Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts

1. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts Bram de Jager Audience: Development Level: 300

2. About Bram • Lead SharePoint developer / architect for Information Worker Solutions center of Macaw • Microsoft Certified Master for SharePoint Server 2010 • Contact • http://bramdejager.wordpress.com • @bramdejager • bram.de.jager@macaw.nl

3. Poll • Who had a coffee? • Who are developers? • Who developed on social solutions? • Who played around with the Activity Feed API? • Who extended the Activity Feed for customer based solutions?

4. Agenda • User Profiles and My Site • Activity Feeds • Extending the Activity Feed • Demo

5. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts User Profiles and My Site

6. User Profiles and My Site • User Profiles • User Profile Service Application • Tight relation with MMS, BCS and Search • My Site Host (mandatory) provides My Profile and My Newsfeed pages • My Site • Personal Site Collection (personal storage) • “Content” tab on My Profile page

7. Improvements SharePoint 2010

8. Logical Architecture Components My Network My Profile My Content Pages / Navigation My Site Host My Site Site Collections My Web Application Web Application UPA MMS Search Service Applications

9. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts Activity Feeds

10. Activity Feeds • Aggregates colleague activity as feed • Natively displays user profile changes, tagging and notes activity • Security trimmed, you can only see what you are allowed to see • Can be extended via Activity Feed API

11. Data aggregation • Two types of activities • User profile changes such as job title, colleague changes, shared interest and anniversary reminders • Social feedback events such as tags, notes, ratings and personal blog posts • Gathering by timer job and broadcasted to colleagues

12. Timer Jobs • Activity Feed job (Hourly) • Pre-computes activities to be shown in users' activity feeds. • Aggregates user profile changes and social feedback • Activity Feed Cleanup (Daily) • Cleans up pre-computed activities used in activity feeds which are older than 14 days. This job does not affect the User Profile Change Log.

13. Before and after SP1 • Enable Activity Feed job • RTM: disabled by default • SP1: enabled by default • Additional setting in “Setup My Sites”

14. Activity Feed types • Consolidated feed • Activities from everything I trackhttp://<my>/_layouts/activityfeed.aspx?consolidated=true • Published feed • My activitieshttp://<my>/_layouts/activityfeed.aspx • Activities by publisherhttp://<my>/_layouts/activityfeed.aspx?publisher=<accountname>

15. Consolidatedfeed • Activities from everything I track

16. Activities I am following… • Activity feed depends on interests defined in Edit Profile page • Custom activity applications will be soon here as well

17. Published feed • Account related activities / my activities

18. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts Extending the Activity Feed

19. Extending activity feed • Why extend the activity feed? • ECM activities within SharePoint environment • xRM/CRM activities • External data (WordPress, Facebook, Twitter) • Activity Feed API for extending the activity feed • Microsoft.Office.Server.ActivityFeed namespace • Microsoft.Office.Server.UserProfiles.dll

20. Activity feed architecture Activity Feed - Profile DB Activity Feed Activity Timer Job Custom Timer Job Profile and social gatherers Custom gatherer Social database Change log - Profile DB

21. Activity Feed classes

22. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts Demo overview

23. Blog Activity Application Activity Feed - Profile DB Activity Feed Activity Timer Job Custom Timer Job • BlogPostTimerJob Profile and social gatherers Custom gatherer • BlogPostGatherer Social database Change log - Profile DB

24. Main classes • ActivityFeednamespace • BlogActivityApplication • BlogPostGatherer • BlogPostTimerJob • Entities namespace • Blog • Post • BlogActivityApplicationGlobals

25. Solution Package (WSP) • Features • Activity Feed Blog application (Farm) • Configure Diagnostic Areas and Categories (Farm) • Activity Feed Blog Post Setup (WebApp) • Resources • ActivityFeedBlog.resx

26. Activity Templates • Type Display • ActivityFeed_Blog_BlogPostAdded_Type_Display • “Posted a new blog post”

27. Activity Templates • Single Value Template • ActivityFeed_Blog_BlogPostAdded_SV_Template • “{Publisher} has written a new post {Link} on blog {Link2}.”

28. Activity Templates • Multi Value Template • ActivityFeed_Blog_BlogPostAdded_MV_Template • “{Publisher} has written {Size} new posts on blog {Link}. <br/> {List}”

29. Extending the My Site activity feed with external blog posts DEMO TIME!!

30. Recap: Key Points • Activity Feed types • Consolidated feed • Published feed • Extending the activity feed • Don’t just add everything, like Twitter (overload database) • Because you can, doesn’t mean you must!

31. What We Covered • User Profiles and My Site • Activity Feeds • Extending the Activity Feed

32. Resources • MSDN • User ProfilesandSocial Data Code Sampleshttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff512773.aspx • Microsoft.Office.Server.ActivityFeednamespace • WesHackett’s blog • http://weshackett.com • SharePoint Guidance • SharePoint Logger • http://spg.codeplex.com

33. Thank You! • Blog: http://bramdejager.wordpress.com • Twitter: @bramdejager • Thanks to Wes Hackett • http://weshackett.com