IBM Connections 5.0: Customize the Getting Started Pages

IBM Connections 5.0

Author: Paul GodbyBusiness Development & ISVsLast Updated: June 19, 2015Duration: 30 minutes

IBM Connections

Lab Manual

Customizing the Getting Started view

COPYRIGHT IBM CORPORATION 2015. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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IBM Connections 5.0

Introduction:The Getting Started view can be used by new or inexperienced users that want to familiarize themselves with the different applications in IBM Connections.

When you select Home from the product navigation, you are brought to the Getting Started view by default. Use the numbered steps as a guide to help you get started with using each application. Discover how to add new content, find resources that are relevant to you, collaborate with colleagues, and build up a network of connections. Your administrator can customize the getting started experience to meet the needs of your organization by editing the content of the steps, and by adding or removing steps.

As you become more familiar with IBM Connections, you can close the Getting Started view by selecting the Do not show this screen at start check box. When you select this option, you are automatically brought to the Updates view the next time that you open the Home page. You can bookmark the page views that you visit most so that you can navigate directly to them later.

Description:As an IBM Connections administrator, you can customize the information that is displayed in the Getting Started view of each user's Home Page. You can easily add, remove, or edit existing tabs to your deployment. For example, you might want to include a new tab displaying important corporate news, howto familiarize yourself with the social capabilities of Connections, or how to access the environment from mobile devices.

Objective:This lab will explain the following tasks:

• How to remove a tab from the Getting Started view

• How to create a new strings properties file to support multiple languages in new tabs

• How to create HTML pages that will be displayed in new tabs

• How to edit the appropriate XML configuration files to add new tabs to the environment


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IBM Connections 5.0

Procedure:BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Step 1 Workshop: This lab exercise was originally created as part of the following workshop. At the end of this document you will find instructions and links for accessing the materials.

IBM Connections 5.0 Customization Workshop

Step 2 Prerequisites: You must complete the following labs before proceeding with this exercise:

There are no prerequisite labs.

Step 3 Solutions Files: This lab may require additional files. If you are asked to write code or configure an XML file, there may be snippets available for you to review or copy/paste text to/from your lab environment. These files are located at:

/labs/solutions/ess.ui.gettingstarted

Step 4 Important! Review the workshop setup document for instructions on configuring the SoftLayerdevice for this lab. You should also review the information about user accounts and permissions. The lab instructions will assume you are using the proper user account(s)!


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IBM Connections 5.0

REVIEW THE DEFAULT USER INTERFACE IN HOME PAGE

Before you start making changes to the Getting Started view, you should review the defaultinterface. This will allow you to better visualize and plan your upcoming changes.

Step 5 In a web browser, navigate to URL:

https://<<Host Name>>/homepage

Step 6 Log in with the following credentials

Field Value

User name dmisawa

Password passw0rd

Step 7 By default, you should see the Getting Started view opened to the first tab named "Welcome". (If you do not see these tabs, click Getting Started in the navigation menu on the left.) Feel free to click on the Welcome, Share, and Explore tabs to review the default content.

Step 8 Leave the browser open and proceed to the next section.


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IBM Connections 5.0

REMOVE AN EXISTING TAB

In this section, you will learn how to remove a tab from the Getting Started view.

Step 9 The wsadmin tool is a command shell for the purpose of performing systems administration on all the artifacts in an IBM WebSphere Application Server (WAS) cell. In a terminal window, enter the following commands to start the wsadmin tool.

mkdir /config

cd /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/bin

./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password iBmC0nn3ti0ns

Step 10 Next, store references to your IBM Connections configuration environment in a few variables. By storing these values in variables, you can easily reference them in subsequent wsadmin commands. In the wsadmin session, enter the following commands:

path = "/config"

cell = AdminControl.getCell()

Step 11 Leave this terminal window open. In the future, it will be referred to as the “home” terminal.

Tip: From the terminal file menu, you can choose Terminal → Set Title to rename thewindow. This should help you keep track of the various terminal windows in the future.

Step 12 Return to the “home” terminal window and the already existing wsadmin session. Enter the following commands to check out the Getting Started configuration file(s):

execfile("homepageAdmin.py")

HomepageCellConfig.checkOutGettingstartedConfig(path, cell)

Step 13 Leave the terminal window with your existing wsadmin session open. Edit the checked out configuration file named:

/config/gettingstarted-config.xml

Step 14 You should see the three default step XML fragments listed in the following order: Welcome, Share, Explore. The third step is the step for the Explore tab. In this exercise, remove this tab from the user interface by setting the enabled attribute to "false" in the step tag:


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 15 Save and close the file. Close the text editor.

Step 16 Return to the “home” terminal window and the already existing wsadmin session. Enter the following commands:

HomepageCellConfig.checkInGettingstartedConfig(path, cell)

Step 17 Leave the terminal window open and your wsadmin session running.

Step 18 Open a second terminal window. In future steps, it will be referred to as the "Apps" window.

Step 19 In order for your changes to take effect, you must synchronize the nodes. We have created some scripts to automate this process for you. In the "apps" terminal window, enter the following commands to synchronize the nodes and update the IBM Connections timestamp.

cd /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/Dmgr01/bin

./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password iBmC0nn3ti0ns -f /scripts/connections/synchNodes.py

Note: You can review the commands executed by the script(s) above by opening thereferenced script(s) in a text editor.

Step 20 In order for your changes to take effect, you must restart the affected applications. We have created some scripts to automate this process for you. In the "apps" terminal window, enter the following commands to restart the HomePage and Common applications.

./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password iBmC0nn3ti0ns -f /scripts/was/restartApp.py Homepage Common

Note: You can review the commands executed by the script(s) above by opening thereferenced script(s) in a text editor.

Step 21 Return to the browser and refresh the page. The Explore tab should be removed. Great job!


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 22 Leave all existing terminal windows open and proceed to the next section.

CREATE SAMPLE HTML PAGES

In this lab, you will be creating new tabs. The new tabs will be displaying a webpage fromthe URL you specify. This URL must be accessible over both HTTP and HTTPS and in thesame domain as the Home Page application.

Step 23 In order to meet the requirements outlined in the overview of this section, you will place the sample HTML pages on the IBM HTTP Server installed on this machine. In a terminal window,create a new directory in the HTTP Server with the following commands:

mkdir -p /opt/IBM/HTTPServer/htdocs/gettingstarted

Step 24 Create new HTML files named

tab1.html, tab2.html, tab3.html

in location

/opt/IBM/HTTPServer/htdocs/gettingstarted

Step 25 In tab1.html, enter the following lines so that you can verify the proper page is being displayed in the user interface. When finished, save and close the file.

Corporate News content


Social content


Mobile content

Step 28 Feel free to fill up the sample pages with more HTML, but this should be enough content for the purposes of this lab walkthrough.

Step 29 Proceed to the next section.


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IBM Connections 5.0

CREATE A STRINGS RESOURCE BUNDLE

In this lab, you will be creating new tabs. You will need to create a strings properties filewith the key-value pairs of the major strings you will display in the interface. By using acustom strings resource bundle, you can add support for additional languages.

Step 30 Create a new properties file named

ess.getting.started.properties

in location

/opt/IBM/Connections/data/shared/customization/strings

Step 31 In this new file, enter the following lines. As you can see, you will be providing a key-value pairfor each of the labels using in your customized tabs.

label.tab1.title=Corporate Newslabel.tab2.title=Sociallabel.tab3.title=Mobile

Step 32 Save the file but do not close it (yet!). You just created the default properties file. In a production environment, you will need to create additional properties files for each supported language. You can do this by creating a new strings file (in the same directory) with the language code appended to the name. In this example, you can create a new strings properties file for the English language by creating a new file named:

ess.getting.started_en.properties

Step 33 Save and close the file(s). Close the text editor.

REGISTER THE STRINGS RESOURCE BUNDLE

Now that you've created a strings resource bundle, you must make IBM Connections awareof it's existence by registering the new bundle in LotusConnections-config.xml.

Step 34 Return to the "home" terminal window and your existing wsadmin session. Check out the Connections configuration file with the following commands:

execfile("connectionsConfig.py")

LCConfigService.checkOutConfig(path, cell)


/config/LotusConnections-config.xml

Step 36 Search for the following keyword(s) to locate the appropriate section:

<resources>


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 37 In this section, you will need to add your new strings bundle. Enter the following XML fragmentbetween the resources tags. Refer to the table below for a description of the elements.

Note: You may see additional widgetBundles. If so, leave them there!

<widgetBundle prefix="essGettingStarted" name="ess.getting.started" />

Attributes Value

name The name of the properties file, minus the extension

prefix Internal unique ID you will reference elsewhere in the configuration


Step 39 Return to the terminal window with your existing wsadmin session. Check in your changes with the wsadmin tool using the following command:

LCConfigService.checkInConfig(path, cell)

Step 40 Proceed to the next section.

ADD NEW TABS

You now have a strings properties file, with your tab titles, in place. You also have somesample HTML pages, that will be displayed in those tabs, ready to go on your HTTP server.

In this section, you will learn how to add tabs to the Getting Started view.

Step 41 Return to the “home” terminal window and the already existing wsadmin session. Enter the following commands to check out the Getting Started configuration file(s):

HomepageCellConfig.checkOutGettingstartedConfig(path, cell)


/config/gettingstarted-config.xml

Step 43 You should see the three default step XML fragments. Set the enabled attribute for all of them to "false". You will be creating new tabs and will no longer need these default options.


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 44 Add the following step tag to the steps section of the XML document. This tab will be used to display customized information specific to your deployment. You can review the table for details on the specific attributes and XML elements. (Feel free to copy/paste from an existing step and modify accordingly.)

<step enabled="true"><title bundle="ess.getting.started">label.tab1.title</title><body-links

secure="https://<< Host Name >>/gettingstarted/tab1.html"unsecure="http://<< Host Name >>/gettingstarted/tab1.html" />

</step>

Tag Attributes Value

step enabled Whether or not this tab should be displayed in the UI

title bundle The name of the strings resource bundle you configured earlier

< text value > The name of the key (from the resource bundle) to use for the title

body-links secure The HTTPS URL of the page containing the tab's content

unsecure The HTTP URL of the page containing the tab's content

Step 45 Add two more steps (or tabs) to the Getting Started view by adding the following step tags to the XML document.



</step>



</step>


Step 47 Return to the “home” terminal window and the already existing wsadmin session. Enter the following commands:

HomepageCellConfig.checkInGettingstartedConfig(path, cell)

quit

Step 48 You may now close the "home" terminal window.


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 49 In order for your changes to take effect, you must synchronize the nodes and update the IBM Connections timestamp. You will also need to restart the affected applications. Return to the "apps" terminal window and once again run the following commands:

./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password iBmC0nn3ti0ns -f /scripts/connections/synchNodes.py

./wsadmin.sh -lang jython -user wasadmin -password iBmC0nn3ti0ns -f /scripts/was/restartApp.py Homepage Common

Step 50 Close all terminal windows and proceed to the next section.

VIEW YOUR NEW GETTING STARTED PAGES

Now that all of that work has been done, it's time to view the results!

Note: You might need to clear your browser cache to see the changes.

Step 51 Return to the web browser and refresh the page. You should be on the Home Page page for user Dan Misawa. If the session has timed out, you may need to reauthenticate.

Step 52 You should see your three new tabs. Great!


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IBM Connections 5.0

Step 53 Next, click on each of the three tabs to verify the proper HTML page is being displayed for each. That's fantastic!

Step 54 You are now a Getting Started customization guru. Even better, you're done!

Summary:

In this lab, you learned how to add customize the Getting Started view in the IBMConnections Home Page. You learned how to remove tabs and how to create new ones.Congratulations!

Next Steps:Access FREE education on the IBM Collaboration Solutions portfolio of products today!

1. Visit the IBM Greenhouse and create a free account.

Link → http://greenhouse.lotus.com/

2. Visit the IBM Collaboration Solutions Ecosystem Development Community

Link → https://greenhouse.lotus.com/communities/community/icsecod

3. Learn new skills and share these links with your friends and colleagues!


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http://greenhouse.lotus.com/

https://greenhouse.lotus.com/communities/community/icsecod

Software

IBM Connections 5.0: Customize the Getting Started Pages