Tutorial 2: The Portal
Urban Strategy environments are accessed through a web portal. This tutorial introduces the portal's layout, explains how projects and scenarios are organised, and covers the difference between opening a project to work on it and viewing it in read-only mode.
Time required: about 5 minutes
Prerequisites: An approved account is required to log in.
Learning objectives
- How to log in and locate your projects
- How projects and scenarios are organised in the portal
- The difference between edit mode and view mode
- How to take over or resume a session
- How to properly close a project
Step 1: Log in
With an approved account, log in to the portal using your email address and password, as covered in Tutorial 1: Account.
You should now see the portal landing page listing all the projects your account has access to.
Projects missing from your list?
If a project you expect to see is not listed after logging in, your account may not have access to it yet or the project is deactivated. Contact your administrator to request access to the project or reach out to the Scenexus support team.
Step 2: Navigate projects
Projects are grouped into tabs, which you can expand or collapse by selecting them. If your organisation is new to Urban Strategy, there is usually a single tab named after your city or region, containing one project to get started with.
As more projects are added over time, additional tabs help keep things organised. Tab and project names are managed by your administrator.
Step 3: Navigate scenarios
Each project can contain several scenarios. These scenarios can be selected using the dropdown-menu Scenario ▾ located at the bottom of each project card.
Scenario ▾ not visable in your project?
Only one person can be in edit mode in a project, hiding the scenario selection for other users. See step 5: Take over or resume a session for more information.
Every scenario has a unique ID. The name and description are provided by the user that created the scenario, for example:
| ID | Title | Frequently used as... |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Reference | Baseline without any interventions to compare other scenarios against. |
| 1 | Play | Copy of the baseline to interactively explore new intervention configurations |
| 2 | Redevelopment of District 9 | 'What if' scenario with active interventions, saved by a user |
| 3 | Mobility interventions along Tutorial Avenue | 'What if' scenario with active interventions, saved by a user |
Step 4: Open or view a project
After selecting a scenario, the project can be opened in either edit or view mode.
- Open launches the project in edit mode, allowing you to start simulation modules, place controls, and build scenarios.
- View launches the project in view mode, which is read only. An unlimited number of users can view a project at the same time, but changes cannot be made in this mode.
You will now see the Webinterface.
Open ▾ not visable in your project?
Only one user can hold edit mode on a project at a time, if another user has the project open, the button is replaced by Take over or if you are the user that has the project open it states Continue. Read more in step 5.
Step 5: Take over or resume a session
If another user already has a project open in edit mode, the Open button changes to Take over. Selecting it hands edit mode to you and forces the previous user into view mode.
If you close your browser or the page while a project is open in edit mode, the session stays active on the server for several minutes. During this time, the button in the portal changes to Resume, allowing you to continue your session.
Take over function to be discontinued
The button Take over wil be replaced by Join to allow multiple users in the same project. This change is already visible for beta users, and will soon be available to all users.
Step 5: Close a project
Once finished, always close the project by selecting the close icon x in the top right corner of the Webinterface. This shuts down the project's calculation modules and frees up capacity for other users and projects.
Closing the browser does not stop the session
When closing the browser, the project will not close and remain locked for other users. In the portal you can Resume the session. Leaving a project open in edit mode, even idle, keeps its calculation modules running and prevents other users from starting their own edit session.
Summary
At this point, you should be able to:
- Log in and locate your projects in the portal
- Understand how projects and scenarios are organised
- Open a project in edit mode, or view it in read only mode
- Take over or resume an edit session
- Close a project when finished