The slides of our presentation held at Social Connections 8 in Boston about the implementation of a new collaboration platform for an European insurance conglomerate
2. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
• System Integrators
• IBM Domino/Notes
• IBM Notes Traveler
• IBM Sametime
• IBM Connections
• Custom Development
• Domino
• XPages
• Interfaces and Systemintegration
• Education for Administrators, Developers and Users
• Member of the Penumbra Group
3. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
About the speakers
• Andreas Ponte
• About 18 years in the Lotus/ICS world
• Worked for a Reinsurance Company until 2007, amongst other things
responsible for the global communication infrastructure
• Joined Belsoft AG, an IBM Premier Business Partner located Switzerland, in
2007 with focus on consulting in the Domino and mobile solutions area
• Since 2014 CEO of Belsoft Collaboration AG and
IBM Champion for 2015
• Regularly speaking at own events and various user groups
4. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
About the speakers
• Sandra Bühler
• Co-founder and co-owner of Belsoft Collaboration AG
• About 18 years in the Lotus/ICS world as a Senior Sales Consultant
• Main topics besides a high contribution in strengthening the position of ICS
in the market are project management and user education
• Guest lecturer at the University of Zurich with Applied Sciences’ for Social
Business, well known speaker at several user groups and co-organizer of
‘IBM Connect comes to you’ and ‘ICON Switzerland’ events.
• IBM Champion for 2014 and 2015
5. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
The Client
EURAPCO - European Alliance Partners Company AG
Eurapco is an Alliance of large independent European mutual insurance
companies. The Alliance consists of seven Partners that operate in 18
countries across Europe. Eurapco Partners aim to benefit from their
involvement on the international stage to strengthen their ability to compete
in their local markets and are unified in one goal: to create value together.
9. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
The starting point
• Small infrastructure with 3 Servers
• Critical but somewhat old Notes Applications with complex
processes and workflows
• The desire to offer their customers more and better services
• It’s time to renew and modernize the offering
10. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
Goals
• To simplify and enhance the communication and collaboration
• To “modernize” the services/applications
and offer additional state of the art functionality
• To implement a hybrid solution of local and hosted
infrastructure
13. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
The “raw” steps
Infrastructure
Work
Technical and
conceptual
preparation for
hosting
Installation and
implementation of
IBM Connections,
LDAP integration,
webpage migration to
Belsoft infrastructure
Installation and
implementation of
IBM Sametime
SW-
Development
Concept and POC
(IBM Connections as
Eurapco Member
Zone)
Integration of
Domino App results
into
IBM Connections,
Eurapco UI changes
Tests with real data
User Interaction
Installation of Plug-
Ins for Eurapco
employees
Education and
consulting/support
of IBM Connections
Community leaders
Tests with real data
14. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
Some challenges during the project
IBM Documentation (or lack thereof..)
Technical problems and changing security requirements
Design modifications
(what, where and why doesn’t it work..)
Migration of data (files) from Notes to Connections
Communication
PMR’s
15. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
Problem Management Request
Title Severity Status
User with Umlaute in their name cannot create meeting room. 2 open
SBT: getFilesInFolder is limited to 10 results 3 open
Undelete Forum Topics 3 closed
Richtext Editor looses focus 3 closed
@Mentions shows ID community forums 3 closed
Get a java.lang.NullPointerException when trying to upload a profile picture 4 closed
Document Conversion in Meeting Room fails 2 closed
About 20 PMR’s, mostly for IBM Connections but also IBM
Sametime had its share..
17. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
• The hosted servers all run on RHEL 6.5 except the server for IBM
Conversion Server / IBM Forms Experience Builder (Win2008 R2)
• We migrated over 40 GB of data (files) from a Notes Database to IBM
Connections Files and have over 16’000 files stored within IBM
Connections
• Public: 13,037 (80.3%) Shared: 2,878 (17.7%) Private: 313 (1.9%)
• Number of times files have been downloaded: 6,303
• Number of times files have been shared: 36,980
The Infrastructure and some figures
18. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
• Profiles
• Number of employees who have updated their background: 96
• Number of employees with a picture supplied: 492
• Number of employees logged in the last week/month: 170/3,440
• Number of employees with tag: 90
• Activities
• Number of activities: 29
• Total number of distinct members: 349
• Total number of entries: 268
The Infrastructure and some figures
19. SOCIALCONNECTIONS8April16-17,2015
• Communities
• Total number of communities: 47 (15 public, 32 restricted)
• Total number of distinct owners: 24
• Total number of distinct members: 677
• Number of users logged in the last week: 149
• Number of users logged in the last month: 311
The Infrastructure and some figures
EURAPCO, ein Konglomerat von führenden Versicherungsgesellschaften, Sitz in Zürich mit MA’s aus den verschiedenen Gesellschaften, meistens für 1-2 Jahre
Ziel, Mehrwert erschaffen
Kurze Info über Team, inkl TFC, SHI
Datenbanken rege gebraucht, viele Daten, immer wieder mal Probleme. Aufwand für Designanpassungen teilweise zu gross
“altes” look&feel
Hosting, klares no-go im Ausland und bei anonymen Hostern, verschiedene Vorschläge von unserer Seite her, Entscheid für Hybrid Modell
IBM Connections und IBM Sametime
Kick-off Meeting, what is the goal?
Aufteilung des Projektes in verschiedene Säulen, wichtig die Integration und Schulung der Benutzer -> Problematisch beim Testen
Security Requirements, 8 Gesellschaften = 8 Security Officers mit verschiedenen Ansichten/Vorstellungen
IE8 im Einsatz -> Design
Migration, Menge wurde von beiden Seiten unterschätzt
Kommunikation -> Tests gemacht? Fehler oder nicht? Teilweise keine Kommunikation oder über falsche Kanäle
Zugriff auf Connections API via Social Business Toolkit mühsam, bzw fehlerhaft (unvollständig)
IBM Docs, Avatar Upload usw..
Connections
- Profilbild kann nicht geladen werden. Passiert nur wenn Logging aktiviert wird, sollte mit CR2 behoben werden.
- "Start a Community" Button ist sichtbar, obwohl der User keine Berechtigung hat. Kann Community zwar nicht erstellen, ist aber unschön. Sollte mit CR2 behoben werden.
- "Invite to My Network" Button funktioniert nicht ausserhalb der Profile-App. Fix bekommen und sollte in CR2 behoben werden.
- Weekly Newsletter wird zur Zeit am Dienstag versendet. EUPA will es aber am Freitag haben. Es gibt keine Einstellung dazu um das Scheduling zu setzen. Mal schauen was vom Support kommt.
Sametime
- User mit Umlauten im Namen können keine Meetingräume erstellen !!!! Unglaublich aber wahr...
Files downloaded / files shared = IBM Docs, no need to download anymore, view/edit the document without the need to download/upload
Activities Entries: custom entries, to do, replies etc
Number of people who are members of one or more communities. This number helps you to determine how many people are regular community members versus owners.
PW recovery and Registration form = Xpages applications
Landing page bei Launch, jetzt wieder auf Status Updates
Demo of Video Tutorials
Style Sheets (CSS) und Icons, nicht nur ein File zu ändern, sondern Sprites, und Bugs von IBM (Line Breaks bei Tags, Community Titel und File Namen innerhalb des Wort einen Umbruch)
Auf Events aufmerksam machen -> schauen wir noch genauer an
XPages Application, Files werden von Connections angezogen