You've made the smart decision to run your enterprise on the IBM i platform, and now it's time to capitalize on your investment.
Effective IBM i modernization solutions allow you to optimize your enterprise, expand IT productivity, and reduce your overall ownership cost.
There are a few ways that a modernization project could be undertaken. For example, your developers could learn a new language (Java/.Net) provided you have the time and resources. Or you can go for the easy way out, rip out your IBM i, and replace it with something else.
While this might be your first thought for modernization, it is also time-consuming and super expensive to start afresh. Not just that, you'd be letting go of the ability to process safe, secure, and quick transactions.
Luckily, there's a better way, one that improves workflow and also your bottom line.
LANSA will make your life easier if you have a lot of 5250 green-screen applications at your company, and both users and management are asking you to modernize. LANSA's suite of IBM i modernization tools provides options for everything from simple refacing to brand new development.
Meet Portalize by LANSA. You can learn more about how you can leverage this tool to modernize your IBM I solutions in this article.
Portalize by LANSA provides you with the ability to further extend the life of your IBM i applications into modern web and mobile interfaces. You can augment existing systems with new web and mobile applications with additional capabilities.
You can also accelerate the pace of application development to deliver more projects on time and within budget.
Plus, you can reduce your technical debt by standardizing on a single platform for all application development. And this allows you to minimize the risk of large-scale modernization projects by refactoring existing programs that work well.
What is Portalize
Portals allow clients to access IBM i resources through the web. Though in the context of a portal, Portalize is way more than that. It is a fully customizable pre-built portal framework loaded with out-of-the-box features your users have come to expect from the most user-friendly portals.
Here, users can create accounts, set security questions, maintain their own details and preferences, reset passwords, and use many other UX features.
Also, it implements Google's material design. This means everything will be familiar to users so that they will learn and adopt the new portal. As stated earlier, all of this is customizable and can be added to or taken away from, depending on your portal needs.
Also, Portalize gives you access to the best practices in Visual LANSA and a reference for consistent application development.
Since Visual LANSA powers it, you have full access to the source code and complete customization control. You can use the built-in features to get your portal going quickly and add new features at any time.
The Portalize features are of three categories;
User features include login, account creation/forget the password, user management of details, and security validation.
The Administrative features, i.e., administration of users, security, and notifications, easy management of user accounts, an email engine that can send notifications and action requirements (forgot password, account disabled, etc.), and session login control.
Lastly, security features; includes it having passed extensive penetration testing, IP address monitoring for excessive requests, specific IP addresses ban, login requests limit, and automatic portal checks.
Modernize With Portalize
Portalize provides a straightforward application modernization approach to help users develop a modernized version of existing applications and a foundation to empower your manufacturing business's digital transformation initiatives.
According to Tony Graham, Portalize gives customers a jumpstart to building their own Web portals. He went on to say, "you can plug in your Visual LANSA applications right into the fully functional portal because it is built with Visual LANSA. Everything is right there, ready to go."
In a nutshell, he means that, with Portalize, you can now focus on building solutions rather than spending time developing complex features needed in most application portals today.
One of the most compelling features of Portalize is its user experience. With an easy-to-understand and navigate user interface, companies can easily create accounts and profiles.
You can manage your personal profile information such as email, name, job title, company, etc. Also, you can personalize the portalize interface according to your preference. For example, in your portal's color or theme, you can switch between light and dark modes, as shown in the screenshot below.
Also, at LANSA, we are huge on safety and security. That's why in addition to standard user features like changing passwords and setting security questions, Portalize has numerous security features in place to safeguard your information.
What's more, Portalize is loaded with various email templates and automatic email notifications that can be toggled on or off individually as needed. This gives the users full control.
You can also limit users' control with Portalize advanced administrative features in the portal administration panel. Your admins will have full control with access to user accounts, email settings, analytics, and session tracking, amongst others.
Another compelling portalize feature useful in modernizing applications is its automated language translation function. According to Tony Graham, the following points make the multilingual upgrade to Portalize so special, they are:
Language Flexibility
With over 20 languages, Portalize is easy to use for everyone, regardless of any geographical location.
You can easily change to your preferred language. This solution is unique when you affect a language change; it affects everything within your account, from generated PDFs, emails, and exported logs.
Add Your Preferred Language
Can't find your language option? No worries. Portalize offers you the room to add your preferred language, and It will adapt to display every section in the language you've added. What's more, you don't need a single line of code to effect this language change.
Developers Can See the Full Code Behind Each Option From Inside Portalize
The full source code is provided, so your developers have examples of new language features in various Visual LANSA apps.
It is not just a pre-builder portal; it provides your Visual LANSA developers with powerful examples that you can reuse in other apps and useful documentation to help your developers understand what is happening in the code.
Add New Features Seamlessly
When adding new features, you need not code in the language of your end-user. Your developers can develop any new feature in their native language, and your end users can translate.
This way, you can accelerate your application developments and also boost productivity.
Portal For Multiple Users With Different Functionalities
Portalize language feature is not implemented with separate URLs. However, you can have different functionalities for different users within the same URL.
In other words, each user has the option to select their preferred language for their instance.
How Does Portalize Work
First, you sign in or create an account and log in. You can see the admin views as an admin, and clicking on the "manage your activity" link below the welcome note takes you to the session history. You can allow users to either see this page or not.
If you click on the user icon in the top right corner, it takes you to the account and profile tab, where you can edit and save your information.
The portal administration tab is an admin feature and is only available to admin accounts. Here you can see all users: active, disabled, pending, etc. Also in the admin tab is the email settings where you can control email notifications, i.e., choose what kind of notifications your users can receive.
You'll find the Email Template section in the email settings tab, where you can customize emails. For example, incorporating your brand colors, look, and feel.
Customizing emails with Portalize is relatively easy:
First, you download the email you want to edit. The file is an HTML file you can open with any text editor and change properties as you wish.
Next up, save, then click on the edit icon and upload the file you just edited.
That's how easy it is to create email templates with Portalize.
Portalize has a lot of unique features that are useful when it comes to modernizing IBM i solutions. You can find out more when you request a demo.
Are You Ready to Modernize Your IBM i Solutions?
Powered by Visual LANSA, Portalize is easily the most customizable and powerful portal on the market. With this solution, you access numerous Visual LANSA modules and codes - for example, the entire portal source code.
This gives you full customization power to tweak as you like.
Two important points to consider when embarking on a modernization project are maximizing ROI and accelerating business developments.
Portalize offers an affordable modernization option that allows you to maintain and leverage your existing IBM i applications, albeit an improved version. Thereby removing the need for a complete overhaul and ultimately ensuring a high ROI.
Are you ready to bring your IBM i system up to speed? Contact us.
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