Craig Wiseman

Ok, I will admit this: I've made some nice consluting money dealing with Sametime Chat Logging.

Here's the technote (1086729) that tells you how to enable chat logging for Sametime [6.5.1, 7.0, 7.5, 7.5.1, 7.5.1.1, 7.5.1.2, 8.0, 8.0.1].

There's one huge caveat:

IMPORTANT: The chat logging code provided with Sametime (STChatLogFile.dll) is intended as sample code only, as "proof of concept" to demonstrate how the Sametime API Toolkit can be used to log chats between users. This sample chat logging DLL can be used as-is but is not supported. For deployment purposes, the customer can develop their own logging application using the Sametime API Toolkit or utilize a third party application.

<RANT>
So here's the rant:

An "secure, enterprise-ready" IM system that is free/included with Lotus Notes should have the following characteristics:

• Enabling/Disabling logging should be a checkbox, a radio button, and a path field in the admin interface: One checkbox to enable it, one radio button to determine if the logs go to a text file, a NSF, or a SQL database, and a path field to indicate where said text files/NSF/SQLdb live. Yes, I understand that to be  "enterprise-ready" means it can't be easy to work with, but let's make an exception here, eh?


• A supported version should be included with the product.


• Said supported version shouldn't have a "strict" or "relax" mode - if I want to log it, I want to LOG IT, is that somehow unclear? If logging isn't working, then send me a notification!


• As noted above, it should log to text, NSF, or SQL datastores.

'Other' products on the market have these characteristics.

</RANT>

Thanks for listening! I feel much better.

Comments (5)
Craig Wiseman September 26th, 2008 11:56:36 AM