© 2014 IBM Corporation

Activity Streams IntegrationIBM Connections 5.0 Workshop

Author: Paul GodbyIBM Ecosystem DevelopmentDuration: 45 minutes

Agenda

● Overview● Components of an Event● Components of OpenSocial Gadgets● Deployment / Configuration● APIs

Social Application Container

● Social networking sites attempt to increase participation by allowing 3rd parties to build new applications

● A site that hosts a 3rd party application is a container● The app can leverage the social data of the user base● The app drives new users back to root site to build user base for it's service● Container builds more value for users by providing more content

● A container typically consists of at least 3 categories of user-based social information

1) User profile – Information a developer can use to provide a personalized user experience

2) Network – friends and relevant social contacts

3) Activity Stream – user's news feed that provides aggregated view of network updates● Contains events and the means to act upon them

● Updating the Activity Stream allows developers to reach a new audience (from a user's network) and drive traffic to their applications

Activity Stream

Activity Stream entries

● Recent comments● Image preview● In-line actions

Embedded Experiences

● Social application built on top of the infrastructure defined by the container● 3rd party application developers build on top of existing container

● Container development ensures features are up to date, adds/removes supported features (ie: OAuth)

● Application developers can spend more time on their own application

● In IBM Connections:● OpenSocial Gadgets that display a preview of a Connections application object

(File, Status Update, Blog Entry, etc). ● Allow simple social actions on the object such as commenting and liking.● Display from activity stream UI in a popup

Open Social gadgets

● Gadget URL included in activity stream event posted from an application● Event can point to IBM Connections gadgets or external gadgets that will be

displayed in the EE popup

iWidgets vs OpenSocial Gadgets

iWidget OpenSocial Gadget

Activity Streams * X

Share Dialog X

Home Page X X

Profiles X

Communities X

Rendering inline iFrame

Specification iWidget 1.0 OpenSocial 2.0

● Recommendation: Use an OpenSocial Gadget when possible● Provides better integration and code reuse opportunities with other products

– Example: IBM Notes / Domino 9

* Available in the following applications: Home Page, Profiles, Communities

Agenda

● Overview● Components of an Event● Components of OpenSocial Gadgets● Deployment / Configuration● APIs

Data Model

● Serialized using the JSON data format using the ActivityStrea.ms specification● Event tells the story of a person performing an action on or with an object

● Primarily consists of: – Actor = describes the entity that performed the activity

– Verb = identifies the action the activity describes

– Object = describes the primary object of the activity

– Target = target of the activity, dependent on the verb

● Goal is to provide enough metadata that the consumer (social application container) can present it in a rich human-friendly format

● Consider the following sentence:

Martin posted a blog entry to his blog.

Actor

Verb

Object

Target

Activity Stream sample event

● Minimum data for posting an event in IBM Connections● Actor = user performing the action● To = target user's stream (if left out, event will post to actor's stream)

Reference an OpenSocial Gadget

● Add a “gadget” section to the “openSocial → embed” JSON object

Include additional data from 3rd party system

● Add a “context” section to the “openSocial → embed” JSON object

● You can retrieve this data later using OpenSocial APIs in your gadget

IBM Connections Extensions

● Saved● Store an event to easily revisit at a future time

● Actionable● Flag an event as important and requires the user's attention

● Rollup● Add to existing event (ie: a comment) and “roll it up” to the top of the stream

@mentions

● Requires IBM Connections 4.5 CR4+● Must set the event verb to “mention”● Requires the IBM Connections uUid and a display name

URL Preview

● Requires IBM Connections 5.0+● Must use an API to first retrieve the meta data, then add as attachment to the event

● Oembed / meta-data API:● Returns meta-data associated with a given url passed in input● API shaped on oEmbed standard - http://oembed.com/● Format for allowing an embedded representation of a URL on third party sites● /opengraph/basic/{anonymous}/api/embed?url=<url to HTML page to extract data>

● Image proxy resizer API:● /connections/thumbnail/api/imageProxy?url=<original image

url>&maxHeight=<maxHeight>&maxWidth=<maxWidth>● Return the image resized, with ration maintained● Return png format● Accept most common image formats (jpg, png, bmp) as input

Activity Stream Events: Important things to know!

● Gotchas:● Data will be deleted after predefined interval (default is 30 days)

– Unless marked “Saved” or “Actionable”

● Events only contain references to items in other systems● The Activity Stream is NOT a data repository

● When designing your application:● Do not assume a user will see the event...● Users should continute to be able to perform workflow actions in external systems

Agenda

● Overview● Components of an Event● Components of OpenSocial Gadgets● Deployment / Configuration● APIs

OpenSocial Gadget

● Application built using XML, JavaScript, CSS, and HTML● Allows developers to easily write useful web applications that work anywhere on

the web without modification● XML file allows the container to load the application content and information

<?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8”?>

<Module>

<ModulePrefs … /> title, author, description, thumbnail, height, width, OAuth config, etc.

<UserPref … /> provide key/value storage of data using JavaScript

<Content ...> defines content loaded for different views

<![CDATA[

Gadget Content

]]>

</Content>

</Module>

OpenSocial Gadget sample

Alternatively, you can reference content on an external server...

HTML markup embedded in “Content” section of XML

Agenda

● Overview● Components of an Event● Components of OpenSocial Gadgets● Deployment / Configuration● APIs

OpenSocial Gadget deployment

1) Declare Home Page administrator(s)

2) Home Page administrators can:● add/remove gadgets● enable/disable gadgets

Add/Remove gadgets

● OpenSocial gadgets must be registered, or added to the existing “whitelist”● Prevents unknown and untrusted gadgets from being introduced into the system

● Use the Home Page administration UI to add/remove gadgets

Enable/Disable gadgets

Agenda

● Overview● Components of an Event● Components of OpenSocial Gadgets● Deployment / Configuration● APIs

SBT SDK – Post an event

● Build the JSON object

SBT SDK – Post an event (cont)

● Post the event using the ActivityStream service

SBT SDK – Retrieve Activity Stream entries

● Retrieve the list of entries using the ActivityStream service

Delete Activity Stream entries

● Deletion available only for select users● User must be mapped to the Admin role in the WidgetContainer application

● Issue an HTTP DELETE request to the specified URL and include event Ids

● Delete a single event● /connections/opensocial/rest/activitystreams/@me/@all/@all/<event id>

● Delete multiple events● /connections/opensocial/rest/activitystreams/@me/@all/@all/<eventId1>,<eventId2>

Thanks!

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