Guide to Using the FutureGrid Portal

Functions of the FutureGrid Portal


The FutureGrid portal aims to:

  1. Be the definite source for information about FutureGrid (manuals, papers, forums, FAQ, ...)
  2. Allow management of your FG accounts (portal, services, and resources)
  3. Allow management of your futuregrid projects
  4. Allow management of FG experiments
  5. Allow the dynamic provisioning via RAIN 

A FutureGrid User Dashboard 

After login, you will be redirected to a dashboard-like page (go to the menu Accounts -> My Portal Account), where you will see the following:

  1. A list of useful links, including links to profile, account, SSH key, and OpenID management information.
  2. A projects summary section that lists the summarized information about projects that you are the owner of, that you manage, that you are member of, and that you support as a FutureGrid expert, respectively. Clicking the project title will bring you to the project detail info page. For those projects that you own or manage, an 'edit' link is also there so you can quickly update the project information.
  3. A 'My Content' section where the content that you are responsible for maintaining (and/or that you have contributed) is listed. This gives a convenient view so you can easily go back to the content and update it.
  4. A 'My Publications' section that lists your publications.

Update Project Information and Add Results

Another frequently used feature is the ability to update your project information (e.g., add project members) and fill in results in the 'Project Results' section. You can do so only when you are either the owner of the project or the project manager (if the owner has delegated that to you). By following the links provided in the 'Dashboard' section, you can review and edit the project information.

To add a user to your project as a member, the user must have a FutureGrid portal account first. Then, while editing the project, you can type a user's first name, and the suggestion feature will pop up with the user's username to be added. If you have many members to add, click the 'Add another item' in the 'Project Members' section to add more. See also this FAQ.

For updating your project results, there is a 'Project Results' section with a 'Results' window that supports WYSIWYG editing. It supports simple formatted text, embedded images, etc. For text, you can edit directly in the window, or copy the content you developed in your favorite editor and paste the content in the edit window. In the case of images, you'll need to upload the image to the server first, and then insert it to the window, or alternatively refer to an external URL for an image hosted somewhere else.

For more detailed info on how to include an image, please see this FAQ.

Contribute to the FutureGrid Community

The FutureGrid portal also provides its users a place where they can contribute to the community by sharing their ideas, research topics, FG experience, etc.; in this way people can learn from you, and also you can learn from others. Emphasizing user participation and collaboration is one of the main goals shaping the portal to its current state.

You can contribute by creating a 'Community Page'. You can find the link in the left side navigation block, under the 'Create content' menu. After entering the edit page, you'll see a 'Title' text box, where you put the content/article title, and a 'Body' window where you put the content. Once again, it supports formatted text and embedded images, etc.

You can cite FutureGrid references also, by enclosing a citekey within the 'bib' tag as stated under the editor window (NOTE: Please use '[]' instead of '<>'), where CITEKEY could be found in the biblio page (the content within but not including the '[ ]').

An example of a user contributed page can be found here.

File Upload and Attachment to a Page

Please see this FAQ for instructions on file upload.