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Lotus Connections 2.5

• Lotus Connections is available for use from mobile devices.

• The name of the Dogear feature has changed to Bookmarks.

  You will continue to see references to Dogear in the installation wizards, administrative commands, and in some Web addresses. All resources that include the term dogear in their name are associated with the Bookmarks feature.

 

What's new in installing?

• The installation wizard offers a simplified stand-alone deployment option, a network option, and an advanced stand-alone option.

  The Custom option has been removed because the use of multiple WebSphere Application Server profiles for stand-alone deployment is no longer recommended.

• The Network deployment option has been enhanced to improve ease-of-use.

• The Search feature has been separated from the Home page feature and is automatically installed when you choose to install at least one other Lotus Connections feature.

  The initial index for installed features is also created automatically.

• The installation wizard automatically creates a WebSphere Application Server search-admin role to allow inter-feature indexing and searching.

• The database schemas have been updated.

• Cluster installation: You no longer need to install Lotus Connections on each node. Install on one node in a cluster and then instruct the dmgr to push the installation to other nodes.

  Cluster uninstallation is now integrated into the uninstallation wizard.

• The primary node and secondary node concept in a network deployment is replaced by the first node and subsequent node concept.

  Lotus Connections is installed on a system that you define as the first node in a cluster. You then use the Deployment Manger to add subsequent nodes.

• Change the context root of a feature

• Scheduling Activities jobs

 

What's new in administering?

Lotus Connections:

• Backing up and restoring data
• Enable users to set a language preference

Activities:

• Activities supports environments in which activity members do not have e-mail addresses.

  The following administrative commands are new; they manage users that are represented by login name rather than by e-mail address:

  • ActivitiesMemberService.syncBatchMemberExtIdByLoginName(filename)
  • ActivitiesMemberService.syncMemberExtIdByLoginName(java.lang.String loginName)

  The MemberService service name has changed to ActivitiesMemberService.

• The following administrative commands were added to support retrieving community activities:
  • ActivitiesMemberService.fetchCommunitiesByName (java.lang.String name)
  • ActivityService.fetchActivitiesByCommunityExId (java.lang.String communityUUID)

• The ActivitiesMemberService.updateMemberExtId(java.lang.String oldId, java.lang.String newId) command was deprecated.

• Some of the AccessControlService commands were updated to reflect the number of people for whom you can set access using the command. The command...

  AccessControlService.setOwnersAccess

  ..was added. The name of the command...

  AccessControlService.setMemberAccess

  ..was changed to...

  AccessControlService.setMembersAccess

  ..and the name of the command...

  AccessControlService.setReaderAccess

  ..command was changed to

  AccessControlService.setReadersAccess

• You now configure virus scanning by editing the LotusConnections-config.xml file instead of the oa-config.xml file.

Communities:

• Lotus Connections applications can now be integrated into a community using a user interface constructed using widgets.

• The widget life-cycle framework provides a mechanism for the different Lotus Connections features to integrate with Communities.

  Life-cycle events are generated when a community action is performed, such as adding a new widget to a community or deleting a widget. The widget-admin role is used to manage these events.

• Communities now provides integration with the various Lotus Connections features.

  The data for these different features is stored in different databases, so there is a possibility of data inconsistency after a database disaster.

• You can prevent unauthenticated users from creating communities.

• Communities uses the WebSphere Application Server scheduler to run a number of scheduled tasks relating to community events.

• The EventLogCleanup task is used to remove entries that are more than 30 days old from the event log.

  You can define the interval at which this task runs.

• Lotus Connections now provides a proxy template file that defines rules about which HTTP requests, headers, and cookies are allowed to be redirected to the Lotus Connections features.

  If you want to allow Communities to proxy a widget, for example, but not allow any of the other features to proxy it, create a Communities-specific version of the proxy-config.tpl file.

• Three new metrics have been added to Communities, allowing you to view data about the total number of users who have logged in to Communities in the last 24 hours, the last 7 days, and the last 30 days.

• The ForumPurgeTrash task removes deleted data from the discussion forum database. You can define the interval at which the task runs.

• The LifecycleRetryQueuedEvents task automatically retries sending life-cycle events to other features when event processing fails.

Files:

• Administer Files

Home page:

• New widget administrator functionality is available, allowing you to specify what widgets display on first login, enable multiple widget instances, and specify where a widget displays.

• The Home page now supports environments in which users do not have e-mail addresses.

  Administrative commands are provided for managing users that are represented by login name rather than by e-mail address.

• Lotus Connections now provides a proxy template file that defines rules about which HTTP requests, headers, and cookies are allowed to be redirected to the Lotus Connections features.

  To define a proxy policy specifically for the Home page, create a feature-specific version of the proxy-config.tpl file.

• Two metrics have been added to the Home page, allowing you to view data about the total number of users who have logged in to Communities in the last 7 days and the last 30 days.

News:

• The news repository stores information about the events that are generated by the different features whenever an activity occurs in the system.

Profiles:

• You can use IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator assembly-line commands to delete users from the Profiles database.

• Lotus Connections now provides a proxy template file that defines rules about which HTTP requests, headers, and cookies can be redirected to the Lotus Connections features.

  To define a proxy policy specifically for Profiles, create a feature-specific version of the proxy-config.tpl file.

• You can extend the functionality of Profiles by making custom widgets available for use.

• Users can connect with the people in their network by posting messages or comments to the board and updating their status.

• New properties allow you to control how the search operation displays search results.

• Three new metrics have been added for Profiles, allowing you to collect data on the number of employees who have logged in to Profiles in the last day, the last week, and the last month.

• You can specify the character set encoding options used to export vCards.

Search:

• In Lotus Connections 2.5, search is no longer part of the Home page feature.

Wikis:

• Administer Wikis

Blogs:

• The commands for synchronizing user data between Blogs and LDAP have been updated to support cases where users are represented by login names rather than e-mail addresses.

• This release supports creating a community blog that is restricted to the members of a community.

• Metrics for blogs are updated in this release.

• Extending the list of allowable file types for blogs

Bookmarks:

• The feature name Dogear was changed to Bookmarks for this release.

  The name Dogear still appears in command names and URLs.

• Start with this release, all Dogear configuration settings are stored in a single configuration file, dogear-config-cell.xml.

  The node-level configuration, dogear-config-node.xml, was removed to simplify configuration.

• The commands for synchronizing user data between Bookmarks and LDAP have been updated to support cases where users are represented by login names rather than e-mail addresses.

• Configure faviconsThe commands for configuring favicons have been updated.

• Metrics for Bookmarks are updated for this release.

• Instructions are provided for managing multiple bookmark buttons if you are creating bookmarks on more than one server.

 

What's new in designing?

• Add custom strings to Communities and Profiles
• Add a custom theme to Communities
• Customizing business card information
• Customizing action links on the business card
• Customizing Profiles search

 

What's new in security?

• Disabling support for flash animations
• Switching to unique administrator IDs for system level communication
• Configure the AJAX proxy
• Securing cookies
• Enable single sign-on for the Windows desktop

 

What's new in developing?

New APIs

Common API

Determining which display languages are supported

Activities

• Working with entry templates

• Create an activity node from a template

• Entry template content

• The casesensitive parameter has been removed from the list of available parameters in the Searching the My Activities view, Searching the Completed view, Searching all activities, and Searching the to-do list topics. This parameter was in the documentation in error, and has always been ignored.

Blogs

• The Blogs API documentation has been reorganized to more clearly distinguish the Blogs APIs that comply with the publishing protocol from those that comply with the subscription protocol.

• Get a feed of all blogs

• Get a feed of the featured posts

• Get a feed of all recommended blog posts

• Working with recommendations

• Removed search as a parameter option for the resources document in the Get a feed of the comments added to a blog and Get a feed of the latest comments added to all blogs topics. It was included in the documentation in error.

• The note identifying the default page value in the topics in the Get Bookmarks feeds section has been updated to indicate that the first page is numbered 0 instead of 1. It has always been numbered 0 and was documented as having a default of 1 in error.

Bookmarks

• Get a list of bookmarks that you have been notified about

• Get a list of the bookmarks that you have notified others about

• You can include a since parameter in bookmark subscription API requests.

• Add a bookmark this link to a Web page.

• The all option for the access parameter has been replaced with any in the Searching bookmarks, Add a list of bookmarks to a Web page, Add a set of bookmarks to a Web page, and Get a list of bookmark tags topics. The all parameter option was specified in the documentation in error.

• Removed the following note from the Searching bookmarks topic because you cannot use the searchOptions and tag parameters together:

  To search for a bookmark with any tag in a set of tags, provide the searchOperator=or parameter with this parameter. To search for a bookmark with all of the tags in a set of tags, provide the searchOperator=and parameter with this parameter.

Communities

• You can indicate that you want to add a forum topic to the top of the discussion forum using the pinned flag.

• You can now include a since parameter in community subscription API requests.

• You can integrate iWidgets into the Lotus Connections user interface for use in the Communities, Home page, and Profiles features.

• You can integrate the community card into third-party Web applications.

Files

Files API

Home page

• Retrieving the dates related to a set of search results

• You can integrate iWidgets into the Lotus Connections user interface for use in the Communities, Home page, and Profiles features.

News

• Updates APIs

• Retrieving the saved stories service document

Profiles

• Working with the message board

• Get all of the comments associated with a message

• Get a person's message board entries

• Working with status messages

• Get the messages of your colleagues

• You can now include a format parameter in profile subscription API requests. You can use the format parameter to specify how much information you want to return in each entry in the feed.

• You can now include a since parameter in colleague subscription API requests.

• You can now get a feed that lists the profiles of a set of people, not just one person at a time.

• You can integrate iWidgets into the Lotus Connections user interface for use in the Communities, Home page, and Profiles features.

• You can integrate the business card into third-party Web applications.

Wikis

Wikis API

 

What's new in using?

There are two new features: Files and Wikis.

You can access the Activities, Blogs, and Profiles feature from a mobile device.

Activities:

• You can create an activity from the Communities feature. Community activities are like standard activities, except that you cannot edit the member list or change member roles.

• You can more easily send a notification to individual members of an activity with a large member list by filtering the list of names.

• You can set the display language of the Activities user interface.

• You can search across other Lotus Connections features from within Activities.

Blogs:

The following features are new or updated for IBM Lotus Connections 2.5.

• Create a community blog to support community collaboration

• Add a video to enhance your blog posting.

• Change the language of the Blogs interface.

Communities:

• Import members into and exporting members out of a community makes it easier for you to manage the membership of larger communities.

• Apply a theme that changes the colors and fonts in the community's user interface allows you to customize the look of your community. If your administrator has added custom themes, you can apply one of these themes to make your community stand out from the rest.

• Searching the content of a community helps you to find the information that you need in a specific community.

• Add content to a community gives you greater control over the community's functionality and allows you to make applications such as activities, blogs, and wikis, available to community members.

• Working with discussion forums is enhanced by the ability to check statistics for forum usage when viewing discussion topics and highlight important topics by pinning them to the top of the forum page.

• Change the display language allows you to override your browser's language setting and view communities in the language of your choice.

Dogear:

• Create a bookmark from the My Bookmarks page without installing the browser button.

• Import a subset of your browser favorites as bookmarks.

• Change the language of the Bookmarks interface.

• Searching across Lotus Connections.

Home page:

The following features are new or updated for the Home page in IBM Lotus Connections 2.5:

• The Updates tab allows you to view the latest updates for all the Lotus Connections features in an easy-to-read list format. Filter the display to quickly identify the news stories that interest you most.

• To suit a busy working schedule, you can save news stories that interest you so that you can return to them later.

• Choose from a greater variety of Lotus Connections widgets to add to your deployment. For example, the My Wikis widget allows you to track the latest updates to the wikis to which you subscribe.

• You can arrange the My Page tab in a two-column or three-column layout. Select the option that suits you best.

• Keep the people in your network up-to-date with what you're doing by regularly updating your status message on the Updates tab.

Profiles:

• The Board feature allows you to stay current with the people in your network and communicate with them without leaving your profile.

• You can post a personal status message to keep the people in your network up-to-date with what you're doing.

• The Organization Tags area on the Profiles Home page displays all the tags added in Profiles. Browse the tag cloud and click tags that interest you to find people with specific expertise.

• Change the display language allows you to override your browser's language setting and view profiles in the language of your choice.

 

What's new in extending?

Download the IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint from the beta site. Documentation is installed with the download package.

Download the IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Accelerators for IBM WebSphere Portal from the beta site.

 

Lotus Connections 2.0.1

See the What's new in this release topic in the Lotus Connections 2.0.1 section of the information center:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/topic/com.ibm.lotus.connections.help/i_ovr_r_whats_new.html

 

Lotus Connections 2

See the What's new in this release topic in the Lotus Connections 2 section of the information center:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/topic/com.ibm.lc_2.0_IC/i_ovr_c_whats_new.html

Get started with Lotus Connections

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