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Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
Administering
Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
Administering common areas
Administer the common areas of IBM® Connections.
Managing access
Manage roles, credentials, users, and directories, and allow third-party access to IBM® Connections data.
Managing users
As employees come and go from your organization, the corporate directory changes, and there are some steps that you, as the administrator, must take to make sure that those changes are reflected in the product by keeping the IBM® Connections membership tables up-to-date with the changes that occur in your corporate directory.

Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
- What's new in HCL Connections 6
  Find out about features that are new or updated in this release of HCL Connections.
- Product overview
  Learn how to deploy, customize, and administer the IBM Connections social networking product.
- Planning
  Before installing HCL Connections™, study the system requirements, deployment options, and documentation conventions.
- Installing
  To install IBM® Connections, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
- Migrating and updating
  Migrate IBM® Connections and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest interim fixes or Cumulative Refresh (CR).
- Administering
  Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
  - Administering common areas
    Administer the common areas of IBM® Connections.
    - Administrator checklist
      Consider tasks that you might want to complete after you install IBM® Connections and before users start using it.
    - Administration tools
      Use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration properties or run administrative commands.
    - System maintenance
      Make sure IBM® Connections works properly in your particular environment.
    - Managing content
      Use superusers, moderation, and other methods to manage IBM® Connections content.
    - Administering the Widget container
      The Widget Container is the IBM® Connections-specific integration of the Common Rendering Engine, also known as the CRE.
    - Managing access
      Manage roles, credentials, users, and directories, and allow third-party access to IBM® Connections data.
      - Roles
        Roles that you can define for users and groups on IBM® WebSphere® Application Server.
      - Managing stored credentials
        HCL Connections does not create nor store user names and passwords. Instead, it uses the user credentials that already exist in your LDAP directory for authentication. HCL Connections does not store administrative user IDs and passwords either. It does, however, create and store references to existing administrative user credentials. You can make changes to those references.
      - Managing users
        As employees come and go from your organization, the corporate directory changes, and there are some steps that you, as the administrator, must take to make sure that those changes are reflected in the product by keeping the IBM® Connections membership tables up-to-date with the changes that occur in your corporate directory.
        User life cycle details
        IBM Connections can identify whether people in the directory are active, meaning current employees or inactive, meaning were once listed in the directory, but have since left the company. Users who are inactive can be kept in the product membership and login tables, rather than being removed from the product databases entirely.
        Managing users when the Profiles application is installed
        Managing users is easier if the Profiles application is installed and you accept the default configuration in which the Profiles directory service extension is used to retrieve data from the Profiles database instead of retrieving it from the LDAP directory. Starting with version 3, when you make changes to user status and data in the Profiles database, the changes are automatically propagated to the other application databases.
        Managing users when the Profiles application is not installed
        If the Profiles application is not installed, you must manage changes to user status and data in each application database independently. The only way to update user data in the databases for the other applications is through a set of administrative synchronization commands.
        Sample user management scenarios
        The following scenarios address some of the common tasks involved in managing user data within an organization.
      - Managing personal information in accordance with GDPR
        As an administrator, you might experience users asking that their personal information (PI) be erased or corrected in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This section describes the most common scenarios that you might encounter and the actions that you need to take to satisfy the user requests.
      - Using the LDAP directory as the user directory
        Edit configuration property settings to disable IBM® Connections directory service extensions.
      - Groups
        Content owners can use LDAP groups to control access to resources in the Communities, Activities, Files, and Wikis applications. For this reason, it is important to consider the effect that updating LDAP groups has on the existing membership of these resources.
    - Managing external user access
      Manage the access that people from outside your organization (external users) have to your IBM® Connections implementation.
    - Customizing the deployment
      Perform optional tasks to customize your IBM® Connections deployment.
    - URL Preview
      URL preview allows users decide quickly whether to follow a link by displaying a thumbnail preview for URLs.
  - Administering Activities
    Configure Activities to best meet the needs of your environment.
  - Administering Blogs
    Administer site-wide settings for Blogs from either the Blogs user interface or via the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Bookmarks
    You configure and administer Bookmarks using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to Bookmarks configuration settings require a restart of the Bookmarks server before they take effect. Changes made using administrative commands take effect immediately.
  - Administering Communities
    Configure and administer Communities using scripts accessed using the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server wsadmin client.
  - Administering Files
    You administer Files using the wsadmin client to specify properties in a configuration file, or run administrative commands.
  - Administering Forums
    Administer Forums by specifying properties in a configuration file or running administrative commands.
  - Administering the Home page
    You can administer site-wide settings for the Home page from the Home page administration user interface or using the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Libraries
    A Library provides the services of an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to Communities. To enable the use of Libraries, you must make some configuration changes to Connections and to each ECM system that you plan to use.
  - Administering Metrics for Cognos
    Administer metrics in IBM® Connections by modifying configuration settings, backing up data, and running commands to perform maintenance tasks.
  - Administering the News repository
    You administer the News repository using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to News configuration settings require node synchronization and a restart of the Home page server before they take effect.
  - Administering Profiles
    Profiles provides two types of administrative capabilities: configuration settings and administrative commands. You change configuration settings and execute administrative commands by running scripts from the wsadmin command line.
  - Administering Search
    The Search service provides a point for performing full text and tag searches across all the deployed IBM® Connections applications. Search is a required application for all IBM Connections applications, and it must be running to prevent unexpected behaviors in the other applications.
  - Administering Wikis
    Configure and administer Wikis by using the wsadmin client to run administrative commands or by editing the configuration file directly.
  - Administering Component Pack for Connections
    Monitor the services for Component Pack for IBM Connections™ and troubleshoot issues.
- Customizing
  Customize IBM® Connections to fit your environment.
- Security
  IBM® Connections provides a flexible security infrastructure that supports an open, easily shareable data model.
- Mobile
  See the IBM Connections Mobile documentation for Connections Cloud and Connections on-premises.
- Developing
  Get information about how to use the APIs provided with IBM® Connections and how to use Connections Customizer to modify the Connections pages that are returned to users.
- Troubleshooting and support
  To isolate and resolve problems with your IBM® products, you can use the troubleshooting and support information. This information contains instructions for using the problem-determination resources that are provided with your IBM products, including HCL Connections™.

Managing users

As employees come and go from your organization, the corporate directory changes, and there are some steps that you, as the administrator, must take to make sure that those changes are reflected in the product by keeping the IBM® Connections membership tables up-to-date with the changes that occur in your corporate directory.

If the Profiles application is installed, when you inactivate a user or make changes to user data, such as change a person's last name or email address in the Profiles database, that change is automatically pushed out to the membership and login tables of the other IBM® Connections applications.

If Profiles is not installed in your deployment, you must apply the changes to the membership tables for each application separately. The only way to update user data in the membership tables for the other applications is through a set of administrative synchronization commands.

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