What’s New In ICS Computing Webinar

A brand new webcast hosted by ICONUK is starting this month on the 14th July at 3pm (BST)

 

This month we will introduce the webinars and also have speakers from the world of IBM Collaborative Services, The Champion Community and the wider user community.
These are going to be regular monthly webinars, so get in quick for the first one, as they are bound to be popular.

 

What’s New in the World of IBM Collaboration: Chris Moore & Leon Becket from IBM will talk about the latest enhancements and updates to IBM’s collaboration solutions. In this session, they will present what the updates have been to Verse, Connections Cloud and more. What these mean to you and demonstrate some of these key updates.

 

Also this month: The Internet of Things talking to IBM Connections Cloud – by our very own Steve McDonaugh

 

You can register for this event here: http://iconuk.org/iconuk.nsf/events.html

And find out more and register for ICONUK here: http://iconuk.org

It’s almost time for ENGAGE :)

It’s that time of year again when our community gathers in a European city for the biggest user group meeting outside Connect / Lotusphere .. the fabulous Engage User Group. This year we are meeting in Eindhoven in the Netherlands in a fantastic location of Evoluon.

engageLogo Evoluon1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am speaking again with my good friend and college Mr. Christoph Stoettner on Wednesday, March 23 at  16:00 in Room D. Saturn – We will be covering everything connections related, installing, migrating, backing up etc 🙂

Tomorrow I am meeting the lovely Tim Clark for the roadtrip to engage .. looking forward to seeing friends, learning some great new stuff in the amazing amount of sessions and some good old social networking .. see you there 🙂

IBM Connections 5.5 and Docs 2.0 announced

At last what we have been waiting for the latest versions of IBM Connections and IBM Docs are available this Friday the 18th of December.

 

There are over 100 new features included nested folders, there is a new cleaner look continuing the trend that we have seen over the last two releases.

 

 

  • Organize your documents, presentations and more into your own nested folder hierarchy in Personal and Community Files
  • Brand new file viewer experience which allows you to find the content that you need faster and review it quickly without having to download
  • Build powerful team sites specific for your team needs (e.g. HR, Sales, Marketing, etc) with new configuration capabilities such as:

 

  • New community layouts
  • Responsive apps so you can just drag-n-drop between columns in one motion
  • Rename apps based on your audience
  • A brand new Rich Content app which you can use for announcements or embedding content from the web
  • and much more.. !

 

  • Smart type-ahead search to find what you need instantly
  • Enhancements to the rich text editor such as permanent pen, sort table data, and more
  • Real-time alerts on your desktop (for HTML5 browsers) to notify you when content needs your attention

 

 

I am really looking forward to getting the latest releases downloaded and tested over the Christmas break .. great work from the product management team …

Read the full post on Luis blog here

Fun and games with Commuity wigets

Last night we managed to close a PMR that had been open for a few weeks on a strange issue with Community Widgets.

After remapping the connections admin user everything worked exactly as expected except for 2 tiny issues – Adding the blogs and surveys widgets inside a community thew a nasty error.

communityError

 

Thanks to Justin Cornell in IBM support we managed to get to the bottom of the issue by remapping the widgets admin user even though it was mapped correctly.

Jump over to the Cube Soft Blog –  Fun and games with Community Widgets for the full diagnosis and resolution.

Fun and Games – O yes 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

Help shape connections search

If you are interested in helping IBM shape the search application inside Connections there is a survey that you can participate in.

This is a short survey to better understand attitudes and behaviours around search and how users – well – use it 🙂

You can find the search survey here

Fill it in and you will make a Connections product manager very happy 🙂

Issues with Install manager GUI on RHEL 6.3 ?

If you are attempting to install Connecitons 4.5 on RHEL 6.3 you will have noticed that there is an issue with using the GUI for the IBM Installation Manager with Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.3

The IM won’t fire up a GUI even though xterm works for other GUI’s on the machine, no errors, no splash screen, no nothing !!

It has been driving both Stuart and I bonkers .. after a lot of digging here is what you need to get it to work :

yum install gtk2.i686 gtk2-engines.i686 PackageKit-gtk-module.i686 PackageKit-gtk-module.x86_64 libcanberra-gtk2.x86_64 libcanberra-gtk2.i686

I ran this and hey presto a splash screen …

So to save your pain .. install the gtk2 packages above 🙂

Happy installing

 

 

Social Connections III – 3 weeks to go

Only a few weeks until the 3rd Social Connections user group, held in the IBM Labs Dublin.

We have a few places left if you are interested in attending this unique user group. We have some fantastic sessions such as:

and many more … the full agenda can be found on the Social Connecitons site here

 

As well as a full agenda planned for the day with two tracks – one for business and one for technical and admin – we have some other plans for the day in store.

If you can join us after the event we have an evening dinner and reception planned for at the Guinness Store House

There will be a tour of the storehouse, information on the history of Guinness and the chance to pull your own pint – followed by dinner and drinks in the fantastic surroundings of Arthur’s Bar.

Arthur's Bar 1 Arthur's Bar 2

Arthur’s Bar: A new edition to GUINNESS STOREHOUSE but as old as Ireland itself. It’s a traditional Irish pub, a place of hospitality. This communal gathering space is somewhere to relax and experience the heart of the Irish community whilst enjoying the breathtaking views of St. James’s Gate Brewery and Dublin city

 

The spaces for this event are limited and will be on a first come first served basis. Please sign up and let us know as soon as you can if you would like to attend.

Looking forward to seeing you on the 22nd of June in Dublin.

Customizing Connections Demo Files

The demo files that acompany my Customizating Connections Presentation can now be downloaded here

Inside the zip file you will find :

The templates and css files from \customization\common\nav
The custom community thumbnail image from \customization\communities\images
The custom strings required for the twitter profile extention  from \customization\strings
The JustNudge profile twitter ear file – LCC_Twitter_EAR-latest.ear
Instructions on how to deploy this and how to extend the profile – add twitter widget.txt
Examples of the following config files :
communities-config.xml
profiles-config.xml
widgets-config.xml

Enjoy 🙂

 

 

 

Returning user login issues – fun with the connections databases

I recently had an issue with a user having issues logging in to certain applications.

The user could log in to some apps but recieved an error on others – for instance profiles, activities, communities and forums the user was fine.

Each applications database holds information regarding the user login and their external / directory / guid id – this guid is unique to the user – I found after extensive investigation that this user had orphaned entries in the other application DB tables.

The SQL queries and statements used to resolve this were *fun* to work out and they may be slightly different for each user that has this issue, but it should be fairly straight forward to work out once you know what the issue is.

*NOTE* below is the solution that I used to resolve the issue – it will be / may be different for each user with a similar problem. It is advised where possible to test this on a back up of the DB to ensure it resolves the issue. Always back the databases up before making any change.

Firstly look up the user in the profiles database and gather thier login id (prof_uid) and external directory id (prof_guid)

Once you have these you are ready to start the investigation.

In the case of this user the SQL was as follows :

CORRECT GUID / EXT / DIRECTORY ID = C7B75D042B4C7C7B8025791100311ADA

== BLOGS ==

select * from blogs.rolleruser where username =’jsmith’;
select * from blogs.rollerloginname where username like ‘jsmit%’;
get the user id = 62537efa-3959-42a4-84f3-5e1fdc8cfac0
select * from blogs.rollerloginname where userid = ‘62537efa-3959-42a4-84f3-5e1fdc8cfac0’;
delete from blogs.rollerloginname where userid = ‘62537efa-3959-42a4-84f3-5e1fdc8cfac0′;
delete from blogs.rolleruser where username =’jsmith’;

== DOGEAR ==

select * from dogear.personlogin where loginname like ‘jsmit%’;
get the person_id = 436b98eb-59a9-420f-90d6-22b7a4926e00
select * from dogear.personlogin where person_id = ‘436b98eb-59a9-420f-90d6-22b7a4926e00’;
delete from dogear.personlogin where person_id = ‘436b98eb-59a9-420f-90d6-22b7a4926e00′;
select * from dogear.person where person_id=’436b98eb-59a9-420f-90d6-22b7a4926e00′;
delete from dogear.person where person_id=’436b98eb-59a9-420f-90d6-22b7a4926e00’;

== FILES ==

SELECT * FROM FILES.USER_TO_LOGIN where login_id = ‘jsmith’;
delete FROM FILES.USER_TO_LOGIN where login_id = ‘jsmith’;
select * from FILES.LIBRARY where title like ‘John Smit%’;
get label – C53524EEDB0F84E8802578C5002676AD
delete from FILES.LIBRARY where label =’C53524EEDB0F84E8802578C5002676AD’;
SELECT * FROM FILES.”USER” where name = ‘John Smith’;
delete FROM FILES.”USER” where name = ‘John Smith’;

== forums not an issue – has the correct GUID ==

select * from forum.df_memberlogin where loginname like ‘jsmit%’;
get memberid = d1140454-09ac-4484-a50e-ce914e573e7d

== HOMEPAGE ==

select * from homepage.loginname where loginname like ‘jsmit%’;
get person_id = cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a

select * from homepage.loginname where person_id = ‘cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a’;
delete from homepage.loginname where person_id = ‘cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a’;

select * from homepage.person where displayname = ‘John Smith’;
get person_id of the incorrect GUID – db306bce-40cc-413a-b93c-1ad61a24cdae

select * from homepage.hp_ui where person_id in (‘cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a’,’db306bce-40cc-413a-b93c-1ad61a24cdae’);
make note of any person IDs that bring back any entries – cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a
and ui_ids – 45cbd2dc-aefa-46f4-9607-654ddab953d8

select * from homepage.hp_tab_inst where ui_id like ‘%45cbd2dc-aefa-46f4-9607-654ddab953d8’;
make note of full ui_id – 45cbd2dc-aefa-46f4-9607-654ddab953d8
make a note of tab_inst_id b1072db9-c553-4a04-8366-e7d26a415edb b9114d19-4d97-42b0-8760-580cc956abe8

select * from HOMEPAGE.HP_WIDGET_INST where tab_inst_id in (‘b1072db9-c553-4a04-8366-e7d26a415edb’,’b9114d19-4d97-42b0-8760-50cc956abe8′);
delete from HOMEPAGE.HP_WIDGET_INST where tab_inst_id in (‘b1072db9-c553-4a04-8366-e7d26a415edb’,’b9114d19-4d97-42b0-8760-580cc956abe8′);

delete from homepage.hp_tab_inst where ui_id = ’45cbd2dc-aefa-46f4-9607-654ddab953d8′;

delete from homepage.hp_ui where person_id in (‘cf48e29d-7d89-4f8a-acf0-47b9a8bcb98a’);

delete from homepage.person where person_id in (‘db306bce-40cc-413a-b93c-1ad61a24cdae’);

correct person id = e8238bbd-255f-4609-8a54-e28128f3e66b

== Activities is ok – is the correct GUID==

select * from activities.oa_memberlogin where loginname like ‘jsmit%’;
get memberid – CACG7F00000152B3E7EBA823194CED0000C6

SELECT * FROM ACTIVITIES.OA_MEMBERPROFILE where memberid=’CACG7F00000152B3E7EBA823194CED0000C6′;

== Communities is ok has the correct GUID ==

select * from sncomm.memberlogin where loginname like ‘jsmit%’;
get member_uuid – 0e56702f-9f37-4f2c-b295-2dd3250da726

select * from sncomm.memberprofile where display = ‘John Smith’;

== Wikis ==
SELECT * FROM WIKIS.”USER” where name like ‘John%’;
select * from wikis.user_to_login where login_id like ‘jsmit%’;
delete from wikis.user_to_login where login_id = ‘jsmith’;
delete from wikis.user_to_login where login_id = ‘jsmith@org.com’;

==

When these statements had been run the user can log in correctly as the additional orphaned entries have been removed.

Please note that due to the data and the contstraints on the database that there may be additional statements required – the SQL above is a guide on how I resolved the issue.

It was a FUN FUN FUN one to sort out .. I do love a good problem:)