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Integrating with other products
You can integrate HCL Connections applications with other products and features.
Connections Engagement Center
Connections Engagement Center provides the corporate office, management, and workforce with a single user experience for all communications, as well as a state of the art enterprise social collaboration features and the possibility of adding custom applications. All this runs at the office and on all mobile devices, so the entire workforce – from CEO to intern – can access this most valuable tool regardless of where they are, what their role is, or what devices they prefer.
Overview
Connections Engagement Center is a single, accessible hub for organizational news and content within HCL Connections, enabling users to create and manage web content efficiently. People get engaged with finding, creating, owning, and promoting content to improve intranet communication. All content can be found in one place. Communication and collaboration are on the same page or one click away. Connections Engagement Center makes it simple and easy for users to create content; there's no need for multiple systems to create and publish content. This documentation explains and describes role concepts, site structure, functions of the various Connections Engagement Center features and their usage and configuration.
Widgets
Engagement Center widgets can be embedded in placeholders on every Connections Engagement Center page. The height of each widget can be defined pixel perfect or set to auto for a height responsive to the content.
Clipping
This widget allows you to display content from other sites. For example, you can include the news section from an external website. To configure this widget, HTML, jQuery and CSS skills are useful.

Integrating with other products
You can integrate HCL Connections applications with other products and features.
- Connections Engagement Center
  Connections Engagement Center provides the corporate office, management, and workforce with a single user experience for all communications, as well as a state of the art enterprise social collaboration features and the possibility of adding custom applications. All this runs at the office and on all mobile devices, so the entire workforce – from CEO to intern – can access this most valuable tool regardless of where they are, what their role is, or what devices they prefer.
  - Overview
    Connections Engagement Center is a single, accessible hub for organizational news and content within HCL Connections, enabling users to create and manage web content efficiently. People get engaged with finding, creating, owning, and promoting content to improve intranet communication. All content can be found in one place. Communication and collaboration are on the same page or one click away. Connections Engagement Center makes it simple and easy for users to create content; there's no need for multiple systems to create and publish content. This documentation explains and describes role concepts, site structure, functions of the various Connections Engagement Center features and their usage and configuration.
    - Get started
      Connections Engagement Center makes it easy way to build a social intranet by creating a portal-like experience using various out-of-the-box and custom widgets. Engagement Center does not have its own content store, but aggregates content from different backend systems. Mostly, HCL Connections is the back-end system, since it is the underlying foundation for a set of key Engagement Center services, such as user authentication and authorization, personalization, top-level navigation, and news.
    - Roles
      Connections Engagement Center has multiple user roles that provide increasing levels of access.
    - Adding the Engagement Center widget to a Community
      Community owners can add the Connections Engagement Center widget to a Community in the same way they would add any other widget or app by using the Community Actions menu.
    - Admin dashboard
      The Admin Dashboard is reachable through the URL: [your_domain]/xcc/admin apps.[yourLocale].collabserv.com/xcc/admin. You will find system configurations there, so be careful with that.
    - Admin panel
      This section describes creating custom grids and layouts and CSS for all pages. If you are Admin, you can reach the Admin panel on every Connections Engagement Center page by clicking the Customize button.
    - Widgets
      Engagement Center widgets can be embedded in placeholders on every Connections Engagement Center page. The height of each widget can be defined pixel perfect or set to auto for a height responsive to the content.
      - Widget images and titles
        Display an image from the Engagement Center or from another site. Localize widgets with language files, or configure a widget to display an image as widget title.
      - HCL Connections widgets
        Apart from Connections Engagement Center widgets those Connections in-built widgets can be added that are available for My Page.
      - Activity Stream
        Displays the activity stream using the content options that you select.
      - ATOM/RSS feed
        This widget allows you to include elements from other web sites. You can show RSS or ATOM Feeds from external sites within that widget.
      - Clipping
        This widget allows you to display content from other sites. For example, you can include the news section from an external website. To configure this widget, HTML, jQuery and CSS skills are useful.
      - Bookmark List
        Lists of bookmarks can be categorized by several tabs.
      - Bookmarks List - Important
        This widget displays lists of bookmarks that can be categorized by several tabs. By linking, any content can be made permanently visible and highlighted here. Only bookmarks that are marked as important will be shown.
      - Bookmarks List - Important
        This widget displays lists of bookmarks that can be categorized by several tabs. By linking, any content can be made permanently visible and highlighted here. Only bookmarks that are marked as important will be shown.
      - Community Description
        Displays the description of a specified community.
      - Community Members
        The Community Members widget shows members and owners of a specified community in a tiles grid.
      - Featured Communities
        This widget is suited for highlighting specific Connections communities. The layout is the same as the News Overview widget. Each community's picture, name, and description are shown.
      - Event
        Display of events or campaigns. Content is maintained by the events of a Community
      - Files List
        This widget shows uploaded files with information about the author and the uploaded date. The Files List widget can be downloaded with a single click. Each file type is represented by its own icon. If more than five files are in the selected Community, a page navigation appears on the bottom of the widget. A maximum of 100 files are displayed.
      - Folders
        This widget shows the first level of folders in a Community. You can easily navigate through the folders for- and backwards. Files can be downloaded with a single click. Each file type is represented by its own icon. If more than five files are in the selected Community, navigation appears at the bottom of the widget. A maximum of 100 files are displayed.
      - Forum Viewer
        Shows latest or selected entries of a standalone or community forum. Shows the status of the forum (Open question, answered question, discussion). Open the complete description in the Embedded Experience.
      - HTML
        This widget allows you to include elements from other Sites. For example you can include a weather widget from an external website. To configure this widget, HTML skills are required.
      - Ideation Blog
        This widget shows the latest or selected entries of an ideation blog in a community. Vote directly from the Engagement Center for an idea. Open the complete description in the Embedded Experience.
      - IFrame
        Embed an iFrame widget to the Connections Engagement Center.
      - Media Gallery
        The Media Gallery displays Images or videos from Community Files. They can be shown in a Grid or a Slider.
      - My Communities
        Displays all the communities the user is a member of. Each user will see a different result set in the widget, depending on his personal Community memberships.
      - My Files
        This widget shows files that have been uploaded in HCL Connections by the currently logged in user. Files are shown in a list.
      - My Links
        Displays all personal links.
      - My Notes
        Displays all to do?s/notes of a specific personal activity only visible to the current user.
      - My Pinned Files
        Displays all of a user's pinned files.
      - My Quicklinks
        Displays all links of the My Bookmarks view tagged with my_links.
      - Navigation
        The Navigation widget is working on the same way, like the normal Connections Engagement Center navigation is doing. You can specify to have a right or left alignment navigation. You can also select a specific page from a wiki, instead of showing the full wiki. The selected wiki page will be shown with all their child-pages. If just one single wiki page, which includes children, is selected, only these children will be displayed.
      - News
        Within this widget single news or news channels can be added. It's suited especially for highlighting specific news on department level.
      - News - Channel
        The News - Channel widget is a news widget that is able to display up to 10 Channels. Channels will be shown in a window on top of each other. Two short news teasers are displayed for each channel, whereby the user can navigate to older entries via arrows. A picture or video (the first one of the correlating blog entry) and a limited abstract are displayed for each news entry.
      - News - List
        Display the latest or selected posts of one or more community as a link.
      - News - Overview
        Within this widget single news can be added. It's suited especially for highlighting specific news on a department level.
      - News - Slider
        The News - Slider widget is a news widget that is displaying only one Channel. Two short news teasers are displayed for each channel, whereby the user can navigate to older entries via arrows. A picture or video (the first one of the correlating blog entry) and a limited abstract are displayed for each news entry.
      - News - Top
        Optional highlighting of specific news at a prominent location and extensive display of one single news item.
      - People Birthday
        With this widget you can display people who have a birthday today.
      - People Finder
        With this Connections Engagement Center widget, you can search for persons within Connections.
      - People Selector
        With this widget you can display persons from HCL Connections. A maximum of 100 persons can be displayed. You can have multiple channels with a channel name to order people in departments for example.
      - Popular Content
        This widget shows different tabs for the most visited or liked Wiki, Blogs and Bookmarks in Connections.
      - Preferences
        Allows users to update their preferences for Connections Engagement Center, that is, their preferences for the home and landing pages.
      - Profile Completion
        Allows users to update their profile.
      - Profile Picture
        Allows users to update their profile picture.
      - Profile Tagging
        Shows your tags. Directly tag yourself or delete tags.
      - Rich Content
        This widget allows you to display contents from the Rich Content widget of a specified community.
      - Saved Search
        Saved custom search with limited results. Sort by relevance or date
      - Static Content - Blog
        The entire Contents of a blog entry will be displayed in the widget.
      - Static Content - Wiki
        The entire static content of a wiki entry can be displayed in the widget.
      - Suggestions
        Helps your employees with HCL Connections on-boarding to build their activity stream.
      - Tag Cloud
        Displays tags of a community. Frequently used tags are highlighted
      - Teaser
        This widget allows you to display an image from another site or uploaded in Connections Engagement Center. You can also specify the image to link to another URL. In addition to that you can add an abstract or teaser text.
    - Embedded experience
      The following widgets have an embedded experience:
    - FlyOut page
      The Connections Engagement Center FlyOut Page is managed by the admin or Page Editor. The FlyOut Page may contain any of the over 30 Connections Engagement Center widgets and is available anywhere in Connections. You only need to move your mouse over this icon.
    - Personalization
      Within the individual widgets, personalization can be activated. Upon activation there is the option to configure different channels for different values of a profile. Additionally it is possible to choose a default channel.
    - Personalize homepage
      In the Connections Engagement Center-Settings tab in the admin panel you can personalize the homepage. The source must be an existing Connections Engagement Center page.
    - Creating a custom widget with the custom widget API
      You can copy an existing widget or modify an existing widget to create a new widget using the custom widget API. You can upload a JavaScript file to have access to the Connections Engagement Center. This is necessary for the Custom widget API. The widget API is the only API and where JavaDoc-level documentation is stored.
    - Functions - fields - buttons
      There are different fields and buttons available in the configuration options.
    - Best practices
      Most of the content displayed by Connections Engagement Center pages will be created and maintained within HCL Connections. Therefore we provide some useful best practices in this area to guide your editorial teams to an effective content creation process.
  - Installing and configuring Connections Engagement Center
    This section provides instructions for upgrading an existing XCC Web Content Management Extension to the Connections Engagement Center. For fresh installations, instructions are provided for planning, creating a database, installing, and then configuring the Engagement Center. Also included are browser links to access the various modes of Connections Engagement Center, and instructions for uninstalling Connections Engagement Center.
- Installing integration plug-ins for HCL Connections
  Access and update your Connections content from other applications.
- Using the HCL Connections desktop plug-ins for Microsoft™ Windows™
  Use this plug-in to upload and work with files in HCL Connections from Microsoft™ Windows™ Explorer and Microsoft Office.
- Using file sync for HCL Connections for Mac
  Use HCL Connections for Mac to keep local files in sync with copies of those files on the server.
- Using the Connections plug-in for Microsoft Office
  Use the plug-ins to share files and information between Microsoft™ Windows™ applications and HCL Connections or HCL Connections Cloud.
- Using Connections with Microsoft Teams
  Enabling support for Microsoft Teams integration with Connections is an optional task. Enable this support only if your organization is using Microsoft Teams.
- Using the HCL Connections Add-in for Microsoft™ Outlook
  The power of Connections from your Outlook inbox. Use the Connections Add-in for Microsoft™ Outlook to work with Connections content from within your Outlook inbox.
- Using the HCL Connections community app for Microsoft Sharepoint
  As a Microsoft SharePoint administrator you can register the Sharepoint app with Microsoft Azure and edit its configuration file in HCL Connections to make it available for your organization.
- Using plug-ins from HCL Connections with other products
  Get help using the plug-ins that integrate the capabilities of HCL Connections with other products.

Clipping

This widget allows you to display content from other sites. For example, you can include the news section from an external website. To configure this widget, HTML, jQuery and CSS skills are useful.

sample clipping widget

Important: Be sure that you configured the AJAX-Proxy. For more information, see HCL Connections proxy configuration in the Connections Engagement Center Installation Instructions.

Content source

The content from another website will be displayed.

Expected format

The Clipping widget displays the selected HTML from the source URL in Connections Engagement Center/Connections standard formatting. For customized appearance you can add custom CSS. Multiple selectors are displayed in the defined order. Please make sure not to enter a forwarding URL but the targeted URL instead.

Configuration options for Admin/Page Editor

URL (content source)

Apply Custom CSS, which can be pasted or edited in the widget editor

Selector Type: Use cropmarks or a jQuery/CSS selector to specify the displayed content. For more information, see the jQuery website.