Creating the required tables in the external database

Last Updated : Jun 05, 2026 |

In order to create the tables that Experience Portal requires in the shared database, you need to run the scripts provided on the Experience Portal Installation DVD against an Oracle, Postgres, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL or MariaDB database.

Before you begin

If you use an existing database, Experience Portal appends its required tables to that database without altering any of the existing data.

The Experience Portal data requires approximately 4 GB of space per million calls handled.

Note:

If you use a Microsoft SQL Server external database that needs to support multibyte characters, you need to create a new Microsoft SQL Server database and select the appropriate collation for the desired language. For instance, for Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio 2008 you need to perform the following steps during database creation:

  • Click Options under the Select a page section.

  • Select the appropriate collation for the desired language in the Collation field.

  • Ensure that the collation you select is of the case-insensitive type. Case-insensitive types contain the letters CI. For example, Japanese_CI_AI.

Note:

Experience Portal adds tables to the database without changing any existing data. Therefore Experience Portal can share an existing external database with other applications as long as the database meets the version requirements.

Important:

Ensure that the external database is not installed on any Experience Portal server.

Procedure

  1. Insert the Experience Portal installation DVD into the DVD device of the server on which you want to create the database.
  2. If you are using:
    • Oracle, change to the Oracle support directory Support/ExternalDB/Oracle/InstallScripts/.

    • Postgres, change to the Postgres support directory Support/ExternalDB/Postgres/InstallScripts/.

    • Microsoft SQL, change to the SQL Server support directory /Support/ExternalDB/MSSQL/InstallScripts/.

    • MySQL or MariaDB, change to the MySQL or MariaDB support directory /Support/ExternalDB/MySQL/InstallScripts/.

  3. Use your database administration tool to run all of the scripts containing the database schema in the appropriate Support/ExternalDB directory.

    These scripts create the required tables in the external database.

    Note:

    For Oracle, the database user name for Experience Portal must be assigned CREATE TABLE and CREATE SESSION privileges for the database.

    For Microsoft SQL Server, the database user name for Experience Portal must be assigned SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE privileges on all tables in the database.

    For both MySQL and MariaDB, the database user name for Experience Portal must be assigned SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE privileges on all tables in the database. The CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE permission is also required. When creating the database, set a collation type of utf8_unicode_ci.

Next Steps

Connect your Experience Portal systems to the external database as described in Connecting the Experience Portal system to a shared external database