Home
Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
Installing
To install IBM® Connections, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
Post-installation tasks
After installation, you need to perform further tasks to ensure an efficient deployment.
Configuring additional IBM Connections applications
You must perform additional tasks to enable IBM Connections for the Orient Me home page, the Touchpoint interactive user experience, Community Libraries, Community Surveys, Metrics applications, and more.
Setting up stand-alone Elasticsearch
Deploy Elasticsearch as a stand-alone server for use with HCL Connections™, instead of deploying it as part of the Component Pack for Connections.
Configuring the Metrics feature for stand-alone Elasticsearch
Configure the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance to provide Metrics data for the HCL Connections™ deployment.
Verifying the Metrics functions on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance
Verify that the Metrics feature based on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance works properly with the HCL Connections™ deployment.

Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
- What's new in HCL Connections 6
  Find out about features that are new or updated in this release of HCL Connections.
- Product overview
  Learn how to deploy, customize, and administer the IBM Connections social networking product.
- Planning
  Before installing HCL Connections™, study the system requirements, deployment options, and documentation conventions.
- Installing
  To install IBM® Connections, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
  - The installation process
    Review the steps that are required to install IBM® Connections.
  - Pre-installation tasks
    Complete the following tasks before installing IBM® Connections. If you are migrating from a prior release of IBM Connections, do not complete the tasks for creating databases or populating the Profiles database. The migration process handles those tasks automatically.
  - Installing IBM® Connections
    Select the IBM® Connections applications that you plan to use and install them in a clustered deployment.
  - Post-installation tasks
    After installation, you need to perform further tasks to ensure an efficient deployment.
    - Registering custom widgets
      Register all custom and third-party widgets with Conenctions 6 to ensure they meet security requirements and can display in communities.
    - Reviewing the JVM heap size
      Review the size of the Java™ Virtual Machine heap and adjust it, if necessary, to avoid out-of-memory errors or to suit your hardware capabilities.
    - Configuring IBM® HTTP Server
      When you have successfully installed IBM® Connections to run on WebSphere® Application Server, you can configure IBM HTTP Server to handle web traffic.
    - Configuring the Home page administrator
      Create an administrator for Home page so that you can make changes to the application such as adding and removing widgets.
    - Configuring additional IBM Connections applications
      You must perform additional tasks to enable IBM Connections for the Orient Me home page, the Touchpoint interactive user experience, Community Libraries, Community Surveys, Metrics applications, and more.
      - Optional: Installing the Component Pack for Connections™
        The Component Pack for HCL Connections™ introduces new connectivity capabilities that enhance collaboration and boost productivity.
      - Setting up stand-alone Elasticsearch
        Deploy Elasticsearch as a stand-alone server for use with HCL Connections™, instead of deploying it as part of the Component Pack for Connections.
        Deploying stand-alone Elasticsearch
        Deploy Elasticsearch as a stand-alone instance in an HCL Connections™ deployment.
        Configuring the Metrics feature for stand-alone Elasticsearch
        Configure the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance to provide Metrics data for the HCL Connections™ deployment.
        Removing the SSL settings for type-ahead search
        Temporarily remove SSL settings that were configured for type-ahead search in an HCL Connections™ deployment, so that you can successfully enable Metrics.
        Configuring access to global Elasticsearch Metrics
        Configure the metrics-report-run security role to grant users the authority to view and interact with global metrics hosted by the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance in an HCL Connections™ deployment.
        Configuring access to Elasticsearch Metrics for communities
        Configure the community-metrics-run security role to grant users the authority to view community metrics hosted by the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance in an HCL Connections™ deployment.
        Configuring Metrics to connect to stand-alone Elasticsearch
        Configure communications between a stand-alone Elasticsearch instance and the HCL Connections™ deployment to support the Metrics feature.
        Configuring the Metrics SSL settings for Elasticsearch
        Configure the HCL Connections™ deployment's Metrics SSL settings to connect to the new stand-alone Elasticsearch instance.
        Deploying stand-alone Elasticsearch Metrics as your first use of metrics
        Deploying Elasticsearch-based metrics for HCL Connections™ involves testing the environment and then switching users to the Elasticsearch Metrics component.
        Verifying the Metrics functions on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance
        Verify that the Metrics feature based on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance works properly with the HCL Connections™ deployment.
        Configuring the Orient Me feature for stand-alone Elasticsearch
        If you are newly deploying Orient Me in Component Pack but already use stand-alone Elasticsearch for Metrics and Type-ahead Search features in your HCL Connections™ deployment, you can configure the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance to also provide Orient Me top updates data.
        Migrating data to Elasticsearch
        If you are moving to a stand-alone Elasticsearch instance from either the Component Pack for HCL Connections™, or from IBM® Cognos®, you can migrate existing data to the new deployment.
      - Setting up type-ahead search
        Enable type-ahead search in HCL Connections™ to suggest items in the search box based on content that is relevant to each user.
      - Installing Customizer Lite
        This topic describes how to install Customizer Lite. There are two deployment options, hereby referred to as Customizer Lite and Customizer Lite HA. Customizer Lite – the most basic deployment using a single Docker node running a single instance of each required service and Customizer Lite HA – a more resilient deployment using a pair (or more) of Docker nodes all running instances of each required service with requests load balanced across available nodes.
      - Optional: Installing Connections Touchpoint
        HCL Connections Touchpoint provides an interactive user experience that can be used for a wide variety of user scenarios, such as profile creation, community and network contact recommendations, organization polling and more.
      - Configuring IBM® Connections Content Manager for Libraries
        If you installed the IBM® Connections Content Manager add-on, you must configure FileNet® to work with IBM Connections Content Manager. Choose the instructions that match your deployment: either an existing FileNet deployment, which you installed independently before you installed IBM Connections or a new, integrated FileNet deployment that is part of a new IBM Connections installation.
      - Optional: Configuring IBM® Docs with CCM
        You can enable community members to edit files in Community libraries online if you have already installed IBM® Connections Docs.
      - Installing Community Surveys
        If you want to be able to conduct surveys within Communities to capture data and share it easily with your community in an activity stream, enable Community Surveys.
      - Setting up Cognos® Metrics to work with HCL Connections
        Install and configure your IBM Cognos® Metrics environment to work with HCL Connections.
    - Optional: Installing and configuring the Ephox Editors for IBM Connections
      IBM® Connections 6.0 CR5 can use the optional Ephox Editors: TinyMCE or Textbox.io, to replace the IBM Connections default rich text editor.
    - Optional post-installation tasks
      Complete the post-installation tasks that are relevant to your deployment.
  - Uninstalling IBM® Connections
    Uninstall IBM® Connections.
- Migrating and updating
  Migrate IBM® Connections and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest interim fixes or Cumulative Refresh (CR).
- Administering
  Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
- Customizing
  Customize IBM® Connections to fit your environment.
- Security
  IBM® Connections provides a flexible security infrastructure that supports an open, easily shareable data model.
- Mobile
  See the IBM Connections Mobile documentation for Connections Cloud and Connections on-premises.
- Developing
  Get information about how to use the APIs provided with IBM® Connections and how to use Connections Customizer to modify the Connections pages that are returned to users.
- Troubleshooting and support
  To isolate and resolve problems with your IBM® products, you can use the troubleshooting and support information. This information contains instructions for using the problem-determination resources that are provided with your IBM products, including HCL Connections™.

Verifying the Metrics functions on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance

Verify that the Metrics feature based on the stand-alone Elasticsearch instance works properly with the HCL Connections™ deployment.

Procedure

Log in to the Metrics UI as a user in the metrics-report-run role that was set as explained in Configuring access to global Elasticsearch Metrics, using the following address: https://your_Connections_server_host_name/metrics/orgapp#/
View a global report and verify that the data displays as "0" and that the Metrics UI looks like the following image.

The data on the UI might show as "0", or other numbers. The key is to verify the UI can show the data correctly, no matter what it is.

What to do next

When you are ready to back up your metrics data, see Backing up and restoring data for Elasticsearch-based components.

Rate this topic

5 stars 4 stars 3 stars 2 stars 1 star

Comment on this topic.

By clicking this box, you acknowledge that you are NOT a U.S. Federal Government employee or agency, nor are you submitting information with respect to or on behalf of one. HCL provides software and services to U.S. Federal Government customers through its partners immixGroup, Inc. Contact this team at https://hcltechsw.com/resources/us-government-contact. Do not include any personal data in this Comment box. Note: To report a problem or question about the product software, do not use this form. Instead, go to the HCL Software Support site.