KM processes: personalization and search;
access to information sources in a web-friendly environment (from highly unstructured to highly
structured digital data; internal and external information); communications and collaboration;
and ease of publishing and access to a vast amount of data, information and knowledge.

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Corporate Portals, Collaboration are a number of key software
Capabilities and Knowledge capabilities that are integrated into a
Management CP architecture. These are grouped
according to the following:
There are no standard definitions
about which collaboration capabilities The Presentation and
a CP platform should include (Collins, Personalization Layer defines how
2001; DavyDov, 2001; and the users see and customize
PriceWaterhouseCoopers & SAP, information delivered or accessed
2001). At the end of 2001, there are via the portal. The intuitive solutions
numerous software vendors providing offered allow users to access
portal solutions (from very large information in more relevant,
software companies to start-ups). context-centric environments. This
Indeed, because of the modular nature is key for KM efforts;
of standard Internet development,
The Search Solution determines
many companies are relying on a
how easy it will be for users to find
number of software vendors to
relevant information based on a set
integrate into a portal solution.
of search criteria. This is a core
Consequently, the description of a CP
functionality that has improved
platform for this research paper is not
significantly over the last few years.
based on any standard vendor
At the same time that it has evolved
solution. Rather, it is based on our
to integrate various different
understanding of the overall software
information sources, it has also
market and our selection of
become much more sophisticated,
collaboration capabilities that are
intuitive and adaptable to different
relevant for deploying Knowledge
organizational needs;
Management initiatives. We are also
aware that technology is changing Web Applications for the enterprise
rapidly and that many new CP have evolved from “green fields”
solutions wilese are l emerge. There and also from existing legacy

©TerraForum Consultores 1

systems. While many applications external knowledge sources relevant
were developed to leverage the for specific audiences. CPs are the
web (often based on B-to-C latest access solution for an ongoing
examples), most legacy systems trend in business towards making
have developed an Internet front- information more easily accessible to
end (while maintaining a legacy management. Prior to the Internet,
architecture). Sophisticated portal much of the focus was on the
platform solutions provide a number deployment of “Enterprise Information
of resources that make it very easy Systems” (EIS) and “Decision Support
to seamlessly integrate both sorts Systems” (DSS). These efforts were
of applications. In the case of more very expensive and aimed at helping
traditional systems, the integration, employees find answers and
at the presentation layer, is being information about the performance of
facilitated by the use of standard firms. However, due to the high cost
Application Program Interfaces and complex and specific nature of
(API)s developed by the portal most of these systems, very few
vendors and/or the users’ employees were allowed to use them,
community. These APIs allow and typically only senior management
access to structured (data had access, reducing their
warehouses, ERP, CRM, etc) and collaboration value. Few employees
unstructured information (Web, with access had the time or necessary
Desktop Applications, Content training to properly learn how to use
Management Systems, etc) called these systems. Importantly, usage
“Connectors”, “Web Parts”, was further impeded by the fact that
“Gadgets”, etc. the interface and navigation tools of
these early systems were not as
Indeed, CPs can integrate an almost intuitive as the web-based tools
unlimited number of applications. currently available. The technical and
Therefore, in this research paper, we economic barriers remained an
will focus on applications closely important obstacle. Finally, the
related to KM, and collaboration hierarchical, and bureaucratic reality in
capabilities. We will, particularly, many organizations decision-making
highlight the recent developments that did not help increasing accessibility to
help employees collaborate: organization information and
knowledge.
Finding explicit knowledge;
Codifying and Publishing their Unlike EIS and DSS, CPs allow a
Knowledge; diverse spectrum of employees to
access pre-defined and pre-scheduled
Collaborating Online. reports, as well as customize and
develop ad hoc reports, without the
Finding Explicit Knowledge help of the Information Technology
department. The most advanced
A well-implemented CP simplifies CKPs make it easy to leverage
access to information, knowledge, and “Business Intelligence” (BI) and data-
highlights important internal and warehousing solutions to allow


employees to customize their reports. drivers of intellectual value and the
These customized reports can be inter-connection of results from
based on pre-parameterized value different areas of the organization
ranges and formats or be completely reinforcing the strategic importance of
new reports based on employees’ collaboration linked to corporate
personalized formats/views and growth
sophisticated queries and data mining.
The recent and rapid migration of In most cases, CP platforms provide
traditional BI/ERP software to the web integration of the systems discussed
environment demonstrates the above only at the interface or
importance being placed on helping a publishing level through Application
large number of employees use and Programs Interfaces (APIs). Different
interpret the results from these vendors use different names for these
applications. In addition to allowing APIs: adapters, connectors, gadgets,
access to web-based reports from BI modules, portlets, web parts, etc.
or ERP software packages, CPs Often, when applications are
provide employees, partners and integrated at the portal, only small
clients, a web-based interface to pieces are integrated (e.g. reports
access all types of information. from the ERP system).

This trend is in line with one of the Most of the relevant and strategic
core management practices supported information in organizations, however,
by the KM literature: multi-dimensional includes unstructured information that
analysis and ease of access to before the web-based applications
information. The BI and ERP systems was hard to publish widely and even
no longer require end-users to know much harder to find. This is changing
any query language to define how they now in a CP environment. In order to
want to analyze the data. These types understand how employees can more
of systems allow for web-based easily and efficiently find this kind of
analysis and facilitate employees’ information, it is necessary to examine
understanding of the correlation collaboration technology
between the variables that affect their developments in: (i) Categorization
business. This is particularly important and Taxonomy; (ii) Search Engines;
as KM is also related to efforts to and (iii) Personalization Engines.
measure business results from various
perspectives and to disseminate those Categorization and Taxonomy
results throughout the organization.
The current findings and insights of In order to simplify searches and
many authors and companies navigation, organizations need to
engaged in assessing various develop information structures and
dimensions of intellectual capital and categories that make sense to their
company performance is reinforced in own businesses and specific
the literature (Kaplan & Norton, 1992 communities that will be using the
& Edvinsson & Malone, 1997). One of system. Regardless of the power of
the key research findings is to help the search engine deployed and the
employees quickly understand the number of functionalities implemented,


any organization will need to deal with but not anticipated topics or
the issue of categorizing and categories. Employees should find
organizing information. Categorization common names, categorizations and
adds fundamental indexing information signals that are familiar to them. In this
to documents, in order to make it respect, the online experience should
easier to find them later on. not be much different from the offline
Taxonomies are high-level rules for experience. Good taxonomies also
organizing and classifying information. make it much easier to search for
Although very relevant for the web documents by allowing searches to be
environment, the discipline of conducted based on various different
taxonomy is not new. It has always criteria (e.g. author, date, file format,
been at the core of library sciences. knowledge domain, etc). There is,
However, it has become even more however, no scientific way to find out
important as new software tools for whether the chosen taxonomy really
automatic categorization have works. There are a few rules of thumb
emerged and improved. (such as categories with too many or
too few documents will probably not
Taxonomies are also necessary to tag work), but, ultimately, it will be the
(information about the information) the users that need to tell whether it
documents created. The tagging is an makes sense or not (Can they find the
important step to ensure that search required information with only a few
engines will find required documents clicks?).
and also for the distribution of
documents based on personalization Automated categorizations based on
rules. Metadata, which is defined as frequency of words may not provide
information about information and a good results. Some new software
core feature of HTML and XML files, is solutions allow automatic re-
at the center of the Internet revolution. categorization of schemas based on
It provides the necessary context for user feedback. Preferably, building a
information making documents easily taxonomy should start with some
located by search engines regardless inputs developed jointly by content
of any previous information to their “owners” or domain experts and
physical location. Metadata also plays information architects. In many cases,
an important role by allowing different this is an important collaboration
documents to be grouped together because many experts are not too
easily. The capture of metadata concerned about how their knowledge
should ideally occur right after content is organized, classified and linked in
creation. Increasingly, this occurs meaningful ways to other codified
through a combination of automatic knowledge, experts and communities.
(typically author, name, date, etc) and
manual processes (keywords, Taxonomies and categorizations are
category, etc). usually hierarchical. However, new
forms that are more visual, for
The taxonomy should make it intuitive instance, spatial or hyperbolic trees,
for employees to browse for specific are becoming more common. Some
information and “bump” into related, CPs also import the category


hierarchies from existing applications, the occurrence of chosen words or
such as ERP or CRM. This can make phrases. These types of search
the transition to a web environment engines have been used
easier for users already familiar with extensively in libraries and allow
the existing applications. Ultimately, for users to target their search to
the true test of any taxonomy is the specific areas of documents, such
efficiency that it provides to the group as the title, keywords and author.
of users it was designed for: Are the Such search engines now often
users able to find meaningful and include URL and existing links as
relevant information in a time-efficient well;
manner?
Boolean Searches return results
based on the use of logical
Search Engines
operators such as AND, OR and
NOT;
If one of the objectives of KM and CPs
is to make it easier for employees to Bayesian Inferencing Searches
find relevant information and present results based on the
knowledge sources, then search frequency with which the chosen
engines are an important enabling words appear in each document;
tool. The goal of a search engine is to Concept Searches return results in
provide relevant results (not the which the most relevant
highest number of results) for a query, documents shown may not
in the least amount of time. However, necessarily contain the chosen
in many cases, users may need keywords. This is because the
assistance defining exactly what they search mechanism looks for
want. Documents also frequently refer additional words that are related to
to similar subjects using different the chosen keywords based on a
terms in varied levels of depth. This thesaurus or statistical approach;
may generate results that are not very
precise (too many, very few results or Context Searches: certain engines
irrelevant ranking). To respond to can be calibrated to understand
these various individual circumstances the researchers’ context and show
and the exponential growth in the search results accordingly. This is
amount of information and types of useful when words can have very
data and knowledge sources, there different meanings, depending on
have been advances in search context (e.g. the word “SAP” can
mechanisms.. Many search options, mean “the fluid of a plant” or refer
features and levels of sophistication to the ERP software company
are now available. They include the SAP);
following (from the most common to Natural Language Searches. This
the more sophisticated or specific): type of search engine is
exemplified by AskJeeves in the
Keyword and Exact Phrase consumer market. This natural
Searches are very common search language based software engine
features available in most search allows users to post queries using
engines that list results based on plain English (or any other


language). More sophisticated Affinity Searches are similar to
solutions, however, are being collaborative filtering searches.
developed that include agents that However, they take the idea of
mimic real, intelligent human linking people and documents
conversations (as provided, for even further. It discovers many
instance, by MangoMoon); levels of commonalities amongst
different kinds of documents,
Knowledgebase Searches: these
based on the people who author,
kinds of search engines are closely
read or update them. They can be
related to the “natural language
particularly useful for very large
search engines”. They are able to
organizations that want to link
automatically build structured
people with similar interests and
cases that let users tap into
competencies;
previous responses to similar
questions. These engines learn Visual Mapping Searches allow
every time a new interactive “Q & users to see the results of their
A” session occurs. If the searcher searches in a more graphical
does not find the appropriate manner. Documents are
answer they can be programmed aggregated and linked according
to direct the user to talk to a to categorization algorithms that
person who will try to answer the allow users to easily navigate
question (this is being deployed through clusters of related
particularly in call centers); information;
Popularity-Based Searches Peer-to-Peer Searches allow
automatically change the ranking searches within a self-selected
of links that are displayed, based community without the need of any
on various types of algorithms that centralized document index. The
aim to evaluate users’ own emerging enterprise solutions are
perspective of the document or based on the consumer models
site. It may, for instance, consider originally developed by companies
the number of times that previous such as Napster and Gnutella;
users have checked the link or
Personalized Agents have strong
information source or how many
dynamic learning capabilities
other users link to that specific site
based on each user’s pattern of
(the popular site google.com uses
searches and choices of
this technology). It may also
documents. Advanced agents
display documents based on
combine concept and context
users’ direct and pro-active
search concepts (discussed
evaluation of the document or site;
above) to build relevant users’
Collaborative Filtering Searches profiles.
are based on the idea that
individuals that share similar
Personalization Engines
interests will also find similar
documents relevant. Amazon’s
The CP in its various facets and
suggestions of books exemplify
applications has to make sense for
this type of search mechanism;
each individual and be clearly linked to


specific business processes and approach is to have the site
goals. It must not be only about personalized by web administrators,
information sharing, since information according to employees’ profile (role,
overload can have a very negative location or access rights). The more
impact on employees’ creativity and sophisticated push approach includes
productivity. Most people, especially dynamic personalization or
those working in fast-paced wired personalization “on the fly”. This refers
environments, are increasingly to personalization that is based on a
swamped with irrelevant information, number of sources of accumulated or
reinforcing the time-starved reality of real-time information, including the
most organizations today. If CPs are navigation path, device used for
to be successful and become a access, current location of user and
fundamental tool for employees’ work, available bandwidth, etc. The

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they need to allow employees, personalization engines use such
regardless of location and means of information to make intelligent
access to personalize their access to predictions about users’ preferences
vast volumes of information/assets and display content based on
stored in the companies disparate individuals’ stated preferences,
databases and digital formats. Ideally, employees’ roles and location, and
CPs should allow employees to behavior during visits to the portal.
seamlessly explore, in the same
browser window, information Codifying and Publishing Knowledge –
generated internally and externally. Value of Content Management Systems

Personalization, or tailoring content, One important goal of any CP solution
specific applications (or chunks of it) and/or KM initiative should be to
and/or individual experiences based empower employees to easily input
on implicit and explicit data and information and knowledge and have
information should appear transparent access in a timely and effective
to users by incorporating them into manner for the targeted group or even
regular browsing paths that minimize the whole enterprise and its
effort. The most advanced sites customers. Hence, Content
combine a “pull” and “push” approach Management System’s (CMS)
to personalization. The “pull” approach (associated with a CP implementation)
means that the content and display of represent a significant opportunity and
the site is dependent on choices made challenge for organizations and
by the user. The “push” approach can consultants in the KM field. The
be quite simple or quite sophisticated. processes related to CMSs are closely
The simple and most common “push” associated to those of KM. These


processes include the creation,
publishing, reuse and storage of Design and Authoring Features
content (or information). In that
respect, good CMSs can play a very There are very few layout and
important role by making it much design limitations;
easier for knowledge holders to codify Content is separated from format;
and distribute part of their knowledge They include graphical and
and information sources. This is, of intuitive tools to build a workflow;
course, very relevant for experts that They allow users not only to post
tend to be bombarded with the same information/content, but also to
questions repeatedly. customize the interface of their
postings;
CMSs, although initially developed for They make it easy for non-
large online publishing operations, are, technical people to continue to
clearly, knowledge-sharing tools and work with their desktop
should be treated as such. The most applications;
advanced CMSs allow for the They include sophisticated tools
seamless and dynamic integration of for template development;
very structured data (from back-office They allow the creation of XML-
systems) and unstructured data (input based documents by users with no
by individuals within and beyond the knowledge of XML;
enterprise). They can also be deeply They make it easy for users to
integrated with electronic workflow organize, classify and cross-
applications and other collaboration reference content that is being
and project-management tools. A publishing;
standard CMS process generally They allow users to easily
involves the following steps: 1) associate search terms (keywords)
Document Creation; 2) Document to their created content;
Review; 3) Quality Assurance; 4) They support the publishing of
Publishing; and 5) Document many content file types (e.g. audio,
Archiving or Document Deletion. video, image, presentations, HTML
code, Java components, ZIP files
CMS deployments can play a critical for download, etc);
role in the implementation of CPs. They allow content creators to
They provide the technical include priority levels on the
infrastructure and core processes that document that are going to be
ensure that the correct, updated and published or distributed to selected
timely content is available for those groups.
who need it. Although straightforward,
at a conceptual level, the CMS Rules-Setting Features
platforms can be quite different in
terms of their many technical features. They allow easy changes of rules
Some of the features found in the for authoring, editing, approval,
most advanced CMS solutions publishing and removal of content;
include, but are not limited to, the
following list:


Ordinary users can also easily (electronic meeting systems,
define or change business electronic whiteboards, conferencing,
processes and workflows; and chat tools) which allow two or
They allow documents to be more people to work together
checked in and out by users; simultaneously, whether they are
Individual employees and/or together in the same place or in
webmasters can easily manage different places. These tools enhance
roles and access rights; collaboration and make meetings
They allow both public and more effective. Asynchronous tools
privately-controlled publishing (i.e., permit people to work together at
the users control who has access different times (e-mail, knowledge
to their published pages); repositories, document and content
management systems and workflow
Version & System Administration tools). Asynchronous tools are
Control Guidelines particularly helpful for people who
have busy schedules and participate
They provide many options for in multiple projects. With
version control; asynchronous tools, it does not matter
They allow the addition of when or where a person is working;
comments to revised documents; the tools replace meetings and may
Pre-built interfaces are easily make them unnecessary for certain
modified; types of collaboration. Each type of
They allow roll-back published tool has its place.
items if necessary;
They allow the view of the “change Some of the most sophisticated digital
history” of any given item that has workplace tools provide a seamless
been published; integration of structured and
They automatically generate unstructured data and information,
attributes associated with each voice and synchronous and
published document (creation asynchronous groupware tools. It is
date, creator, document size, new clear that many of the tools that are
item indicator, updated item now being implemented at the
indicator, etc); and enterprise level have their roots traced
They offer many pre-built choices back to the consumer sites, in
in terms of deletion/purging particular large-scale portals that
policies. provided web-based discussion,
communications and community tools.
Collaborating Online In fact, some of the software vendors
now tapping into the enterprise market
The Internet provides both still have those mass-market portals
synchronous and asynchronous as their flagship clients. Other
opportunities for individuals to meet, software solutions were developed
share information/knowledge, make specifically for the corporate market:
presentations, and collaborative on from low-end ASP solutions for small
real-time decisions such as voting on companies to robust enterprise-level
line or utilizing synchronous tools such solutions. Some of the most recent


solutions are leveraging P2P platforms people that share interests
and also include wireless applications to meet;
to keep members constantly - Ability for users to digitally
connected to the community. In express their moods and
essence, many of these collaboration feelings through icons;
tools are integrated and customized to - Ability to easily assign and
specific organizational environments; modify different roles for
there is a set of functionalities related individuals of the
to five core areas: community (e.g.,
administrator, moderator,
1. Synchronous and Asynchronous core member, affiliate
On-line Discussions Capabilities member, etc.)
- Threaded and streaming - Tools for recognizing
(based on chronology) different levels of
discussion databases; participation and for users
- Discussion threads shown to develop their individual
according to user profile or digital reputation;
choices; - Ability to create members’
- Chats and instant directories and sub-
messaging; directories; and
- Ability to work offline; - Ability for both
- Ability to target questions to administrators and
groups or sub-groups; individual users to define
- Ability to easily set-up access rights to other
group, sub-group or private members of the community;
interaction environments; and
- Electronic meeting places - Ability to personalize some
with advanced presentation elements of each group or
features: web tours, community (e.g., color).
whiteboards, conferences,
3. Knowledge-base Repositories
etc;
- Ability to upload, distribute
- Audio and video streaming;
and archive all kinds of
- Instant polling and rating
document formats. In a
features;
way, including many of the
- Anonymous postings;
advanced features of
- Ability to mobile and remote
CMSs. These features
users to participate; and
were discussed in detail in
- Guided brainstorm
the CMS section above;
applications.
- Ability to check same
2. Rich User Identification applications simultaneously
Capabilities (apps sharing). For
- Manual and/or automatic instance, project plans,
profiling of individuals (by business intelligence, ERP,
moderators and/or users); etc;
- Knowledge-mapping and
affinity-building tools to help

©TerraForum Consultores
10

- Searchable databases of systems, categorization and taxonomy
discussions and previous tools, search engine tools,
“Q & A” sessions; and collaboration online applications etc.
- Integrated search with the Very importantly, these new
ability to search based on a applications strive to integrate and
number of criteria: author, balance the structured flow of
date, subject, sub-groups, information with the unstructured and
etc. organic flow of knowledge.
4. Events Management
The authors believe that many of
- Invitation according to role
these solutions will have an important
and or choices;
impact on how organizations create,
- Notification according to
organize, provide access and reutilize
role or choices;
knowledge. Many were transplanted
- Calendar;
from the publishing/media and other
- Schedule;
business-to-consumer (e.g. auctions)
- Inclusion of new members
industries while others were created
and groups;
from the start to foster higher levels of
- Site statistics (stats by
collaboration across multiple
users, location, topic,
constituencies within and outside the
contributions, etc), etc;
organization. Finally, it is important to
5. Administration Tools highlight that contrary to previous IT
- Online surveys; waves, it is evident that this new breed
- Ability to establish groups of technologies are being developed
and communities that with a strong social-technical
extend beyond the firewall; perspective and taking into
- Ability to operate without consideration many of the
client software; underpinnings of the Community of
- Ability to set up different Practice theory (Wenger, 2000).
levels and areas of site
management; References
- Ability to set up different
access levels, etc. Collins, H. (2001), Corporate Portals,
AMACOM
Looking Ahead Davydov, D.M. (2001), Corporate
Portals and e-Business Integration,
This papers has highlighted the McGraw-Hill
current state of the most sophisticated Edvinsson, L. & Malone, M. (1997),
tools that have been only recently Intellectual capital: realizing your
been integrated into portals in a company’s true value by finding its
corporate environment. Corporate hidden roots. Harper Collins
Portals are, indeed, becoming more Publishers, New York, NY.
sophisticated in their capabilities, in Kaplan, R.S. & Norton, J.(1992), The
terms of integrating a broad range of Balanced Scorecard – Measures that
integrated applications and tools, Drive Performance, Harvard Business
ranging from content management Review, Jan-Feb, 1992, p 71-79

11

PriceWaterhouseCoopers & SAP ,-
(2001), The E-Business Workplace,
Wiley
Wenger, E.C. & Snyder, W. M. (2000), A TerraForum Consultores é uma empresa de
Communities of Practice: The
Organizational Frontier, Harvard consultoria e treinamento em Gestão do
Business Review, Jan-Feb, pages. Conhecimento (GC) e Tecnologia da
139-145
Informação. Os clientes da empresa são, em
*** sua maioria, grandes e médias organizações
José Cláudio C. Terra é presidente da
TerraForum Consultores. Atua como consultor dos setores público, privado e terceiro setor. A
e palestrante no Canadá, nos Estados Unidos, empresa atua em todo o Brasil e também no
em Portugal, na França e no Brasil. Também é
professor de vários programas de exterior, tendo escritórios em São Paulo,
pósgraduação e MBA e autor de vários livros Brasília e Ottawa no Canadá. É dirigida pelo
sobre o tema. Seu email é
jcterra@terraforum.com.br Dr. José Cláudio Terra, pioneiro e maior
referência em Gestão do Conhecimento no
Cindy Gordon é consultora internacional da
TerraForum Consultores. Participa do país. Além disso, conta com uma equipe
conselho de diretores de várias empresas de especializada e internacional de consultores.
alta tecnologia nos Estados Unidos e Canadá.
Foi, recentemente, destacada pela University
of Western em sua publicação, e é também
autora de diversos artigos e livros. .0 1 - , 3,
/ 2 $ , 4

Gestão do Conhecimento e E-learning na
Prática

Portais Corporativos, a Revolução na Gestão
do Conhecimento

Gestão do Conhecimento - O Grande Desafio
Empresarial

, Gestão do Conhecimento em pequenas e
médias empresas
Governança para Gestão do Conhecimento
Realizing the Promise of Corporate Portals:
Implantando a Gestão do Conhecimento
Leveraging Knowledge for Business Success
Integrando a Gestão do Conhecimento no negócio
Gestão de Empresas na Era do Conhecimento

12

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