HCL Sametime Forum : Sametime Bot - passing user query to back-end Notes DB and returning results to Sametime Connect chat window

Hello!

I'm back again...

Thank you to all those people who have posted responses to my previous discussion threads - much appreciated. I have read all (to the best of my knowledge) the documentation regarding the Sametime 2.5 Java Toolkit, studied and worked through numerous Java code examples of simple Sametime bots, read documentation regarding Domino Java classes, as well as having done many other things in order to aid my learning of creating a Java Sametime bot.

However, as a beginner Java programmer, I am still struggling to create the Sametime bot for my project. I need to create a Java Sametime Bot which performs the following...

1) Logs onto a Domino server (I have done this)

2) Allows users to establish a Sametime session with the Sametime bot (I have done this)

3) Allows users to type questions to the bot in the Sametime Connect chat window

4) The bot takes the user's question/statement as a string and parses it for keywords, comparing each word in the string to a stop list of common words (I have done basic text recognition)

5) The bot removes the common words from the text string, to leave only keywords (i.e. A query of "How do I download my ID file?" would be reduced to the keyword string "download ID file", therefore removing the common words "How", "do", "I" and "my", and the "?")

6) The bot accesses a particular view in a back-end Lotus Notes database residing on the Domino server

7) The bot then takes the new keyword string ("download ID file") and passes it to the database for searching

8) The database is Full Text Indexed, so the bot would perform a Full Text Index search in the database

9) A list of documents containing the keywords is then found 'behind-the-scenes' by the bot

10) The bot then returns a short list of relevant documents (5-10 documents) to the user in the Sametime Connect chat window

11) The list of documents will be in the form of links, so that the user can simply click on the link and view the document

12) The user will click the link to the document, open the document and view it in the database, allowing them to print it off or just read it on the screen

This is basically what I wish to achieve with my Sametime bot, but I have so far struggled to develop anything like this, despite exhaustive studying of documentation related to Sametime bots.

There was a good article posted not so long ago, entitled "Building your own Sametime Bots Part 1". The authors were John W. Rooney
and Dick McCarrick.

Part 2 of that article is promised soon, but there is no indication when. If anyone knows when this follow-up article will be posted, please could you let me know. I am desperate to read the follow-up article.

More importantly, if anyone can help me with any of the development stages (mentioned above), then I would be VERY grateful indeed. Anything that might help me, such as advice on how to proceed, new documentation which I have not read, more Java code examples for Sametime bots (other than EightBallBot and PalindromeBot), discussion of your previous experiences with a similar scenario, advice on Java coding etc. would be GREATLY appreciated.

I welcome absolutely any feedback/advice, as it will all help me with my project. I cannot stress it enough; I will be VERY grateful for any help.

Many Thanks in advance,

Scott.