Collaboration University 2009 Day 2

Day 2 of Collaboration University was a sprint of 8 back to back sessions.  Here is a summary of what I attended:

Quickr Performance Tips: Getting more from your Server (Warren Elsmore)

Warren gave us lots of good tuning tips, many of which can be found on the SNAPPS team blogs.  I was also on the Lotus Connections beta call going over detailed deployment and performance options and did not take detailed notes during this session.

Quickr Data: In, Out, Everywhere! A Wide Array of Approaches and Tools (Troy Reimer)

• Many issues to consider, including file and folder names and folder level access control
• Documents are easy to move, meta data is not
• Quick and easy: Quickr Connectors or PandaBear
• Use a migration tool such as Casahl ecKnowledge, Lotus Quickr Content Integrator, or DDM migration tool from IIUI/IBM
• Mid-level: ATOM, REST, SOAP, API calls, Feed parsing, Web Services - SOAP calls
• Harder: Native Notes Database Access

Customizing and Extending Sametime Meeting Centers: 8.0 and 8.5 (Carl Tyler)

• The 8.5 Meeting Center is much more extensible than the current version
• 8.0 customization tip: Just use a static HTML page to wrap the STCenter.nsf links
• Avoid direct customization of the STCenter.nsf design
• Sametime Online Meeting Toolkit supports a RESTful interface to create/delete/update meetings
• Meeting Room Client Accessibility Toolkit is a javascript client that allows adding menu items to the Meeting Center and to Sametime Activities
• Sametime 8.5 is based on Websphere/DB2 and meetings are reservationless and not scheduled
• There is a simple web client and a rich client plug in to the Sametime Connect client
• Rich client is required for advanced features like audio/video
• The REST APIs and JSON allow for many ways to do customization and integration of meetings

Going Mobile with Rob Novack


As an extra session over lunch, Rob Novack led a discussion on the Top 5 things users want to do w/Quickr and Connections on mobile devices such as Blackberries and iPhones.  The main requests were for:

1. Approve docs in Quickr
2. Comment on docs
3. Read/update a blog
4. Manage tasks in Quickr and in Connections Activities
5. Add folders/rooms to Quickr places

Rob also shared some secret information with us at the end of the session. (shhh!)


Your First Lotus Connections 2.5 Customizations Made Easy (Mitch Cohen)
Mitch delivered Stuart McIntrye's presentation that he will give at the Collaboration University in London next week. Mitch did a good job impersonating Stuart, except for the English accent.

We covered:
Themes - Look and Feel
Profiles - Changing, adding, and editing fields
Widgets - Extending Connections functionality

Key points:

• Mitch recommends you only change the header and footer on the look and feel unless you have a solid business reason
• Move your theme files to the HTTP server before you modify them
• Use Firebug for easy testing of your changes
• Additional UI changes can be done through JSP changes and iWidgets
• You can now change language resource bundles without rebuilding the internal jar files

Using and Customizing the Sametime 8.5 Web Client (Carl Tyler)

• STProxy is a lightweight Websphere based server that provides the web client and the communications proxy to the Sametime Community Server
• Set up and maintained through the new Sametime Console
• The Browser IM client will use the local Sametime Connect client connection if it is available
• Provides a large subset of the Connect Client functionlity, but not A/V or screen sharing/capture
• Built using the Web Client Toolkit
• Look and feel is easily controlled through CSS files
• Functional changes can be implemented through Javascript/Dojo updates

Sametime Telephony: TCSPI Plugins and Unified Telephony Options (Carl Tyler)

• In Sametime 8.5, IBM will be providing better hooks for telephony providers for audio/video/calls
• Client plug-ins give you click to call, voicemail, and presence awareness
• TCSPI is an application layer deployed on the Sametime server can integrate with office integration, Sametime Meetings, and client plug-ins
• Drag and drop to add people to a call is a nice feature
• SUT does not integrate with Sametime Meetings
• SUT is purely a GTS and ISSL play and can not be purchased direct from other partners!!
• SUT requires Websphere and an IBM SAN and provides Click to Call, presence, and office integration
• SUT provides call transfer to another device. This feature is also provided through client plug-ins from some other vendors.
• SUT can also merge active calls to bring together separate calls into a conference
• Most SUT integration and features are also available as TCSPI or client plug-ins from other vendors
  

Deploying Sametime on Linux: The Root of the Problem (Warren Elsmore)

• Sametime on Linux is not hard to do
• Once it is installed and running, it is exactly the same as any other server
• The downside is that many third party tools such as telephony integration are designed for Windows
• Warren prefers Linux for deployments, especially for large scale (>1000 users) systems
• Linux is more scalable than Windows, has no CALs, and will contain only the components you want (no DNS, DHCP, Kerberos, etc.)
  

The Other Side
Once again cloning technology failed me and I had to miss 7 great sessions:

• Sametime 8.5 Administration: Solutions Console and (gulp) Websphere Admin (Chris Miller)
• Alphabet Soup: SSO, LDAP, DNS, LTPA, We Could Go On... (Chris Miller)
• Quickr Themes Part 2: Adding Functionality With JavaScript (Viktor Krantz)
• Sizing for Quickr Servers: Load Testing and Deployment Planning (Warren Elsmore)
• Quickr REST and Web Services APIs for Mere Mortals (Viktor Krantz)
• Quickr & Domino Apps Together: Integration Strategies and Concepts (Troy Reimer)
• Top Quickr Support Issues 2009 (Rob Novak)

Tomorrow we wrap up with sessions direct from IBM on the future directions for Sametime, Quickr, and Connections.