Helpful Hints
Remember to Publish New Content
It can be easy to forget to change a content to the Published state, or to Published to group if within group spaces, to grant viewing access of the content to site members. Since contributors and administrators who add content can view it in all states, they can overlook the fact that regular users are not able see Private content unless it is published or made available to group members.
Working with the Page Content Type
Pages are a nice way to present information on a site, because the information is available right on the web page and users do not need to download a file or open a separate application to view the content. However, we recommend that you enter and format the text directly in the body Text field, or copy and paste the text only from text editors like Notepad. Copying and pasting pre-formatted text from applications like MS Word may result in formatting incompatibilities and errors in the pasted text. It is best to use the Content Editor to format text within the portal. See the topic on Pages for more information.
Security of the Portals
The portals are very secure, as long as the site members guard their usernames and passwords properly. All information transferred between your PC and the portal servers is encrypted including the logging in, and the posting and downloading of contents.
User of More than One Portal
If you are a user of more than one portal and you use the same login account on all the portals, after you've successfully logged in to one portal, you should be able to navigate to other portals without having to log in again. If you close your browser window before accessing another portal, you will be prompted to log in again.
How to Change a Password
Passwords are managed and updated through the service providing the user ID and password. NIH users can follow the Trouble signing in? link on the NIH Network sign-in page or contact the NIH IT Service Desk. Login.gov users can follow the Forgot your password? link on the Login.gov sign-in page. IMS Login Service users can follow the Forgot Password? link on the IMS Login Service sign-in page or go directly to the IMS Login Service (this service will be retired in May 2025).
Review User List and Remove Inactive Users
Site Administrators should periodically review the portal user list and remove inactive users. There are a few reports useful in determining whether the users are active and what permissions they have. The User Access Log report shows when the users last logged in. The Group Membership by User and Group Membership by Group reports show the memberships users have that may grant additional permissions to certain areas of a portal.
On the Users overview table, there is a Delete column that can be used to remove inactive users. See Users Management for more information on the Users overview table.
Linking to Portals from Microsoft Documents
If you attempt to access a portal from a link in an external document, you will be shown the Collaborative Portal Login System page where you must identify the source of your login authorization. If you do not have an NIH Network ID, Login.gov ID, or IMS Login Service ID, you will not be permitted access.