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Administering Connections 6.5
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6.5 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.
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.
Administering Profiles
Profiles provides two types of administrative capabilities: configuration settings and administrative commands. You change configuration settings and execute administrative commands by running scripts from the wsadmin command line.
Developing custom Tivoli® Directory Integrator assembly lines for Profiles
You can use IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator connectors to develop custom assembly-line scripts when you need to provide a specific type of function.

Administering Connections 6.5
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6.5 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
  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 HCL Connections social networking product.
- Planning
  Before installing HCL Connections™, study the system requirements, deployment options, and documentation conventions.
- Installing
  To install HCL Connections™, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
- Uninstalling HCL Connections
  Uninstall HCL Connections.
- Migrating and updating
  Migrate HCL Connections™ and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest deployment, 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.
  - Administering common areas
    Administer the common areas of HCL Connections.
  - Administering Activities
    Configure Activities to best meet the needs of your environment.
  - Administering Blogs
    Administer site-wide settings for Blogs from either the Blogs user interface or via the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Bookmarks
    You configure and administer Bookmarks using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to Bookmarks configuration settings require a restart of the Bookmarks server before they take effect. Changes made using administrative commands take effect immediately.
  - Administering Communities
    Configure and administer Communities using scripts accessed using the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server wsadmin client.
  - Administering Files
    You administer Files using the wsadmin client to specify properties in a configuration file, or run administrative commands.
  - Administering Forums
    Administer Forums by specifying properties in a configuration file or running administrative commands.
  - Administering the Home page
    You can administer site-wide settings for the Home page from the Home page administration user interface or using the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Libraries
    A Library provides the services of an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to Communities. To enable the use of Libraries, you must make some configuration changes to Connections and to each ECM system that you plan to use.
  - Administering Metrics
    Administer metrics in HCL Connections by modifying configuration settings, backing up data, and running commands to perform maintenance tasks.
  - Administering the News repository
    You administer the News repository using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to News configuration settings require node synchronization and a restart of the Home page server before they take effect.
  - Administering Profiles
    Profiles provides two types of administrative capabilities: configuration settings and administrative commands. You change configuration settings and execute administrative commands by running scripts from the wsadmin command line.
    - Running Profiles administrative commands
      Scripts are used to administer the Profiles application. These scripts use the AdminConfig object available in IBM® WebSphere® Application Server wsadmin client to interact with the Profiles server.
    - Changing Profiles configuration property values
      Configuration settings control how and when various Profiles operations take place. You can edit the settings to change the ways that profiles behave.
    - Tivoli® Directory Integrator Solution commands
      The following IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator Solution (tdisol) commands are available for managing profile data and performing user data synchronization tasks. These commands are also known as Assembly Lines.
    - Adding supplemental content to Profiles
      You can use IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator assembly-line commands to add photo files and pronunciation files for your users to the Profiles database.
    - Developing custom Tivoli® Directory Integrator assembly lines for Profiles
      You can use IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator connectors to develop custom assembly-line scripts when you need to provide a specific type of function.
      - Setting up your development environment
        Use the IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator Configuration Editor to create custom Tivoli Directory Integrator scripts. Set up the development environment so that the editor can access a separate set of the HCL Connections Profiles Tivoli Directory Integrator connector source files than those used by the installed product.
      - Using a custom source repository connector
        By creating custom source repository connectors, you can integrate data from non-LDAP sources when you are populating Profiles with user data.
      - Using the ProfileConnector
        Use the ProfileConnector to retrieve, create, update, and reset profile entries in the employee, profile extension, and other employee tables in the Profiles database. The connector flattens these tables into a single view of the profile data. The ProfileConnector can also be used to change the user state and change whether a user profile is listed as a manager. The ProfileConnector is the only supported way to perform these operations on a profile using IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator as IBM Connections does not support the use of direct database access.
      - Using the PhotoConnector
        Use the PhotoConnector to retrieve, create, update, and delete photo entries in the Photo table in the Profiles database.
      - Using the PronunciationConnector
        Use the PronunciationConnector to retrieve, create, update, and delete pronunciation entries in the Pronunciation table in the Profiles database.
      - Using the CodesConnector
        Use the CodesConnector to retrieve, create, update, and delete code entries in various codes tables in the Profiles database.
    - Managing profile content
      You can enable the active content filter to prevent users from embedding malicious content in text input fields in Profiles. You can also use administrative commands to update or remove inappropriate information in fields to which you do not have owner access.
    - Configuring profile features
      Configure some Profiles featuresby modifying the profiles-policy.xml file. You can enable, disable, and set access control settings for the following Profiles features, according to profile type.
    - Configuring widgets in Profiles
      To configure existing widgets or to make custom widgets available for use in Profiles, you modify settings in the widgets-config.xml file.
    - Configuring Profiles events
      Use configuration settings to control how you want the events generated by Profiles to be handled in your deployment for auditing purpose.
    - Managing Profiles scheduled tasks
      Use the ProfilesScheduledTaskService administrative commands to manage the tasks scheduled for Profiles.
    - Administering cache
      You can modify settings in the profiles-config.xml file to configure the full report-to and object caches for Profiles. Use Profiles administrative commands when you want to enable, disable, or reload the full report-to chain cache.
    - Managing the Profiles search operation
      Use Profiles configuration settings to control how the search operation displays search results.
    - Monitoring statistics and metrics for Profiles
      Use the Profiles statistics capabilities to monitor operations and product usage.
    - Configuring the vCard export application for Profiles
      Configure settings in the profiles-config.xml file to specify the character set encoding options used to export vCards.
    - Making photos cachable in secure environments
      If your Profiles deployment is configured to prevent profile data from being accessible to readers, you can opt to make just user photos cachable.
    - Enabling the use of pronunciation files in an HTTPS environment
      Ensure that Profiles users can save and play pronunciation files in an HTTPS environment by defining a rule in the IBM® HTTP server’s configuration file.
    - Managing the Profiles event log
      Use Profiles administrative commands to manage the Profiles event log.
    - Configuring advanced settings in Profiles
      Configure advanced settings in Profiles by adding information to the <properties> element in the profile-config.xml file.
  - Administering Search
    The Search service provides a point for performing full text and tag searches across all the deployed HCL Connections applications. Search is a required application for all HCL Connections applications, and it must be running to prevent unexpected behaviors in the other applications.
  - Administering Wikis
    Configure and administer Wikis by using the wsadmin client to run administrative commands or by editing the configuration file directly.
  - Administering Component Pack for Connections
    Monitor the services for Component Pack for HCL Connections™ and troubleshoot issues.
- Customizing
  Customize HCL Connections™ to fit your environment.
- Security
  HCL Connections™ provides a flexible security infrastructure that supports an open, easily shareable data model.
- Mobile
  See the HCL Connections™ Mobile documentation for Connections Cloud and Connections on-premises.
- Developing
  Get information about how to use the APIs provided with HCL 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 HCL 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™.

Developing custom Tivoli® Directory Integrator assembly lines for Profiles

You can use IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator connectors to develop custom assembly-line scripts when you need to provide a specific type of function.

For example, if you do not want to populate Profiles with photos or pronunciation files using the standard method covered in Adding supplemental content to Profiles, you might want to use the Photo connector or Pronunciation connector as an alternative.

Tivoli® Directory Integrator connectors are components that are used to access and update information sources. Connectors allow you to build your assembly lines without having to handle the technical details of working with different data stores, systems, services, or transports. Each type of connector suppresses implementation details and specifically handles the details of data source access. For more information about programming IBM® Tivoli® Directory Integrator connectors, see the SDI Reference Guide.

HCL Connections provides the following connectors:

Profile connector
Photo connector
Pronunciation connector
Codes connector

Related information is available in the IBM Security Directory Integrator solutions for HCL Connections real-world scenarios wiki article.

Note: The only supported methods for writing data or modifying data in the Profiles database are the following:

Using the supplied Profiles Tivoli® Directory Integrator assembly lines
Using the Profiles ATOM administrative API
Developing custom assembly lines using the Profiles TDI connectors

Writing directly to the Profiles database, including using Tivoli® Directory Integrator database connectors to do so, is not supported and can lead to data loss and application malfunction.

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