Installing and Configuring the Confluence Plugins for SP 2007

To install the plugins into Confluence:

Once you have installed the required plugins into Confluence, you should then configure the plugins and your Confluence site to work and communicate successfully with a SharePoint site. Follow the instructions below.

Enabling Confluence Remote API

In order for your SharePoint site(s) to communicate with and retrieve content from Confluence, the Remote API (XML-RPC & SOAP) must be enabled in Confluence. Check whether the remote API is enabled and if not, enable it. See the instructions in the Confluence administrator's guide.

Configuring Confluence to Work with a SharePoint Site

In this step, you will tell Confluence which SharePoint site(s) it can communicate with.

To configure Confluence to work with a SharePoint site:

1. Go to the Confluence 'Administration Console'. To do this:

   • Open the 'Browse' menu and select 'Confluence Admin'. The 'Administration Console' view will open.
   
   
2. Click 'SharePoint Admin' in the 'Administration' section of the left-hand navigation panel to open the 'SharePoint Integration Administration' screen. On this screen you can configure one or more SharePoint sites to work with your Confluence installation.
   
   Screenshot: The site configuration section of the Confluence 'SharePoint Admin' page
   
   
   
   
3. Enter the appropriate details into the following fields:
   Table: SharePoint Site Configuration Fields
   
   || Field || Description ||

   SharePoint Site Alias	Enter a simple name that identifies the SharePoint site easily in Confluence. SharePoint-related Confluence macros use this name as a parameter value to identify the SharePoint site on which to run their queries. Each SharePoint alias must be unique. However, do not modify this field when editing\ a pre-configured SharePoint site.
   SharePoint Site URL	Enter the base URL of the SharePoint site, for example, [http://www.example-sharepoint-server.com]\\ \\ \\ .
   Confluence Access URL Enabled	You can choose to configure an alternative SharePoint URL for Confluence to use when accessing SharePoint. See the details below.
   User Name	The Windows user account that Confluence will use to access the SharePoint site. Note that this user must be a SharePoint site collection administrator. The user name must follow the syntax SERVERNAME\username, where: SERVERNAME is the name of the Windows domain on which the SharePoint site can be accessed. Otherwise, this is the name of the computer hosting SharePoint. username is the username of the Windows user account used to access the SharePoint site.
   Password	The password associated with the Windows user account.
   Make this SharePoint Site the default.	Selecting this option makes any Confluence SharePoint macros that do not reference a SharePoint Site Alias, query this SharePoint site. If this option is selected, a ' ' appears in the 'Default Site' field of the list of configured SharePoint sites (at the top of the SharePoint Admin page).
   Enable sp-list permission trimming	Selecting this option filters the SharePoint List macro results to display only content that the user has permission to access in SharePoint.

   
   
4. Click the 'Test Connection' button to test that the connection to the SharePoint site is correct.
   
   If the connection was successful, you will see the message Connection Test: Success.
   If the connection was not successful, you will see the message Connection Test: Server unreachable. If you see this message, please ensure that your SharePoint site settings are correct, as described in the table above.
   
   
5. Click 'Update SharePoint Settings' to save the configuration settings for your SharePoint site.

Configuring an Alternative SharePoint URL for Confluence

The 'Confluence Access URL Enabled' option on the 'SharePoint Admin' screen allows you to set up a special URL for Confluence to use when accessing SharePoint. There are two choices:

• 'Use Standard Access URL' – This is the default value. If you choose this option Confluence will query the SharePoint site via the 'SharePoint Site URL' configured above.
• 'Use Alternative Access URL' – If you choose this option, the 'Confluence Access URL' field appears on the screen. Enter an alternative URL. Confluence will query the SharePoint site via this URL instead of the 'SharePoint Site URL'.

The alternative access URL allows you to resolve problems where the SharePoint installation uses an authentication protocol not supported by Confluence, such as NTLMv2 or Kerberos. You can configure SharePoint to run on a separate port that bypasses the unsupported authentication protocol, and then allow Confluence to communicate with SharePoint via this alternative URL. See the recommended configuration for securing Confluence access to SharePoint.

To configure Confluence to access SharePoint via an alternative URL:

1. Set up an alternative URL in SharePoint. (See the recommended configuration for securing Confluence access to SharePoint.)
2. Select 'Use Alternative Access URL' on the Confluence 'SharePoint Admin' screen shown above.

The alternative access URL must be configured externally, as a separate network configuration.

In practice, an alternative access URL would be used in situations where Confluence and SharePoint are hosted in the same private network, either behind a firewall or on the same VPN.

This section describes how to edit the settings for a SharePoint site that has already been configured in Confluence.

To edit the existing configuration settings of a SharePoint site in Confluence:

1. Go to the Confluence 'Administration Console'. To do this:

   • Open the 'Browse' menu and select 'Confluence Admin'. The 'Administration Console' view will open.
   
   
2. Click 'SharePoint Admin' in the 'Administration' section of the left-hand navigation panel.
   
   
3. In the top list of already-configured SharePoint sites, click the '- Edit -' link next to the SharePoint site that you want to update. The fields below the list will be populated with the current settings for that SharePoint site.
   
   
4. Edit the field details according to the table above, to the updated settings.
   
   
5. If necessary, update the additional options as described above.
   
   
6. Test that the connection to the SharePoint site is correct by clicking the 'Test Connection' button.
   A message will be displayed, indicating whether or not the connection was successful.
   
   
7. Click 'Update SharePoint Settings' to save the updated configuration settings for your SharePoint site.

Screenshot: Example List of Configured SharePoint Sites