Getting started

Welcome to the community preview of Social Connector for Rational® Jazz™. Social Connector for Rational Jazz integrates IBM® Lotus® Connections™ social software into the Rational Team Concert™ Web interface.

Mainsoft’s solution brings your enterprise social network into the software delivery process, allowing you to identify, connect with, and exchange ideas with your colleagues, partners, and end users.

System Requirements

The Jazz server component needs to be installed on Rational Team Concert 2.0.0.2, 2.0.0.2 iFix1 or iFix2, or on the 3.0m4b milestone build. Social Connector supports the same operating systems that are supported by IBM Rational Team Concert.

You can connect to social networking servers running Lotus Connections versions 2.0.1 and 2.5, including hosted solutions such as My developerWorks® on IBM.com, which you can use for free.

Installation and configuration

For installation and upgrade instructions, read Installing the product.

To learn how to connect to your social network server and how to link your Jazz project to a Lotus Connections community, read Configuring the social network in Rational Team Concert.

Read Configuring proxy settings if the communication with Lotus Connections requires a proxy server.

Adding the Social Network viewlet

The Social Network viewlet displays items of many different types, helping your team to stay focused on the current task because they do not need to switch pages. For example, blog posts and wiki pages pop up when you hover a post in the search results; activities can be opened inside the viewlet; and activity entries can be marked as completed without leaving Rational Team Concert.

The Social Network viewlet lets you view and search for knowledge and people in your social network, send status updates, stay up to date with what’s happening in your social network, and access the project community.

To add the Social Network viewlet to your Dashboard, follow these steps:

  1. Expand the Social Network item, and select the Social Network viewlet.
  2. Click the Add Viewlet button, and then Save your page.

Note: To add the Social Network viewlet, the user must have permissions to modify the project dashboard. Permissions are set in Project Area Management > Permissions tab > Project Configuration. Select Permitted Actions > Dashboards > Save Project Dashboard > Modify the project dashboard.

Getting to know the Social Network viewlet

  1. Area selector. Use the drop-down list to quickly switch between different areas on the social network.
  2. Quick link to the social network relevant page, online. For example, if you selected to view the Wikis area, this icon opens the Public Wikis page on the social server.
  3. Hide / Show tags. This icon toggles the visibility of the tag cloud.
  4. Post icon. Select this icon to post to your blog, start a new forum discussion, or update your personal status message.
  5. Community icon. Opens the project community page on the social server. The arrow next to the icon allows you to search the community, and subscribe to its feed.
  6. Search bar + search button. Enter the text to search for.
  7. Search scope selector. Allows you to select a scope for your search, for example to search users' profiles by Job Title.
  8. Tag cloud. Allows you to drill down into the visible entries / search results.
  9. View selector. Shows the current view, search term and tag. Browse for content in the selected area, for example Public Wikis, or Files Shared with Me.
  10. Feed icon. Allows you to subscribe to the feed of this blog / community / activity / wiki.

What to do next

  1. Learn how to search for knowledge and people across your social network.
  2. Learn how to build a community around your project.
  3. Learn how to share ideas from a Jazz Dashboard or Work Item.
  4. Learn how to stay up to date with what’s going on in your social network.

Using the remote viewlet in other Jazz products

The Social Network viewlet can also be used in other Jazz products, such as Rational Quality Manager, using the remote viewlet feature.

Together with Mainsoft’s existing Document Collaboration product, which integrates Jazz with Lotus Quickr™ and Microsoft® SharePoint®, business teams and stakeholders can now stay in the loop and get visibility into software deliveries without extra effort.

Both Social Connector and Document Collaboration are built with simplicity in mind and provide a responsive and intuitive user experience.