IBM Lotus Connections

Lotus Connections

Developer(s)	IBM
Stable release	2.5
Operating system	Cross-platform
Type	collaboration, web 2.0
License	License
Website	ibm.com

IBM Lotus Connections is a proprietary Web 2.0 social software application licensed by the Lotus Software division of IBM. The goal of Lotus Connections is to empower companies to be more innovative and help them execute more quickly by using dynamic networks of co-workers, partners and customers.

Overview

Lotus Connections (or 'Connections' for short) was announced at Lotusphere 2007, and Version 1.0 shipped later that year on June 27. Version 2.0 shipped in June 2008 and Version 2.5 shipped 28th August 2009.

Lotus Connections has ten parts:

• Homepage - a portal site which can federate information from many sources.
• Profiles - a social network service - primarily used to find people in the organization.
• Communities - a collaborative space for people with common interests to work together.
• Blogs - a blogging service.
• Bookmarks - a social bookmarking service.
• Activities - a task management tool for groups of people to work together on a specific project or task.
• Files - a content library for storing, sharing and revision management of computer files.
• Wikis - a Wiki system for publishing and editing content.
• Tags - for describing and organizing information, content, and people.
• Microblogs - for keeping the extended network apprised of status, etc.

Lotus Connections makes significant use of open standards such as ATOM and RSS to integrate with other applications and provides a REST-like API for developers^[1]. Widgets can be added into Lotus Connections, including those from Google Gadgets and other services as well as custom developed ones^[2].

Lotus Connections is often described as the leading product in enterprise social software market^[3][4][5][6].

Core Modules

The eight Lotus Connections modules are built on a set of services according to the service-oriented architecture concept. These modules take the form of applications which are hosted on IBM WebSphere Application Server. This design allows the modules to be hosted independently of each other and to support very large scale deployments.

Homepage

The Homepage serves as a portal for user's social collaboration. Out of the box Lotus Connections provides 5 widgets^[7] which can be customized by the user.

IT Administrators can add new widgets for use by users.

The Homepage module also includes a 'recent updates' display which shows changes such as new content posts and status updates which are relevant to the user. A system to update the users status via microblogging is also provided.

Profiles

Profiles provides an online directory of people within an organization. People can be located in many different ways ^[8], such as by

• Keywords
• Name
• Responsibilities
• Interests
• Projects they are part of
• Their expertise
• Their business relationships
• Tags applied to their profile
• Their geographical location

A person's profile typically contains their name, job role, base location, reporting chain and details about the Lotus Connection bookmarks, activities, communities and blogs in which they participate. Profiles can also be customized and new fields added^[9]

Bookmarks

Bookmarks is a social bookmarking service which allows people to bookmark web-content, tag it, and share it. Bookmarks can be located via keyword, tags and the person who created the bookmark.

In addition to simple searching, Bookmarks can dynamically refine search results with the user identifying users or other tags of interest to them.

Bookmarks can output bookmarks via standard feeds and provides an API so that third-party tools can integrate with it^[10]. As of Connections 2.0.1, the API can be used for:

• Searching bookmarks
• Getting a list of bookmark tags
• Getting a list of popular bookmarks
• Adding bookmarks to a Web page
• Adding a list of bookmarks to a Web page
• Adding popular bookmarks to a Web page
• Creating bookmarks
• Deleting bookmarks
• Retrieving bookmarks
• Updating bookmarks

Activities

Activities is a task management system which enables groups of people to easily collaborate together on a task. Activities are structured in a nested tree hierarchy where entries, to-do items and sections branch off from the root activity.

Any non-section entity in an activity can contain rich-text and custom fields for files, links, text, people and dates. To-Do items can also have a due date and a person the To-do is assigned to.

Wikis

Wikis are a new capability added to Lotus Connections 2.5 which facilitate the collaborative creation of web content.^[11].

Files

Files is a new personal file-sharing service that is part of Lotus Connections 2.5, used to upload and share files, tag them, and recommend/comment on them. ^[12].

Communities

Communities enable ad-hoc and planned collaboration around a project or area of interest. A Connections Community can have its own blog, forums, bookmarks, activities, feeds^[13], member list, Wiki and Files.

Blogs

Blogs provide blogging functionality for groups and individuals.

Plugins

Lotus Connections integrates into existing applications via plug-ins. Out-of-the-box, the following plugins are available:

• Lotus Notes
• Lotus Sametime
• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Outlook
• Microsoft Windows Explorer
• RIM BlackBerry
• WebSphere Portal
• Microsoft Sharepoint
• iPhone

Other integration with Microsoft Sharepoint and Microsoft Office Communications Server has also been done.

References

External links

• IBM Social Computing software
• System Requirements
• THE UC VIEW - Independent resource for Lotus Sametime, Quickr, Connections projects
• THE VIEW - Independent guidance for Lotus professionals

Related Blogs

• The Collaboration Soapbox (IBM)
• The Connections Blog
• Lotusconnections.org
• Socialize Me
• Synch.rono.us
• The Sametime Blog