How to Create & Publish Portals

A step-by-step guide on how to navigate ESS-DIVE and create a new portal.

Portal Tutorial Videos

For video tutorials on how to create your first portal, please visit our DataONE partners at the Arctic Data Center.

About Data PortalsNSF Arctic Data Center

IMPORTANT NOTE: new data portals are not immediately made public. Just like ESS-DIVE datasets, portals must be approved by The ESS-DIVE Team before they are publicly available.

Table of Contents

1. Create a New Portal

2. Configure Settings

3. Add Data

   • Define Rules

   • Portal Metrics

4. Create Freeform Pages

5. Re-order pages

6. Delete Pages

7. Save your Portal

8. Find & Edit My Portals

9. Identify Private Portals

10. Share Portals

11. Publish Portals

1. Create a New Portal

If you are on ESS-DIVE's website, select the "Data" tab in the navigation bar and click on "Access Data Portals" from the drop down. This will take you directly to the Portals page on ESS-DIVE's data repository.

Figure 1. The ESS-DIVE website: https://ess-dive.lbl.gov/

Login to ESS-DIVE with your ORCID. If you don't have an ORCID and/or haven't linked your ORCID to ESS-DIVE yet, follow our Register to Submit Data guide for more information on how to get started.

Once you login to ESS-DIVE with your ORCID, hover over "Portals" in the navigation bar and select "Access Data Portals".

Figure 2. Click on the menu under your name to access My settings

On portals page, select the green button "+ New Portal" to start editing a blank data portal.

Figure 3. On the settings page, click the "My Portals" page to create a new portal

2. Configure Settings

When you start editing a data portal, the first thing you'll see is the settings page where you’ll be able to set the basic elements of your portal. Fill out each of the following:

• Portal title

• Unique portal identifier

  • This identifier will be used to create the portal URL. If the name is available, a label will indicate it's available and if the name is taken already, it will note that the name is already taken. This feature ensures the portals are unique.

• Portal description

• Partner organization logos

Figure 4. Configure portal settings

3. Add Data to a Portal

By default, the data tab is empty. You will need to define a series of "Rules" to select which datasets you want in your portal collection. After you've defined your collection, you can create pre-set "search filters" which allow people to filter your dataset collection.

Figure 5. Preview of the data tab used to create your data collection

Define Rules

Rules are a powerful tool for creating or editing a collection of datasets in a portal. Build rules based on dataset metadata to define which datasets should be included in your collection. All public datasets stored in ESS-DIVE are available for selection.

Datasets published on ESS-DIVE in the future that match these rules will also be added to your collection.

Figure 6 shows an example of a data portal rule. This example demonstrates that only 129 published datasets from ESS-DIVE (highlighted in the orange box) meet the criteria defined by the rule.

When you create a rule, there's no button to confirm your rule selection. The search results are filtered in real time as your rules are defined, so whatever datasets remain in the return field will be in your data portal. Scroll down to preview your data collection.

Figure 6: An example of a data portal rule

If you need assistance assembling portal data using complex rules, please contact the ESS-DIVE Support Team.

Rules have three parts:

1. Select one or more metadata fields (Figure 7)

   • Chose any of the 75+ metadata fields from the drop-down menu

   • Select "Any Metadata Field" to search for any text that appears in a dataset

   • For complex filters, use Table 1 to help map familiar dataset metadata fields to a rule field

2. Select an operator (Figure 8)

   • Choose from equals/does not equal, contains/does not contain, or empty/is not empty

3. Define the value (Figure 9)

   • In most cases, this will be a typed word or phrase. For few metadata fields (such as `is Owner`, a dropdown will appear.

   • One or more value can be entered in one rule

   • After typing in a value of interest, hit enter to save the entry.

Figure 7. Dropdown selection of available metadata fields

Figure 8. Screenshot of available operations

Figure 9. An example of the free-form text that can be entered

Additionally, you can define how your rules should include or exclude datasets from your collection (Figure 10). Choose (1) whether rules should include or exclude datasets, as well as (2) whether datasets should meet all rules (this is an AND boolean operation) or any rules (this is an OR boolean operation).

Figure 10: Define how your rules should include or exclude datasets from your collection.

Finally, you can play around with rules and inclusion operators using Rule Groups (Figure 11). These groups can help narrow your data collection to just the desired datasets.

Figure 11: An example of rule groups

Examples of Common Metadata to use in Rules

• Project name

• Author name

• Portion of title (if common phrases are used)

• Keywords

• Area of research (wetlands, greenhouse gas, etc)

  • This option can lead to more dynamic results as the term could appear in the abstract, keywords, methods, or title

Metadata Mappings

Dataset Metadata	Rule Field
Title	General > Title
Project Title	Awards & Funding > Project
DOI	Identifiers > Series Identifier
Abstract	General > Abstract
Keywords, Data Variables	General > Keywords
Contact, Creators, Contributors	People & Organizations > All Creator Last Names
Publication Date	Dates > Date Published
Start Date, End Date	Dates > Year of Data Collection
Geographic Description	Geography > Site Description
Bounding Coordinates Northwest	Geography > Northern most Latitude, Western most Longitude
Bounding Coordinates Southeast	Geography > Southern most Latitude Eastern most Longitude
Files	File Details > File Name *does not search file contents

Table 1: Mapping of common dataset metadata to rules fields.

Portal Metrics

The metrics page is a default function provided by ESS-DIVE. This page cannot be edited and cannot be viewed while editing. You do have the option to delete the page if you'd like. To delete the page, select the arrow next to the word "Metric" in the tab and choose "Delete" from the dropdown list.

Figure 12. The metrics page during an edit session

Please contact ESS-DIVE Support Team about any questions or concerns about the metric page.

4. Create Freeform Pages

To watch a tutorial on creating a new freeform page see this video from our DataONE partners at the Arctic Data Center: Creating a Freeform Text Page

To add a freeform page to a portal, select the "+" tab next to to the data and metric tabs and then choose the freeform option that appears on screen. A freeform page will the populate the page.

Figure 13. Menu options after opening a new freeform page

Easily customize your banner with a unique image, title, and page description. To change the name of the tab, click on the arrow in the "Untitled" tab and select "Rename" from the dropdown list.

Figure 14. Rename your page and preview changes

Below the banner, there is a markdown text box with some examples on how to use the markdown language to customize the text display. As you write, toggle through the Edit and Preview modes in the markdown text box to make sure your information is displaying as intended. Portals are flexible and can accommodate as many additional freeform pages as needed. Please see these additional resources for help with markdown:

• Markdown reference

• Ten minute tutorial

• For a longer example where you can also preview the results, checkout the Showdown Live Editor

5. Reorder your Pages!

Figure 15. Screenshot of tabs in portal builder

Drag-n-drop pages in the portal builder to easily reorder their appearance in the portal! Select the dotted icon to drag a tab.

6. Delete Pages

To delete a page from your portal, select the arrow in the tab and choose "Delete" from the dropdown.

Figure 16. Delete a freeform page

7. Save your Portal

Be sure to save your portal when you complete a page to ensure your progress is retained.

Figure 17. Location of save button

Whenever a portal is saved, a dialogue box will pop up at the top of the page prompting you to view your private portal in view mode. You can choose to ignore this and continue editing.

Figure 18. Quick-access to latest version of portal

8. Find & Edit My Portals

Portals can be updated at anytime. If your portal is already public, any changes you make will be public immediately once you hit the "Save" button. You can view and edit your portal from the portals page.

First, navigate back to the portal page. Select the ESS-DIVE logo in the top-left corner to return to the main ESS-DIVE Data Portal page. Then select "Access Data Portals" from the dropdown underneath "Portals". You'll find your portal under the "My Portal" section at the top of the page.

Figure 19. Navigate back to the main data portal

Click on the a portal title to view it or select the edit button to make changes.

Figure 20. Access your new portal

9. Identify Private Portals

There are two ways to check if your portals in the "My Portals" section are private.

• Logout and go back to the Portal page. If your portal is not listed under "All Portals", then it is private.

• Logout and try navigating to the portal URL. If an error message appears, then it is private.

Figure 21. Error message received when opening a private portal while signed out

At this time there is no way to easily identify private portals from the portal list

10. Share Portal Permissions

Instructions for sharing data portal permissions with your colleagues are available here:

Share Portals

11. Publish Portal

Figure 22: Portal publishing process

Just as with datasets created on ESS-DIVE, new portals are automatically set to private and only visible to the portal creator. The portal will remain private until reviewed and approved by the ESS-DIVE Team.

To start the publishing process, please contact the ESS-DIVE Support Team. We will review your portal and help publicly publish your new portal.