Crowd 1.2 Development Hub

Connecting your own Web Applications or User Directories to Crowd

Crowd comes with a number of application and directory connectors. If you have a web application or a user directory which does not use a pre-supplied connector, your development team can create a custom connector for you.

This is a reasonably quick and easy job.

Skills Required to Write a Custom Connector for Crowd

• Familiarity with HTTP/webserver technology.
• Familiarity with the concepts of identity management, authentication and authorisation.
• Programming skills to write an application connector:
  • Medium-level experience with the Java programming language.
  • Or you can use our SOAP API in combination with a language like PHP, Ruby, etc. You need a medium-level understanding of SOAP APIs.
• Programming skills to write a directory connector:
  • Medium-level experience with the Java programming language.

Getting Help

• Atlassian partners can help you to write a custom connector and get your applications up and running. We recommend CustomWare and Appfire Technologies.
• Consult the online Crowd documentation.
• Ask questions and share tips in the Atlassian forum.
• If you have a problem with Crowd, log a ticket at Atlassian Support. Atlassian does not support customised Crowd source.

Writing the Connectors

• Creating a custom application connector
• Creating a custom directory connector

More Information on Extending Crowd

You can access Crowd through our APIs to manipulate data or integrate with your custom web applications and user directories, as described above. You can even customise the Crowd source, to change the way things work or add an entirely new feature.

To help you get started:

• When you download Crowd, you also get the source code of a demo application.
• Read the guidelines on setting up your IDE.
• For ideas, take a look at what other people are doing.
• We supply full API documentation.