Understanding Experience Portal access, site settings, and groups.
In this article:
Accessing Your Experience Portal
Once your site is ready, you’ll receive an email from noreply@gotbeam.com inviting you to create a password and access the site.
Tip: Didn’t get an email? Check your spam folder and contact your Implementation Manager.
On the password reset screen, enter a new password:
Once logged in, you’ll see your Experience Portal's default homepage. This is what non-admin users will encounter when they log into your site.
To manage the site, you’ll need to access the CMS (content management system). To do so, click the profile icon in the upper right corner and select Admin.
On the screen that appears, you’ll see the homepage associated with your user group. If none has been assigned, you’ll see the default homepage.
From here, you can edit the homepage using the preview and edit toggle in the top right corner or dive into one of the management areas using the links in the tool bar.
- Home – Returns you to your homepage
- My Site – The page builder tool and portal preview
- Members – User management
- Pages – Content management of all pages within your portal
- Menus – Information architecture and site structure management
- Assets – Category and asset management
- Form Builder – Form editing and management
- Preview/Edit – Toggling shows a preview of what users will see or the page editing capabilities. This needs to be toggled to Edit to make changes to a page.
- Settings – Here you can important elements of your site like theming and SSO. You can also manage user groups here.
- Profile – Displays information related to your site profile
Note: Depending on your site and role, you may not see all listed options. Talk to your Implementation Manager for access to additional management areas.
Managing Site Settings
Settings provides a bird’s-eye view of your site’s theming, groups, single sign-on (SSO) setup, and more. Settings are only accessible to users with a role of administrator.
As an admin, Settings can be accessed from anywhere within the portal by clicking the cog icon in the upper right corner of the CMS, next to the profile icon.
General Settings
On the General tab, you’ll have the ability to see your site’s display name and site title. To make changes to any of these fields, contact your Implementation Manager.
Site Logo
Your site logo is the logo that will appear in the menu and/or footer throughout the site. If left blank, your site logo will default to your site name. Only PNG, JPG, or SVG format are accepted. For best results, we recommend a minimum width of 300px.
Site logos can also be added and assigned through the menu component in My Site.
Favicon
Your browser icon – or favicon – is the small icon that appears in a browser tab next to your site title. Favicons should be sized to 1:1 and must be in ICO, PNG, or SVG format, ideally 192px by 192px.
Theme
On the Theme tab, you can review how your organization’s brand styles were applied to your Experience Portal through a variety of design elements. Use the tabs on the left to review each category.
Note: Let your Implementation Manager know if something looks incorrect.
Single Sign-On (SSO)
Single sign-on (SSO) is an authentication method that allows users to access your portal using their organizational profile login credentials.
This tab allows you to set the default permission and access levels for all new SSO users. Changes to groups and roles can also be made on a user-level after their initial login by visiting the Member section of the CMS.
Understanding Groups
Within Settings, the Groups tab allows you to view, edit, and create new access groups for users. Groups determine what content and assets users can access.
On the Groups landing page, you’ll see a list of the current groups within your site, including a default group (General). This group is where all new single sign-on (SSO) users are placed initially and cannot be deleted, though users can be removed from it. The default group can be adjusted from the SSO tab.
Creating, Editing, and Deleting Groups
To make a new group, click + Create new group. You’ll be asked to enter some basic details about the new group including the name and an optional description for internal use only. Groups can be edited or deleted by opening the three-dot menu next to the group name.
Note: There’s no limit to the number of groups you can make, but our research shows that limiting the number of groups to between three and five makes it easier to both manage the visibility of content and assets and scale the site over time, especially for lean teams.
To edit or delete an existing group, click the three-dot menu to the right of the group name. Note that the General group comes standard with your Experience Portal and can't be deleted.
Caution: Deleting groups can’t be undone. Users within a deleted group will remain registered to the site but no longer have access to any of that group’s assigned content, including homepages. If their sole assigned group is deleted, pages and users will need to be reassigned to a new group.
How to Use Groups
Groups give you control over what audiences can access and edit, making it simple to segment content. Both individual pages and users can be assigned to a particular group or multiple groups. Groups are easy to update, and both pages and members can be added to or removed from a group at any time.
Here’s an example of how groups can help you manage access to content:
Dana has created a page featuring logo guidelines for an upcoming campaign. However, these logos should only be used by colleagues in the marketing department. She creates a Marketing group and assigns the logos page to it. Then, she adds her marketing colleagues to the group, ensuring the right people have access to the right content.
After the campaign has ended, she makes the decision to open up access to the logos page to other colleagues for education purposes. She removes it from the Marketing group and reassigns it to the general employee group. The Marketing group and the users assigned to it remain intact, but the logos page is now visible to all employees.
Tip: To ensure access to content is controlled, we recommend assigning pages to new groups before assigning users.
Assigning Pages to Groups
Page assignments are managed through their Visibility settings, which can be accessed in two ways. These steps are applicable to both assigning and unassigning groups.
In Pages, select the three-dot menu to the right of the page name and click Manage page settings. Navigate to the Visibility tab, ensure that the page’s audience is set to Private and select the relevant group(s). Click Save changes to finish.
In My Site, toggle to Edit in the upper right corner. Then click the cogwheel icon (Page Settings) in the top left and navigate to the Visibility tab. Ensure that the page’s audience is set to Private and select the relevant group. Scroll down to click Save changes to finish.
Assigning Users to Groups and Homepages
Users can be assigned to or removed from groups at any point. All group assignments will occur in the Members section of your CMS. There are two ways to manage group assignments for users:
- New users can be added to relevant groups during the Add new member process.
- Existing users can be assigned to or removed from groups by editing their member details and clicking the Groups tab.
Users can be assigned to more than one group at a time. The homepage they see will be the homepage associated with the oldest group. For example: Dan was assigned to Group 1. He sees the homepage associated with Group 1. Later, Group 2 is created, with its own homepage, and he’s assigned to that group as well. Because Group 1 is older, he’ll still see the homepage assigned to Group 1.
Note: If user groups do not have a homepage assigned, they’ll be directed to the default homepage.