App Dev for IBM Connections Cloud

Understand the App Dev Capabilities

IBM Connections Cloud (formerly called IBM SmartCloud) is IBM’s cloud platform featuring social functionality, mobile access, meetings and mail. On this page developers and architects can find information about the cloud app dev capabilities as well as links to additional resources. Customers and different types of IBM partners can access and extend IBM Connections Cloud in different ways:

  • ISVs (Independent Software Vendors) and Enterprise Developers: ISVs and enterprise developers can leverage services and use IBM Connections as infrastructure to build apps rapidly by focusing on business specific functionality. Additionally they can build extensions to the IBM Connections Cloud user interface to integrate third party apps.
  • Resellers: Resellers can sell branded versions of IBM Connections Cloud to their customers. They own the relationship and handle the billing with their customers while IBM provides support. Resellers can benefit from IBM’s Business Support System to create organizations, subscriptions and users programmatically. Additionally they can brand IBM Connections Cloud via various customization options.
  • OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers): OEMs cover the complete interaction with their customers including support. They leverage services and use IBM Connections Cloud as infrastructure to build their own products and offerings with their own user interfaces.

Add Social Capabilities to your Apps

The following services can be used to integrate social services in apps. To access the services there are REST APIs that use Atom and JSON, and there are Java, JavaScript and Objective-C APIs.

Manage IBM Connections Cloud Services

For resellers IBM provides the IBM Business Support System (BSS) which is a platform for managing and administering processes that support SaaS services. BSS provides REST services using JSON to create organizations, customers, users and more. Read the BSS documentation for details. BSS comes with the following services which can be run live on the Playground.

    • Customer management services: Use customer management services to register a customer, get a customer ID, update a customer profile, remove a customer, suspend a customer, and more.
    • Subscriber management services: Use subscriber management services to add subscribers, delete subscribers, get lists of subscribers, revoke subscribers, and more.

Extend IBM Connections Cloud

The IBM Connections Cloud user interface can be extended and customized in several different ways, as explained in the following sections:

Creating user interface extensions for IBM Connections Social Cloud

UI extensions allow users to launch external applications via URLs from within the IBM Connections Social Cloud UI and also pass information to those applications that are related to the current context. The following extension points are supported. For more details, see Understanding user interface extensions.

In some scenarios the invoked URLs open web pages that should look similar to the IBM Connections Social Cloud user interface so that users have a seamless user experience between the different implementations. In order to do this the IBM Connections Cloud top level navigator can be reused and embedded in custom applications – see sample. Read Adding the IBM Connections Cloud banner to partner applications for details. IBM Connections Social Cloud also allows adding custom fields to the user profile pages to display information that is specific to your company. In the administration user interface new fields can be added, for example a Twitter field. The new field shows up at the bottom of the Contact Information tab. Read the documentation for more details. It is also possible to change the theme for your organization and display a logo of your company – see sample. See Setting the logo using Vendor Admin for details. For resellers additional branding options are available. Resellers can change the organization name, address, email address, home URL, privacy URL and support URL. See Setting branding data using Vendor Admin for details (in the Brand Identity section).

Customizing IBM SmartCloud Notes

The visual theme, fonts, the action bar, and other aspects of IBM SmartCloud Notes can be customized using extension forms files. Deploying an extension forms file in the service requires a brief service contract with an IBM Software Services representative. The representative validates extension forms files to ensure that they comply with requirements that reduce risk to your users and to the service. For more information, see Using extension forms files to customize the look of the web client. To see which parts of the client can be customized watch this video or read the slides. You can download the code from the sample.

Creating community surveys with IBM Forms Experience Builder

You can create polls and surveys in Connections communities – see the sample. For more information, see Surveys in IBM Connections communities; additional samples are available in Community surveys in IBM Connections.

Administering IBM Notes Traveler

The IBM Notes Traveler Administration service provides a set of REST APIs for interacting with IBM Notes Traveler administration data. Mobile Device Management providers can leverage these APIs to manage mobile devices registered with Notes Traveler. Additionally, these APIs can be used by any Notes Traveler customer to build additional reporting or administration tooling. For more details, see the IBM Notes Traveler Administration API.

Get Started

IBM provides a Playground on IBM Greenhouse where developers can run code snippets using the JavaScript APIs of the SDK against test environments in the cloud. Watch the video to understand how to use the Playground. With the Playground you can easily write your own first snippets. To add snippets, you need to log in. A New Snippet link appears. Read the Using the Playground section for details. For testing purposes you can use the fictive ‘Zeta Insurance’ test organization on C1 and one of test users samantha_daryn@zetains.com and harry_greene@zetains.com (password: ). Launch Playground The Playground also contains the documentation of the various IBM Collaboration Solutions REST APIs. These APIs can be initiated directly via an integrated API Explorer. Launch API Explorer

Leverage Development Environments

IBM provides three different environments that can be used for demonstrations, development and testing.

IBM Connections Bundle

Customers can use an IBM Connections trial for 60 days at no cost. This includes all services provided by IBM Connections Social, mail, calendar and contacts and web meetings. Your own organization with 25 user accounts is created on the IBM Connections Cloud production environment (E3) and you can customize it to your needs. IBM Connections Bundle IBM Connections Cloud Trial

Connections Cloud Demonstration Accounts

IBM Connections Cloud provides a collection of integrated online collaboration solutions and social networking services for your business. Your own organization with 30 user accounts is created on the IBM Connections Cloud production environment (E3) and you can customize it to your needs. PartnerWorld members are eligible for a no charge, one year Business Partner demonstration account. You can use this account to demonstrate solutions to your clients when reselling Connections Cloud or selling your value-added solution integration with these services. Connections Cloud Demonstration Accounts

Understand Authentication

IBM Connections Cloud supports three types of authentication.

  • Open Authorization (OAuth) 1.0a and 2.0
  • Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML)
  • Basic Authentication

For more details refer to the documentation.