Customizing the feature titles for IBM Connections mobile plus new URL handlers which are (almost) useful

Luis Benitez already blogged this (How To Customize the IBM Connections Mobile App for iOS, Android & BlackBerry) but I think it is so important that it bears mentioning again. With the latest update to IBM Connections (version 3.0.1.1 CR2) you know have the option to customize the mobile apps using a new mobile-config.xml file. It allows you to configure settings to do with login and the general configuration of the app. An important point is also that it allows you to change the title of the features in the app which is great if you have change feature names in the web UI. We have customers that change some of the Danish translations (especially for Community because they feel that the Danish word really isn’t representative of the feature) so making that feature name change apply to the mobile UI’s are great.

To install the fixes simply download the IBM Connections 3.0.1.1 CR2 jar-files and follow the steps from the technote (technote 1595154) to update IBM Connections. Please note that you need the newest update installer to perform the update.

As if this wasn’t enough Chris Reckling recently blogged (Custom URLs in IBM Connections Mobile Apps) on the new URL handlers that were added to the Connections mobile apps for iOS and Android. This means you can add a link in an email to take you directly to Profiles or a profile as well as Communities or a community. The URL’s are easy to use and pretty straight forward – to open John Does profile one could use ibmscp://com.ibm.connections/profiles?email=jdon%40example.com from anywhere on the app. Pretty neat.

There’s also a URL handlers to configure the app for a user to allow for easier set up of the app.

The URL handlers are great but I think it is too bad they didn’t add support for all features now they were at it. For instance having a direct link capability into Activities would be killer as it would allow you to add links to the email notifications that would take you to the mobile app instead of the web UI. Would have been soo cool and would have been something I could use now – having the Communities part is nice but I receive way more Activities notifications by email so a link capability there is worth much more to me. I hoping it will make it into the next update.