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Thursday, April 12, 2012

How To Extend Search in IBM Connections

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I'm currently making modifications to my IBM Connections server to record a demo that I've been wanting to do for a week or so now. As I was making some changes, I realized that there was a new feature that was introduced in IBM Connections 3.0.1 that I may have not talked about.

Basically, the IBM Connections search box is extensible so that you can add 3rd party search providers. Say, for example, that you have deployed IBM Connections inside of the firewall and you want to give your users not only the ability to search within Connections, but perhaps integrate with your intranet search engine (e.g. Omnifind, Google Search Appliance, Fast, etc). Or maybe you have deployed Connections outside of the firewall and you want to integrate with your extranet search or provide the ability to do a Google search (or Bing, Yahoo, Quora, etc.).

Well, there's an extension for that and it's pretty easy to set up and no coding is required. Once you set it up, the additional search capability is made available to the end users and now from IBM Connections they can do searches that are handled by 3rd party providers. Very cool, huh?

Here's how it looks:


To set it up, simply follow the instructions here and off you go: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/Adding_thirdparty_search_options_to_the_search_control_ic301 . In my demo environment, my intranet search is provided by Portal, so here's the URL format that I used to search Portal from IBM Connections: http://showcase1.demos.ibm.com/wps/myportal/SmarterPlanet/?uri=searchCenter%3Aquery&layoutNode=ibm.portal.Search%20Center%20Portlet%20Window&contentNode=ibm.portal.Search%20Center&query=social (of course, you'll have to update the URL based on your server name and address).

If you weren't aware of this, take advantage of it today!

Enjoy!

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