An Introduction to Working With the Activity Stream

This presentation by Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg (mh@intravision.dk, http://lekkimworld.com),
OnTime® by IntraVision, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Denmark License
An Introduction to
Working With the
Activity Stream
Mikkel Flindt Heisterberg
Senior Solution Architect / Partner
OnTime® by IntraVision

@me
• Developer for IBM
Notes, Domino, Sametime, Java, DB2
, Websphere Application Server, Web
• Lover of plugins – plugins are cool! –
but slowly becoming the widget guy
• IBM Champion
• Blog: lekkimworld.com
• @lekkim

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from IBM Notes Standard, to web browsers, mobile
devices, IBM Connections and IBM Notes Basic
• Oh and there’s an API as well...

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What is this session about?
“The future of business is social and the activity
stream is the way events and messages are
communicated in the social business. In this session
you'll learn all there is to know about the activity
stream including exactly what it is and how to
interact with it using your favorite development
environment whether that be
JavaScript, XPages, Java or even the plain vanilla
HTTP based REST API. This session is for you if you
want to start working the Activity Stream.”

The activity stream concept
Activity stream was added in IBM Connections v. 4.0.
“An activity stream is a list of recent activities performed
by an individual, typically on a single website. For
example, Facebook's News Feed is an activity stream.
Since the introduction of the News Feed on September
6, 2006 other major websites have introduced similar
implementations for their own users. Since the
proliferation of activity streams on websites, there have
been calls to standardize the format so that websites
could interact with a stream provided by another
website.”

What is the Activity Stream
• River of news – it’s like water flowing by you
• Notifications about ”stuff” happening in (other) systems – we
refer to these notifications as entries
• Entries may be saved for future reference and entries may be
actionable i.e. indicated that it must be acted upon
• Typically you decide what goes into your stream
• A replacement for email notifications (although you
can have those too...)
• Standards based – like – meaning – IBM took the
standard and added IBM Connections specific
stuff to it

What is the Activity Stream NOT
• A new inbox – doesn’t replace email
• A perpeptual data store – entries are deleted
based on a server defined purge interval
(default is 30 days) unless saved or actionable
• Meant as a content repository
• Something that implies that you must read it
all – it’s notifications – treat it as such...

Demo
• Let’s look at the activity stream in IBM
Connections
• See options for filtering (saved/actionable)

No content stored in the stream

• HTTP is much more than what a web browser reveals
• The request
– has a method (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
– may have headers that describe the request such as a
Content-Type (text/html), cookies and authentication
information.
– may have a body data
• The response
– has a return code (200 = OK, 301 = Moved, 404 = Not found)
– may carry body data
– may have headers that describe the response (e.g. Content-
Type, charset and new location)
REST API’s 101 (1)

• You will mainly use the POST and PUT methods to send JSON data
(Content-Type: application/json) to the API
• JSON is super simple key/value data format. It has simple datatypes
(strings, numbers, booleans), objects and arrays
{
”email”: ”mh@intravision.dk”,
”niceGuy”: true,
”age”: 36,
”name”: {
”first”: ”Mikkel Flindt”,
”last”: ” Heisterberg”
},
”Lotuspheres”: [2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012],
”IBMConnects”: [2013]
}

• HTTP is pure text and easily done using
telnet but there are cool tools to make it
easier:
– RESTClient in Firefox
– Advanced REST Client in Chrome
– cURL if you’re a command line guy/gal
• Recommend RESTClient in Firefox as the
Chrome equivalent sends an Origin header
that doesn’t agree with IBM Connections
• Charles Web
Proxy, http://www.charlesproxy.com

How many streams are there?
• In my opinion it makes most sense to not
consider the activity stream as one single
stream
• Instead think that
– Each user has his/her own (@me)
– There is a public stream (@public)
– A community may have a stream if the widget has
been added by a community owner – if there’s no
stream for a community posting to it will return a
”403 Forbidden”

Stream URL components
https://<host>/connections/opensocial/<auth>/rest/activitystreams
/<user ID>/<group ID>/<application ID>/<activity ID>
Component Meaning
<auth> (optional) If using form based authentication leave this component
out. Otherwise options are anonymos, basic, oauth (last option not
covered in this presentation).
<user ID> The user whose stream you’re addressing – use @me for current
users stream, @public for public stream or a community ID for the
stream in a community.
<group ID> The group of entries you’re addressing – use @all for all posts or
options for special meaning such as @saved, @actions etc. Refer for
InfoCenter and resources slide for more.
<application ID> When retrieving entries this refers to the application (or ”generator”)
that created the entry. All the IBM Connections app names can be
used (profiles, blogs, wikis etc.) plus custom ones (e.g. ontimegc).
@all used for all applications.
<activity ID> Used to reference a specific event e.g. for updating saved status.

1. /activitystreams/@me/@all
List my (current users) entries
2. /activitystreams/@public/@all
List public stream entries
3. /activitystreams/@me/@actions
List my actionable events
4. /activitystreams/@me/@saved/blogs
List my saved events from blogs
5. /@me/@all/@all/bdb562fb-b145-43dc...
Work with entry from my stream based on ID
Stream URL Examples
* All URLs above start with https://<host>/connections/opensocial/<auth>/rest
Also used
when creating
new entries
(e.g. POSTing)

Anatomy of a stream entry
• A stream entry reads like ”the current user
posted a note to IBM Connections and you
should act on it”

should act on it”
The person doing the posting
is called the actor and can be
a specific user ID but usually
the current user (@me)

should act on it”What the person does is called
the verb and there’s a long list of
predefined ones such as post,
update, create...

should act on it” The object in question is called
the object and can be anything
that represents the target ”thing”
i.e. file, note, meeting...

should act on it”The system the user worked
on is called the target and
can be any system you need
to refer to

should act on it”
IBM Connections supports some
special properties for entries
such as actionable and saved to
allow users to work with entries

posted a file to IBM Connections and you
should act on it”
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"verb": "post",
"title": "Some entry title",
"updated": "2013-05-17T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"title": "Some object title",
"objectType": "note",
"id": "1234567890-1234567890-1234567890"
}
}

posted a file to IBM Connections and you
should act on it”
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"verb": ”create",
"title": ”Sales proposal for Rockets Inc.",
"updated": "2013-05-17T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"title": "Sales proposal for Rockets Inc.",
"objectType": ”proposal",
"id": "1234567890-1234567890-1234567890"
},
”target”: {
”displayName”: ”Acme Corp. CRM”,
”url”: ”https://crm.example.com”
}
}
IBM Connections is the implied
default target but you can
specify your own target in the
entry

POST /connections/opensocial/basic/rest/activitystreams/@me/@all
Host: social.example.com
Content-Type: application/json
Content-Length: xyz
Authorization: Basic xyz123
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"verb": "post",
"updated": "2013-05-17T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"title": "Some object title",
"objectType": "note",
"id": "1234567890-1234567890-1234567890"
}
}
* Smallest entry you can/should post to the stream
Posting an entry* to the stream

Demo
• RESTClient in Firefox
• Easily work with feeds, add authentication,
headers etc.
• Use Private
Browsing
mode

Deleting from the stream
• In short you can’t – up to IBM Connections v. 4.5
you cannot delete from the activity stream –
you’ll just get an 403 Forbidden back
• There is some light at the end of the tunnel though –
this directly from the developers
at IBM: “We are however adding
'propagateDelete' at the
moment, which deletes all events
related to a given object on
receipt of a delete event (if so
specified). This will be protected by
a trusted role.”

GET /connections/opensocial/basic/rest/activitystreams/@me/@actions
PUT /connections/.../activitystreams/@me/@all/@all/de325123-e269-4a33-b62a
Content-Length: xyz
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"id": "de325123-e269-4a33-b62a",
"connections": {
"actionable": false
}
}
Mark/unmark as actionable
Response
{"entry": {
"connections": {
"actionable": "false"
},
"id": "unmark actionable:"
}}

GET /connections/opensocial/basic/rest/activitystreams/@me/@saved
PUT /connections/.../activitystreams/@me/@all/@all/de325123-e269-4a33-b62a
Content-Length: xyz
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"id": "de325123-e269-4a33-b62a",
"connections": {
”saved": false
}
}
Mark/unmark saved
Response
{"entry": {
"connections": {
“saved": "false"
},
"id": "unmark saved:“
}}

Rolling it up
• Rollup is telling the stream that an
post/update relates to the same ”thing”
• Used to avoid cluttering up the user
interface

Content-Length: xyz
{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"verb": "post",
"updated": "2013-05-17T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {"title": "Some object title”, "objectType": "note",
"id": "1234567890-1234567890-1234567890"
},
”connections”: {
”rollupid”: ”1234567890-1234567890-1234567890”
}
}
Rolling it up

Templates
• Two main reasons for looking at templates
– Internationalization (i18n) / translation
– Getting a standard representation in the UI
• Two types of templates
– Object Substitution replaces a reference with nice
markup – an example is replacing the actor with a
HTML reference using the business card
– Title Template Substitution – uses object
substitutions it makes standard titles

Templates
• Object Substitution
– ${Actor} - this is converted into appropriately marked up HTML which
displays the Actors name and links to a Business Card
– ${Object} - if this is a person we display as with the Actor
above, otherwise the displayName with a link to the url
– ${Target} - if this is a person we display as with the Actor
above, otherwise the displayName with a link to the url
• Title Template Substitution
– ${created} = ${Actor} created ${Object}
– ${create.target} = ${Actor} created ${Object} in ${Target}

{
"generator": {"id": "ontimegc”},
"actor": {"id": ”@me"},
"verb": "create",
"title": "${create}",
"updated": "2013-05-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"summary": "Project Z Review Meeting",
"objectType": "meeting",
"id": "123456789012345678901234567890OP”
}
}
Using templates

Embedded Experiences
• EE works a litte different in e-mail
and in the activity stream
• E-mail
– Traditional (SMTP) e-mail is using
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extension
(MIME)
– EE’s adds an additional ”MIME part” –
clients in the know will show content
based on this data if possible and
allowed by policy
• Activity stream
– Activity stream delivery model is a bit different than in e-mail as we already
have a structured payload
– Application sending the entry adds an openSocial.embed object to the entry
with link to the gadget required for rendering the EE and context info

{
”actor”: {”id”: ”@me”},
...
...
"openSocial": {
"embed": {
"gadget": "http://ee.example.com/mygadget.xml",
"context": {"id":"12345"}
}
}
}
Embedded Experiences

• By default you may only post entries to your own
activity stream
• Sending to others can be considered as spam
• As with standards there are multiple ways of doing it
using either
– OpenSocial (openSocial: {deliverTo: []})
– Activitystrea.ms (to: [])
– Just use the second one...
• To send to another users stream
you need to either be him/her
or be a trusted application (more
information later...)
Posting to other users stream

{
"actor": {"id": "@me"},
"to": [{"objectType": "person", "id": "A7E718F4-3040-2A00-C125"}],
"verb": "create",
"updated": "2013-05-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"summary": "Project X Review Meeting",
"id": "123456789012345678901234567890MN”
},
"connections": {
"rollupid": "123456789012345678901234567890MN",
}
}
Posting to other user

{
"actor": {"id": "A7E718F4-3040-2A00-C125"},
"verb": "create",
"updated": "2013-05-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"summary": "Project Y Review Meeting",
"id": "123456789012345678901234567890OP”
},
"connections": {
"rollupid": "123456789012345678901234567890OP”
}
}
Posting as other user

{
"actor": {"id": "1E7F44DD-9C20-842A-C125"},
"verb": "create",
"updated": "2013-05-21T12:00:00.000Z",
"object": {
"summary": "Project Z Review Meeting",
"id": "123456789012345678901234567890OP”
},
"connections": {
"rollupid": "123456789012345678901234567890OP”
}
}
Posting to & as other user

Registering generators
wsadmin>execfile("newsAdmin.py")
wsadmin>NewsActivityStreamService.listApplicationRegistrations()
{wikis=wikis, communities=communities, general=General, profiles=profiles, a
ctivities=activities, homepage=homepage, blogs=blogs, forums=forums, files=f
iles, dogear=dogear, demoapp=Demo Application, kudos=Kudos}
wsadmin>NewsActivityStreamService.registerApplication("ontimegc", "OnTi
me Group
Calendar", "http://www.ontimesuite.com", "", ”http://inside.intravision.dk/i
mages/ontime.gif”, ””, ”OnTime Group Calendar”, ”true”)
wsadmin>
After first use of a generator it can be referenced by ID. Purpose of registering
is that users may filter by it in the UI.

Benefit of registering generator

Granting access (1)
• Permission to send to other users are granted
using the trustedExternalApplication role
• Granted in the WidgetContainer application
using wsadmin or the Websphere Application
Server Integrated Solutions Console – the
latter is easiest

Summary
• There’s no one stream - @me vs. @public vs. community
• Be patient – wrapping your head around these concepts can be
hard in the beginning
• Remember that the data isn’t stored in the stream but rather is
pointed to from the stream
• Entries are automatically purged from the stream unless saved or
marked actionable
• You cannot delete from the stream (yet)
• Accessed using REST API URL based on user, group, application and
activity ID
• When working with the RESTClient in Firefox use ”Private Browsing”
mode as credentials used and cookies returned in one tab doesn’t
leak to other ”Private Browsing” tabs.
• Pretty easy to use once you grasp the concepts

Resources
• Activity Streams in the OpenSocial specification, http://opensocial-
resources.googlecode.com/svn/spec/trunk/Social-API-
Server.xml#ActivityStreams-Service
• AppDev wiki, http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/appdevwiki.nsf
• IBM Connections Activity Stream Integration (AD104 from IBM Connect
2013), http://www.slideshare.net/brianog/ad104-ibm-connections-
actiivtystream-integration
• Activity Stream hands-on lab, http://www-
10.lotus.com/ldd/appdevwiki.nsf/xsp/.ibmmodres/domino/OpenAttachm
ent/ldd/appdevwiki.nsf/82567C415DF5243185257AEE00626F82/attach/5-
sdk-workshop-activitystreams.pdf

Tools of the trade
• RESTclient in Firefox
(recommended), https://addons.mozilla.org/d
a/firefox/addon/restclient/
• Advanced REST client in Chrome (issues with
POSTs), http://bit.ly/advancedrest
• cURL (for any imaginable operating
system), http://curl.haxx.se/
• Charles Web
Proxy, http://www.charlesproxy.com

Q&A
• But?, How?, Doesn't that
mean...
• Give it to me! (or come talk
to me after the session or
find me in the hallways...)
• Twitter: @lekkim
• Email: mh@intravision.dk
• Blog: http://lekkimworld.com

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