Customizing your TDI assembly line

Tivoli Directory Integrator is an integral part of a Connections on premises installation. If all your profile information is available in a single LDAP directory, configuring your assembly line is easy and can be done without any programming skills or even opening the TDI editor. When you need to combine information from multiple sources however, you’ll need to customise the standard assemblyline and you’ll probably find that the learning curve to do so is quite steep.x000D Based on a practical case of an assemblyline that I recently customised for a large customer, this session will walk you through the TDI interface and the default IBM Connections assembyline and show you how to combine information from multiple sources in your IBM Connections profiles with the goal to make the learning curve considerably less steep.

Transcript

1. Customising your TDI
   Assembly line
   Martijn de Jong, e-office
   @martdj
   

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2. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   Who am I?
   • M.Sc. Electrical Engineering at the University of Delft, The Netherlands
   • Psychology & Ergonomics at the University of Stellenbosch, South Africa
   • Worked with IBM Domino in development, administration and as an instructor since 2000
   • Worked with IBM Connections since 2012 with 2 of top 3 largest accounts in the Netherlands
   • Working for e-office since September ☺
   Martijn de Jong
   martijn.de.jong@e-office.com
   twitter.com/martdj
   nl.linkedin.com/in/martdj
   blog.martdj.nl
   

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3. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   Life beyond Connections
   Climbing
   Musicals
   

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4. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   PLATINUM SPONSOR
   PLATINUM SPONSORS
   GOLD SPONSORS
   SILVER SPONSORS
   BRONZE SPONSORS SPEEDSPONSORING BEER SPONSOR
   

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5. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   Not Covered
   • How to configure TDI
   • See official documentation:
   https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSYGQH_6.0.0/admin/install/t_prof_install_tdi.html
   • How to add extension attributes
   • See the presentation by Wannes Rams and
   Klaus Bild:
   https://www.slideshare.net/kbild/show301-make-your-ibm-connections-deployment-your-own-customize-it
   

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6. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   Agenda
   • Why customise
   • Considerations before customising
   • TDI terminology
   • What I customised
   • How to customise
   • Demo
   • Caveats
   • Resources
   

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7. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   Default Assemblyline
   LDAP Directory
   (Domino, AD, etc)
   Configuration Files:
   • profiles_tdi.properties
   • map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
   • map_dbrepos_to_source.properties
   • LotusConnections-config/*.xml
   SQL
   (DB2, Oracle,
   MS SQL)
   

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8. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   My case
   LDAP Directory
   Novell e-directory SQL
   (DB2, Oracle,
   MS SQL)
   2nd LDAP Directory
   Active Directory
   Configuration Files:
   • profiles_tdi.properties
   • map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
   • map_dbrepos_to_source.properties
   • LotusConnections-config/*.xml
   • Extra properties file
   

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9. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
   My case
   LDAP Directory
   Novell e-directory
   Configuration Files:
   • profiles_tdi.properties
   • map_dbrepos_from_source.properties
   • map_dbrepos_to_source.properties
   • LotusConnections-config/*.xml
   • Extra properties file
   SQL
   (DB2, Oracle,
   MS SQL)
   2nd LDAP Directory
   Active Directory
   

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10. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Considerations before customising
    • The default assembly line is maintained by IBM/HCL
    • Any changes have to be easily repeatable
    • Limit your changes to specific insertion points
    • Document them really well
    • If your changes don’t fit into this model, put them in a
    separate assembly line
    

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11. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    TDI Terminology
    • Connector – Connects to a source outside TDI to Add,
    Delete, Update or Lookup entries or to iterate a directory
    or create a delta
    • Entry - All the Attributes that make up a single unit of
    data
    • Work entry
    • Conn(ector) entry
    • Other entries (current, error, operation)
    

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12. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    TDI Terminology (2)
    • Attribute map – Data flows between conn entries and
    work entries
    • Input map
    • Output map
    

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13. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Customised workflow
    LDAP Directory
    Novell e-directory
    2nd LDAP Directory
    Active Directory
    Work entry
    SQL Entry
    Add:
    conn.sAMAccount
    Name
    conn.DN
    If (lookupError) {
    system.skipEntry }
    else {
    If (work.mail==“” &
    conn.mail != “”)
    {work.mail=conn.mail
    } else
    {system.skipEntry}}
    Check if
    visitingAddress
    exists in DB. If
    not, fill it from
    either office
    address or postal
    address
    SQL
    (DB2,
    Oracle, MS
    SQL)
    

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14. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Customised workflow
    LDAP Directory
    Novell e-directory
    2nd LDAP Directory
    Active Directory
    Work entry
    SQL Entry
    Add:
    conn.sAMAccount
    Name
    conn.DN
    If (lookupError) {
    system.skipEntry }
    else {
    If (work.mail==“” &
    conn.mail != “”)
    {work.mail=conn.mail
    } else
    {system.skipEntry}}
    Check if
    visitingAddress
    exists in DB. If
    not, fill it from
    either office
    address or postal
    address
    SQL
    (DB2,
    Oracle, MS
    SQL)
    

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15. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    How to customise
    • 5 phases of sync_all_dns
    • Phase 1 - hash Profiles database
    • Phase 2 - hash source (LDAP)
    • Phase 3 - compare values
    • Phase 4 - delete
    • Phase 5 - add / update
    Source: https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSYGQH_6.0.0/admin/admin/c_admin_profiles_sync_ldap_understanding.html
    

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16. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    How to customise (2)
    • TDI uses an iterator to iterate through the source
    • We want this iterator to take along our 2nd source
    

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17. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Demo
    

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18. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Caveats
    • Debugging single entry via “normal way” (via
    collect_dns) doesn’t work
    • This does work:
    source_ldap_required_dn_regex=^.*uid=TD48TV|uid=WS27QJ.*$
    perform_deletion_or_inactivate_for_sync=false (extremely important!!)
    • Can’t use LDAP timestamp (unless you know
    both LDAPs change if the 2nd LDAP gets a
    change)
    

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19. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Resources
    • IBM Tivoli Directory Integrator Users Group
    http://www.tdi-users.org/foswiki/Integrator/WebHome
    • Guides
    • Getting started
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSCQGF_7.1.1/com.ibm.IB
    MDI.doc_7.1.1/gettingstarted.pdf
    • User’s guide
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSCQGF_7.1.1/com.ibm.IB
    MDI.doc_7.1.1/usersguide.pdf
    • Reference guide
    https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSCQGF_7.1.1/com.ibm.IB
    MDI.doc_7.1.1/referenceguide.pdf
    

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20. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Questions
    

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21. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    Support
    • Check out my blog!
    https://blog.martdj.nl
    • Find me on the openntf slack space at connections-on-prem
    https://openntf.slack.com
    

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22. View Slide

23. Social Connections 15 Munich, September 16-18 2019
    PLATINUM SPONSOR
    PLATINUM SPONSORS
    GOLD SPONSORS
    SILVER SPONSORS
    BRONZE SPONSORS SPEEDSPONSORING BEER SPONSOR
    

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