• Access web-based electronic mail.
• View Penn calendars.
• Receive current news and announcements.
• Access your course web sites.
• Find links to offices, services, and other Penn sites.
• Conduct transactions through PennIntouch and Campus Express
• Personalize PennPortal to include your personal channel choices, headline news sources, favorite web links, and more.

Once you log in to the portal, you can use PennInTouch and CampusExpress resources from portal links without having to log in again. If you are enrolled in courses this term, you will automatically see them appear in a channel called "MyCourses" with links to any websites for each course. If you are enrolled in a degree program that has a tab, that tab may appear by default when you log in.

But you can go further if you want. This document describes how you can:

• Add channels to tabs ("Choose Content"): In addition to the links and channels that you see automatically on your portal tabs, there are others that are optional. You can add these to your customized portal by simply selecting the ones you want from a list of choices.
  
  
• Move channels around ("Change Layout"): Depending on which tab you are viewing, some portal information can be moved up or down or from one column to another.
  
  
• Add your own personal tab ("Add/Remove Tabs") : Create your own portal space, then add channels (from the list of available channels) to it!
  
  
• Add links to MyLinks: It's like having a personalized "bookmarks" section in the portal -- available from any networked computer on campus.
  
  

Some information on the PennPortal is already populated for you when you log in. You can choose other information from a variety of sources, depending on what you would like to see on your customized portal.

• To add an optional channel, go to the tab you want to modify, and then click on the "Choose Content" tool in the upper right of the portal window.

• That will take you to an editing tool within the portal where you will see a graphical description of your tab's content, a column with Channel Categories, and a column showing channels in the categories. First choose a category. In this example, the category being selected is "Communities."

• Next choose from that category the channel that you want to put into your custom portal. Note that you can decide which column to place the channel on the tab. In this example, the channel "Weather - Current Temp" is being selected, and added to Column 3:

• Click on "View updated layout" to see the results.

• You can also use the "Choose Content" tool to remove optional channels. Click on [remove] next to the channel in the graphical display at the top of the Choose Content tool window. Channels that do not have a [remove] option next to them cannot be deleted.

• Click on "View updated layout" to see the results.

• Changes you make using "Choose Content" are your personal customization choices.
  If you represent an official student organization that would like to provide content to PennPortal -- that is, have a public channel that others can select from the list of available choices -- follow the "Create a Channel" link to submit your request.

• Once you have added channels to a tab, you can move them around. First go to the tab you want to modify, then select the "Change Layout" tool in the upper right of the portal window.

• Select the channel you want to move, then click on the arrows to move it up or down, or to the right or left. In this example, the channel "My Links" is being moved to the column to the left.

• Click on "View Updated Layout" to see the results.

• Some channels that you see by default in your portal cannot be moved or deleted. An [F] next to a channel means it is fixed and cannot be moved. A [R] next to a channel means it is required and cannot be deleted. In this example, the Campus Life Resources channel is both fixed and required.

• To create your own tab, one that only appears when you log in to PennPortal, click on "Add/Remove Tabs" in the upper right corner of the portal.

• Give your personal tab a name, then click on the "CREATE" button.

• Your personal tab now appears, and you can add channels and move them around, as you would on any tab.

A special channel called "My Links" appears on the Penn tab and can be customized when you log in. Think of this as a kind of portable list of favorites -- "bookmarks" that travel with you anywhere you can use the PennPortal.

• To add your own custom link, simply type in whatever you want to name it, then enter the url, and click on "Add This Link"

• Once you have one or more links in your custom portal, you will see a "Manage my links" button. Clicking on this allows you to edit or delete your existing links.

• Since "My Links" is a channel, you can also add it to any tab in your portal. It's the same channel, no matter where you place it in your portal, so the content of "My Links" will remain the same.

 

Introduction to PennPortal

Submit a request to be a PennPortal content provider
Officially recognized student groups and other Penn-affiliated organizations wishing to create and maintain a public channel can submit a request either via a paper form, or via an online form, available by logging in to PennPortal and selecting the "Create a Channel" link at top of the page.

Tutorial on managing and editing channels

Questions? Send e-mail to pennportal@pobox.upenn.edu