Abstract: A set of groupware portlets can be deployed on an enterprise portal in order to add groupware functionality thereon. The groupware portlets can provide an abstract user interface to groupware functionality provided by several collaboration servers and can also allow users to navigate to specific groupware functionality provided by a collaboration server. The portlets can connect to the various collaboration servers by implementing a personal messaging application programming interface. The interface can include a schema for defining groupware functionality and a set of providers for instantiating the connections to the various collaboration servers. The providers can be implementations of the schema that allow the groupware portlets to interact with the collaboration server. New schemas can be defined to extend existing schemas to enable more specific functionality provided by each collaboration server. The new schemas can be supported by the providers due to Java class inheritance.

Abstract: A personal messaging application programming interface can be utilized by a developer in order to add groupware functionality to an application. The interface can include various schemas and providers that allow the schemas to connect to a collaboration server which provides the groupware functionality. The schemas can further include item and container classes and can extend other schemas so as to provide functionality that is more specific to the collaboration server. The items and containers can represent various entities on the collaboration server. The providers can use stubs in order to create connections to the collaboration server and can implement the schema hierarchy so as to map the functionality defined by the schema into various core calls on the collaboration server.

Abstract: A personal messaging application programming interface can be utilized by a developer in order to add groupware functionality to an application. The interface can include various schemas and providers that allow the schemas to connect to a collaboration server which provides the groupware functionality. The schemas can further include item and container classes and can extend other schemas so as to provide functionality that is more specific to the collaboration server. The items and containers can represent various entities on the collaboration server. The providers can use stubs in order to create connections to the collaboration server and can implement the schema hierarchy so as to map the functionality defined by the schema into various core calls on the collaboration server.

Abstract: A set of groupware portlets can be deployed on an enterprise portal in order to add groupware functionality thereon. The groupware portlets can provide an abstract user interface to groupware functionality provided by several collaboration servers and can also allow users to navigate to specific groupware functionality provided by a collaboration server. The portlets can connect to the various collaboration servers by implementing a personal messaging application programming interface. The interface can include a schema for defining groupware functionality and a set of providers for instantiating the connections to the various collaboration servers. The providers can be implementations of the schema that allow the groupware portlets to interact with the collaboration server. New schemas can be defined to extend existing schemas to enable more specific functionality provided by each collaboration server. The new schemas can be supported by the providers due to Java class inheritance.