The Connections Blog

Just in case you're not on the mailing list for this kind of Lotus Connections information from IBM:

You are invited to an IBM Technical Exchange Webcast call about Lotus Connections deployment best practices. There is no charge for participating. The topic and dial information for this call is:

Title: Lotus Connections V2.5 Deployment Best Practices

Date: June 23rd, 2010
Time: 10 am - 11 am eastern US time (2:00 pm GMT)
Webcast access: https://www.lotuslive.com/en/join?schedid=4419191
Audio by phone:
Toll free US: 866-803-2143
Toll call US: 210-795-1098
International Numbers: Click here: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21433894
Confirmation Code: CONNECTIONS
Please dial in 5-10 minutes early to allow time for registration of all participants before the presentation starts.

Open Mic calls are Question & Answer sessions with a panel of subject matter experts covering your questions without going thru a slide presentation.
Webcasts are slide presentations by a single presenter followed by Questions & Answers related to the material covered, as time permits.

You can submit your question in advance via our forum, "developerWorks Lotus Connections forum". Questions should be of general interest. Troubleshooting of specific problems should still be handled by Technical Support, not by Webcast calls. We will collect questions, which have been posted to the forum topic announcing the call, and address as many of them as possible on the call. We will also take questions not submitted in advance.

You will need to provide your name and company affiliation when dialing in. You will need a touch tone phone to be able to ask questions. The presentation will be recorded and (in potentially edited form) made available via the web page containing dial-in numbers above.

By: Stuart McIntyre | 0 Comments | On: 17 June 2010 08:12:35 | Tags:  connections  lotus  2.5  deployment  webcast 

IBM have now released new trigger code to resolve this issue.

The steps are simple

• Stop the application
• Backup the DB
• Run through the code to remove the Trigger
• Recreate the Trigger
• Start the primary server and test
• Assuming all is well start the other App Servers in the clusters

As yet IBM are unsure as to how they are going to release the fix as it falls out of the typical iFix scope.
If you are seeing this specific issue please contact the Lotus Connections Support team who will furnish you with the appropriate code to resolve the issue.
As soon as I have confirmation on how this will be distributed I will add what will hopefully be the final update to this on-going saga.

Big thanks to Kieran Reid at IBM and Andrew Frayling and his team at Cardiff Uni for assistance and support in resolving this issue. Great work all round.

By: Sharon Bellamy | 0 Comments | On: 15 June 2010 09:43:26 | Tags:  oracle connections resolution mutating trigger 

The "Measuring the Value of Social Software" white paper focuses on helping organizations answer the question:

How can we determine if our social software initiatives are successful and are providing the anticipated return on technology investment?

This white paper looks at how to measure the effectiveness and value of a social software initiative, what tools are available to capture key metrics, and what to take into consideration when establishing a measurement approach.

Contents

• Why measure?
• Defining objectives
• Types of measurement
• Measurement levels
• Measurement tools
• Sample reports
• Creating a measurement approach

Authored by ISSL (IBM Software Services for Lotus), this new whitepaper (PDF) is a good first step to gaining some clear measurements on the value generated by social software deployments within an enterprise.  Well worth a read.

By: Stuart McIntyre | 0 Comments | On: 14 June 2010 08:44:32 | Tags:  social  ibm  connections  lotus  value 

Technical Description                          
Multiple vulnerabilities have been identified in IBM Lotus Connections, which could be exploited by attackers to bypass security restrictions or gain knowledge of sensitive information. These issues are caused by input validation and design errors in the Dojo, Community, Homepage, Bookmarks and Blogs components, and other unspecified modules when processing user-supplied data or when connecting to certain web sites, which could allow information disclosure, or cross site scripting and phishing attacks.

Affected Products
IBM Lotus Connections versions prior to 2.5.0 Fix Pack 2 (2.5.0.2)

Solution
Upgrade to IBM Lotus Connections version 2.5.0 Fix Pack 2 (2.5.0.2)

Definitely worth getting that FixPack2 on your system ASAP, particularly if your Connections environment is internet-facing.

By: Stuart McIntyre | 0 Comments | On: 7 June 2010 14:11:07 | Tags:  connections  lotus  2.5  fp2  fixpacks 

At last it appears there may be a *real* fix for this .. IBM have changed the trigger code which should hopefully fix the mutating trigger issue we see when deleting files ..

I will be testing this today and if it works rolling it out to my live environment over the next week.

I will attempt to get some confirmation if this code will be fixed in all new fix packs and APARS - watch this space and hopefully some great news

By: Sharon Bellamy | 0 Comments | On: 1 June 2010 08:17:17 | Tags:  mutating trigger 

The patching process for Lotus Connections 2.5 has been getting ever more complex and time-consuming just recently, what with Fixpack 1 to apply, then over 100 (yes, that's one *hundred*) individual fixes to install once Fixpack 1 was done.  On some slower systems, applying FP1 then the individual fixes has taken well over 12 hours to complete.  Not great for system availability in non-clustered environments.

For that reason alone, I am delighted to see Fixpack 2 is now soon to be available.  This technote details the fixes included and the installation instructions.

Key details are that:

• there is a new Lotus Connections Update Installer WebSphere Update Installer for Lotus Connections Version 2.5.0.2  
• there is fix to TDI that must be applied manually
• all customisations must be backed up and then reapplied.

Update: It looks as though the actual Fixpack itself is not yet available to download from FixCentral, but should be there soon and can be downloaded from this link.

By: Stuart McIntyre | 0 Comments | On: 28 May 2010 21:29:37 | Tags:  connections  fixpack  2.5 

Another great effort from Jean-François Chénier - The man who should have used Lotus Connections 8 - Micro-blogging.  "It's about being smart and productive. With microblogging."...

By: Stuart McIntyre - Connections | 0 Comments | On: 20 May 2010 06:31:39 | Tags:  connections  lotus  youtube 

Many organisations have now moved past the pilot and deployment phases of their Lotus Connections projects and are looking at means to justify their expenditure and to measure ROI.

There are various means to do this - using user surveys, measuring time savings and productivity improvements on a user-by-user basis are current favourites - but there is definitely room for new ideas, solutions and services in this area.

IBM has just launched a new service to accompany its' Atlas social graph service, the Reporting Tool for Lotus Connections and the Measurement Framework for Social Software:

Are you getting the highest ROI from your Lotus Connections investment? Are you reducing costs, improving service, communicating better or collaborating more efficiently?

With this solution you will be able to measure the value of your investment. You will receive the IBM Software Services (ISSL) Reporting Tool for Lotus Connection and Measurement Consulting Services to help you develop a framework to measure the value of your Lotus Connections investment.

Reporting Tool for Lotus Connections
The Reporting Tool for Lotus Connections enhances and extends Lotus Connection's built-in reporting tools:
Snapshot and trend reports showing adoption, usage and system metrics across all the Lotus Connection features.
Simple web-based visualization with bar charts, line charts and tables. Easily view adoption rates for key Lotus Connections features based on days, months and years.
Export metrics to Brio, Excel, Crystal Reports and others.

The Measurement Framework for Social Software
In addition to Reporting Tool, we provide consulting services to help you define your measurement approach.
The measurement approach includes multiple categories of measurements including vitality, capability and business value.
We provide you with multiple techniques for uncovering the links between metrics and your business drivers.
You will be able to quantify the adoption rate of Lotus Connections, analyze and remediate adoption gaps and understand the contribution of social networking content.

Highlights
Trend & Snapshot Reporting: 30+ Bar, Line, Tabular reports across all Connections features.
Easy Export: Export data to 3rd party reporting solutions.
Installation Services: We install the Reporting Tool.
Measurement Consulting: We assist you in developing your overall measurement framework using Reporting Tool metrics and other measurement sources.

As an IBM/Lotus Business Partner, Collaboration Matters resells and integrates ISSL offerings into our own solutions and service offerings when appropriate, and therefore will be interested in finding out more about these new tools and services.  Whilst it would definitely be preferable for this kind of functionality to be included in the product itself, there is a void to be filled, so look out for more information as we have it.

By: Stuart McIntyre - Connections | 2 Comments | On: 14 May 2010 08:27:35 | Tags:  connections  lotus  issl 

The Lotus IDC team are doing great work at the moment, including the release of a number of new product demos and tutorials on YouTube entitled "Experience Lotus".

I recently posted about the video "Setting up a project team space using Lotus Quickr " over on The Quickr Blog, and now there's two new videos for Lotus Connections 2.5, "Tapping into the community using Lotus Connections" and "Tracking project milestones using Lotus Connections and Lotus Quickr":





Nice work, Joyce and the team!

By: Stuart McIntyre - Connections | 0 Comments | On: 10 May 2010 04:59:38 | Tags:  youtube  connections  lotus 

Have you performed a Lotus Connections installation and used the Lotus Connections documentation to assist you with the installation process? IBM wants your feedback!

Take the Lotus Connections Installation Documentation survey from now until May 12, 2010. It should take only about 20 minutes to complete, and you have the option of taking the survey anonymously.

Take the survey yourself and forward the link to others you know who have performed a Lotus Connections installation. This is a great opportunity to get your thoughts and opinions heard. Your feedback and suggestions will help drive changes to our Lotus Connections technical content. Also, continue to stay tuned for future usability evaluations on some of our other products that we will be conducting throughout the year. We look forward to hearing from you!

There's only a week left to get your feedback into the team, so why not take the survey today?

By: Stuart McIntyre | 0 Comments | On: 5 May 2010 08:45:02 | Tags:  lotus  connections  infocenter  2.5  survey