IBM Lotus Quickr V8.5 for Domino streamlines user experience and is designed to reduce total cost of ownership

At a glance

IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino makes it easier to share, save, and search important business content while collaborating with colleagues, clients, and partners. Performance improvements and administrative improvements are designed to reduce the total cost of ownership of Lotus Quickr for Domino.

New capabilities include:

• Streamlined user experience
• Native integration with Enterprise Content Management systems
• Feature enhancements you requested including recycle bin and lists
• More extensibility for easy customization
• More administrative control, reporting, and deployment options

Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino integrates with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) repositories. New ECM integration capabilities are:

• Custom defined mandatory metadata entry, through the Web interface and via Lotus Quickr Connectors
• Direct connection with ECM repositories that allows native display and editing of ECM content directly from the Lotus Quickr Web interface
• Parametric search of ECM content

Adding features you requested makes Lotus Quickr 8.5 for Domino a competitive and compelling solution for managing business content. Some of the new features included in Quickr 8.5 for Domino are:

• Easy document check-in, check-out, and versioning from the Web interface and Lotus Quickr Connectors
• A recycle bin for soft delete capability, which maintains document security
• Round trip editing in all browsers, not just Internet Explorer
• Team calendar overlays to your personal calendar in Lotus Notes or Microsoft® Outlook
• Folder level access control making it easy to secure or share content appropriately
• Intuitive lists function to organize data sets and to provide an easy way to visualize, edit, and analyze tabular data
• Representational State Transfer (REST) services for page and document uploads and expansion of Web service APIs that provide additional extensibility and customization

Additional enhancements make managing Quickr 8.5 for Domino easier:

• Easier to manage with new and easier to use administrative control, reporting, and deployment options.
• Easy to upgrade with support for direct upgrade from Quickr 8.2 to Quickr 8.5 for Domino.
• Expanded and stored system usage statistics that allow trend analysis and easier optimization.
• Multilingual Lotus Quickr servers that are supported for organizations who use different languages. You no longer need to deploy multiple Lotus Quickr servers to support more than one language.
• Supports Windows single sign-on so end users can leverage their Windows logon for the Lotus Quickr browser UI and Lotus Quickr Connectors.
• Linux server support provides more choice of operating systems.

As I announced here on Aug 16th, SNAPPS was working on some user-focused plug-in modules for the "My Places" area of Lotus Quickr for Domino. Well today I can happily say it is a fait accompli, and ready for production! We've developed three to start with, and more are in the works. The Modules work with versions 8.1, 8.2, and 8.5 (beta or GA, when that comes). I've detailed them below, and you should see screenshots very soon - but the code is ready and evals are downloadable now. Our final stress test simulated what would likely be the largest single-server Quickr installation in the world, so I think we're ready!

Favorites Module
The Favorites Module gives end users the ability to - with a simple click of the mouse - create a link to their most often-used places at the top of the My Places list. Once there, the user can reorder the list, change the name of the link to what they want, or remove them from the list. In the My Places list, places that are already Favorites have a visual cue of a gold star next to the name. The Module is simple, intuitive, and one of the most requested features in the Quickr product. The Favorites module is licensed per user.

Custom Tab Module
The Custom Tab Module lets you add your own tab to the My Places area, with your own HTML and Javascript. It can be as simple as "Company News," "Privacy Policies," or "Usage Guidelines." Or, you can make it as complex as a charting application, dashboard, aggregation of data from other sources - there really is no limit to what you can do with this extra page! SNAPPS is of course available to develop your custom content for these more complex use cases. The Custom Tab Module is licensed per server.

InfoBox Module
The InfoBox Module lets you add your own text or HTML on the left side of the screen in one of five ways. You can create a separate box above or below IBM's "Tips" box, you can prepend your text in the same Tips box, append to the end of it, or replace it entirely! The InfoBox Module is licensed per server. However, if you purchase either the Favorites or Custom Tab Modules, we'll give you a license of the InfoBox Module as a bonus!

After angsting for a few weeks about building a new website, registration process, and all the beta testing involved with just the evaluation process, we decided to use what we already had - QuickrTemplates.com. Thousands of Quickr users, administrators and developers are already registered there, so we have built a second tab (once you're logged in) for Product Evals. It was very important to us to keep it clear that everything on the primary list of templates is still free! If it's been a while since you've logged into QuickrTemplates.com (and it shouldn't be - we updated the freebies just a couple weeks ago), simply enter your email address and click "Reset Password" and you'll get a new password immediately. Then log in, click on Product Evals, and all you need is right there on one page - downloads, instructions, and the key request file.

Lotus Quickr Domino 8.5 Beta upgrade complete

We have completed the upgrade of our Lotus Quickr Domino server to the 8.5 Beta version for everyone to try out!!  This upgrade took slightly longer than expected due to the number of places that we have (we'll need to do some archiving soon), but was very straight forward.  Please try it out and let us know what you think by posting comments and any issues that you may encounter to the Lotus Quickr Forum or send us an e-mail.

HTTP JVM: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect
HTTP JVM: at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
HTTP JVM: at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:59)
HTTP JVM: at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:41)
HTTP JVM: at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:528)
HTTP JVM: at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection$6.run(HttpURLConnection.java:1305)
HTTP JVM: at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(AccessController.java:251)
HTTP JVM: at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getChainedException(HttpURLConnection.java:1299)
HTTP JVM: at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:953)
HTTP JVM: at java.net.HttpURLConnection.getResponseCode(HttpURLConnection.java:386)
HTTP JVM: at com.lotus.quickplace.util.QuickrSupportUtil.doPost(QuickrSupportUtil.java:270)
HTTP JVM: at com.lotus.quickplace.util.QuickrSupportUtil.doGet(QuickrSupportUtil.java:133)
HTTP JVM: at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:499)
HTTP JVM: at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:588)
HTTP JVM: at lotus.domino.servlet.DominoServletInvoker.executeServlet(DominoServletInvoker.java:296)
HTTP JVM: at lotus.domino.servlet.DominoServletInvoker.service(DominoServletInvoker.java:237)
HTTP JVM: at lotus.domino.servlet.ServletManager.service(ServletManager.java:258)
HTTP JVM: Caused by:
HTTP JVM: java.net.ConnectException: Connection timed out: connect

New IBM Social Software to Help Enterprises Securely Manage Files, Blogs and Wikis

Today at the Enterprise 2.0 conference in Boston, IBM announced new social software called IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for WebSphere Portal to help workers connect and adapt to information and insight, including files, blogs, and wikis in a rapidly changing business environment.

ebizQ received the following:

The software, which offers a higher level of integration with a variety of IBM and Microsoft offerings than the previous version, is available now.



Rheinmetall AG tested the new software. “Lotus Quickr 8.5 software will help our employees cope with daily business challenges and collaborate more efficiently with coworkers, customers and suppliers,” said Markus Bentele, Corporate CIO, Rheinmetall AG.

A recent study by IBM found that 98 percent of CEOs need to restructure the way their organizations work; 5.3 hours is wasted per employee per week due to inefficient processes. Two hours is spent per employee per day looking for the right information and expertise within an organization. IBM’s social software can help alleviate this problem because it helps keep global work teams better connected and more able to deliver results.

IBM Lotus Quickr helps teams create content, collaborate and work fast online together. It’s a companion product to Lotus Connections, software that empowers business professionals to develop, nurture and remain in contact with the network of their colleagues; respond quickly to business opportunities by calling upon expertise in their network; and discuss and refine new creative ideas with communities of coworkers, partners and customers.

• Enables the discovery of enterprise content and provides seamless access to business documents across the organization, while leveraging collaboration tools and every day business applications (e-mail, Office, and other tasks)
• Provides organizations with the ability to handle content as a secure corporate asset in an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system, allowing content to participate in Business Process Management, and to be managed in accordance with content discovery, auto classification, as well as compliance and retention policies

• Transfer collaborative content from Lotus Quickr to an ECM repository
• Incorporate existing ECM content inside collaborative team places
• Search Lotus Quickr and ECM content from a Lotus Quickr user interface
• Search IBM Content Manager and IBM FileNet Content Manager content from common desktop and e-mail applications
• Use the e-mail and desktop Place connectors to directly interact with content in IBM Content Manager and IBM FileNet Content Manager
• Use direct connect iWidgets to natively interact with content against IBM Content Manager and IBM FileNet Content Manager
• Extend advanced ECM services and function to broader collaborative team services and document management environments

IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for WebSphere Portal delivers:

• New user experience
• Native bridging with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) repositories
• More administrative control
• New library portlet to integrate Lotus Quickr content into WebSphere Portal applications
• Infrastructure update and expansion, including support for IBM WebSphere Portal V6.1.5

IBM Lotus Quickr Connectors 8.5 provides:

• Users with the ability to easily access and contribute shared content in Lotus Quickr team places and ECM systems directly from popular desktop applications
• Integration with Lotus Quickr and ECM systems from Lotus Notes, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Symphony, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Outlook, and Microsoft Windows Explorer

IBM Lotus Quickr 8.5 for WebSphere Portal provides user interface enhancements, increased integration, streamlined administration, and infrastructure updates. It includes:

• Updated browser theme to give users a consistent experience across IBM products, including Lotus Connections and WebSphere Portal.
• Simplification of frequent user actions such as navigation within a place and common library, and document management actions.
• New rich text editor for browser-based creation of content. The same text editor is used across IBM products, such as Lotus Connections, giving end users a common experience.
• Increased integration between Lotus Quickr and Lotus Connections, including top-line navigation, use of the person card, and integrated search menu.
• Simplification of member management inside Quickr places to facilitate end-user self-service.
• New place catalog with tag-based navigation that simplifies locating places, particularly in large Lotus Quickr deployments.
• Enhanced integration with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) repositories, including new "direct connect" Web-based component that allows users to natively display and interact with ECM content from within a Lotus Quickr place.
• Parametric search of ECM content.
• Enhancements to Lotus Quickr Connectors to better support ECM content (refer to Software Announcement ZP08-0602, dated December 09, 2008.
• Easier, more flexible management tools with new administrator console that provides more complete user and place statistics, enhanced backup and recovery tools, and simplified place customization.
• New library portlet to integrate Lotus Quickr content into WebSphere Portal applications.
• Support for WebSphere Portal V6.1.5.
• Other infrastructure platform updates including AIX V6.1 64 bit, Windows 2008 64 bit, SLES 10, SLES 64 bit on System z, Oracle 10.2, Internet Explorer 8 on Windows, Firefox 3.5 on Windows, Linux, and Mac.

Using Lotus Quickr Connectors 8.5 so users can easily and naturally work together on content and access content contributed by colleagues directly from their favorite desktop applications. The connectors support check-in and check-out to help manage the process of multiple authors, and version control to ensure that everyone always has the latest copy of a document. Lotus Quickr Connectors 8.5 is included with other Lotus Quickr offerings and is also available separately for access to other content repositories such as ECM systems.

• Mandatory metadata enforcement - new, simple and intuitive interface to enter and enforce entry of metadata for documents.
• Notes integration - simple drag-and-drop of Lotus Notes e-mails into Lotus Quickr places.
• Sametime integration - drag-and-drop documents into a Lotus Sametime chat windows and Web conferences.
• Microsoft Office integration - native integration into the Office 2007 "ribbon."
• User-initiated publication to a content server that helps manage performance -- particularly useful in low bandwidth situations.
• Launch a search dialog from the context of a desktop connector.
• Support for third-party authentication tools, such as SiteMinder and Tivoli Access Manager.
• Support for single sign-on tools, such as SPNEGO.
• Support for multiuser installation of the connectors on a shared workstation.

Troubleshooting IBM Lotus Sametime and IBM Lotus Quickr integration issues
               
Level: Introductory
02 Apr 2010

By Casey Brown, Purvi Trivedi, and Stephen Shepherd

This white paper provides a step-by-step guide to isolating root causes of IBM Lotus Sametime and IBM Lotus Quickr integration issues, including the configuration areas to check, for example, Domino Names.nsf, QPconfig.xml, STconfig.nsf, and firewall settings. In addition, we provide relevant debug parameters specific to hosting IBM Lotus Domino Servers, Quickr Servers, and Sametime Servers, to help pinpoint where Sametime and Quickr integration configuration fails.

In this article:
Introduction
Setting up SSO
Authentication / LDAP configuration
Authetnication / native Domino Directory
Configuration and copying files
STLinks troubleshooting
Home Sametime server
Understanding and troubleshooting dual-directory environments
Other troubleshooting areas
Best practices for Quickr Server
Best practices for Sametime Server
Working with Lotus Technical Support
Conclusion
Resources
About the authors

Blackberry Client for Lotus Quickr from Stuart McIntyre on Vimeo.

Demonstration of the new client for Lotus Quickr.

Originally uploaded to http://www.youtube.com/watch?hl=en-GB&v=PViUhAZITsc - reposted to allow embedding on The Quickr Blog http://quickrblog.com

Alfresco Software, the leader in open source enterprise content management (ECM), today announced the immediate availability of Alfresco Community Edition 3.3 for download. This release includes a range of content services for developers, including integrations with IBM Lotus Social software and a preview of an upcoming Google Docs integration. With LGPL licensing and enhancements to document and web content management (WCM) functionality, Community 3.3 is also the first ECM tool to enable developers to deliver content-rich business applications leveraging CMIS 1.0 open source standards.

“From CMIS 1.0-compliance that will ‘future proof’ content application development, to LGPL licensing, Community 3.3 offers a range of new features and functionality that will continue to extend the free distribution and presence of Alfresco open source ECM,” said John Newton, CTO, Alfresco Software. “The enhanced content services in Alfresco Community 3.3 are designed to help organizations better manage web presence with tools designed to simplify the process of building content-rich web applications using CMIS.”

IBM Lotus – Building on the ‘technology preview’ of the integration between Alfresco and IBM Lotus software products (Lotus Quickr, Lotus Connections and Lotus Notes), this integration provides a more open platform and full-featured solution than Microsoft SharePoint.
Google Docs – Alfresco’ s integration with Google Docs provides users with full online editing capabilities, removing the need to use office applications, such as Microsoft Office to modify or update content.  The integration will be previewed at AIIM Expo and available for download in Alfresco Community in May.

Semler IT is part of the Semler Group, the largest family-owned car importer in Denmark. The group employs 1,600 people and imports Volkswagen, Audi, Seat, Škoda and Porsche vehicles, which are sold through a network of 200 dealerships across the country. Semler IT employs 60 people, and provides IT services, support and consultancy for the other group companies and the dealership network.

Business need:
Semler IT's existing intranet had been designed by external consultants, and could not easily be developed by the in-house team. To reduce development costs, the company wanted to move to a new technology platform.
Solution:

Semler IT deployed Neo.Dashboard from IBM Business Partner Opus Neo. Based on IBM Lotus Quickr, Neo.Dashboard provides a highly versatile intranet platform that users can personalise with RSS feeds, Google Gadgets and other Web 2.0 technologies.

Benefits:
Neo.Dashboard is easy for the in-house team to maintain and develop – and should deliver an estimated reduction in ongoing costs of more than 50 percent. The flexible Lotus Quickr platform enables simple integration with email, calendars and applications. Employees can personalise their own homepages, improving the user experience and encouraging them to make regular use of the intranet.

“We immediately recognised Neo.Dashboard as the right solution for the new intranet,” says Thomas Hansen. “It leverages the flexibility of Lotus Quickr to enable the integration of all sorts of content – from text, pictures and video through to Web 2.0 technologies such as Google Gadgets and RSS feeds. Adopting Neo.Dashboard meant that there would be no more need to build portlets to add new features. Instead, everything could be handled via simple iFrames, and we already had all the skills we needed in-house.”

The first phase of the project was to migrate the existing intranet content over to the new platform, giving Semler an intranet that runs on the Lotus Quickr platform and displays data from Lotus Domino databases and several internal and external Web sites. In the future, the intranet will also display data from the company’s Quickr places.

“The intranet is one of the most important channels Semler Group uses to communicate with its employees, so we wanted to make sure that the new solution would be as easy to use as the old one,” says Thomas Hansen. “To maximise user acceptance, we decided to replicate the look and feel of the existing intranet as far as possible, before we started to add anything new.”

With the new platform running smoothly, the team began to introduce new features. Integration with Lotus Notes and Domino enables users to access their email and calendars, as well as a number of Lotus Domino databases and applications.

“For example, we have an application that allows staff to pre-book their own cars into our repair shops for servicing,” comments Thomas Hansen. “We used to handle this process by email, but now it’s much easier – they can make pre-bookings directly into the repair shop’s Lotus Domino database via Neo.Dashboard.”

In the future, Semler IT plans to integrate other systems with the Neo.Dashboard solution – including the company’s IBM Cognos Business Intelligence platform. This is intended to give executives a simple, at-a-glance view of important key performance indicators, making it easier for them to get the information they need to make important decisions.

Thomas Hansen says: “The beauty of the solution is that this kind of thing is very easy to implement. We have a lot of experience with the Lotus Quickr platform in-house, and its tight integration with Lotus Domino means that we can surface all sorts of applications quickly and easily, with no need for help from external consultants. The initial cost of the Neo.Dashboard solution was 80 percent less than our previous intranet, and we estimate that ongoing maintenance and development costs should be at least 50 percent lower.”

Last night, amidst the buzz in Cupertino about the launch of the iPad, we at SNAPPS quietly got an email notification that the fruits of Julian's labor for the past few months, SnappFilesTM, is now available for sale on the Apple app store. "Sale" is a bit of a misnomer, since like many of our other "SNAPPS Labs" efforts, the inaugural version of SnappFiles is free. Yep, free. Can't think of a better price.

So what is SnappFiles? It's fairly easy to grok. Start it up, point it to a Lotus Quickr server (Domino or J2EE), and browse for your files. If there's a viewer, open and read them on the device. Or, send a link to the page and file to anyone with one click. That's it. Pretty easy, huh?

Here are a few screenshots. Because it's a native app (vs. a browser app, which Julian also developed when he was getting started), it looks amazing, flows very smoothly, is very responsive, and follows all the Apple human interface standards. It's really slick, works great with PDFs, Office docs, images and anything else with a viewer. It even works with several of the Quickr Templates including QPhotos.

And, it will work straight away on the iPad when it's released. In fact, I think it will be a killer app for iPad in business - ECM integration - as the format is so good for reading documents.

I wanted to let you know about the Customisation Samples Template that we published onto OpenNTF along with a reference document on the Quickr Wiki by the Lotus Quickr SEAL Team.

I'm not sure if you have seen this before? We are trying to get the word out to the Quickr Community that there is somewhere to get Quickr Code & Quickr Samples. And it is also somewhere for people to add code as well. This is going to be an ongoing project and we will be adding more Templates. The Next Template that we will be releasing is a Media template, this will happen in a few weeks..

OpenNTF is a software development community aimed at collaborating on Lotus Notes/Domino applications and to release the applications as open source. In January 2009 IBM announced that we had agreed to sponsor a collaboration with OpenNTF.  Following on from this we are going to be placing some Lotus Quickr Domino Templates onto OpenNTF.

The Customisation Samples Template is designed to assist users to start customising Quickr Domino Places. It provides easy to follow examples of the broad customisations that can be done using - Forms, Placebots, The Extended Javasscript file and Themes

Wiki Article: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/lqwiki.nsf/dx/The_Quickr_Domino_Customisation_Samples_Template_on_www.OpenNTF.org

OpenNTF Catalog: http://www.openntf.org/catalogs/a2cat.nsf/topicThread.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=093E45ABCC25088786257693003F4256

OpenNTF Project System: http://openntf.org/Projects/pmt.nsf/ProjectLookup/Quickr%20Domino%20Customisation%20Samples%20Template

The Customisation Samples Template



Each folder is broken down into the 6 different areas of customising with explanations and samples of how to customise in each area.

Example of a Folder covering a HTML form (Photo)


The areas covered include.

• Simple Forms: How a standard Simple Form works, What are the different types of workflow that can be used with Simple forms and then how Versioning works.
• Microsoft Office Forms: How to create Microsoft Office forms with examples of MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint forms
• HTML Forms: How to create a HTML form in Quickr and examples of what can be done. Examples included are
• Photo form where a photo is displayed when published rather than just seen as an attached file.
• Video form which plays an attached flash-compatible Video.
• Feed form, which can display an RSS or ATOM feed.
• Audio form, a published page can have audio files played from the page.
• WebCam form, this published page can launch a connected webcam so that a user can take a snapshot and then save it.
• PlaceBots: Placebots which are triggered when a document is getting submitted or is triggered from a Schedule.
• OnSubmission: This Placebot is triggered when a Simple Form is submitted, it will take data(Company Name) from the form and create a new folder. The method for creating the new folder is that it takes a copy of a previously created folder and uses this to create the new folder. This allows for an easy way to upgrade if the Quickr folder structure is changed by the development team. Simply create a new folder and use it as the template for creating the new folders. The Placebot also moves the page published with the Simple form into the new folder.
• Scheduled: Each night a Placebot runs which checks the pages to see if a page is Active or InActive, If there is InActive pages then an email is sent to a nominated person and informs them to amend the InActive pages.
• Extended JavaScript: Tagging Box is added with the extended javascript file quickr81_ext.js. This loads in the browser after the Theme files have been loaded.
• Themes: There are 2 themes used in the Place, Theme one has some simple customisation (images, colour, icons...etc) and Theme two is the same as Theme one with some advanced customisation (content on the left "lotusColLeft" moved to the right side).

Following meetings with the IBM team at Lotusphere last week, I am pleased to announce that DLI is developing a connector for Lotus Quickr.  This will allow Quickr users to publish content to Docova, to leverage Docova's advanced document management features such as workflow and version control.  Development is expected to be completed in February 2010.

• A significant clarification of the Quickr roadmap, particularly with reference to:
  • Domino vs. J2EE platforms.  This is still an issue for many customers. Which one to pick? Do they need both? Which features are in one but not the other? Distributed vs. Centralised? Which one does IBM recommend? Which one do I recommend? Which one do ISVs support (shown just yesterday in the RIM announcement - J2EE only)?  I'd like to hear whether both platforms feature in the future or whether there will be some separation of the two products, and possibly merging of aspects of Quickr with other more prominent Lotus products.
  • Quickr vs. Connections. There is clearly significant overlap between Quickr and Connections, particularly on the J2EE platform.  This has been further highlighted by the inclusion of Files and Wikis from Connections 2.5 into the entitlement for Quickr.  Customer are again confused - which one is right for them? Teams vs. Communities? Intranet versus Extranet? Taxonomy vs. Folksonomy etc.  I'd like to know where the two products (both of which I love) will sit in 6-12 months time, particularly with regard to competing with the upcoming (and very significant threat) Sharepoint 2010.
  • Platform support. Whether at the server (Quickr/Domino on Linux pppllleeeaaasssseee!) or the client (Connectors for Mac and Linux), there are currently obvious holes in the Quickr story when compared with Lotus' broader support for platform choice (which is still very highly respected in the industry).  I'd like to see both the near-term and long-term views of whether these gaps will be filled, and how.
• Details of the forthcoming Quickr 8.5 release, and the public reaction to them.  As a Quickr design partner we have had sight of 8.5 in beta form and are impressed with the improvements being made, but Lotusphere is a chance for IBM to expand on the vision for the release and to clarify the specifics of what will make or miss the release.
• Further expansion of Quickr mobile support.  As others have stated, 2010 looks to be 'the Year of the Mobile', Android is marching up to provide real competition for the iPhone, and the much-hyped Apple Tablet seems only weeks away.  At the same time Quickr support on mobile devices is shifting up a gear - SNAPPS have done great work in this area, Blackberry have delivered their solution, and others are focused on closing the gap.  There is sure be news in this area, and I'm really excited to try some of the solutions on the showcase floor.