One last pre IBM Connect thing....Kudos Analytics!

Well we have had a lot of news to get out before Connect. However as the saying goes "but wait their is more"!!! We are pleased to release our latest addition to the Kudos Badges suite.....Kudos Analytics!

We have been working with IBM Connections since very early in the products life and we are ALWAYS asked the same questions from our clients - How many users are doing xy&z? Can you show that trending over time?

With IBM Connections 3 this was always difficult as there was only the limited Metrics and Statistics that Connections provided out of the box. There were some clever things we could do to capture them daily and export them to spreadsheets where clients could then develop their own reports etc from that. However it was fairly limited and a bit of a pain really.

Then with IBM Connections 4 IBM introduced the new Metrics Application and integration with IBM Cognos to deliver quite and advanced reporting and analytics capability. This is great stuff however lots of the clients we speak to consider it too heavy for what they need and they don't really want to spend the days required to get Cognos going and integrated, yet alone provide additional server infrastructure to do so. It is really just a bit too heavy.

So enter Kudos Analytics. We have been providing some basic reports as a part of Kudos Badges around usage and adoption for quite a while however with the introduction of the Metrics Application we are able to do a lot more detailed analysis. Have a look at the video for a demo.

We have found that most users of Connections really just want some light weight reporting that is easy to access and install. Kudos Analytics takes about 10 minutes to install and get started. This is just the first step and we are planning on adding Kudos Analytics capabilities for individual Communities so Community Managers can see what is happening in their realm. We would also love to hear your thoughts and ideas on what else is needed so come visit us at IBM Connect pedestal C49!!

Kudos Badges Embedded Experience - Connections-Tick Notes 9-Tick iNotes-Tick Mobile-Tick!

One of the great new features of IBM Connections 4 and the IBM Notes/iNotes 9 Social Edition clients is the addition of Open Social Gadgets and support for Embedded Experiences. This enables applications to provide in context integration so users can stay in the context of which ever client they are using and still interact with the application that is embedded. It really is awesome stuff and furthers extends IBM Connections as an application development platform.

So we here at ISW and Kudos Badges have taken full advantage of this new capability and developed a series of Open Social Gadgets that are used within the embedded experience across the various clients. Here is a video showing what we have done!

Come see us at IBM Connect at Booth C49 if you want to see it live or you can also catch us at The Social App Dev Throwdown!

An IBM Connect present.....Wildfire for IBM Notes 9 and Connections 4

Very pleased for Andrew Welch to provide this guest post:

WILDFIRE 1.6 IS NOW AVAILABLE

We are very pleased to announce the next release of WildFire. It has been a long time coming, but all good things come to those who wait and just in time for IBM Connect!

We have resolved a few of the issues that have arisen due to the life-cycles of the various Social Network APIs, as well as implementing a few requests from users.
Most notably here is the support for the XING network & custom feed background colors.

As of a couple of days ago we had 6835 downloads of Wildfire from OpenNTF. We have no idea how many of these then get installed across a user base and how many are just single installs but we would love to hear if you are using Wildfire so please let us know.

In other statistics, WildFire has made nearly 5 Million API calls to Facebook in the last year alone!


Here is the list of improvements:

New network support: XING
XING was both the first and most recent requested network.  With the recent launch of the Public API for XING we thought it was time to reward our loyal WildFire users.  Now you can both post and read statuses from the XING community!

Custom feed background colors
After the overwhelming positive responses of custom background colors in iWildFire, it was decided to bring them to WildFire as well.  This will make the biggest difference for those with multiple accounts of the same type.  Now you can easily tell at a glance which network the status was retrieved from

Facebook updates
Recently Facebook removed the Offline Access permission WildFire was using.  This meant that new Facebook accounts added to WildFire could not work for more than 2 hours.  In the new version of WildFire we have moved to Facebook's new authentication protocol and users now have 60 days access.  After this time simple repeat the account creation for another 60 days.

Additionally, we have added the following Facebook Feed enhancements;

• showing check-in locations
• showing people tags
• showing direct wall posts

Connections 4 support
WildFire 1.6 now supports IBM Connections 4.  You can now read and post status updates to your Connections 4 environments.  Additionally you can also comment upon posts.

LinkedIn improvements
WildFire 1.6 now supports new data structures introduced recently in LinkedIn.

IBM Notes 9 Support
WildFire 1.6 officially supports IBM Notes 9.

Performance improvements & General Bug Fixes
Some additional changes under the hood will speed up the rendering and reduce memory usage.

URL Shortening
WildFire has long supported automatic URL shortening by TinyURL when posting a status.  However, users reported trouble in keeping track of the amount of characters that had used.  With WildFire 1.6 we have added a more user friendly interface.  Simply paste a URL into the text area, or use the new keyboard short-cut (Alt+T) and the URL is automatically shortened.  This allows you to see the exact status message and length before it is sent.

Improved screen utilisation
Do you have limited screen real-estate and find yourself switching between widgets?

Users had reported their desire to keep an eye on their social feeds, but still wanting to display multiple widgets.
WildFire 1.6 includes the functionality to hide the Status Input field.  This means less wasted space and you never have to close WildFire again!

Reduced size
WildFire 1.6 is 20% smaller in size than previous versions.


In summary, WildFire 1.6 is worth the wait.  It's smaller, faster, more user friendly and connects you with more social networks than ever before!


Written by guest blogger;

Andrew Welch
Lead Developer of WildFire

Connect 2013: Booth C49
Twitter: @AndyLWelch
LinkedIn AndrewLWelch

IBM Notes Sidebar App for Kudos Badges

Following from our earlier annoucement about the Kudos Badges Mobile App for IBM Connections, we are also pleased to announce our latest IBM Notes Sidebar App/Widget for Kudos Badges. The integration of IBM Connections and IBM Notes 9 Social Edition really meant it was a no brainer to provide the same level of integration with Kudos Badges. Now users can access their Kudos Leaderboard from within their Notes client, view their Badges and Thanks peer to peer rewards, as well as post Thanks to their colleagues all within the context of the Notes client.

But wait....there is more to come....Now that we are into IBM Notes Social Edition, with the awesome new integration points we will have another (I think the most important) annoucement coming up soon! So watch this space!

IBM Connections Mobile App extension for Kudos Badges

Team Kudos has been busy working away on some great new initiatives in the lead up to IBM Connect 2013. One of the new capabilities that we have delivered is Kudos Badges Mobile. We have leveraged the new features that IBM provided with the IBM Connections 4 Mobile App that enable us to extend the App to include additional features, in this case Kudos Badges Mobile. This is a great capability as it provides seemless integration between IBM Connections Mobile App and Kudos Badges without the users having to have a separate App. We also have been able to leverage the authentication via the Connections App so users don't need to logon again.

One of the key strengths of Kudos Badges is that it has always tracked actions and behaviour for users of not only the Connections browser interface but also the Connections Mobile App (and the API usage for that matter). With the uptake of Mobile users continually increasing and IBM treating the Connections Mobile App as a first class user interface option, if you arn't measuring and rewarding your mobile users usage then you are missing a large portion of your audience. That is why we decided it was important to also provide the Kudos Badges Mobile App so our users can also participate and see how they rank with their peers.

Here are a few screen shots as well as a video providing a quick overview.

Kudos Badges Mobile AppKudos Badges Mobile App Menu

Kudos Badges Mobile App Badges

Kudos Badges Mobile App Leaderboard

Kudos Badges Mobile App Thanks

We have a few other exciting annoucements (....think IBM Notes Social Edition) to make over the next few days leading up to IBM Connect 2013. If you have any questions or would like to learn more you can contact us or come visit Team Kudos at Booth C49 at the IBM Connect conference.