It’s easy to make changes as an admin user but once those changes occur it may be a while before you need to make additional changes. It’s not unheard of that the admin password is forgotten. This is why you want a backup user with administration permissions. This user should be someone from your corporation and not an external consumer. Here is how you accomplish that:

1. With the admin user logged on, navigate to Manage | People. You will see a list of users who have joined the portal. Figure 15.8 shows a sample of the list:

Figure 15.8 – Always add a backup administrator

As you can see there are three usernames. There is also an Action called Add the Administrator role to the selected user(s). Ensure that is the action listed.

2. Select a username that you wish to add to the administrator role and click Apply to selected items.

You will now see that under the ROLES column the user has been given the administrator role.

You have now added a backup administrator, which you can use as the primary portal web designer.

Next, you need to know the steps for how to modify the default look and feel of the Developer Portal. You’ll do that next.

Creating a sub-theme from the API Connect default theme

Everybody loves choices. When it comes to user experience and brand awareness your marketing team will definitely be looking for color changes, logo updates, and default content updates. In this section, you’ll learn the basics of taking the existing default API Connect theme and making some minor modifications so you can learn how to do updates. Let’s begin with the following steps:

1. Log on as a user with the administrator role and navigate to Manage | Appearance | Generate sub-theme.
2. Provide a sub-theme name and sub-theme type CSS.
3. Under Template, choose one of the six provided themes. See Figure 15.9. In our example, we chose Ruby Red.

Figure 15.9 – Option themes to create sub-themes

4. Click Generate to create the sub-theme.
5. When your sub-theme is created, download the sub-theme to your workstation. The file is zipped so you need to unzip it.
6. Locate the CSS folder and edit the overrides.css file. This is where you or your web designers can make color changes. If you do not want to make color changes you can skip this step.
7. Save your changes and re-zip the download. Now go back to your portal and navigate to Appearance | Install new theme.
8. Upload your updated ZIP file using the Browse button. Click Install.
9. You’ll see a success message and Next steps. Select Enable newly added themes as seen in the following figure:

Figure 15.10 – A new theme has been installed

1. You have now created a new sub-theme. Click Back to Site to review the differences.

Your final change will be to update the Welcome Banner from Brace yourself. APIs are coming to Digital Transformation and Modernization with API Connect. Building APIs that transform your enterprise.

1. While on the home page move your mouse to the section where Brace yourself is shown. A pencil should appear in the right corner of that section if you click anywhere in that area. Click the pencil to bring up the editor and choose Edit.
2. Change the text in the Body field from Brace yourself. APIs are coming to Digital Transformation and Modernization with API Connect. Building APIs that transform your enterprise

See Figure 15.11 as a guide:

Figure 15.11 – Updating the Welcome Banner

1. Click Save and you are now done. Admire your work.

You have completed some simple activities to prepare you for future updates. You learned how to navigate the portal site using the administrator account. I’m certain that this will spur your marketing team to ask more questions on how to improve the site. With the tutorials provided in the IBM Documentation on API Connect you should be able to continue to customize your portal to your satisfaction.

Another component that is equally as important as the Developer Portal is the analytics service. Analytics can provide you and your organization important information about the use and performance of your APIs. Let’s explore the analytics capability next.