Replacing the default contextual online helps with a custom help system

You can link your own custom online helps for the Administration Console, the Service Center, or both. For the Service Center, in addition to a general key, a key is provided for every module, so that you can selectively activate your custom help on the modules you want. For the Administration Console, a single key is provided to comprehensively replace the default helps with your custom help system.

About this task

To engage your custom helps, you configure keys in the customHelp.properties file that you edit in the virtual appliance local management interface. The values that you provide to the keys, one for the Administration Console, and others for the Service Center or its modules, are the fully qualified URLs of your custom online help systems. When you fill in a value for a key, the out-of-the-box online help that is based on the IBM Knowledge Center is replaced by your own custom help. If a key is left without a value, then the default out-of-the-box online help is engaged.

The customHelp.properties file includes these options:

KC_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_CENTER=
KC_EXTERNAL_ADMIN_CONSOLE=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_CERTIFIER=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_REPORTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCOUNTMATCHING=
KC_EXTERNAL_EASYONBOARDING=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_CHANGE_PASSWORD=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_VIEW_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_PASSWORD_RECOVERY=
KC_EXTERNAL_DESK=

If you enter the fully qualified URL of your custom online help system, the product online help is replaced by your custom online help. For example, if you set

KC_EXTERNAL_ADMIN_CONSOLE=http://www.mycompany.com/myAdminCon_help

when an Administration Console administrator selects Help in an Administration Console pane, the contextual help is searched in http://www.mycompany.com/myAdminCon_help and not in the IBM Knowledge Center.

This implies that you have to set up your online help system, pane by pane, to guarantee the correspondence between an Administration Console pane and its contextual help.

If the options are left blank, the product online help is used. You can set up custom helps for either or both components. For example, you can use a custom help for the Service Center and the default help for the Administration Console. In this case, you set the options as follows:

KC_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_CENTER=http://www.mycompany.com/myServiceCtr_help
KC_EXTERNAL_ADMIN_CONSOLE=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_CERTIFIER=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_REPORTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCOUNTMATCHING=
KC_EXTERNAL_EASYONBOARDING=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_CHANGE_PASSWORD=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_VIEW_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_PASSWORD_RECOVERY=
KC_EXTERNAL_DESK=

For Service Center, setting a custom help for any of its modules precludes the possibility to set one for the entire component. For example, in a scenario where you decide to set up your custom helps for the Access Certification (Access Certifier) and Request Center (Access Requests) modules only, the remaining parts of Service Center will use the Knowledge Center Helps:

KC_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_CENTER=
KC_EXTERNAL_ADMIN_CONSOLE=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_CERTIFIER=http://www.mycompany.com/myAccessCert_help
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_REQUESTS=http://www.mycompany.com/myAccessReq_help
KC_EXTERNAL_REPORTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCOUNTMATCHING=
KC_EXTERNAL_EASYONBOARDING=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_CHANGE_PASSWORD=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_VIEW_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_PASSWORD_RECOVERY=
KC_EXTERNAL_DESK=

If in this scenario, your setup is:

KC_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_CENTER=http://www.mycompany.com/myServiceCtr_help
KC_EXTERNAL_ADMIN_CONSOLE=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_CERTIFIER=http://www.mycompany.com/myAccessCert_help
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCESS_REQUESTS=http://www.mycompany.com/myAccessReq_help
KC_EXTERNAL_REPORTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_ACCOUNTMATCHING=
KC_EXTERNAL_EASYONBOARDING=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_CHANGE_PASSWORD=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_VIEW_REQUESTS=
KC_EXTERNAL_SELFCARE_PASSWORD_RECOVERY=
KC_EXTERNAL_DESK=

the value for KC_EXTERNAL_SERVICE_CENTER= is ignored.

Take the following steps to customize the customHelp.properties file.

Procedure

In the virtual appliance local management interface, select Configure > Manage Server Setting > Custom File Management.
In the Custom File Management pane, expand the properties folder and select the help sub-folder to display the customHelp.properties file on the right.
Select the customHelp.properties file and select Download to download it to your computer.
On your computer, open customHelp.properties with an editor, add the URLs of the custom help systems, and save the file.

Note: Use a text editor other than Notepad. Notepad adds garbage characters after the equal (=) sign, moving the URL to the next line, and the alignment between key and value is lost. Notepad makes the key appear without a value, and the default help is engaged instead. Use an editor like Wordpad or Notepad++.
Back in the Custom File Management pane of the local management interface, select Upload to upload the file to the virtual appliance and make it operational.

Your custom help systems are now operational.