Here’s a guide on how to add feeds from IBM Connections to TweetDeck which was prompted by this tweet from Bruce Elgort:
I wish I could use TweetDeck to pull in my IBM Connections feeds #in
— Bruce Elgort (@belgort) juni 26, 2012
The basic process is:
1. Identify the IBM Connections feed URL that you want to add
2. Submit the IBM Connections fee URL to FreeMyFeed to create an unauthenticated version of it
3. Create a Twitter account to post the feed to
4. Submit the unauthenticated feed generated from FreeMyFeed in step 2 to twitterfeed and configure twitfereed to post the feed content to the Twitter account created in step 3
5. Add the Twitter account to Tweetdeck
DISCLAIMER: The process requires you to publish content from your IBM Connections implementation and make it public on the Internet. I take no responsibility for you publishing restricted information from your IBM Connections implementation publicly on the Internet. You know your content and if it is sensitive or not, if it’s sensitive don’t make it public.
1. Identify the IBM Connections Feed URL
The feed URLs for status updates are documented in the IBM Connections 3.0.1 Documentation and for this blog post I’m using the feed of all public updates from Lotus Greenhouse which is:
https://greenhouse.lotus.com/news/atom/stories/public
This feed will return the same status updates as the “Discover” section of the “Updates” tab.
For your feed follow the documentation to determine the feed URL that you wish to use and obviously replace “https://greenhouse.lotus.com” with the address of your IBM Connections implementation.
2. Submit the IBM Connections Feed to FreeMyFeed
As most IBM Connections implementations will require authentication the feed needs to be submitted to a service such as FreeMyFeed which will create an unauthenticated version of the IBM Connections feed. Just visit https://freemyfeed.com and supply the feed URL from step 1 and the username and password of your IBM Connections implementation.
3. Create a Twitter Account to Post the Feed to
Rather than posting the IBM Connections status updates to your own Twitter account you probably want to create a new Twitter account so that you (and anyone else that may find it useful) can subscribe to it separately.
4. Submit the FreeMyFeed Feed to twitterfeed
In order to automatically post the status updates to the Twitter account created in step 3 I use the twitterfeed service.
a. Create an account on twitterfeed and select “Create New Feed”
b. Provide a name for your feed, e.g. “IBM Greenhouse” and copy and paste the URL generated by FreeMyFeed in step 2, e.g. “https://freemyfeed.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9ncmVlbmhvdXNlLmxvdHVzLmNvbS9uZXdzL2F0b20vc3Rvcmllcy9wdWJsaWM6OmZyYXlsaW5nYWoxQGNhcmRpZmYuYWMudWs6OlBRcU9NT0NPVUZhQ3JYek5ENmhDTWpvNk1nPT0=”
c. Click “test rss feed” and you should see that the feed is “Active” and that the “Feed parsed OK” as shown below
d. Before moving on to Step 2 of the twitterfeed wizard select the “Advanced Settings” option and change the “Post Content” field to “title only”
e. Continue to Step 2 of the twitterfeed wizard and you should see that the feed has been successfully created:
f. Select the option to connect to Twitter and authenticate the twitterfeed service to the Twitter account created in step 3.
g. Leave the UTM Tags as the defaults, select “Create Service” and you should see:
h. Click “All Done” and “Go to Dashboard”
It can take up to an hour for twitterfeed to start processing feeds, but after a while you should see that it is posting to the Twitter account:
5. Add the Twitter Account to Tweetdeck
Add the account to Tweetdeck, add a column, select to display “Tweets” and select the relevant Twitter account.
Nice tip Andrew! Certainly going to give it a try. Maybe a small tip to add… If you set the twitter account to “protected” only allowed/authorized people will be able to subscribe/follow the twitter stream. Still not 100% secure but a lot saver than having an open twitter account broadcasting your internal business feed.
Hi Femke,
Good idea on making the Twitter account protected. The main issue I was thinking of when I added the disclaimer was the step to submit the feed to FreeMyFeed as at that point you’re deliberately making it public so that twitterfeed can see it.
Accidental discovery of a FreeMyFeed URL is arguably more unlikely than discovery of a Twitter account though so protecting the Twitter account might be enough.
Cheers,
Andrew.
yes, that feed still being public was what I was thinking of when I said it would still not make it 100% safe, but anything can help. Truth is though we need to move those programs like Yoono, Tweetdeck, etc to start supporting IBM Connections… That would really be the solution!
Well done sir! Yes that privacy security thing may get in the way but I like this idea.
Thanks Keith,
The security (or lack of) is going to be a sticking point for a lot of installs, but this might be ok for some people.
I actually went the FreeMyFeed route because I thought Lotus Greenhouse feeds were authenticated, but I’ve just discovered that https://greenhouse.lotus.com/news/atom/stories/public is completely unauthenticated and public anyway so if the feeds are public you can skip the FreeMyFeed step and submit the IBM Connections URL directly to twitterfeed
Cheers,
Andrew.