Customizing IBM Connections Profiles – Add custom field to searchResults

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Last Update:
Author: Christoph Stoettner
Read in about 2 min · 419 words
Customizing HCL Connections

Fountain pen and a notebook

Photo by Aaron Burden | Unsplash

Adding a custom field to IBM Connections Profiles is great documented in “https://www.slideshare.net/palmke/show301-make-your-ibm-connections-deployment-your-own-customize-it-30628456[SHOW301: Make Your IBM® Connections Deployment Your Own: Customize It!]” the Connect 2014 session of Wannes Rams and Klaus Bild . Thanks to them for this great collection of customizing tipps.

In my case the bundle name is “stoeps” and the custom field i want to add is “twitterId”.

lotusconnections-config.xml 

<resources>
    <!-- Custom strings for field labels -->
    <widgetBundle name="local.stoeps.profiles.strings.uiLabels" prefix="stoeps"/>
</resources>

local.stoeps.profiles.strings.uilabels.properties 

# extension property field labels
label.stoeps.twitterId=Twitter Id:

profiles-types.xml 

<property>
   <!-- Custom field for Twitter ID -->
   <ref>twitterId</ref>
   <updatability>readwrite</updatability>
   <hidden>false</hidden>
</property>

profiles-config.xml

Checkout profiles-config.xml and change following points:

<profileDataModels>
    <profileExtensionAttributes>
    ...
        <simpleAttribute extensionId="twitterId" length="180 />
    </profileExtensionAttributes>
</profileDataModels>

Uncomment the extensions templateData:

<template name="businessCardInfo">
  <templateDataModel>
        <!--  include if you render workLocation, organization, department information -->
        <templateData>codes</templateData>
        <!--  include if any only if you render profile extension fields in the template -->
        <templateData>extensions</templateData><!-- activated for twitterId in searchResult -->
        <!--  include if you render secretary name or email in the template -->
        <!--   <templateData>secretary</templateData> -->
        <!--  include if you render manager name or email in the template -->
        <!--  <templateData>manager</templateData> -->
        <!--  include if you render information dependent upon two users being connected -->
        <!--  <templateData>connection</templateData> -->
  </templateDataModel>
</template>
<template name="searchResults">
  <templateDataModel>
        <!--  include if you render workLocation, organization, department information -->
        <templateData>codes</templateData>
        <!--  include if any only if you render profile extension fields in the template -->
        <templateData>extensions</templateData><!-- activated for twitterId in searchResult -->
        <!--  include if you render secretary name or email in the template -->
        <!--   <templateData>secretary</templateData> -->
        <!--  include if you render manager name or email in the template -->
        <!--  <templateData>manager</templateData> -->
  </templateDataModel>
</template>
...
<searchLayout>
...
<!-- custom field in searchResult -->
<extensionAttribute showLabel="false" labelKey="label.stoeps.twitterId" bundleIdRef="stoeps" extensionIdRef="twitterId"/>
</searchLayout>

Now you must add following line to :

profilesEdit.ftl

I added following line within <@util.renderSection sectionLabel=”contactInformation”>:

<@util.renderFormControl ref="twitterId" singleColumnLayout=false nlsBundle="stoeps" nlsKey="label.stoeps.twitterId"/>

profilesDetails.ftl 

<#-- Customize start -->
<#-- Adding a field twitter id -->
<@util.renderProperty ref="twitterId" nlsKey="label.stoeps.twitterId" nlsBundle="stoeps" hideIfEmpty=true ;  ref, dataId, dataKey, nlsKey, nlsBundle>
    <@util.renderValue ref=ref renderAs="twitter" />
        <br/>
</@util.renderProperty>

<#– Customize end –>

searchResults.ftl

I added following code above the renderProperty of jobResp:

<@util.renderProperty ref="twitterId" nlsKey="label.stoeps.twitterId" nlsBundle="stoeps" hideIfEmpty=true ;  ref, dataId, dataKey, nlsKey, nlsBundle>
    <div>
         <@util.renderValue ref=ref renderAs="twitter"/>
    </strong>
    </div>
</@util.renderProperty>

renderAs comes from commonUtil.ftl, to format a URL to the Twitter Homepage.

commonUtil.ftl 

...
<#elseif renderAs = "email">
    <a href="ma&#105;l&#116;&#111;&#58;&#36;&#123;&#118;&#97;lue&#125;">${value}</a>
<#-- customize start -->
<#elseif renderAs = "twitter">
    <#-- special rendering for twitter id -->
    <a href="http://twitter.com/${value}" target="_new">@${value}</a>
<#-- customize end -->
<#elseif renderAs = "blogUrl">
...

Result:

search result

Selection 20140415 112828 001

Profile

Selection 20140415 113741 001

Author

Christoph Stoettner

I work at Vegard IT GmbH as a senior consultant with a focus on collaboration software, Kubernetes, security and automation. I mainly deal with HCL Connections, WebSphere Application Server, Kubernetes, Ansible, Terraform and Linux.

Sometimes my daily work results in technical talks and blog articles, which you can follow here more or less regularly. You can find the presentations in the main menu under public speaking .

I created a list of tools I use regularly, most of which have been released under an open source license.

In my spare time I read a lot, test all kinds of technical software and gadgets and try to follow about 200 RSS feeds.
Here you can find a collection of them.

This is my private blog, all opinions are my own.

           

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