Lotus Instant Messaging/Web Conferencing (Sametime): Building Sametime Enabled Applications

128 Lotus Instant Messaging/Web Conferencing (Sametime): Building Sametime-Enabled Applications

5.1 Overview of the Chat Logging SPI and DDA Toolkit

In 2001, IBM introduced the Sametime Chat Recording Service Provider

Interface (SPI), allowing developers to create Win32 DLL files to work in

conjunction with a Win32 service to capture transcripts of chats as the sessions

concluded. Corporate developers used the SPI to create custom versions of a

chat recorder facility, saving transcripts to disk, text files, relational, or Notes

databases as the company’s requirements dictated. Commercial developers

created a small number of products to do the same, with more configuration

options to serve a larger market.

With the release of Sametime 3, the SPI was subsumed into the Database and

Directory Assistance Toolkit (DDA). This chapter discusses the reasons for chat

recording, considerations for implementing chat recording, discusses a sample

available in the DDA Toolkit, and explains options for customization of the

sample. The Sametime DDA Toolkit documentation provides a breakdown of the

actual code in the sample and provides more direction for developers wishing to

customize the example using C++.

Why would we discuss chat recording in a Sametime Web development

redbook? The two subjects seem pretty distant; is not chat recording an admin

task? Let us start by examining the reasons for chat recording.

There are four primary reasons an enterprise would want to record the instant

message sessions occurring on a Sametime server:

򐂰 Regulatory compliance

򐂰 Collaborative commerce rules and workflow

򐂰 Corporate and public sector governance

򐂰 Appropriate use review

5.1.1 Regulatory compliance

In the wake of corporate scandals, document shredding, and collapsed

companies, 2003 was the year for new and extended document archiving

regulations in the United States. For years companies have been required by

various U.S. government agencies to retain paper records, and more recently

e-mail records, for specified periods of time. In March, the New York Stock

Exchange (NYSE) strongly recommended to its member companies that instant

messages be treated the same as e-mail records for retention purposes. In May,

the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) implemented new regulations

detailing the types of instant message conversations that by law must be retained

and archived. In July, the National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD),