Collaboration
Collaboration features in WebSphere Portal are provided through the Domino and Extended Products Portlets, and through the supporting API called Lotus Collaborative Services. Domino and Extended Products are the Domino Enterprise server and IBM Lotus Sametime.
Although it had previously been, and still is, possible to access the functionality of Lotus Sametime using only the Collaborative Services API components within WebSphere Portal, the Domino and Extended Products Portlets extend the capabilities beyond simple integration and access. Portlets are the mechanism by which the Domino server products are fully integrated into WebSphere Portal. Domino and Extended Products Portlets provide an online directory with people awareness, and integrated tools for managing online meetings. All these collaboration features help people in your organization work together and share information online to achieve their business goals. A collaborative portal can improve your organization's responsiveness, innovation, competencies, and efficiency.
WebSphere Portal supports Domino and Lotus Sametime, bridging to the world of J2EE and open standards, and extending Domino's capabilities by providing the means to connect different sources of data, regardless of vendor.
Configuration of the Domino and Extended Products and portlets is automated by the Domino-Portal Integration Wizard. The wizard saves many manual steps for the administrator.
Collaborative Portlets
Examples of all the Domino and Extended Products Portlets are supplied on the Collaboration page and on the Messaging page.
The portlets are installed with WebSphere Portal 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.
Domino and Extended Products Portlets include:
- Domino Web Access
- Sametime Contact List
- Lotus Notes View
- People Finder
- Who Is Here
Domino and Extended Products
You can enhance the collaborative features of WebSphere Portal, 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.
- Lotus Domino provides access, from many collaborative portlets, to Lotus Notes discussion and teamroom 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 and application sharing through e-meetings. Person names appear aware - with a dynamic online status indicator. Move the cursor over an active (underlined) person's name to see the Click for Person Card option, and then click Click for Person Card to see the Person menu. The Person menu can include the following options:
- Show Profile
- Send E-mail
- Chat
- Add to Sametime 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
- Move the cursor over an active (underlined) person's name displays the Click for Person Card option which you can click to display the Person menu. Menu options will be limited to actions such as Show Profile, that are native to WebSphere Portal.
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. And other portlets, such as Domino Web Access, use a Domino server configured for use in the portal.
Collaborative Services APIs
Lotus Collaborative Services are Java APIs that provide the building blocks for integrating the functionality of Domino and Lotus Sametime 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:
Product overview
Related concepts
Integrate with collaboration software