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Install the IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint brings Lotus Connections features such as searching by tag, searching by profile, and viewing business cards, into the SharePoint environment.


This plug-in requires IBM Lotus Connections 2.5. It supports Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Microsoft Windows Server 2008. It is tested on Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on Microsoft Windows XP, Service Pack 2 and Microsoft Vista, Service Pack 1.


The installation process involves these steps:

  1. Log on to the Windows Server with the SharePoint administrator ID. The plug-in installer requires full access to the SharePoint directories. Usually, the SharePoint administrator ID also has system administration rights on the server.

  2. Run the installation program, lotus-connections-sharepoint-plugin.exe. The installation program installs the following features:

    • Profiles search for finding people in your organization. If colleagues you find with a Profiles search are in your SharePoint directory, you can add them to your SharePoint group or site.

    • Business card for getting contact and social networking information about users in your organization. From the business card, you can create a mail message to this colleague or open their blog, bookmarks or full profile.

    • Tag cloud for finding content stored on Lotus Connections servers. Clicking a tag launches a search that matches against all Connections services. For example, clicking a

      new-hire

      tag could return a community and a blog posting.

  3. After the installation program completes, the plug-in configuration program will be launched automatically. On the URL Settings tab of the configuration program, specify the Profiles Server URL, for example, http://connections.mycompany.com/profiles.

  4. Tab to the Federated Search URL field. It will be automatically filled in based on the Profiles Server URL, but you can change it if necessary.

  5. If you are installing on MOSS, there will be two additional fields. In the Shared Service Provider (SSP) field, enter the names of the SSPs that are active on the server (in a default installation of MOSS there is one SSP called SharedServices1). Separate multiple names by pressing Enter. In the Search Center URLs field, enter the root URLs of any search centers that you want to enable for Profiles search. These search centers must be sites based on the "Enterprise Search Center with Tabs" template. Specify the root URL in the format http://<server>/<sitename>/Pages, for example, http://sp.mycompany.com/MySearch/Pages. The default installation of MOSS automatically creates one tabbed Search Center at http://<server>/SearchCenter/Pages.

  6. After you have filled in the URL Settings fields, click Apply. The configuration program may take several minutes to execute. When it has completed, click OK to exit the program.

  7. If you are installing on MOSS, you need to perform additional steps to enable the search centers for Profiles Search:

    • Log on to the SharePoint site as the administrator and navigate to the first search center.

    • Click Site Actions -> View All Site Content

    • Under the Lists category, click Tabs in Search Pages.

    • Click New. Set the Tab Name field to any text you want, for example, "Profiles Search." Set the Page field to lcpsearch.aspx. Click OK to save the new tab.

    • Go back to the Lists category and click Tabs in Search Results.

    • Click New. Set the Tab Name field to any text you want, for example, "Profiles Results". Set the Page field to lcpsearchresults.aspx. Click OK to save the new tab.

    • Go back to the search center and click the new Profiles Search tab. This will cause the aspx page to compile.

    • Click Publish to make the page available to all users.

    • Enter a search query. This will cause the results page to compile.

    • Click Publish to make the page available to all users.

    • Repeat the above steps for the other search centers.

      The plug-in automatically adds a Profiles by Name search scope to the generic SharePoint search bar that is usually found at the top of every page. Profiles results from search bar queries will be displayed in the first Search Center that you specified.

  8. Your SharePoint users can now use the Lotus Connections features integrated with SharePoint. For example, SharePoint site owners can add the Tag Cloud Web Part to their sites.

The default plug-in configuration is usually sufficient for most installations. To change any settings, follow this procedure:

If you create a new site collection after installing the plug-in, the profiles search and business card features will be available automatically, but the tag cloud will not be. To make the tag cloud available, launch the plug-in configuration program, go to the Plug-in Features tab, deactivate the tag cloud, and activate it again. This will add the tag cloud to the Web Part catalog of all new site collections.

The Profiles business card is available for person names that appear in tables and lists and other locations throughout the SharePoint user interface. The card looks up names in the Profiles by email address. In order for the card to work for a particular name, that person must have the same email address in both the SharePoint and in the Profiles If SharePoint and Connections are using the same LDAP directory, this will not be a problem, but different directories can be used as long as the email addresses match.

Let your user community know that the integration features are available for use. The Profiles Search bar is available at the top of the SharePoint site. Users can enter a name to search the Lotus Connection profile directory, or click a name to open the associated profile. The business card feature is also globally available, so users can hover over a person's name and see the person's associated business card. Site owners can add the Lotus Connections Tag Cloud Web Part so that users can search Lotus Connections content by tag.

To remove this plug-in, follow this procedure:


IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint


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