Integrating with Connections

You can configure IBM Verse™ On-Premises to work with IBM Connections™.

Before you begin

Complete the procedure Configuring Verse On-Premises on a Domino mail server.

About this task

Integrating with Connections is optional. This integration leverages Connections profiles to enable business cards, photos, and electronic email signatures in Verse. It also enables Verse users to attach and download Connections files when composing and reading messages.

Requirements:
  • IBM Connections 5.5 CR1 or CR2.
  • The user email address in the Domino Person document Internet Address field must match the email address in the Connections profile. To retrieve information such as a photo, the Domino user address is encoded and a call is made to Connections. The Domino encoded address must match the Connections encoded address to retrieve the information.

This procedure describes the steps to install and configure Connections in your environment and then to enable it to work with IBM Verse On-Premises. If you have Connections 5.5, you do not have to set up a new environment.

For supplemental information on installing and configuring Connections, see these publications on developerWorks. If you are upgrading to CR1, see the document IBM Connections 5.5 CR1 upgrade, in particular.

Procedure

  1. Install IBM Connections 5.5 CR1 or later. See the Installing section of the IBM Connections 5.5 documentation.
    Note: If you upgraded from a Connections release that is earlier than 5.5, complete the procedure Upgrading older profiles.
  2. Configure the IBM HTTP Server that is used to access Connections. See the Configuring IBM HTTP Server section of the IBM Connections 5.5 documentation.
  3. Enable SSL on the IBM HTTP Server. See the topic Configuring IBM HTTP Server for an encrypted connection in the IBM Connections 5.5 documentation.
  4. Enable single sign-on for Domino. See the topic Enabling single sign-on for Domino in the IBM Connections 5.5 product documentation.
  5. Edit the IBM HTTP Server httpd.conf file as follows. This file is typically in the <IHS_ROOT>/conf directory. This step enables cross-origin resource sharing (CORS) so that Verse can access IBM Connections APIs.
    1. Make a backup copy of httpd.conf.
    2. Remove any comment symbols (#) from the following lines: 
      LoadModule headers_module modules/mod_headers.so
LoadModule rewrite_module modules/mod_rewrite.so
    3. Find the following two lines: 
      LoadModule was_ap22_module /opt/IBM/WebSphere/Plugins/bin/64bits/mod_was_ap22_http.so
WebSpherePluginConfig /opt/IBM/WebSphere/Plugins/config/webserver1/plugin-cfg.xml
      Copy the following lines and paste them directly after the two lines:
      RewriteEngine on

# Minor change to adjust for Cloud vs On-Premises API variation of parameter name
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} PUT
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^(.*)uid=(.*)
RewriteRule ^/profiles/photo.do /profiles/photo.do?%1userid=%2 [L]

# Added necessary CORS headers when Origin header present
Header unset Access-Control-Allow-Origin
SetEnvIf Origin "^https://(vop_server_hostname\.)?(domain_name)$" origin_is=$0
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Origin %{origin_is}e env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Credentials "true" env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "X-Requested-With, Content-Type, slug" env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Methods "POST, GET, OPTIONS, DELETE, PUT" env=origin_is

Header always set Access-Control-Max-Age "1000" env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Methods "POST, GET, OPTIONS, DELETE, PUT" env=origin_is
# Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "X-Requested-With, Content-Type, Origin, Authorization, Accept, Client-Security-Token, Accept-Encoding, slug" env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Allow-Headers "X-Requested-With, Cache-Control, Content-Language, Content-Type, Expires, Last-Modified, Pragma, slug, X-Update-Nonce" env=origin_is
Header always set Access-Control-Expose-Headers "Content-Disposition, Content-Encoding, Content-Length, Date, Transfer-Encoding, Vary, ETag, Set-Cookie, Location, Connection, X-UA-Compatible, X-LConn-Auth, X-LConn-UserId" env=origin_is

# Added a rewrite to respond with a 200 SUCCESS on every OPTIONS request.
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_METHOD} OPTIONS
RewriteRule .* - [R=200,L]

# Remove the Origin header if it exists for other requests (POST, GET, DELETE, PUT). Causes problems with Connections returning 403 response.
RequestHeader unset Origin env=origin_is
    4. Find the following line in the pasted text: 
      SetEnvIf Origin "^https://(vop_server_hostname\.)?(domain_name)$" origin_is=$0
      Edit this line:
      • Replace vop_server_hostname with the host name portion of the Verse On-Premises mail server name.
      • Replace domain_name with the domain of the Verse On Premises mail server.

      Escape with a backslash (\) any periods in the names. Add a separate line for each of your mail servers.

      For example, assume that your Connections server is https://connections.renovations.com and that your mail servers are: 
      https://mail1.uk.renovations.com
https://mail2.us.renovations.com
https://mail3.jp.renovations.com

      In this case, specify the following lines: 

      SetEnvIf Origin "^https://(mail1\.)?(uk\.renovations\.com)$" origin_is=$0
SetEnvIf Origin "^https://(mail2\.)?(us\.renovations\.com)$" origin_is=$0
SetEnvIf Origin "^https://(mail3\.)?(jp\.renovations\.com)$" origin_is=$0
  6. To enable Verse users to connect to the Connections server, add the following line to the notes.ini file in the Domino data directory: 
    VOP_LLN2_BSSUIServer_URL=https://ibm_http_server_hostname
    Note: If the setting is the last line in the notes.ini file, press ENTER after the line.
  7. Restart the Domino server: 
    Restart server