Connections 4: Profiles Customization Gets More Flexible

So I am not sure if anyone else has really spent time with this feature yet or not, but IBM has rewritten the was Profiles customization and extension happens.  It now takes advantage of the FreeMarker templating system for customizing Profiles, Business Cards, and Profile Search results.

IBM has provided a demo example in the product wiki to walk you through the steps to execute a simple extension.

The beauty of this approach is that code which would previously have been put into a custom attribute definition (which still works for backwards compatibility) can now be either placed into a custom FreeMarker macro in the commonUtil.ftl or can simply be wrapped around the display macro for the field in the other templates.

One word of advice, the documentation still has remnants of the Connections 3.x methodologies and links within some of the pages weave you between both methodologies.  When looking for information on enabling extension attributes for editing via the API, for example, it still references all configuration being done in the profiles-config.xml.  That file has been broken up into multiple files, with certain configuration remaining there and other configurations being moved to profiles-types.xml.

If the OOTB template files are not extreme enough of a UI change for you, it would appear that the documentation indicates you can completely rewrite the display and editing templates to your liking.  The ability to add/remove tabs from Profiles, reorder fields (which I have already used this for), add new fields, etc makes for a very flexible and interesting feature now.

Last note, there is a setting which you will want to explore:

<layoutConfiguration>
  <!--
   UI Template rendering configuration information
   -->
    <templateConfiguration>
    <!-- FTL template reloading to test customization, in production this value should be set to 0, but during customization set to value in seconds -->
      <templateReloading>1</templateReloading>

         ...

    </templateConfiguration>

</layoutConfiguration>

This will ensure that while developing your templates checking them out and in without restart will render your changes.

Happy Customizing!

For more information about FreeMarker, check their SourceForge page here.

SPNEGO Lessons Learned

Was installing IC3011 and integrating with SP2010.  Needed to lay the foundation of IC3011 + Kerberos auth.  Then turned on SPNEGO SSO to allow pass-through auth for browser clients like SP2010 offers.  While setting up SPNEGO, there were a few issues I encountered and wanted to capture them so I remember the next time I need to do this.

Issue 1: Remember to Patch!

IC 3.0.1.1 supports WAS 7.0.0.11 through 7.0.0.21.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27021342

Be sure to at least reach WAS 7.0.0.15 as there are critical Kerberos fixes that will make your life easier.

Issue 2: Double Check Security

When applying a FixPack post initial installation / configuration, it may revert your security to disabled.  Make sure to turn it back on right after upgrade.

Issue 3: Mind Your User IDs

My initial strategy was to use the same ID for all security related things.  When establishing the SPN for the server that ID needs to be a separate ID than the one setup as the administrative ID within the app server and for the individual features.

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/Mapping_an_Active_Directory_account_to_administrative_roles_ic301 – THIS ID IS SEPARATE FROM

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lcwiki.nsf/dx/Creating_a_service_principal_name_and_keytab_file_ic301 – THIS ID

Issue 4: Sync the Node(s)

Somewhere during all of the installation and patching activities to take a base 3.0.1 installation up to patched 3.0.1.1, the Node fell out of sync with the DM.  I had to manually force the sync for the ISC to report the state of applications and node agents properly.  The sync issue was also causing some of my configurations to not make their way to the running app server.  Periodically run a syncNode from the command line to course correct your node agent.

WebSphere Plugin Key & Password Expiration 4/26

Accelerated Value Announcement:  WAS Alert affecting ICS Products !

WebSphere Plugin Key & Password Expiration 4/26

Overview:    WAS Support posted two Flash Alerts to customers about Expirations on 4/26.  These expirations could have significant impact to production environments if not addressed. The following alert applies to all products that are built on top of WebSphere Application Server, for example: Portal, Sametime, Connections, and Quickr J.

ACTION:  Make sure that your customers are aware of these items and the April 26th date .

1)The password to the Plugin-key.kdb file  that is shipped with the WebSphere Plugin install will expire on April 26, 2012:
 
Please refer to the following link for additional details.  

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21588312

The impact  of the "password expiration issue in the above flash" is that the https transport between the WebSphere plugin and back-end AppServers will stop working, if not resolved.  It means that the Plugin-key.kdb (and the personal & signer certificates in it) will not be loaded during the plugin initialization and the https transport will not be used.

2) The personal certificate  called "WebSphere Plugin Key" within the plugin-key.kdb that is shipped with the WebSphere Plugin install will expire on April 26, 2012:

Please refer to the following link for additional details.  

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21577327

This will affect those WebSphere AppServers that are configured to require SSL client authentication (SSL mutual authentication) and that are using the default WebSphere plug-in key.  Most of our customers did not configure WebSphere AppServers to use SSL mutual authentication between the plug-in and WebSphere AppServers.

We CAN Move From SharePoint to IBM!

So I have not posted for a while, and for good reason.  I have been working almost exclusively with the same customer since November on a really cool project and it is finally reaching a point that I can talk about it… a bit.  We (Ascendant) partnered with IBM and T-Systems to bring to fruition a working content migration utility that can take content FROM SharePoint and populate it into Connections / Quickr / WCM.  (Yes… any or all of the three mentioned have a native connector for the utility from T-Systems now thanks to our project.)  Beyond just grabbing the content, transforming it, and then pushing it into the correct content area, we are able to maintain content ownership and impersonate other users at migration time without impacting those users.  This is truly a first of it’s kind solution to the best of my knowledge.  Hats off to the whole team we have been working with.  I know I am excited to be part of this, as I am sure most of the other team members are as well.  This brings real choice to the market as people now have the availability to move their content between platforms.

Thank You everyone that made this possible!

This Looks Promising…

https://greenhouse.lotus.com/plugins/plugincatalog.nsf/assetDetails.xsp?action=editDocument&documentId=447ED472AC7169588525792D0064F44C

Community Backup/Recovery (Archiving) tool!

Found this today while working on something else and thought I would share.  Published to the solutions catalog just yesterday, I can see a lot of promising use cases for this particular utility.  If you try it, please share your experience and thoughts.

I suggest you read the notes, as there is an important point about what is backed up vs. what can be automatically restored.