This chapter describes backend configuration requirements for the People Connections service. Always use Fusion Middleware Control or WLST command-line tool to review and configure back-end services for WebCenter Portal applications. Any changes that you make to WebCenter Portal applications, post deployment, are stored in MDS metatdata store as customizations.
This chapter includes the following sections:
Section 18.1, "What You Should Know About the People Connections Service"
Section 18.3, "Setting Up a Proxy Server for Activity Stream"
Section 18.5, "Synchronizing Profiles with the Identity Store"
Section 18.6, "Configuring Cache Options for the Profile Service"
The content of this chapter is intended for Fusion Middleware administrators (users granted the Admin or Operator role through the Oracle WebLogic Server Administration Console). See also Section 1.8, "Understanding Administrative Operations, Roles, and Tools."
The People Connections service provides social networking tools for creating, interacting with, and tracking the activities of one's connections. Its features enable users to manage their personal profiles, access the profiles of other users, provide ad hoc feedback, post messages, track activities, and connect with others.
It does this through a set of features that include:
Activity Stream for viewing user activities generated through application or social networking actions.
Connections for connecting to other application users to share information, comment on performance, exchange messages, and track activity
Feedback for giving ad hoc performance feedback to other users
Message Board for posting messages to other users
Profile for entering personal contact information and viewing the contact information of other users
Publisher for publishing status messages and posting files and links
The features of the People Connections service fall into the above five categories. Each category includes a set of task flows that expose People Connections features to end users.
For information about the People Connections service at runtime, see Part VIII, "Organizing Your Collaborative and Social Networking Environment," in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
For additional information about configuring People Connections, refer to “Configuring People Connections Defaults for WebCenter Spaces” in the Oracle Fusion Middleware User's Guide for Oracle WebCenter Portal: Spaces.
To use the People Connections service, you must have the WEBCENTER schema installed in your database.
In a production environment, an enterprise can leverage its back-end identity store as a means of providing People Connections with a population of potential connections. In a development environment, developers can add test-users to the jazn-data.xml file.
For example, Profile takes the bulk of its information from the back-end identity store that provides your WebCenter Portal application with its users. Additionally, Profile may offer opportunities for altering some of this information and for providing additional data not included in the identity store.
For information about connecting to a back-end (LDAP) identity store for the production version of your application, see Chapter 30, "Configuring the Identity Store".
To enable external people connection feeds in your WebCenter Portal applications, you must set up a proxy server.
A proxy server is also required if you want to display external links in Activity Stream task flows. Both the People Connection service and the Activity Stream service share the same proxy server settings.
You can configure a proxy server by using either Fusion Middleware Control or WLST. For information, see Section 9.7, "Setting Up a Proxy Server."
Application administrators can use WLST commands to archive and restore data in the Activity Stream schema. Administrators can perform the following archive actions:
Archive activity stream data that is older than a specified date by running archiveASByDate.
Archive activity stream data associated with deleted objects by running archiveASByDeletedObjects.
Archive activity stream data associated with Spaces that are currently closed by running archiveASByClosedSpaces.
Archive activity stream data associated with Spaces that have been inactive since a specified date by running archiveASByInactiveSpaces.
Restore archived activity stream data from a specified date into production tables by running restoreASByDate.
For more information, see the section, "Activity Stream," in Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
Administrators can synchronize profile information in the LDAP identity store with WebCenter Portal with WLST commands or through WebCenter Portal Administration as described in the following sections:
Using WLST Commands to Synchronize Profiles with the Identity Store
Using WebCenter Portal Administration to Synchronize Profiles with the Identity Store
Administrators can use WLST commands to perform the following actions to synchronize profiles:
Start or stop profile synchronization for all users or a single user by running startSyncProfiles or stopSyncProfiles.
Check whether profile synchronization is currently in progress by running isSyncProfilesRunning.
Set various profile synchronization options:
Specify whether to synchronize user profile photos in LDAP by running setProfilePhotoSync.
Set the profile synchronization LDAP batch read size to use during the synchronization process by running setProfileSyncLDAPReadBatchSize.
Synchronize profile information for a specific user by running syncProfile.
Return the current profile cache configuration settings by running printProfileConfig.
For more information, see the section, "WebCenter Portal Identity Store," in Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
WebCenter Portal administrators can also use WebCenter Portal Administration to control the LDAP batch size and turn on or off photo synchronization:
Log in as an administrator to WebCenter Portal.
Click Administration.
Click the Configuration tab.
Click the Services page.
Under Services and Providers, click People Connections.
Click the Profile tab.
To change the LDAP batch setting, under Profile Cache settings, set the LDAP read batch size for profile sync task as desired.
To turn on or off photo synchronization, select or deselect the box next to Synchronize user profile photos with LDAP when the cache expires.
The Profile service caches objects to save processing bandwidth, presenting information more quickly to users. The following are the default cache options for the Profile service:
Maximum number of objects in the cache: 1000
If the maximum number of objects in the cache is reached, older objects or unused objects will be removed from the cache as additional objects are added.
Maximum idle time in cache: 60 minutes
If an object in the cache has not been accessed for the maximum idle time it will be removed from the cache.
If you find that the profile service is performing more slowly than you want, you might want to increase the thresholds in the cache settings. If you feel that the data presented by the profile service is not updating frequently enough, you might want to decrease the cache thresholds.
Administrators can configure the Profile service cache options with WLST commands or through WebCenter Portal Administration as described in the following sections:
Administrators can use the following WLST commands to set profile cache options:
setProfileCacheNumberOfObjects
setProfileCacheTimeToLive
For command syntax and examples, see the section, "WebCenter Portal Identity Store," in Oracle Fusion Middleware WebLogic Scripting Tool Command Reference.
For information on how to run WLST commands, see Section 1.13.3.1, "Running Oracle WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) Commands."
WebCenter Portal administrators can also use WebCenter Portal Administration to set profile cache options:
Log in as an administrator to WebCenter Portal.
Click Administration.
Click the Configuration tab.
Click the Services page.
Under Services and Providers, click People Connections.
Click the Profile tab.
Under Profile Cache settings, set the Number of profile objects to keep in cache and Length of time to keep a profile object in cache (in minutes) settings as desired.