Comments on Socialize Me: How to integrate Lotus Connections and Facebook in...

Right, if they want to use LC UI, I would recommen...

2010-01-31T18:51:29.945-04:00

Right, if they want to use LC UI, I would recommend adding any extra functionality via Iwidgets. For instance, you could create an iwidget to generate an org chart and another to export users.

Thanks Luis. The customer are trying to use Conne...

2010-01-31T17:54:34.557-04:00

Thanks Luis.

The customer are trying to use Connections to replace an existing search application, so are looking to replicate the same functionality (such as exporting a user list or present an organisation chart view of employees).

Their current requirements are really only using the profile search capabilities of connections (not the social aspects such as tagging, status, etc).

The question I probably need to aske them is whether they want the existing search like for like (portlets in this case) or are they willing to use the Connections standard interface and get all the social networking benefits.

Bill, I'm not sure exactly what they want to cust...

2010-01-31T17:07:26.902-04:00

Bill,

I'm not sure exactly what they want to customize, but Profiles, the user directory, is extremely configurable and almost never needs any customization. However, if you do find the need to customize it, espeically if you are going to do a lot of customizations, I would recommend instead to create custom portlets. That way, as you upgrade Lotus Connections, your changes are not lost.

Does this help?

Hi Luis, I have a customer who wants to replace a ...

2010-01-30T22:14:32.853-04:00

Hi Luis,
I have a customer who wants to replace a dated corporate directory search application with Lotus Connections 2.5. The connections out-of-box UI will need to be customised, along with additional functionality such as an add users to a list for export. They are also running portal 6.1.

So my question is should I customise the Connections application and use iWidgets to develop the required functionality, then integrate it into portal using the web app integrator. Or should I build portlets (using WPF) to build the required functionality? What has been your experience with customers who have integrated connections and portal?

Thanks,
Bill

Chuck, That URL works fine for me. Does your Lot...

2009-11-24T16:43:08.234-04:00

Chuck,

That URL works fine for me. Does your Lotus Connections server have access to the Internet? If not, then you'll need to copy the XML and HTML files so that they are local to your Lotus Connections server. You can download them from the Greenhouse widget catalog: https://greenhouse.lotus.com/home/html/product.jsp?p=catalog

Luis, I tried adding your twitter widget to my Co...

2009-11-06T19:02:55.884-04:00

Luis,

I tried adding your twitter widget to my Connections 2.5 setup today and I am getting this error: com.ibm.lotus.connections.dashboard.catalog.impl.CatalogAdminService doGet CLFRQ0273W: An error occurred when trying to check this URL: http://blog.lbenitez.com/widgets/twitter/TwitterGoogleGadget.xml

I've tried adding a googleGadgetWrapper widget that I deployed internally also and am getting the same error. Any thoughts?

I was able to ping your blog.lbenitez.com host from my connections server so I think I should have connectivity to it.

Renee, my guess is that your Connections server is...

2009-03-11T14:07:02.967-04:00

Renee, my guess is that your Connections server is sitting behind a firewall with no direct access to the internet. Is this right ? If so, you may want to download and copy the widget's XML and host it internally. You can put it in the same server where Lotus Connections is running.

Hope this helps. If you need further assistance, don't hesitate to contact me.

Hi Luis,My company had IBM come out and set up a C...

2009-03-06T11:15:22.352-04:00

Hi Luis,

My company had IBM come out and set up a Connections 2.0 sandbox for us to test in. I've used the links you provided to create the facebook/twitter so on widgets you provided in your blog post. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. When I get one that does work, if I navigate to another window, like Activities, when I come back to home the widget is blank.
Any Suggestions?

Hi Mike, I currently have about 6-7 widgets. Most ...

2009-02-13T17:12:45.462-04:00

Hi Mike, I currently have about 6-7 widgets. Most of them are just Google Gadgets that I have wrapped into iWidgets. Others are for Sharepoint integration, but require a purchase of a BP solution (CorasWorks). The Google Gadgets that I have are: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr, FriendFeed.

You should be able to click on each of the XML files above, and download those files into your Lotus Connections server. Once you do that, you should be able to host the widgets on your own deployment.

Here's a great article that describes, step-by-step http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/library/connections-gadgets/. It's quite long cause it's very detailed, but the important section is this one.

Let me know if this helps. Talk to you next week!!

Hey Luis... This is mike... I think you talked to ...

2009-02-13T15:00:35.762-04:00

Hey Luis... This is mike... I think you talked to Andria and were going to lend a hand to help me with the widgets... I have tried the ones you have posted here on the site but our company blocks them... can you let me know what all widgets you have hosted? Also I just don't seem to get the whole google gadget thing... I mean you go to the site and there is a page of gadgets there I click on one and choose to get the code and its in a js format
(Could not post example)

And then there is the gadget wrapper... I just don't see how it all comes together. Care to post a step by step :)

looking forward to talking to you.

Adding your hosted widgets would be the fastest way to get what we need quick, but I need to know how to add the google gadgets as well for future changes.

Hey anonymous,My guess is that there's an error in...

2008-11-10T11:44:00.979-04:00

Hey anonymous,

My guess is that there's an error in the widget definition XML file. Make sure that you are using FQDNs (fully qualified domain names). Also, if you are using LC v2 and Firefox v3, you may want to upgrade to Lotus Connections v2.0.1 as there's a Firefox v3 fix for it.

Hope this helps. If it doesn't please provide me with more information (platform, browser, widget information, etc)

Luis, a good summary of how to work with widgets. ...

2008-11-10T10:16:29.699-04:00

Luis, a good summary of how to work with widgets. Can you tell me though when I create my own simple widgets and deploy them the body of the widget says 'Loading' but nothing seesm to happen. Does this ring any bells ??

Cool, thanks for the post, keep up the good work

2008-11-05T18:37:58.902-04:00

Cool, thanks for the post, keep up the good work

Hey Luis. This is awesome. The 1-minute video wa...

2008-10-16T01:12:33.306-04:00

Hey Luis. This is awesome. The 1-minute video was the kicker!

It was great seeing you tonight. I look forward to co-evangelizing with you!

Hi Mark,I agree!! I would also like to see somethi...

2008-10-14T20:23:12.404-04:00

Hi Mark,

I agree!! I would also like to see something like this actually hosted at the IBM.com site. In the meantime, I've taken the lead and started to host them :) . If you come up with a new widget, let me know and I'll add it here.

Also, I'm thinking (hoping?) as more and more people start using Lotus Mashups, perhaps IBM will start hosting solutions here along with the other Lotus solutions...

Hi LuisGreat post. What I would like to see is an...

2008-10-14T15:52:44.949-04:00

Hi Luis
Great post. What I would like to see is an IBM page that has a number of widgets already built (like an App store) that I can go and copy and use (of course, changing a few lins or script to personalize it).

Anonymous/Evangelist,The customers that I've talke...

2008-10-12T06:34:58.368-04:00

Anonymous/Evangelist,

The customers that I've talked to like this approach because they still maintain some kind of control as to what can be added into someone's Home page (similar to how a Portal admin controls which portlets are available for a user to add to their page).

Have you been receiving requests from your customers to allow end-users to add any widget?? If so, I would like to hear it. If there's demand for it, I can push for it internally.

Sid/Dvir, glad you liked it!

Luis,I just love your integrations posts!! Very co...

2008-10-12T04:46:08.493-04:00

Luis,

I just love your integrations posts!! Very cool...
Not a programmer, but I'm sure it's as easy as you write.

Keep up the good work - maybe one day, you'll be a PM as well ;-)

Very cool and well done to make it simple enough e...

2008-10-11T23:01:19.474-04:00

Very cool and well done to make it simple enough even normal people could do it.
But yes how would joe user do it if they are prevented from editing their page?

Very cook Luis. I didn't realize you can just host...

2008-10-10T23:04:30.407-04:00

Very cook Luis. I didn't realize you can just host the widget on a web server and just consume it into Lotus Connections.

Nice but if I am reading the instructions correctl...

2008-10-10T13:37:15.999-04:00

Nice but if I am reading the instructions correctly, this requires an administrator to add this widget. When will the capability exist for an end-user to add their own widgets? (like the Notes client)