I migrated the article "Customizing the IBM Sametime Business Card" from IBM developerWorks, after the sale of Sametime to HCL.

Summary

Having access to information about coworkers in day-to-day work should be quick and easy. This article describes, in a practical way, how to make such information available through the IBM Sametime Connect Client and the IBM Sametime Web Client (Sametime Proxy Server).

Introduction

Our story begins with a multinational company that, a year ago, made IBM Sametime and IBM Connections available to its employees. Today, thanks to these two tools, employees communicate better and more effectively.

One morning, the company’s IT Director returns from a meeting with the Vice President of Marketing. The Marketing Department requested that new information be displayed in the IBM Sametime Business Card.

The IBM Sametime Connect Client and Web Client Business Card displays information about a contact, including Name, Title, Telephone, and even Photos. Users view this information when they are in a Chat window or when they hover the mouse pointer over a contact in the Contact List.

ADD SCREENSHOT WITH BUSINESS CARD

Figure 1: Business Card Screen

The IT Director challenges the IBM Sametime Administrator to meet the following requirements:

1. Add new fields from LDAP;

2. Add fields from the Company’s HR System;

3. Display the user’s photo stored in the IBM Connections Profile;

With these needs in hand, the IBM Sametime Administrator begins the customizations.

1. Adding New Fields from LDAP

By default, the configuration interface of the Sametime System Console Business Card allows you to select which information will be displayed in the Sametime client.

1.1. Changing Attributes through the Sametime System Console

The available attributes are:

Name
Company
E-mail
Telephone
Location
Title
Photo

Since the Business Card information is obtained from the LDAP Directory to which the IBM Sametime Community Server is connected, we must map the attributes:

Attribute Name	LDAP Attribute
Name	cn
Title	title
Location	postalAddress
Telephone	telephoneNumber
E-mail Address	mail
Photo	jpegPhoto
Company	ou

You can change the Business Card through the Sametime System Console.

Follow these steps:

1) Access the Sametime System Console

2) In the navigation panel (on the left), click on Sametime System Console

3) Expand Sametime Servers and click on Sametime Community Servers.

4) Click on the Deployment Plan of the Sametime Community Server.

5) Click on the Business Card tab.

6) Change the attributes, click OK to save the settings.

Restart the Sametime Community Server.

Figure 2: Business Card Configuration in the Sametime System Console

Despite the ease of using the Sametime Administration Console, we are limited to the available fields. Moreover, not all user information is stored in a single repository, such as an LDAP directory, due to performance reasons. For example, user photos.

1.2. The Business Card Subsystem

The Business Card subsystem of IBM Sametime retrieves information from the repositories configured in the UserInfoConfig.xml file.

These repositories can be:

An LDAP directory
A Notes application
A Java class, which in turn retrieves information from a SQL database or an ERP/SAP system.

The interface (API) that accesses these repositories is called the BlackBox.

The process of retrieving information by the Client from the repository is described below:

The Sametime Client makes an HTTP (GET) request to a Sametime Community server.
When the request reaches the Sametime/Domino HTTP server, Domino redirects the request to the UserInfoServlet servlet.
The UserInfoServlet servlet reads the UserInfoConfig.xml file, which contains the connection information for the repositories.
The servlet queries each repository to retrieve the information.
The data from the repositories is returned to the UserInfo servlet.
The servlet combines the responses from these repositories and converts them into an XML document.
The HTTP server sends the XML document to the client, which extracts the data and displays it on the client.

Figure 3: Business Card Configuration in the Sametime System Console

1.3. Adding Attributes via UserInfoConfig.xml

The UserInfoConfig.xml file allows greater flexibility in customizing the data displayed on the Business Card.

The file is generated during the installation of the Sametime Community Server and is located in the following directory (depending on the platform):

MS Windows:

<DOMINO_INSTALL_DIR>\UserInfoConfig.xml

Example: C:\IBM\Domino\UserInfoConfig.xml

Linux/AIX:

<DOMINO_DATA>\UserInfoConfig.xml

Example: /local/notesdata

When opening the UserInfoConfig.xml file, you will basically see two sections:

In the <Storage type="LDAP"> section, we have the connection information to the LDAP server:

<Storage type="LDAP"> 
<StorageDetails
    HostName="ldapserver_hostname" Port="636" 
    UserName="" Password="" SslEnabled="false" SslPort="636" 
    BaseDN="" Scope="2" 
    SearchFilter="(&amp; (objectclass=organizationalPerson)(|(cn=%s)(givenname=%s)(sn=%s)(mail=%s)))" /> 
<!-- Add another StorageDetails tag to support another LDAP server. The listing order implies the searching order --> 
<!-- Scope: 0=OBJECT_SCOPE 1=ONELEVEL_SCOPE 2=SUBTREE_SCOPE-->

Listing 1: Section with LDAP connection information

While in the Details section, we have the mapping between Sametime attributes and LDAP fields:

    <Details> 
      <Detail Id="MailAddress" FieldName="mail" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Name" FieldName="cn" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Title" FieldName="title" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Location" FieldName="postalAddress" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Telephone" FieldName="telephoneNumber" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Company" FieldName="ou" Type="text/plain"/> 
      <Detail Id="Photo" FieldName="jpegPhoto" Type="image/jpeg"/> 
    </Details> 
  </Storage> 
</Resources> 
<ParamsSets> 
  <Set SetId="0" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company"/> 
  <Set SetId="1" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company"/> 
</ParamsSets>

Listing 2: Section with attribute mappings

We can now start the procedure to add new fields:

Procedure

Before starting, as a precaution, make a backup of the UserInfoConfig.xml file.

Edit the UserInfoConfig.xml file.
Locate the Details section.
Locate the Telephone entry and add the mobile number:

<Detail Id="Telephone" FieldName="telephoneNumber,mobile" Type="text/plain" DisplaySeparator=" / " />

Before the </Details> tag, add two new fields as follows:

<Detail Id="State" FieldName="stateOrProvince" Type="text/plain"/>
<Detail Id="City" FieldName="city" Type="text/plain"/>

Locate the ParamsSets section and add the new fields:

<ParamsSets> 
  <Set SetId="0" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State"/> 
  <Set SetId="1" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State"/> 
</ParamsSets>

Save and close the file.

The final file looks as follows:

  <Details> 
     <Detail Id="MailAddress" FieldName="mail" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="Name" FieldName="cn" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="Title" FieldName="title" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="Location" FieldName="postalAddress" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="Telephone" FieldName="telephoneNumber,mobile" Type="text/plain" DisplaySeparator=" / " /> 
     <Detail Id="Company" FieldName="ou" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="Photo" FieldName="jpegPhoto" Type="image/jpeg"/> 
     <Detail Id="State" FieldName="stateOrProvince" Type="text/plain"/> 
     <Detail Id="City" FieldName="city" Type="text/plain"/>
    </Details> 
  </Storage> 
</Resources> 
<ParamsSets> 
  <Set SetId="0" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State"/> 
  <Set SetId="1" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State"/> 
</ParamsSets>

Listing 3: Result of modifications to UserInfoConfig.xml

Restart the Sametime Community Server.

To test the changes in UserInfoConfig.xml, you can check the result returned by the UserInfoServlet.

In a browser, go to:

http://<Sametime_Server>/servlet/UserInfoServlet?operation=3&setid=2&userid=<Test_Account_Name>

where:

Parameter	Description
operation	Operation to be performed. Use the value 3.
setid	Parameter set to be returned, defined in the ParamsSets section of UserInfoConfig.xml
userid	Lookup key

Example:

 http://stserver/servlet/UserInfoServlet?operation=3&setid=2&userid=uid=ebasso

Where the result is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<userinfo>
  <user id ="uid=ebasso">
   <field name="MailAddress" type="" error="UNAVAILABLE"/>
   <field name="Name" type="text/plain">Enio Rubens Basso</field>
   <field name="Title" type="text/plain">IT Specialist</field>
   <field name="Location" type="" error="UNAVAILABLE"/>
   <field name="Telephone" type="text/plain">61-3333-4444 / 61-9999-9999</field>
   <field name="City" type="text/plain">Brasilia</field>
   <field name="State" type="text/plain">DF</field>
  </user>
</userinfo>

Listing 4: Servlet return

As you can see, if an attribute value in LDAP is not populated, UserInfoServlet returns error="UNAVAILABLE".

Adding Fields from the Company HR System

To address the second challenge from the Marketing department, the Sametime Administrator needs to retrieve information from the Company's HR System.

To avoid querying the HR System constantly, we will create a local repository to store the information to be displayed on the Sametime Business Card.

To perform this task, we need to complete 3 activities:

Create the local repository
Import data from the HR System
Configure UserInfoConfig.xml

As a prerequisite, you need to have Domino Designer installed on your computer and configured to access the Sametime Community server. Use the Sametime Administrator account to avoid restrictions when creating the database and running operations on the server.

2.1. Creating the Local Repository

We will create a Notes application (NSF) to store the data.

Open Domino Designer
Create a new database via the menu File -> Application -> New

Fill in the following fields:

Field	Value
Server	<Sametime Server Name>
Title	Secondary Book Store
File name	secbookstore.nsf
Server	Local
Template	Select -Blank-

Click OK

Figure 4: Dialog Box for creating a new application

Creating the Form

Create a new form via Create -> Design -> Form

Field	Value
Name	person
Alias	person
Comment
Application	Secondary Book Store:\\<Sametime Server Name>

Click OK

Create the key field named uid via Create -> Design -> Field

Enter uid for Name and set Type to Text.

Figure 5: Dialog box to create a new field

Create the remaining fields used in this article:

Field Name	Type	Description
dpto	Text	Department
updated	Text	Photo update date
PhotoURL	Text	Image URL
Photo	Rich Text Lit	Image file

Save the form via File -> Save.

Figure 6: New fields created

Creating the Index View

Create a new view via Create -> Design -> View

Fill in:

Field	Value
View Name	vwIndex
View Type	Shared
Selection Formula	By Formula
Select Conditions	Select @All

Click Save and Customize

Figure 7: Dialog box to create a view

Click the column #, select Field, and choose uid.

Figure 8: Setting the column value

In the properties dialog, click the second tab and under Sort, select Ascending.

Figure 9: Setting the sort order

Save the view via File -> Save.

Now we have a local secondary repository.

2.2. Importing Data from the HR System

The Company HR System is stored in a DB2 database.

In this section, we will create a Java agent to retrieve information from the SQL database and populate the local NSF repository.

The agent is divided into 5 parts:

Defining variables
Initializing the DB2 JDBC Driver
Executing the query
Creating or updating documents in the NSF repository
Main method

Preparation

To access DB2, we must add the DB2 JDBC (type 4) drivers.

Copy the following files into <DOMINO_INSTALL_DIR>\ibm-jre\jre\lib\ext:

db2jcc.jar
db2jcc_license_cu.jar

Figure 10: DB2 JDBC driver configuration

Procedure

Create a new agent via Create -> Design -> Agent

Field	Value
Name	ImportPersonInfo
Alias	ImportPersonInfo
Comment
Type	Java
Application	Secondary Book Store:\\<Sametime Server Name>

Click OK

In Basics, set On Schedule -> Daily, and Target to None.

In Security, select 3. Allow restricted operations with full administration rights.

Click on JavaAgent.java to create the code.

In the JavaAgent class, define the DB2 connection constants and global variables:

// CONSTANTS
private static final String JDBC_CLASS = "com.ibm.db2.jcc.DB2Driver"; 
private static final String JDBC_URL = "jdbc:db2://db2srv.empresax.com.br:50000/RHS"; 
private static final String JDBC_USERID = "STUSER"; 
private static final String JDBC_PASSWORD = "STUSER"; 
private static final String UID_LOOKUP_VIEW_NAME = "vwIndex"; 
private static final String SQL = 
"SELECT UID, DPTO " + 
"FROM EMPLOYEE " + 
"ORDER BY UID"; 

// GLOBAL VARIABLES
Connection con; 
String uid = ""; 
String dpto = "";

Initialize the DB2 JDBC Driver:

private void initDB() throws Exception { 
 Class.forName(JDBC_CLASS).newInstance(); 
 con = DriverManager.getConnection(JDBC_URL, JDBC_USERID, JDBC_PASSWORD); 
}

Execute the query:

private void runMain(Database db) throws Exception { 
 Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); 
 System.out.println("runQuery - start"); 
 ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(SQL); 
 System.out.println("runQuery - end"); 
 int i=0; 
 while (rs.next()) { 
   if (++i % 1000 == 0) System.out.println("Iterating: " + i); 
   uid = rs.getString("UID"); 
   if (uid == null) uid = ""; 
   dpto = rs.getString("DPTO"); 
   if (dpto == null) dpto = ""; 
   updateOrCreateDocument(db,uid); 
 } 
 stmt.close(); 
 System.out.println("Total: " + i); 
}

Create or update documents in the NSF repository:

private void updateOrCreateDocument(Database db, String key) throws Exception { 
 View view = db.getView(UID_LOOKUP_VIEW_NAME); 
 Document doc = null; 
 boolean saveDoc = false; 
 doc = view.getDocumentByKey(key, true); 
 if (doc == null){ 
   doc = db.createDocument(); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("Form","person"); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("uid", uid); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("dpto", dpto); 
   saveDoc = true; 
 } else { 
   if (!uid.equals("") && !uid.equals(doc.getItemValueString("uid"))){ 
     doc.replaceItemValue("uid", uid); saveDoc = true; 
   } 
   if (!dpto.equals("") && !dpto.equals(doc.getItemValueString("dpto"))){ 
     doc.replaceItemValue("dpto", dpto); saveDoc = true; 
   } 
 } 
 if (saveDoc) doc.save(true, false, true);    
 doc.recycle(); 
 view.recycle(); 
}

In the main method NotesMain, call the other methods:

public void NotesMain() { 
 try { 
   Session session = getSession(); 
   AgentContext agentContext = session.getAgentContext(); 
   Database notedDb = agentContext.getCurrentDatabase(); 
   System.out.println("ImportPersonInfo - start"); 
   initDB(); 
   runMain(notedDb); 
   System.out.println("ImportPersonInfo - end"); 
 } catch(Exception e) { 
   e.printStackTrace(); 
 } 
}

2.3. Configuring UserInfoConfig.xml to Use the Local Repository

As a prerequisite, there must be a primary key shared between the LDAP repository and the NSF repository. In this case, the uid field will contain the same values.

Edit the UserInfoConfig.xml file
Locate the </Storage> tag and add the new repository:

<Storage type="NOTES_CUSTOM_DB"> 
<StorageDetails DbName="secbookstore.nsf" View="vwIndex"/> 
<Details> 
<Detail Id="Dpto" FieldName="Dpto" Type="text/plain"/> 
<Detail Id="PhotoURL" FieldName="PhotoURL" Type="text/plain"/> 
<Detail Id="Photo" FieldName="photo" Type="image/jpeg"/> 
</Details> 
</Storage>

Locate the <ParamsSets> section and add the new fields:

<ParamsSets> 
  <Set SetId="0" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State,Dpto"/> 
  <Set SetId="1" params="MailAddress,Name,Title,Location,Telephone,Photo,Company,City,State,Dpto"/> 
</ParamsSets>

Locate the <BlackBoxConfiguration> section and add the new blackbox:

<BlackBox type="NOTES_CUSTOM_DB" name="com.ibm.sametime.userinfo.userinfobb.UserInfoNotesCustomBB" MaxInstances="4"/>

Save and close the file
Restart the Sametime Community server

3. Displaying the User Photo Stored in IBM Connections Profile

Finally, we will use photos stored in IBM Connections Profiles to display them in IBM Sametime.

In IBM Connections, profile photos are stored in the database, in the table EMPINST.PHOTO. Direct access to profile tables is not officially supported by IBM, but we will use it in this article.

We will add 2 main fields:

Photo: A RichText field used to store the binary photo used by the Sametime Connect Client
PhotoURL: URL of the photo used by the Sametime Web Client (Sametime Proxy)

To avoid comparing two files, we create the updated field, which stores the date when the photo was last updated.

3.1. Importing Photos from IBM Connections

Our agent is divided into 6 parts:

Defining variables
Initializing the DB2 JDBC Driver
Executing the query
Creating the image file
Creating or updating the document in the NSF repository
Main method

Since it follows the same approach as the previous section, we will only show the differences.

Procedure

Create a new agent via Create -> Design -> Agent

Field	Value
Name	ImportPhotosConnections
Alias	ImportPhotosConnections
Comment
Type	Java
Application	Secondary Book Store:\\<Sametime Server Name>

Click OK

Repeat steps 2, 3, 4 from section 2.2.

In the JavaAgent class, add new DB2 connection constants and global variables:

private static final String PHOTOS_TEMP_DIRECTORY = "c:\\temp\\photos\\img_"; 
private static final String PHOTO_URL_PREFIX = "http://connections.companyx.com.br/profiles/photo.do?uid="; 
private static final String SQL = 
        "SELECT E.PROF_UID UID, P.PROF_UPDATED UPDATED, P.PROF_IMAGE IMAGE " + 
        "FROM EMPINST.PHOTO P, " + 
        "EMPINST.EMPLOYEE E " + 
        "WHERE P.PROF_KEY=E.PROF_KEY"; 

String updated = ""; 
byte[] photo_bytes;

PHOTOS_TEMP_DIRECTORY stores the temporary directory for the photos. PHOTO_URL_PREFIX stores the URL to retrieve photos from IBM Connections.

Repeat step 6 from section 2.2.

Execute the query

For each row returned by the SELECT, create a user photo file in the temporary directory using the createImageFile method, then call updateOrCreateDocument.

private String createImageFile(String uid) throws Exception { 
 String filename = PHOTOS_TEMP_DIRECTORY + uid + ".jpg"; 
 File outFile = new File(filename); 
 FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(outFile); 
 fos.write(photo_bytes); 
 fos.close(); 
 return filename; 
} 

private void runMain(Database db) throws Exception { 
 Statement stmt = con.createStatement(); 
 System.out.println("runQuery - start"); 
 ResultSet rs = stmt.executeQuery(SQL); 
 System.out.println("runQuery - end"); 
 int i=0; 
 System.out.println("Iterating: " + i); 
 while (rs.next()) { 
   if (++i % 1000 == 0) System.out.println("Iterating: " + i); 
   uid = rs.getString("UID"); 
   if (uid == null) uid = ""; 
   updated = rs.getString("UPDATED"); 
   photo_bytes = rs.getBytes("IMAGE"); 
   String filename = createImageFile(uid); 
   updateOrCreateDocument(db, uid, filename);
 } 
 stmt.close(); 
 System.out.println("Total: " + i); 
}

Creating or updating the document in the NSF repository

Using the primary key stored in the string key, check whether the document exists. If it does not exist, create a new document; otherwise, check for changes and update it.

private void updateOrCreateDocument(Database db, String key) throws Exception { 
 View view = db.getView(UID_LOOKUP_VIEW_NAME); 
 Document doc = null; 
 boolean saveDoc = false; 
 doc = view.getDocumentByKey(key, true); 
 if (doc == null){ 
   doc = db.createDocument(); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("Form","person"); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("uid", uid); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("updated", updated); 
   doc.replaceItemValue("PhotoURL", PHOTO_URL_PREFIX + uid); 
   photo = doc.createRichTextItem("photo"); 
   photo.embedObject(EmbeddedObject.EMBED_ATTACHMENT, null, filename, null); 
   saveDoc = true; 
 } else { 
   if (!uid.equals("") && !uid.equals(doc.getItemValueString("uid"))){ 
     doc.replaceItemValue("uid", uid); saveDoc = true; 
   } 
   if (!updated.equals("") && !updated.equals(doc.getItemValueString("updated"))){ 
     doc.replaceItemValue("updated", updated); 
     doc.removeItem("photo"); 
     doc.replaceItemValue("PhotoURL", PHOTO_URL_PREFIX + uid); 
     photo = doc.createRichTextItem("photo"); 
     photo.embedObject(EmbeddedObject.EMBED_ATTACHMENT, null, filename, null); 
     saveDoc = true; 
   } 
 } 
 if (saveDoc) doc.save(true, false, true);    
 doc.recycle(); 
 view.recycle(); 
}

In the main method NotesMain, call the other methods.

3.2. Configuring UserInfoConfig.xml to Return Photos

Edit the UserInfoConfig.xml file
Locate the <Storage> section and add the new fields:

<Storage type="NOTES_CUSTOM_DB"> 
<StorageDetails DbName="secbookstore.nsf" View="vwIndex"/> 
<Details> 
  <Detail Id="Dpto" FieldName="Dpto" Type="text/plain"/> 
  <Detail Id="PhotoURL" FieldName="PhotoURL" Type="text/plain"/> 
  <Detail Id="Photo" FieldName="photo" Type="image/jpeg"/> 
</Details> 
</Storage>

Save and close the file
Restart the Sametime Community server

Conclusão

Este artigo descreveu como extender o IBM Sametime para prover informações aos usuários armazenadas em diversos repositórios. Mostramos como criar um repositório próprio buscando informações de outras fontes como um base SQL. E importando as fotos dos perfis do IBM Connections.

Caso voce tenha um Cluster de IBM Sametime Community Server, basta criar uma replica da base secbookstore.nsf e copiar o arquivo UserInfoConfig.xml para os demais servidores.

Espero que o artigo seja útil no seu dia como Administrador Sametime.

Recursos

Ver também

Mais Artigos sobre IBM Sametime