Get Your BUZZ On - Instant Apps for Connections

I have to say it! Damn this one is exciting. I am BUZZING (literally!)

Over the years since we launched Kudos Badges for IBM Connections about 9 years ago now, we have delivered a series of new products and capabilities for IBM Connections, all with a focus on adoption and improving the user experience and hence engagement for users of Connections.

After Badges, came Kudos Analytics delivering deep analytics and reporting to Connections. Kudos Thanks and Kudos Awards delivered peer to peer and management award and recognition programs. Then most recently Kudos Boards which dramatically improved team collaboration and projects in Connections using Kanban style user experience. We also have something else coming very soon....think Idea's and Innovation for Connections but more on that later;)

Lets get our Buzz On!

Well now this one takes Connections to a whole new level. The great team at Kudos has been busily working away with another great team from Buzzy to now deliver Buzzy for IBM Connections.

An intelligent instant app platform for IBM Connections and Watson Workspace

Buzzy for Connections provides a better way for users to interact with each other via Citizen Apps.

Many of us remember the days when on another platform we would empower users to create apps for many different purposes. This enabled citizen developers and end users to rapidly build situational apps so they could quickly get on with business and complete the job at hand. These might be apps such as Contract Registers, Job Applications, Expense Re-imbursements, Executive Reports/Briefings, Field Sales Reports, Event Management.........the list goes on forever.

Buzzy for IBM Connections brings these and many many more instant apps to the Connections platform. In a matter of minutes your line of business users are able to create intelligent (via Watson Services) apps for whatever business outcome they want to achieve. These apps are rapidly delivered via both browser and mobile clients, fully integrated with IBM Connections.

Maybe your Marketing Department are planning on running an event. So you create a Connections Community of course to get the team together to plan, discuss and execute the event. So now with Buzzy for IBM Connections you can create an Event Management App that helps you to store and share the planning details. You might create another app - Event Registrations - this time open to external users as well so they can submit their RSVP's for the event. You might also want to share post event collateral with the attendees of the event - just create another Buzz!

In another part of your organisation, your HR Department are managing the recruitment of some new staff. They create a HR/Recruitment Community, and add an App for managing and creating job positions. They can list the job positions and determine the criteria and type of skills needed. Once ready they can post the job publically via the Job Application Submission App that allows candidates to submit their resume and applications. Then the HR team can work together to review the resumes and vote on who should get the interview!

Over the next few posts we will demonstrate Buzzy for IBM Connections with a few videos.

If you are interested in some more information, a demo, or even want to give Buzzy for Connections a try for yourself you can let us know here - Buzzy for IBM Connections. Come join us and get your Buzz On!

Announcing Kudos Badges 2.1.1 - Connections 4.5, Mobile, Analytics & More!

Team Kudos have been working like bees over the last few months to bring even more features to Kudos Badges, which in January scooped an array of awards at IBM Connect in Florida, USA.

Now with the formal release of Kudos Badges 2.1.1, we've taken onboard a range of client requests and integrated a suite of improvements you are sure to enjoy too. Most importantly, 2.1.1 offers full support for IBM Connections 4.5!

Brand new formal features announced in 2.11 include Kudos Analytics, Kudos Awards, Kudos Mobile, as well as full support of the IBM Notes 9 Embedded Experiences. Read on for more details:

Connections 4.5 Support

Many of our clients around the world are already making to move to upgrade to IBM Connections 4.5, so ensuring Kudos Badges can not only support but take full advantage of the new capabilities in 4.5 has been a big priority. We love Connections 4.5 and wanted to make sure you could upgrade with the confidence that Kudos Badges is fully supported.

To start with:

A great new feature of IBM Connections and the IBM Notes/iNotes 9 Social Edition is the addition of Open Social Gadgets and support for embedded experiences. We've taken advantage of this to deliver a great user embedded experience within Connections and the Notes/iNotes clients (or anywhere that supports Open Social and embedded experiences for that matter!).

So what does this really mean for your users? Well in simple terms it means that they can interact with Kudos Badges in the context of their Notes client. This also means all Kudos Badges, Kudos Thanks and Kudos Awards are displayed in the Discover activity stream and you are able to like and comment on a Kudos related news item!

IBM Notes 9 - Embedded Experience

You can now experience Kudos in IBM Notes 9 with email notifications and an Activity stream widget.

• Watch the video...

Kudos Analytics

Kudos Analytics is the ideal light weight reporting and analytics tool for IBM Connections focused on user adoption.

Utilising data from both IBM Connections Metrics Applications and Kudos Badges, Kudos Analytics gives you the numbers you need to prove ROI, make decisions and plan your success. Looking at both Connections and Kudos, find out the answers to some key questions:

• How many people are using Connections?
• Which applications are being used most (Files, Communities etc)?
• How much is each feature in each application being used?
• How is each Community being used?

Kudos Analytics also really easy to install.

• Watch the video...

Kudos Awards

We've had some great feedback from our clients that really love Kudos Thanks. Users are telling us that Kudos Thanks in itself has created a positive culture of recognition and praise across their users, as well as making Connections a destination and driving further adoption. So we thought we could take this to a new level, and by popular demand have created Kudos Awards.

Kudos Awards allows management to acknowledge great achievements amongst their workforce, even integrate well-known workplace awards such as Employee of the Month. Users can build and customise an awards and recognition program to suit, such as certifications that have been achieved, awards for tenure or years of employment, and many other examples.

Kudos Awards integrates very nicely within IBM Connections, leveraging the Connections Profiles and Activity streams to promote users achievements.

We've Gone Mobile

Now you can 'give Thanks' and keep up with your Leaderboards while on the road! Kudos Badges Mobile can now integrate seemlessly with the new Connections Mobile app from IBM.

Kudos Badges Mobile provides seamless integration between IBM Connections Mobile app and Kudos Badges, without users having to install or regularly check-in with a separate app. We've also leveraged the authentication via the Connections App so users don't need to logon again - How neat is that!?

• Watch the video...

Find out more

To discover how simple it is to implement Kudos Badges into your workplace, or to learn more about how Kudos accelerates performance and productivity in your workplace, check our Youtube Channel or the website at www.kudosbadges.com. We're also available on twitter: @KudosBadges

Countdown....Kudos to You!

One of the things I really enjoy working with ISW is being able to come up with creative ideas and work with the team to deliver them into the market. Over the last few years ISW has punched out some great solutions such as Wildfire and iWildfire which has been great fun and has added some real business values to our clients and users.

Well over the last few months we have been working away quietly at one of the more interesting projects we have done. I am really excited about this one as I can see it really making a difference to how organisations adopt IBM Connections. I have had the pleasure of working with many organisations that have bought into Social Business and IBM Connections. A key part of any Connections implementation is driving user adoption within an organisation. We have a number of strategies around this but a key one is reward and recognition. I am not going to give it away right now but ISW's new offering will help take this to a new level. I have given a little preview to a few of our IBM Connections clients and they are very keen to give it a go so I think we have a great idea here.

We are just putting the final touches on the product now so I will have some more news shortly!

Let me give you a hint though.....Kudos!

IBM Web Experience Factory 7.0.1

IBM has announced the release of the IBM Web Experience Factory 7.0.1 (Formally know as IBM WebSphere Portlet Factory):

IBM® Web Experience Factory 7.0.1, formerly IBM WebSphere® Portlet Factory, delivers the fastest and easiest way to develop multichannel exceptional web experiences across desktop, mobile, and tablet platforms.

Enhancements

• New builders
  • Builders for mobile, multichannel solution development including desktop browsers, smartphones, and tablets
  • Builders to incorporate analytics into applications to ensure the feedback loop is closed, allowing business owners to track and adjust success based on application usage
  • Builders for IBM Web Content Manager allows easy integration of content and authoring capabilities in custom portlets

• Increased developer productivity, with many new features and improvements to make it easier and faster for developers to build exceptional web experiences
• New production code and samples with full source code providing a robust library of both learning and production examples

My take on this:

• The trend of dropping the brand names from products is now becoming consistent across more than just Lotus.
• The enhancements reflect the move to support more than just Portlets. The IBM Web Experience Factory can be used (and has for a while) to build widgets and web applications that go broader than just Portlets. In particular is the support now for Mobile Application Builders that can use the same code base  across a range of devices.
• This move to more Mobile capabilities is in addition to the upcoming WebSphere Portal Mobile Theme that is in beta (I will post about this soon I promise)
• Also new builders for analytics applications. Business Analytics is a very fast growing space (hence why ISW has invested so much becoming an IBM Business Analytics/Cognos partner this last year) and IBM is smart to enable this capability in the Web Experience Factory.
• I am glad they didn't call it the IBM Exceptional Web Experience Factory;)

More information here

Update on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 at 12:50PM by Adam Brown

Following from yesterday's post on the release of the IBM Web Experience Factory 7.0.1 here is a presentation that IBM produced with further details of what is new.

Integrating Lotus Connections with WebSphere Portal - Part 3

Ok so now for Blogs. In past entries we have integrated Homepage, Profiles, Communities, Search, Dogear, Wikis, Files, and Activies. Blogs initially proved to be a challenge but wasn't that much harder in the end.

The main differences with Blogs are that:

1) You need to use a slightly different script.

2) You need to update the JSP's but also the Blog Theme templates

3) You need to use wsadmin to update the timestamp and restart the server.

So the script to use is:

<script type="text/javascript">

    #if($model.getRequestParameter('FromPortal') == 'true')
  document.cookie="FromPortal=true; path=/";
    #else 
 if(testCookieForFromPortal()) {
  document.cookie="FromPortal=true; path=/";
 } 
    #end

    function testCookieForFromPortal()    {
        if (getCookieValue("FromPortal") == "true") {
                return true;
            } else {
                return false;
            }
    }
    function getCookieValue(cookieName)    {
        var retVal = "";
        var i = document.cookie.indexOf(cookieName);
        if (i != -1) {
            var iVal = i + cookieName.length + 1;
            var j = document.cookie.indexOf(";", iVal);
            if (j < 0) retval = document.cookie.substring(iVal);
            else retval = document.cookie.substring(iVal,j);
        }
        return retVal;
    }
    // the themeTemplateURL variable should be set to the URL defined
    // as the src attribute of the <script/> tag generated by the
    // WebAppIntegrator portlet.

</script>

Update the following files:

\installedApps\Blogs.ear\blogs.war\WEB-INF\jsps\tiles\tiles-adminpage.jsp

\installedApps\Blogs.ear\blogs.war\WEB-INF\jsps\tiles\tiles-embeddedpage.jsp

\installedApps\Blogs.ear\blogs.war\WEB-INF\jsps\tiles\tiles-mainmenupage.jsp

\installedApps\Blogs.ear\blogs.war\WEB-INF\jsps\tiles\tiles-simplepage.jsp

\installedApps\Blogs.ear\blogs.war\WEB-INF\jsps\tiles\tiles-tabbedpage.jsp

Themes:

Update each Theme by adding the script to the _header.vm file . The themes are located in the blogs.was/themes directory.

Update Timestamp:

Next you need to update the timestamp for the configuration files:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/ltscnnct/v2r0/topic/com.ibm.connections.25.help/t_admin_common_customize_postreq.html

and then restart the servers.

And that should be it!

So we now have all features with the ability to add the ?FromPortal=true paramater to the URL and the Top Navigation Banner will disappear.

Once this is all done integrating with Portal is really easy using the Web Page Portlet. Simply add the Portet to a page and point the configuration of the Portlet to the appropriate URL. When users access Connections within the Portal the top navigation automagically disappears and you can use the Portal navigation instead. I found setting the Web Page Portlet to a height of 1100 meant that you never get a scroll bar in the Portlet.

The next step for me to to try and do the same with the Web Application Integrator Portlet which will mean that we effectively wrap the Portal Navigation around Connections rather than use the iFrame that the Web Page Portlet method users. This is fairly easy but first I need to build our custom theme into the Web App Integrator. Might be Part 4!