People Awareness Builder
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Building Domino View Portlets
Use this builder to add a "presence" function to a portlet. This will allow a user of the portlet to determine who is online and available. Any available person can then be contacted through instant messaging or email.
This builder allows you to create WebSphere Portal Server portlet that can take advantage of Lotus collaboration products. This builder interacts with the Lotus Collaborative Components available with the "WebSphere Portal Server Extend" and "Experience" products. Collaborative components provide API methods and tag libraries for extending the functionality of Lotus collaboration to any portal built with IBM WebSphere Portal Server (including WebSphere Portal Extend and WebSphere Portal Experience).
If the project you are working in is based on the Java Standard Portlet API, only use this Builder with WebSphere Portal version 6.x. If the project is based on the IBM Portlet API, this limitation does not apply and we can use this Builder on Portal versions 5.x and 6.
This builder relies on functionality available only in the WebSphere Portal Server Extend and Experience products. In addition, the builder requires the correct configuration of Collaborative Services within these WebSphere products.
Specifying Inputs
The People Awareness builder takes the inputs described in the table below. For help on inputs common to many or all builders such as those in the Properties and HTML Attributes input groups, see "Using the Builder Call Editor."
Input Name Description Name Enter a name for this builder call. The Designer displays this name in the Builder Call List. Page Location Use the Page Location input to specify the page or pages on which this builder call will act. Alternatively, we can type in the page location syntax directly. See "Locating Control Builders on Pages" for detailed documentation about the Page Location input and page location syntax.
Person name Specify an indirect reference to that variable that contains the person name. This name must be available in one of the following formats:
- Abbreviated format: Jane Doe/Boston/Company
- Common format: Jane Doe
How this Builder Works
This builder uses the Lotus Collaborative component API to access the collaboration functionality available within Lotus products. This collaboration function enables Lotus products to interact with one another and with third-party products such as the Portlet Factory. This builder interacts with the following Collaborative Component JSP tag libraries:
- people.tld - To provide Lotus Sametime awareness
- menu.tld - To provide contextual menus
This builder inserts a "person" tag from the people.tld tag library, along with the corresponding tag library directive into a portlet model. When viewed in the browser, the portlet displays the name pointed to by the indirect reference specified in the "Person name" input, and a menu. Depending on the Lotus collaboration components available, this menu offers one or more of the following choices:
- Start Chat... - If Lotus SameTime is configured, and if the person specified is currently online
- Send email... - If an e-mail system is configured
- Add to Contact List... - If Lotus Sametime is configured
- Show Profile... - If Lotus Discovery Server is configured
- Find Documents Authored By... - If Lotus Discovery Server is configured
Backend Configuration Requirements
There are a number of installation and configuration steps that must be performed correctly in order to use these services and tags.
To learn more about configuring the WebSphere products, Refer to the Info Center provided with these products. The sections on "Configuring collaborative portals" and "Setting up Lotus Sametime" are particular relevant. Also refer to the IBM Redpaper on "WebSphere Portal 4.12 Collaboration Services." This document contains important information about WebSphere product about installation and configuration. Of particular interest is section 2.4.2. This section describes how determine whether or not "people awareness" and menu services are installed and configured correctly in the WebSphere environment.
When running outside a WebSphere Portal environment, this builder inserts the person's name in the portlet UI as plain text. No collaborative functionality is available.
The menu used by the "people" tag (which is implemented as an applet) does not work when Sun Microsystem's Java Plugin is used as the JVM for applets in the browser. To disable this Java plugin in Internet Explorer go to: Internet Options-| Advanced. Locate the "Java (Sun)" check box item and disable it.
Ways to Use this Builder
The following use cases illustrate how you might use this builder to add value to the portlets you create. In both cases, this builder works in conjunction with other builders to provide a feature-rich user interface for a portlet.
Example 1 - Sales Lead Portlet
You have built a web service portlet that returns account data for a single account. You are using a Data Page builder to generate the UI for the account, and the first element returned is a person's name. Consider adding a People Awareness builder to the portlet and point it at the first element in the returned variable. The Awareness builder will display the name and an accompanying icon with pop up menu capability for the collaborate services that are available (chat, e-mail, etc).
Example 2 - Domino View Portlet
You have built a portlet that displays a Domino View. One of the columns in the view contains a person s name. Use the People Awareness builder to "awareness enable" name the column and tap into collaborative functionality. A pop-up menu will be available for each user's name to provide access to the collaborative services that are available (chat, e-mail, etc.).