STlinks on steroids

Chris Freestone  15 September 2008 21:44:35

For several years now I've been rather fond of the good old STlinks API. It was basic, very easy to implement into a Domino web application and did exactly what it said on the tin - providing awareness and the ability to initiate a chat session by clicking on a name. The chat window could be branded with your company's logo and allowed you to escalate the chat session to a full blown meeting if desired. All without the need to deploy the Sametime Connect client to the desktop - total genius. This API was revolutionary back in the day, but it is fair to say that it was due for a overhaul. Enter the new kid on the block - the all new Sametime Connect Web API now available in the Sametime 8.0.1 Toolkit. STlinks is still great as a lightweight option or if you can't guarantee that the end user has the Connect Client installed, but what if your users have got the full Sametime Connect client installed on their machines ? Customers have been crying out for a way to take full advantage of the Sametime client and IBM have listened. In fairness, I've been meaning to take a closer look at this for several months now, as for me this represents a real step forward in terms of application integration options. Not necessarily for the depth of functions that the new API provides but more for what it represents for the Sametime platform; the number of actions that can be called out of the box are few, but what is provided makes absolute sense - and the architecture gives flexibility to organisations that need more. Customers want a unified desktop experience with integration that extends to all the tools they use everyday. The growing trend in Unified Communications has brought the IT and Telephony industries much closer together - changing peoples' expectations of how collaboration tools need to evolve. Over the past couple of years we've seen the rich features of a revamped Sametime Connect client (first seen in ST 7.5) getting exposed within Lotus Notes 8 as well as Microsoft Outlook & Office, providing not only chat but functions such as Click to Call and Instant Meetings, in addition to the big telephony players providing extensive plugin support for both the client and the meeting server.

STlinks chat window Sametime Connect Web API 8.0.1 chat window

The thing is though, people don't only work in those applications. With Web 2.0 playing such a strong part in all new development projects, an organisation's intranet is becoming the defacto one stop shop for corporate information and applications. As such, having the ability to tightly hook in the Sametime Connect Client's rich collaborative toolset within the applications that business users rely on to do their job provides a natural evolution to how people want to work.

Getting down to specifics, obviously the API provides realtime status information for users and the ability to launch a chat window for someone. For me though, the key actions would have to be actions such as :

- AddToList  : as the name would suggest - adds the person to your Sametime contact list

- Call : providing the ability to initiate a telephone call through whichever telephony provider is integrated

- InstantShare : part of Sametime Advanced allowing users to share an application window without the need to launch a meeting

Imagine being able to launch these tools in context directly from within your own applications !  

This has all been made possible through the Sametime Connect Client's underlying Expeditor framework, specifically the local web container that sits on top of it. What makes this approach so unique though, is the ability to extend it. For example, suppose you have written a Sametime plugin to query a backend system given a particular username - why not make that available as a web action through the web API function extension point. Or even launch a conference call for a given customer's account team at the click of a button directly from your web based CRM application.....

Imagine Mashups where the iWidgets have been coded to take advantage of the Sametime Connect Web API. Business users could create their own applications that natively have context sensitive actions for Click To Call... Surely a winning combination !

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