Enabling IBM Connections integration for Process Portal

If your environment is configured for IBM® Connections, you can set up Process Portal so that business card information displays when users click an avatar or a name. With IBM Connections V4.0 or later, you also can enable users to, after they set preferences, receive notifications in IBM Connections when new tasks are assigned to them.

Before you begin

Ensure that IBM Connections is configured for your environment. You need the IBM Connections server location information to complete this task.

If you want users to see the IBM Connections avatar instead of the IBM BPM avatar, the proxy-config.xml file must contain a proxy policy for the URL of the IBM Connections server. For information about updating the proxy configuration, see Configuring the Business Space Ajax proxy and Adding proxy policies to the Business Space Ajax proxy.

If you want users to receive activity notifications, and you have IBM Connections V4 or later, ensure that your administrator configured the IBM Connections integration. See Configuring IBM Connections integration for task notifications.

Restriction: When coach views are displayed in IBM Connections, the width is limited to 380 pixels. To modify the width of a coach view using the media type, see Defining coach view behavior.

To change the Process Portal application, log in to IBM Process Designer with a user ID with administrative rights.

Procedure

To enable the IBM Connections integration for Process Portal, complete the following steps:

  1. Open the Process Portal application in IBM Process Designer, click the Servers tab, and then click Add to add the IBM Connections server.
  2. In the Type field, select IBM Connections Server.
  3. Complete the server locations information, including the host name.
  4. Provide a user ID and password.
    Tip: If you want participants to use the IBM Connections notification capability, which requires IBM Connections V4.0 or later, the user ID and password to IBM Connections are required to enable the IBM Connections server. On the administrative console for the IBM Connections server, make sure that the user is a member of the trustedExternalApplication security role in the WidgetContainer application. If your participants use only the business card capabilities, specifying a user ID and password is not required.
  5. Specify whether the IBM Connections server uses Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). If Process Portal is accessed through HTTPS, select this setting. If Process Portal is accessed through HTTP, do not select this setting.
    Tip: SSL is enabled by default in IBM BPM, so unless your administrator disabled SSL, select Use SSL for IBM Connections.
  6. Click Test Connection. This tests if the user ID and password successfully connect to the IBM Connections server.
    Tip: The test does not include SSL certification. On the administrative consoles for your production systems, verify that the administrator exchanged SSL certificates between the IBM Connections server and IBM Business Process Manager as described in Configuring IBM Connections integration for task notifications.

    If your setup is configured correctly, a message appears.

  7. Create a snapshot of the application, and install the snapshot on Process Server.

Results

For IBM Process Server profiles, the Process Portal snapshot is installed on IBM Process Server.

Process Portal users can see the business card information of the users whom they work with.

What to do next

For all Process Portal users, make sure that the email addresses in their IBM Business Process Manager user profiles match the email addresses in their IBM Connections user profiles.

So that process participants receive notifications in IBM Connections, ask them to update their user preferences as described in Setting preferences in Process Portal.