Getting wordpress to play nice with other software has been an issue for a long……. time. Only thing I’ve seen so far is a link between wikimedia and wordpress.
http://ciarang.com/posts/mediawiki-with-wordpress
You could use that as a guide to create a bridge between wordpress and your own software.
(This is a very outdated plugin, so some stuff in there might need replacing.)
A user dashboard on the front has come to discussion before on these forums, but no one has done or tried anything yet (as far as I know). Would be interested in this as well, keeping the users away from the complicated and scary admin panel.
Edit: Found another one, this one connects to phpBB.
http://www.wp-united.com/
Ummmm. So if someone has done it with mediawiki & wordpress then it’s possible to do it with others. Once I read the links that you posted I’ll get to work on this. If I am successfull I will post it here. I’ll do the same with the dashboard too. Thanks for your reply!
What software are you trying to intergrate btw?
We have a total of 5, Joomla, affiliate program, pligg, youtube clone software and, open-x ad server. They all have profiles and we want to integrate them into wordpress. Joomla could do all of this but, we liked the word press platform for blogging. All software that is currently running on our servers will be developed further. We just need to get it integrated before we go further. The dashboard would be the main place for users to see and edit the services that they allow. We will be adding more services but, these will be developed as a plugin.
We have thought about developing these services around wordpress but, we wouldn’t get the same features or results. The cost of hiring developers would eat us alive as well. We would have to hire help to pull this off if we developed ourselves.