Method 1 – Run agent with Document Context

Step 1: Create an xpage and put an edit box field. This field is used to display the response from Agent as shown below.

Step 2: Create a button and call an agent using a “in-memory document” as shown below.

Code:

var newDoc:NotesDocument = database.createDocument();

newDoc.replaceItemValue(“TestField”,”");

var agent:NotesAgent = database.getAgent(“agDocContext”);

if(agent!=null){

agent.runWithDocumentContext(newDoc);

getComponent(“Response”).setValue(newDoc.getItemValueString(“TestField”));

}

Step 3: Create an agent which gets the “in-memory document” and performs some action. Ensure the agent properties are shown below.

Code:

Sub Initialize

Dim ses AsNew NotesSession

Dim doc As NotesDocument

Set doc = ses.Documentcontext

Call doc.Replaceitemvalue(“TestField”,“Test Field Value”)

EndSub

STEP 4: Ensure the agent security properties are shown below.

Step 5: Run the XPAGE and click on “Run Agent With Document Context” button.

• On clicking of this button, a “in-memory” document is created.
• An agent has been called by passing this “in-memory” document.
• Agent gets this “in-memory” document and performs required actions to be done.
• After successful execution of this agent, xpage gets the “in-memory” document handle and does the required action.

Method 2 – Using a Buffered Reader

Step 1: One more button called “Trigger Agent” as shown below.

Step 2: Call an agent using this button as shown below.

Code:

importPackage(java.net);

importPackage(java.io);

//create a url object by passing the lotusscript agent’s url and ensure that you have some print statements in your agent

var agent:URL = new URL(“http://localhost/AgentsInXPAGES.nsf/agResponse?OpenAgent”);

//create a connection with the agent’s url provided

var agentConnection:URLConnection = agent.openConnection();

//open a buffered reader that gets the stream of response from the agent connection

var inputReader:BufferedReader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(agentConnection.getInputStream()));

//read the output line by line and store them in a string

var res:String=”";

while ((inputLine = inputReader.readLine()) != null) {

res+=inputLine;

}

//update the result to a output field on the XPage to view the same visually

getComponent(“Response”).setValue(res);

These are the two ways on how you can run an agent from XPages. Buzz me at karthikeyanmp@maargasystems.com if you have any clarifications, suggestions or discussions. Waiting to hear from you

Author Profile

Karthikeyan is fondly called as MPK in Maarga is Software Engineer who works extensively on XPages technology. You can connect with him at http://in.linkedin.com/pub/karthikeyan-m-p/24/84b/85b

The four clusters can be briefly described as follows:

• Invest: IT shops that realize strong value out of their Lotus investments and continue to invest heavily to get more out of their current investments and look for opportunities to add on technology components in the periphery/horizon for active utilization of technological progress.
• Maintain: IT shops that are happy with what they have on Lotus environment, but wait for the world to lead before they invest more in technology
• Hedge: IT shops that want to take part of their IT infrastructure outside Lotus environment, while still maintaining a lot of Lotus applications
• Migrate: IT shops that have decided to move out of Lotus infrastructure.

Underlying the clusters are two dimensions that pretty much drive this whole model. Comfort with Lotus technologies and Readiness to Change.

Comfort with Lotus Technology:

There are IT organizations that are pretty proficient in understanding the concept of groupware and workflow that Lotus originally made possible. They have an intuitive grasp of distributed computing, replication, the Lotus security model, the tools and utilities around the Lotus platform. They understand why Lotus mail is powerful, the many features available in Domino server to enable scalability and security and the numerous mail add-ons that make administering Domino infrastructure a breeze. On the application development front they “get” the concept of NSFs, self-service database creation, keeping some centralized control while still enabling parts of the organization to service themselves without excess dependence on IT, and appropriate use of Lotus technologies for the many business issues that come up. For example, they don’t try to get Lotus into a transaction heavy application, while make good use of it for a workflow application. They are comfortable with the latest developments in the world of Lotus, be it XPages or Social Integration, broadly understand IBM’s road-map for Lotus technology, are active in OpenNTF and other communities. Such IT shops manage to get the best out of their investment in Lotus Technology.

At the other end of the spectrum are companies with a lesser understanding of the Lotus technology. They don’t quite understand the unique strengths of the platform, and try to keep comparing it with other technology stacks that are not strictly comparable. They struggle to apply Lotus related concepts to their business problems, and often have lesser return from their Lotus investments than their more savvy counterparts in the “comfortable” shops.

How does an IT department get comfortable with Lotus?

It is a mix of three parameters in turn: IT Leadership, IBM Sellers, Business Partners. If the IT Leader has substantially invested in understanding Lotus technologies, chances are his team will too. Organizations where a strong IT leader understands Lotus technology deeply are most committed to and get the most out of their investments in the technology. Such organizations in turn again have specialists who are deeply into the technology stack driving value for business out of this technology investment. On the other hand, organizations where a new IT leader with no Lotus exposure has taken over a significant Lotus infrastructure have the biggest problems in maintaining focus and getting value out of the investment. IBM Sellers who originally sold Lotus into the environment can have a significant impact too, in helping organizations take steps beyond just purchase of license to enable maximum utilization of the investment. Situations where an IBM seller oversells technology and leaves the organization with a lot of technology raw power, without the connecting steps to utilize the technology quite often turn into Lotus shops with low “comfort”. Same is the case with Business Partners. If an IBM Business Partner stays with an enterprise to help it extract all the value out of Lotus technology, the enterprise is much more likely to stay and use the technology stack well.

Readiness to Change:

The other dimension we need to look at is fundamental to the IT department – readiness to change. Change as we have all learned is the only constant, but something that we all avoid all too often. The change to be achieved can either be getting better results out of the Lotus platform or moving out of the Lotus platform to another platform – it does not matter. The dimension we are taking about here is the readiness to change.

Readiness to change is a pervasive attribute of the IT organization that encompasses the following:

• A clear vision of why change is required, clear articulation of how the changes will be linked to achieving business goals and a clearly visualized end state
• Defined responsibility for carrying out the change, a detailed road-map clearly showing the way to get to the end result, sufficient consideration to the different options available, sufficient time for achieving the goals, buy in from all stake holders
• Champions who inspire, champions who are trained and who understand the goals of the effort, champions who communicate and involve all the stakeholders
• An empowering climate to bring about the change

IT organizations that embrace change are likely to actively look for ways to resolve their existing sub-optimal situation into a more optimal situation. The leaders have clarity of vision, and take the appropriate action to align their teams to act proactively. This orientation is for the most part positive. It is mostly better to do something about your situation when you are stuck than just staying put. However, when I look at the many customers I deal with, I realize the truth in the words of the American novelist Ellen Glasgow: ” All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward”.

In future posts, I’ll delve more into the kind of initiatives a company in a particular cluster will be interested in.

What kind of an IT shop are you? Do you see this clustering as relevant and useful? What other information can you share that will help your peers. Please do share in the comments.

About the author:

Venkatesh aka Venki is the Founder and CEO of Maarga Systems. He has more than 12 years of experience in Collaborative Technologies, Web 2.0, Sourcing Management, Global Delivery Models, Lotus Notes, Domino and other IBM Software Technologies. His other interests include Yoga and Developmental Economics. Connect with Venki at http://in.linkedin.com/in/4venki

Having successfully created the XPages version for a critical application for our customer, I was feeling terrific as we were ahead of schedule. Patting myself on the shoulder, I thought that I could give myself a well deserved rest and go out and watch the cricket match (know more about Cricket here. It’s like a national game for Indians and we won the world championship last year). Just as I was about to leave, the test lead brought me down to earth with a bang. He raised 15 bugs and stated that my counts and calculated values were all wrong!!!!. Having painstakingly created the fields and checked and rechecked for the last five days, I was amazed that there could be so much of difference in the calculations. So I rolled up my sleeves, removed Cricket from my mind and sat in total concentration for the next two hours, looking at code for calculations which seemed perfectly correct , yet gave wrong answers. It took quite some time for me to get at the fact that the problem lay in the variable declaration!!

If you declare any variable in X-pages the scope is available to the entire X-page! You cannot destroy the variable!! Having used 500+ variables in my application, there were 3 or 4 variables which had got re-declared!

Let us look at a sample of what may have happened :

Assume I have three Computed fields in my XPages : fldComp1, fldComp2 and fldComp3

Assume that the Server Side Java Script code for the fields are given as

fldComp1 :

var EstimatedPrice =12;
var Profitmargin =8;
return EstimatedPrice+Profitmargin;

 At runtime, fldComp1 gets a result of 20

 fldComp2 :

var EstimatedPrice=20;
print(EstimatedPrice);
var EstimatedTotal=getComponent(“fldComp1″).getValue();
print (EstimatedPrice);
print (EstimatedTotal);
return EstimatedTotal-EstimatedPrice;

 At runtime , Expected result: 0

(EstimatedPrice is declared as 20 and EstimatedTotal gets a return value of 20 by using the getComponent function)

whereas Actual result :8

This happens because EstimatedPrice is declared as 20 for fldComp2, but when getComponent function is called, EstimatedPrice is reset as 12 (as this variable also exists in fldComp1)

Now, EstimatedTotal has got the return value of 20; EstimatedPrice has the value 12
so,here EstimatedTotal – EstimatedPrice —-> 20-12 = 8

i.e fldComp2 has a computed value of 8

fldComp3:

var EstimatedUnits = 10;
return EstimatedUnits * EstimatedTotal ;

At runtime, Expected Result: Error
since EstimatedTotal is not declared in the code for the field fldComp3 but Actual Result : 200
since it will take the value which was calculated for EstimatedTotal from fldComp2 and multiply it with EstimatedUnits which is 10.

You might have the same problem with the 83rd field that you declared and the 637th field in the Xpage. In such a scenario, you could get bogged down and spend hours trying to zero in on the actual problem.

Solution:

• As far as possible, especially for big applications, minimize using code in X-pages and make maximum use of the script library. The scope of the variable in a script library is limited to the function only.
• In smaller applications ,if you have used code in the X-Page itself, follow a Naming convention for variables such that repetition of variable names is avoided at all costs.

About the Author:

Mahi or Mahendran Rathinam is a software engineer in Maarga, who has been developing in XPages.

But at the same time, when you look in to enterprise mobility for your workflows and Lotus applications, there are a few challenges that you will encounter. I am trying to list and articulate on the same.

• Device Fragmentation – I think this is one of the foremost challenges you would face. 4 major platforms and multiple devices with different screen resolutions, sizes and what not.
• Information security challenges – This will be the question posed by your management. The security of the data that goes in and out of the mobile devices.
• Security considerations because of BYOD – Most of your users would want to access applications in their own device. How can you control the security of these devices?
• Optimized User Experience – One of the important reasons why your users are asking for mobile is the improved user experience. User experience doesn’t end up in clean UI and aesthetics but also in things like what will the user expect in an mobile application
• Approach we use to build the app? – This is something you would want not to choose, because whatever you choose will be criticized. But you have to choose an optimal solution based on time availability, budget and complexity of the application
• XPages / Web / HTML5?
• Native?
• Use a Tool?

• Data synchronization – Users want their data to be synchronized instantaneously. The challenge is how you are going to handle this expectation
• Streamlining Mobile Device Management – Multiple devices? Own devices of the employees and company provided. How are you going to streamline without much inconvenience to the user
• Complexity of IT Help Desk – Minor challenge when compared to others but you has to be aware of the workload that your support will take.

These are some of the challenges that I felt are important when you are looking to develop your mobile strategy. You may have come across a few more, why don’t you share them on the comments section. This article is based on the research I did for  a whitepaper that I am writing on Enterprise Mobility. Watch this space for more info in a week.

About the author:
Lakshmi Sankaran is a Project Lead from Maarga Systems helping clients to move their Lotus Applications to mobile.

Webinar: Social Enablement in XPages
Presenters: Linoy K George and Mervin Thomas

Demo: Social e-Recruitment Application

I have also answered the questions that were posed during the webinar. Check out the answers here, it’s kind of FAQs for the social enabling using XPage. Looking forward to your feedback on the webinar

About the author:

Mervin is a Project Lead from Maarga Systems who specializes in XPages Development. His favourite past time is to create funny cartoons that goes in to the Happy News Board in Maarga.

Well, you have decided/planned to migrate your Lotus Notes applications to your new platform. This is the time you need to define domino-level (environment) and application-level (low-level) Migration Objectives clearly to have your Migration project successful and smoother.

Have you defined Domino-level Migration Objectives?

Examples of well defined Migration Domino-level Objectives

• I want to migrate all my Lotus Notes applications to new platform in 2 years

• I want to migrate all my Lotus Notes mails to new mailing system
• I want to migrate all my workflow applications to new BPM system
• I want to migrate all my product masters to RDBMS so that they can be used by my ERP in next 3 months

Checklists for preparing Migration Domino-level Objectives

• Have you spent more than 3 -6 weeks to prepare this statement?
• Have you discussed/considered opinion from all your Department/Functional heads on Migration & addressed their concerns?
• Have you discussed with your IT Support teams (at Head Office/Branches or Regional Offices)?
• Have you Identified the list of the third party solutions that are running on Lotus Domino server and analyzed impact of the migration?
• Have you evaluated and finalized the new mailing solution and impact of that on key/critical applications (if you are using Lotus Notes mailing system)?
• Do you have list of existing lotus notes applications that use Mailing, Calendaring and Resource reservation features. If yes, Have you evaluated/done the pilot test with new mailing system?
• Have you considered the data migration strategy?
• Have you considered the data archive and retrieval strategy?
• Have you discussed about all these with Business owners of the applications and came to agreement?
• Have you done the SWOT analysis on key applications before and after migration?
• Have you provided the Ball Park estimates of Time and Effort (and does this match with budget allocated for the Migration)?

To be continued…

About the author

Sivaram Athmakuri has 16 years of experience in providing Solutions to various enterprises using IBM products such as Lotus Domino, QuickR, Workflow and Domino.doc, Webpshere. He is Certified Project Management Professional and takes sessions/classes on various Project Management practices/knowledge.

The signup process was seamless. I turned on WiFi on my Galaxy SII, it detected the On Air hotspot, and connected. I launched a web browser, chose a username/password for the session, chose the package, provided my credit card details and once authorized I was on. The whole signup process seems to be carried out with a web-server that is placed in-flight, so the interaction speeds were really good. Even the authorization did not take much time … I saw that On Air had just run a $1 charge on my credit card to verify that I have a valid card. There were two packages .. I picked up the one for $15 for 30 MB of data and chose to cut out access when I utilized my data quota.

Most interesting to me was what I did immediately after finishing this. I launched Facebook, did a status update with a photo (low-res …. remember the cost of data here! – https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=3088528206860&set=p.3088528206860&type=1&theater) of me in the flight. I checked my company social network, and then my email. So, the urge was to get onto the social network and update/get updates, and that is the significant fact I learnt from this whole thing. Social Networks have become the hubs where we connect to the moment we have connectivity. I see a future in which inflight services are enhanced by additional services around social networks. KLM has already started trialling Social Seating, and I am sure this inflight time can fit into specific work patterns for people who are interested in more enterprise applications.

When it comes to communications, are we seeing a parallel to business planning? There is a popular approach adopted by a few prominent companies … which declared that in planning the “middle” is dead. They have a 10 year plan and a 1 week plan … but started de-emphasizing 1-2 year plans. In today’s globalized world, I see a lot of cross-country travel to get in front of the other party to collaborate closely. And I see multiple transient interactions over the social network. The “middle” like formal status calls are changing a bit, and getting subsumed by the constant stream of social updates using modern technology. What do you see happening in your world?

About the author

Venkatesh aka Venki is the Founder and CEO of Maarga Systems. He has more than 12 years of experience in Collaborative Technologies, Web 2.0, Sourcing Management, Global Delivery Models, Lotus Notes, Domino and other IBM Software Technologies. His other interests include Yoga and Developmental Economics. Connect with Venki at http://in.linkedin.com/in/4venki

Step 1: Enable the Install Option in the designer from the Preferences panel

Step 2: Install the Subclipse using Update Site

Step 3: Update site is http://subclipse.tigris.org/update_1.8.x

Step 4: Click Finish, to proceed to other screen

Step 5: Click Next, Accept and Install all the plugins as it prompts

Step 6: After the above step, restart the domino eclipse client. Install the ‘SourceEnableControl’ plugin, by downloading the SourceEnableControl100 plugin zip file. Add the zip file to the application list from the unzipped folder using “Add Zip/ Jar location” option.

Step 7: Click OK, and proceed to Finish for the next screen

Step 8: Select all and click next and Accept and Install the drivers.Restart the domino designer. Check the preferences and make sure that all the options are enabled

Step 9: You are ready for the Use of subversion. Now connect your SVN server and enjoy !!!

 
About the author
Linoy George is a Project Lead from Maarga Systems. He codes and…. yeah, he codes

One of the functionalities of the application is to search Linkedin for a particular keyword and list the profiles that matches the keyword. The following code will help you with it that can be used along with any XPages application.

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<xp:view xmlns:xp=”http://www.ibm.com/xsp/core”>
<!– Maargasystems.com –>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://platform.linkedin.com/in.js”>
api_key:  //need to give that
onLoad: onLinkedInLoad
authorize: true
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
// 2. Runs when the JavaScript framework is loaded
function onLinkedInLoad() {    IN.Event.on(IN, “auth”, onLinkedInAuth);
}

// 2. Runs when the viewer has authenticated
function onLinkedInAuth() {
IN.API.PeopleSearch()
.fields(“firstName”, “lastName”, “positions”)
.params({“keywords”: “Designer”,”count”:25,”start”:25})
.result(displayPeopleSearch)
.error(displayPeopleSearchErrors);
}

// 2. Runs when the PeopleSearch() API call returns successfully
function displayPeopleSearch(peopleSearch) {
peopleSearchDiv = document.getElementById(“peoplesearch”)
var members = peopleSearch.people.values; // people are stored in sa different spot than earlier example
var name;
for (var member in members) {
// but inside the loop, everything is the same
// extract the title from the members first position
name += members[member].firstName + ” ” + members[member].lastName+”,”
peopleSearchDiv.innerHTML += “<table><tr><td></td><td><p>Name: <a>” + members[member].firstName + ” ” + members[member].lastName + ” </a></p><p> ” + members[member].positions.values[0].title + “</p></td></tr></table><hr></hr>”;
}
}

function displayPeopleSearchErrors(error) { /* do nothing */ }
</script>

<br/>

<div id=”peoplesearch”></div>
<br/>

</xp:view>

 

Screenshot

Download the complete code as a text file

About the author
Linoy George is a Project Lead from Maarga Systems. He codes and…. yeah, he codes

I have been working on the Intranet system of Maarga for the past few days and the challenge was to show an employee’s calendar events in Lotus notes in his intranet profile page. This scenario you may come across in your companies or in your client’s environment especially when you develop portals for the internal employees. It’s s SJSS tweak that can get you this operation done.

The code

importPackage(java.lang);
importPackage(java.util);

var commonUserName = new String(@Name(“[CN]“,@UserName()));
var mailServer = new StringBuffer();
var mailFile = new StringBuffer();
var mailDomain = new StringBuffer();
var mailSystem = new StringBuffer();
var profile = new Vector();

var Reg:NotesRegistration = session.createRegistration();
Reg.setRegistrationServer(@Subset(@DbName(),”1″));
Reg.getUserInfo(commonUserName, mailServer, mailFile, mailDomain, mailSystem, profile);
var MailFilePath = @ReplaceSubstring(mailFile,”\\”,”/”);

var mailPath = MailFilePath + “.nsf”
try {
// gettting the MailServer Path from Config Documents
var serverName = @DbLookup(@DbName(),”vwConfig”,”MailServer”,2)

var mailDb:NotesDatabase = session.getDatabase(@Text(serverName),mailPath)

var inboxView:NotesView = mailDb.getView(“MeetingsOnMyCalendar”) //this will all entries from the calendar

var today:NotesDateTime = session.createDateTime(@Today())
var dateRange = session.createDateRange()
dateRange.setText(@Text(today.getDateOnly()) +” 12:00:00 AM – ” + @Text(today.getDateOnly())+” 11:59:59 PM”)
var documentCollection:NotesViewEntryCollection = inboxView.getAllEntriesByKey(dateRange);

var documentCollection1:NotesDocumentCollection = inboxView.getAllDocumentsByKey(dateRange);
var totalDocumentCount1:Integer =  documentCollection1.getCount();

var totalDocumentCount:Integer =  documentCollection.getCount();
var today:NotesDateTime = session.createDateTime(@Today())

var MeetingDetails=”";

if(totalDocumentCount==0)
{
return “No Meetings for the day”
}

var viewEntry:NotesViewEntry = documentCollection.getFirstEntry()
var newArr = new Array()
for(x=0;x<totalDocumentCount;x++)
{

var document:NotesDocument = viewEntry.getDocument()

var MeetingDate:NotesDateTime = session.createDateTime(@Text(document.getItemValue(“StartDateTime”)[0]))
if(MeetingDate.getDateOnly()==today.getDateOnly()){ //This will get you the non-repeated entry – If need all entries need to try here
var temp = @Text(document.getItemValue(“StartTime”)) + ” – ” +@Text(document.getItemValue(“EndTime”))+”      “+@Text(document.getItemValue(“Subject”))+”#”
if(MeetingDetails == “”)
{

MeetingDetails = temp
}
else
{

MeetingDetails = MeetingDetails + temp

}

}

viewEntry = documentCollection.getNextEntry(viewEntry)
}
if(MeetingDetails==”")
{
MeetingDetails =  “No Meeting for the day”
}

return MeetingDetails

}catch(e){
//Handle the error page
}

Sample Screenshots

Download the code text file here

Linoy George is a Project Lead from Maarga Systems. He codes and…. yeah, he codes