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The IBM Connections Home page consists of a number of widgets that provide summary information from one or more of the IBM Connections features such as Blogs and Profiles. A user can position each of these widgets on the page to create a summary view of IBM Connections that is tailored to their needs. The widgets that are available to the user are shown at the side of the page, and the list of available widgets can be set by an administrator. It is possible to disable any of the widgets installed on the IBM Connections home page as well as to add new widgets, if they are available.
To enable the administration option in the IBM Connections Home page, first identify a user or group that should be granted the administrative rights. To grant access rights to the selected user or group, use the WebSphere Administration Console. To access the security role mapping form, log in to the administrative console, expand the
Applications tab, and select the
Enterprise Applications option. The page then displays a list of the applications that are installed on that server. Select the application called
Homepage. When the property page loads, then select the "Security role to user/group mapping" option. A screen similar to the following figure displays.
The column labeled Mapped Users identifies all the users in a particular role for the IBM Connections home page. If the admin row has no entries in its Mapped Users column (and none of the boxes are selected), then there is no user set up as an administrator for the application. An administrator is not set during a default installation. Place a checkmark in the box in the Select column, and click
Look up users at the top of the table to search the user registry for the user who you want to identify to the system as an administrator. A screen similar to the following figure displays. Use this screen to add the necessary users to the admin role for the IBM Connections Home page.
Find the user's name in the Available list and click the button with the arrow pointing to the right in order to add that user name to the Selected list. Then, click
OK to accept the changes and to save the configuration as prompted by the WebSphere Administrative Console. Restart the application, and the user that you selected can now access the administration section of the IBM Connections home page when logging in. The page now displays an
Administration tab, as shown in the following figure.
When the administration section is available to you, you can enable and disable widgets as you desire. The process is not complicated, and it takes place instantly. The widget, when disabled, does not present itself in the menu to the right of the IBM Connections Home page. Even if the user has already placed the widget on the user's page, it no longer displays for that user. If you are enabling a widget on the IBM Connections Home page, it displays in the menu for the user to choose. The administration page displays its option, as shown in the following figure.
One form displays the list of currently enabled widgets. To disable any of the enabled widgets, select the desired widget and click
Disable to cause the widget name to move into the disabled widgets list. To enable a widget that is disabled, select it from the list of disabled widgets and click
Enable. This change takes effect immediately, however, a user generally will not notice the change until doing a refresh of the page, browsing away from the IBM Connections Home page and coming back to the page, or by logging out and back in.
There are other options available to the user on the page. The user can edit, remove, or add a widget. To add a widget, click
Add another widget and complete the form that is presented. The form requires the following information:
- A widget title
- A URL for the location of the widget descriptor
- A location to display either on the Updates tab or the Widgets tab
After you provide this information, submit the form, and the new widget displays in the disabled widgets list. You must enable the widget to have it available for users on the IBM Connections Home page. The following sample of the completed form provides an example of the values that are expected.
The other form options are not necessary unless the you do not want to enable the widget until prerequisites are met . For example, if the widget requires API calls to any of the IBM Connections applications in the list, you have to select the box to indicate on which application it has a dependency.
Parent topic:
3.0 Customizing the Home page