Portal Express, Version 6.0
Operating systems: i5/OS, Linux, Windows
Collaboration
Collaboration features in IBM WebSphere Portal Express are provided through the Domino and Extended Products Portlets, and through the supporting API called Lotus Collaborative Services.
Domino and Extended Products are...
- Domino Enterprise server
- IBM Lotus Sametime
- IBM Lotus QuickPlace
To access the functionality of Lotus Sametime and Lotus QuickPlace in Portal you can use the Collaborative Services API components or you can use the Domino and Extended Products portlets.
The Domino and Extended Products portlets provide an online directory with people awareness, and integrated tools for managing online meetings and Lotus QuickPlaces.
WebSphere Portal Express 6.0 supports...
- Domino v7.0
- Lotus Sametime v7.0
- Lotus QuickPlace v7.0
Configuration of the Domino and Extended Products and portlets is automated by the Domino-Portal Integration Wizard available in WebSphere Portal Express 6.0.1 and later. The wizard saves many manual steps for the administrator.
Domino and Extended Products Portlets
- Domino Web Access
- Sametime Contact List
- My Lotus QuickPlaces
- Lotus Web Conferencing
- Lotus Notes View
- People Finder
- Who Is Here
Examples of all the Domino and Extended Products Portlets are supplied on the Domino Integration page. The portlets are installed with WebSphere Portal Express and deployed automatically, requiring of the administrator only a number of server and other configuration tasks before users can take advantage of a suite of integrated collaborative applications.
Collaborative portlets
- Common PIM portlets
- Inline QuickPlace portlet
- Domino Document Manager portlet
The latter two portlets are installed with the portal but not deployed on sample pages. Manually add them to pages in a site.
Domino and Extended Products
You can enhance the collaborative features of WebSphere Portal Express, and add features such as people awareness to collaborative portlets, by choosing to install and enable any of the following Domino and Extended Products:
- IBM Lotus Sametime adds the online status indicator to person links, and adds actions to the Person menu.
- IBM Lotus QuickPlace provides access, from a collaborative portlet, to the QuickPlace server and the Team Workplaces it hosts.
- IBM Lotus Domino provides access, from many collaborative portlets, to Lotus Notes databases, including mail, discussion, teamroom, and Domino Document Manager databases.
Lotus Sametime features
When Lotus Sametime is enabled in the portal configuration, users can work with the complete set of people awareness functionality, which includes...
- instant messaging
- application sharing through e-meetings
Person names appear aware - with a dynamic online status indicator and as hyperlinks that open the Person menu. The Person menu can include the following options:
- Chat
- Add to Instant Contacts
You might choose not to enable Lotus Sametime in the portal configuration. If Lotus Sametime is not enabled, then people awareness functionality will be restricted to the following features:
- People's names appear as hyperlinks, but with no people awareness icon next to each name
- The Person menu will appear when a user clicks a name shown as a hyperlink, but menu options will be limited to actions, such as Send E-mail, that are native to WebSphere Portal Express.
Lotus QuickPlace features
The availability of Lotus QuickPlace portlets is not affected by the portal configuration option to enable/disable IBM Lotus QuickPlace, because portlets launch applications and services that are independent of portal configuration. As long as a QuickPlace server is available for selection and you have installed and configured a Lotus QuickPlace portlet application, portal users can add instances of Lotus QuickPlace portlets to portal pages, or simply use Lotus QuickPlace portlets in the portal pages where they participate.
Lotus Domino features
When a Domino server is available, portal users have access, using the Lotus Notes View (formerly "Notes and Domino") portlet, to any Lotus Notes database on the server. Other portlets, such as Common Mail and Common Calendar, can also use a Domino back-end server. And other portlets, such as Domino Document Manager and Domino Web Access, use a Domino server configured for use in the portal.
People awareness features
In addition to person links and the Person menu previously available, people awareness features include the ability to configure the contact information, such as telephone number, that appears on a person link. The People Finder portlet is now located on the People palette for easy availability in every application.
Collaborative Services APIs
Lotus Collaborative Services are Java APIs that provide the building blocks for integrating the functionality of Domino, Lotus Sametime, and Lotus QuickPlace into the portal and portlets. Using Collaborative Services, application developers can design and implement user interface extensions in portals and portlets that extend the functionality of collaborative portlets.
The primary goal of Collaborative Services is to provide the data for portlets' user interface and to allow developers to execute actions on installed Domino and Extended Products. Collaborative Services include no platform-specific code, hide the configuration details of Domino and Extended Products installed in the enterprise, and (except for the Person tag) are user-interface neutral. Application developers can add collaborative functionality to a portlet without having to know the details of server configuration and with total control of user interface design and implementation. These benefits make Collaborative Services effective for implementing mobile applications.
Parent topic:
Key features
Related concepts
Domino-WebSphere Portal Express Integration wizard overview Lotus Domino Integration