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Subscribe via EmailSametime presence awareness is a tricky area when building Connections environments - the functionality adds so much to the usefulness of Profiles and the business card in particular, yet is notoriously difficult to get working reliably.
In Connections 1.0x the STLinks API was used (as in Quickr/Domino) which worked well to give awareness and a Web interface for chat, but did not offer extensive functionality or work reliably on a wide variety of OS platforms and browsers.
In Connections 2.0.x the new ST Web API is used, which means that a valid version of the Sametime Connect client (8.0.1+) must be present on the client machine and be logged into the Sametime server for presence awareness to work. The upside is that a user then gets the full functionality of the Sametime client.
The details on what is required are in the following technote
Title: More information about enabling Sametime awarenessHowever, for many organisations, it is not desirable or even possible to get a Sametime Connect client onto every desktop - either licence costs or deployment considerations might prevent this.
Doc #: 1327352
URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21327352
Requirements for awareness to work
1. Your system must be running one of the following versions of Sametime:
* A stand-alone Sametime client version 8.0.1 or later.
* A Sametime client embedded in Notes 8.0.2 with Interim Feature Release 1 (IFR1) or later. You can access the Notes 8.0.2 IFR1 from Fix Central at the following Web address:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=475&uid=swg27014117
After installing Notes 8.0.2 IFR1, you will be instructed to install the latest Notes 8.0.2 Cumulative Client Hotfix. Cumulative Client Hotfix 1 (CCH1) is available from Fix Central at the following Web address:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=475&uid=swg27014028
2. The Sametime client must be able to map a user's e-mail address to a user. This can be done if one of the following conditions is met:
* The Lotus Connections user ID is the same as the Sametime user ID.
* The Sametime server is configured to resolve e-mail addresses as users. If the Sametime server is not set up to support this, see the following topic in the Lotus Sametime information center for information on how to configure it to do so:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/sametime/v8r0/topic/com.ibm.help.sametime.gateway.doc/i_rtc_t_setup_specify_mail_attribute.html
3. The Profiles feature must be installed and running. The Profiles server must be configured to query the server for online status information. See the following topic in the Lotus Connections information center for details:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/topic/com.ibm.lotus.connections.help/t_admin_common_add_st_awareness.html
4. It is not recommended that you run more than one Sametime client on a single system at one time. However, if you do have more than one version running, for example, you have a version embedded in Notes as well as a stand-alone Sametime client, make sure that you start a version of the Sametime client that supports awareness in Lotus Connections before starting any other versions of the Sametime client. This is necessary because the Sametime client that is started first is the client that processes all subsequent requests made to Sametime.
Therefore I am delighted that there is now a hotfix from IBM that allows the use of the integrated Sametime functionality within the Notes client (or older versions of Sametime, 7.5/8.0 etc) for Connections presence awareness. It requires the use of an additional plug-in within the client that gives the additional integration. At this stage you will need to contact IBM Support to request this.
We are just about to test this on a number of customer sites, so I'll let you know how it goes.
By: Connections Blog (Stuart McIntyre) | 7 Comments | On: 16 February 2009 16:44:30 | Tags: connections lotus sametime
Comments
Hi Stuart, I've got this working at several customer sites so if you run into issues, let me know!
Glad to hear there was a hot fix and I didn't send you down a deep dark black hole :-)
When you are running Notes 8.5 and are using the integrated Sametime client, by default you will not see any IM status within Connections Profiles. In order to be able to see the IM status in Connections Profiles you have to modify the file plugin_customization.ini (in the directory [notesprogram]\framework\rcp). Change the line
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi/startWebContainer=false
to
com.ibm.collaboration.realtime.webapi/startWebContainer=true
and (re)start Lotus Notes.
Thanks Pim - that sounds remarkably simple - I'll give it a go.
And it works fine, but it's prohibitive to have to visit clients to change the plugin_customization. What I don't know is whether that can be done via a Domino/Notes profile setting or Eclipse update seit stuff.
there is a automated way to send down the udpates to the client see the URL below.
www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=899&uid=swg21377828
Has anybody an idea why this service is set be default to false? As it is required for Sametime integration in Connections I don't see nay reason why not starting it by default. Or are there any security or performance issues?