Ovenstående er det spørsmålet jeg har stilt til medlemmene av min “I Love Lotus Notes Group” på LinkedIn. Og smått om senn begynner deltakerne å kommentere hva det er nettopp de liker best ved Lotus Notes.

Em conferência anual, companhia aponta para foco na integração entre redes sociais, ferramentas colaborativas e aplicativos corporativos 

É praticamente inevitável para uma companhia ignorar processos de colaboração, troca de ideias, redes sociais e outras funcionalidades que vieram com o apogeu da web 2.0, ainda que a empresa não tenha aplicado essa realidade ao seu dia a dia. A indústria assiste de perto a esta movimentação ávida para encontrar uma forma de ganhar sua fatia nessa chamada evolução social. E algumas têm conseguido algum sucesso. O Google tem capitalizado com sua plataforma Google Apps que, aos poucos, amplia presença no mercado empresarial e a Salesfoce.com, uma das pioneiras na oferta de programas no modelo software como serviço (SaaS, da sigla em inglês), mostra que está com os dois pés nesta era.

Prova dessa determinação é o lançamento do Salesforce Chatter, apresentado durante o Dreamforce 2009, conferência que a companhia realiza anualmente em São Francisco, Estados Unidos, cidade onde a empresa foi fundada, e que neste ano ocorre entre os dias 17 e 20 de novembro. Trata-se de uma espécie de Google Wave, mas totalmente voltado para o mundo das corporações. Como explica a própria empresa, o Chatter é, ao mesmo tempo, uma aplicação de colaboração corporativa e uma plataforma de desenvolvimento social. Por meio de uma interface aparentemente fácil, o funcionário pode acessar um aplicativo financeiro, observar dicas, criar fóruns, acessar redes sociais compartilhadas.

CEO da Salesforce diz que produtos das rivais são lentos ou complexos e caros 

De acordo com a companhia, os 135 mil aplicativos Salesforce se converterão para a plataforma social. Para Marc Benioff, CEO e chairman da empresa, o produto é uma forma de aproximar os funcionários da empresa, já que essas pessoas passam a acessar ferramentas que encontram fora da companhia e que podem contribuir com o processo de colaboração e inovação. É uma complexa combinação, em tempo real, de ferramentas de redes familiares e aplicativos empresariais dentro de um formato de compartilhamento seguro.

“Não conheço ninguém que discorde que Twitter e Facebook sejam fenômenos e trouxeram novas possibilidades para a indústria com meio bilhão de usuários. Eu uso Facebook e Twitter”, comentou Benioff, sobre a realidade das redes, diante de uma plateia formada por milhares de pessoas (foram 19 mil inscritos) entre analistas, clientes, jornalistas e desenvolvedores. “A mágica é levar a inteligência por meio da rede social. Une conteúdo, aplicativo e pessoas no mesmo espaço. Nas empresas, isso está separado. Por que não levar inteligência para as empresas? Você tem conteúdo por meio de compartilhamento de arquivo, intranet, Lotus Notes; tem aplicativo da Salesforce, Oracle, SAP e tem pessoas que utilizam e-mail, outlook e mensagem instantânea e porque não usar tudo isso junto?”, questionou o CEO da Salesforce.

De acordo com Benioff, a colaboração por meio do Chatter será tão fácil como ocorre no Facebook e os aplicativos “conversarão com o usuário”. Em relação à segurança e privacidade, ele esclareceu que a ferramenta traz funcionalidades que permitem determinar quem tem acesso à determinada apresentação que será compartilhada na rede, quais pessoas podem ingressar em um grupo recém criado. Os filtros funcionam inclusive para os aplicativos.

Logo após a apresentação que também marcou a abertura do evento, Benioff participou de um bate-papo com jornalistas. Ele explicou que a estratégia da companhia está, sobretudo, em criar produtos que possam ser integrados. Mas adiantou que, no caso do Chatter, “o primeiro passo é colocar o produto como a próxima geração de colaboração. Não é um software de rede social, é uma plataforma de colaboração e o segundo passo é diferenciar os produtos como CRM da plataforma de integração.”

Versões atualizadas
Além do lançamento do Chatter, a Salesforce.com apresentou versões atualizadas do Sales Cloud2 e Service Cloud2. Ambos produtos receberam ferramentas colaborativas e integração com redes sociais. Tudo para facilitar o trabalho, melhorar o desempenho das companhias e deixar tudo dentro do conceito integração e colaboração.

No caso do Service Cloud, Benioff avisou que se trata de uma nova geração de serviço ao cliente e apresentou um slide com dado creditado à Frost & Sullivan que, em 2009, a Salesforce terá 55% de market share em CRM no modelo SaaS. “Os contacts center estão desconectados e os clientes estão nas redes sociais. As empresas investem em SAP, Oracle e Microsoft, mas os clientes estão em outros lugares”, provocou o executivo.

O vice-presidente de marketing da companhia, Kraig Swensrud, mostrou que a Dell, por exemplo, adotou o CRM da Salesforce, já nesta nova era e lembrou que os usuários têm, na mesma tela, acesso a todos os canais como telefone, redes sociais, e-mail e site. “O sistema é totalmente integrado. Pode saber de onde e o que as pessoas estão falando. É possível fazer filtros por perfil de clientes ou produtos, por exemplo.”

LOTUS NOTES IS DIFFERENT

IBM’s Lotus Notes was designed as a collaborative work environment and messaging platform on which applications that require the communication and sharing of information can be developed. It is often used as an email system but this is not its primary function and consequently it behaves and is architected differently from applications built around emailing (e.g. Microsoft Outlook).

At the core of Notes is a database which can store many types of data including forms, user interface controls, database views, rules etc. and an almost unlimited set of metadata fields. Indeed there are no standard metadata fields associated with Lotus Notes documents: they are whatever the application creator found useful to employ. Last but not least, being a database means that as well as conventional foldering for organizing documents, Lotus also support views; which are virtual, dynamic collections created when a database query is executed. All these features make lotus notes very different from a traditional emailing system.

Identifying which NSF documents are emails is not by any means straightforward. Lotus Notes comes with a number of predefined templates which are used to create and display messages. The default template for email messages is known as R6. However, users of Lotus can modify this template or use other custom templates to send email messages. This means that there are likely to be more email messages than documents based on the R6 template. Indeed studies show that fewer than 30% of messages or responses to messages will be based on R6. Unfortunately most processing systems only look for the R6 template when identifying emails. Consequently, many messages may be missed.

CONVERTING LOTUS NOTES TO PST IS RISKY BUSINESS

Lotus Notes (aka NSF) files are a well known challenge when processing it for electronic data discovery purposes. Many electronic discovery service providers simply turn them into PST files—thereby losing significant information, generating images which may be cut-off and running a high risk of producing a flawed deliverable. Even if the processing platform handles Notes email stores natively, it may miss both documents and data by treating an NSF as an email store instead of what it really is —a database and an application platform that also happens to be used for messaging. Moreover, almost no one has a good method for processing Lotus Notes applications and yet an application such as a Sales Order management system may be responsive and contain information pertinent to a case.

ALL DOCUMENTS FOLDER MAY NOT CONTAIN ALL THE DOCUMENTS

One of the biggest challenges when processing NSF files is ensuring that all documents are processed. Many users believe that processing the ALL Documents folder will produce everything in the database but it may not, as users can change the query that creates the folder to exclude particular document types or metadata. Since Lotus Notes folders are database queries and views rather than containers, there may well be documents in the Notes database that are not in any folder. The only way to produce all documents reliably and accurately is to make use of the records in the NSF database.

 Sample report after LEX Deep Extraction of Lotus Notes showing:

1. 2967 unique documents in the NSF database
2. 841 documents in the ‘All Documents’ folder and
3. the query behind the ‘All Documents’ folder showing the modifications made to exclude certain document types such as Appointments and Notices.

A NEW TECHNIQUE TO DISCOVER LOTUS NOTES – DEEP EXTRACTION

We pioneered a new approach to discover data from lotus notes. The term given to this technique is called Deep Extraction. For each type of object found within lotus notes we have developed methods to extract all the metadata, not just a limited, so-called “standard” subset, and to represent it in a database where it can be queried and reported on.

We did not normalize metadata fields across object types but instead leveraged the different information available in each. By extracting from the database directly, we were also able to mine every piece of metadata, no matter how nonstandard or customized, and in this way, provide a complete view of the data set. For example, most conventional processing systems miss the organizational and location (country and company) information associated with Notes messages, but we were able to simply extract everything and populate it in a database.

THE SOLUTION WE BUILT

LEX Notes Monster is an application for processing Lotus Notes emails and databases natively based on LEX’s Deep Extraction methodology. It extracts all metadata from the NSF and records it in a SQL database from which metadata information can be selected as required and used when processing and to create the final deliverable. In addition, Notes Monster is able to produce both PDF and text renderings of Notes messages and database views without the need for Lotus to be available on the desk top. Unlike the HTML views, the PDF images retain the look-and-feel of the Notes document. Notes Monster reports include detailed listings and summary reports of the metadata and in themselves provide a useful analysis and overview of the data set.

Bruker du både Lotus Notes og Lotus Live? Da kan du jobbe mye enklere ved å installere en Lotus Live plugin i din Notes-klient.

Les mer på Lotus Live´s Wiki – klikk her!

One of our users got the above error yesterday. After a brief searching on the internet, I found this post http://www.proexchange.be. After reading through it, I completed all the tests. All the OOF urls where fine. Eventually I tracked down the user, and remoted to his pc. After checking the test connection in Outlook, I saw that his email address was pointing to a Notes server address. This would cause auto-discovery to fail, and OOF to fail.

Looking at the email field in his AD account,  which did have his notes address, changing it to the exchange SMTP resolved the issue in seconds.

Phew.

It is a shame to read that Microsoft are stopping development of their frankly simple but excellent Transporter For Lotus Notes tool set. This is a free tool set which set’s up free busy and dirsync. Also allows you to migrate users between systems. Ok  it is not as flash as other pay per seat migration tools, but with a little scripting, it works a treat.

I’ve been using it for six months and ok it dirsyc failed or twice but these are relatively easy to resolve.

Over all it is a great tool.

http://bit.ly/3Sxedx

Har du tanker om å oppgradere til Lotus Notes 8.5.1 for å få med deg alle de nye kule funksjonene? Da skal du skaffe deg denne kokeboken. 

“Upgrading to Lotus Notes and Domino 8.5.1” er en veldig bra manual, eller kokebok om du vil, for hvordan du skal gå frem for å gjennomføre en optimal oppgradering av ditt Notes/Domino-miljø. Den tar for seg alt du måtte lure på relatert til Notes/Domino 8.5.1 oppgraderinger. Her finner du “best practices”, anbefalte metoder og fremgangsmåter. Ikke minst får du her tilgang til en rekke erfaringer basert på utallige gjennomførte oppgraderinger, men også nøkkelinformasjon, instruksjoner og linker til mer detaljert informasjon i andre kilder som f.eks. Technotes, Domino Administrator Guide og Notes/Domino wiki-artikler.

Kokeboken er et levende dokument som blir fortløpende oppdatert etterhvert som det tilkommer nye erfaringer og mer informasjon.


Du finner en oversikt over innholdet i kokeboken her!

Using you to send and receive emails is a true kick in the clam. You are an unintuitive application with an interface only a mother could love.

To be honest, I was surprised to hear you were still around. Somehow, the rules of natural selection did not apply to you. Charles Darwin must be spinning in his grave.

Your user experience is nothing less than traumatizing. I’ve had to take solace by joining a support group- The Global Lotus Notes Support Group. The image above is courtesy of this group.

This is a contract position with an initial term of one year.

Work Description:  

• Prior desktop support & troubleshooting experience
• High degree of knowledge of Lotus Notes 6.0 or above
• High degree of knowledge of Microsoft Windows XP
• High degree of knowledge of Microsoft Office 2003
• Understanding of networking principles and technology (specifically TCP/IP)
• Printer troubleshooting and knowledge of HP Printer hardware
• Prior experience with Citrix client
• Basic knowledge of windows group policies and SMS
• Unix experience is a PLUS

General Skills:

• Strong computer and problem solving skills
• Excellent interpersonal skills and able to effectively work with both customers and team members
• Good oral and written communication skills
• Resourceful, customer focused, team player, and reliable
• Strong initiative and self-motivated
• Organizational skill
• Rapid learner
• Professional attitude and a strong team player

Contact me if you are interested. Questions can be posed as a comment below or directly to me.

Download Lotus Notes 8.5.1 installer

Extract the Lotus Notes installer

• Start it and tell it to extract to a certain location. (ie c:\notessetup)
  
• Cancel setup.

Download and install “Installshield Tuner for Lotus Notes 7.x/8.x” (there is none for 8.5.x) (from ibm/lotus passport advantage)

Start the tuner and create a MST file

It will ask for the .ITW file (c:\notessetup\ LotusNotes.itw)

Create a new transform

Edit: If you check the “Response Transform” checkbox, you will generate a transform file by running the setup. More info here!
Edit2: I have experienced that the link above didn’t match what I experienced. In my case the installer (I tried 2) didn’t show me Notes Single Signon..

It will then display the “start screen”

In my experience, too much mocking about in here will destroy the installation, so keep it simple. In this case, we are going to change the Company name, and add the Client Single Logon feature.

Under Product Properties, change the Company name to your liking

Under Features, select Client Single Logon Feature and tell it to install on the local drive

Save the MST file (c:\notessetup\myTransform.mst)

That’s it for the MST

The command for installing Lotus Notes silently using the transforms file is this:

setup.exe /s /V"TRANSFORMS=myTransform.mst PROGDIR=C:\notes DATADIR=C:\notes\data /qn"

Using /qb+ instead of /qn will give you a progress bar and a message when completed. This might be useful to test your install..

In this case, notes is installed to c:\notes with data dir c:\notes\data. You can change this or exclude it if you want.

The setup.exe file is in the c:\notessetup folder. If you try this on the .exe you downloaded, it will not work.
Note: I have experienced that the setup didn’t launch properly when I installed from at network drive and used TRANSFORMS=x:\myTransform.mst.

Now you have installed a fresh Lotus Notes, but now there’s the issue with the initial setup.

When you first start Notes, it will ask for information about the user, servers and services.

This can be solved by creating 1 TXT-file and making it available to the client.

Fire up Notepad and create a SETUP.TXT file

KeyfileName=h:\notessetup\user.id
Domino.Name=Dominoserver/Dominodomain
Domino.Address=server.domain.local
Domino.Port=TCPIP
Domino.Server=1
AdditionalServices=0
AdditionalServices.NetworkDial=0
IM.Server=sametimeserver.domain.local
IM.Port=1533
IM.Protocol=0
Replication.Threshold=9999
Replication.Schedule=0

In this file, we have an ID file on the users home drive. You might want to place the SETUP.TXT file in the same folder (h:\notessetup\setup.txt)
Now we must change the NOTES.INI file to look for the SETUP.TXT file
Add the line ConfigFile=h:\notessetup\setup.txt to the NOTES.INI file
If you are making a BAT/CMD file this would be solved with this:

echo ConfigFile=h:\notessetup\setup.txt >> c:\notes\notes.ini

EDIT:

17.11.2009 – The SETUP.EXE way of initial setup does not copy the ID file to the local data folder. It copies the setting to the NOTES.INI file, thus being dependent on the h:\notessetup\user.id file for startup… Trying to find a way around this without having to copy files or changing the NOTES.INI file..

More info:

SETUP.TXT
Lotus Notes workstation config
Deploying Lotus Notes 8.5.1 Clients

Zu dieser Gruppe von Software gehört auch die neue CRM Lotus Notes Software. Es gibt ein seit langem bekanntes Sprichwort, das in der heutigen zeit jedoch immer mehr an Bedeutung erlangt: Zeit ist Geld. Und in Zeiten von Arbeitsplatzverdichtungen, die Mahrarbeit verlangen. Zusätzlich aber genaue Arbeit, bei der Aufgabenbewältigung ebenso fordern. Bei immer mehr Stress am Arbeitsplatz, bei immer höheren Anforderungen an die Mitarbeiter, und auch an die Unternehmen, weil auch hier der Konkurrenzdruck immer höher ist.

In dieser Situation beginnen sich Unternehmen umzusehen, ob bestimmte Arbeitsabläufe nicht verschlankt werden können. So, dass auf der einen Seite Mitarbeiter entlastet werden, gleichzeitig aber mehr und effizienter arbeiten können. Auf der anderen Seite, um sich von den Konkurrenzunternehmen deutlich abheben zu können und so den Kampf um die Kunden zu gewinnen. Bei Unternehmen die die Groupware Lotus Notes verwenden ist dies beispielsweise mit dem Einsatz einer Investition für CRM möglich.

En enkel liten applikasjon for å migrere fra MS Outlook til IBM Lotus Notes. Og det til bare 129 dollar. Høres det forlokkende ut?

Ikke prisen kanskje, men ihvertfall å migrere enkelt fra en enkel epost-applikasjon til en moderne og profesjonell samhandlingsplattform.

OBS! Jeg har ikke testet denne applikasjonen. Men den kan kanskje være verd å se på? Sjekk her!

Migraties van Lotus Notes naar Inotes Live

Migraties van Lotus Notes naar Inotes Live

Migraties van Lotus Notes naar GMail / GoogleApps

Question:

What databases are supported by the OBM backup client?

Answer:

Backup-Connect OBM comes with specialized backup modules for all commonly used databases, ensuring complete protection of critical data. These modules include:

Lotus Notes – site  – Wiki - blog  / Quickr – site

Dicas:

coloque sugestoes na forma de comentarios

Para aquellos que no lo han probado y se pueden estar llevando una sorpresa, cualquier aplicacion que use SWT en Karmic Koala ( vease Eclipse, Lotus Notes, Vuze, etc … ) tiene algunos problemas graficos. Entre estos puede darse que botones no respondan al click o algunos paneles con trees se vean en blanco.

El reporte del error:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gtk+2.0/+bug/442078/comments/28

Starting from 2.18 on, GTK+ changed some of its internal behaviour (google for “client side windows”). This change is intentional, and needed for other development. It doesn’t make any difference to programs using GTK+ correctly, but it makes problems with programs that use GTK+ in weird ways, making wrong assumptions that only accidentally worked in the past. So, to ease the transition until those programs get fixed, an environment variable has been introduced to simulate the old behaviour.

La solucion consiste basicamente en declarar una variable de entorno antes del arranque de la aplicacion:

GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

En caso de querer arrancar el eclipse simplemente deberiamos crear un script al estilo:

run.sh

y dentro de este declarar:

export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=true

/opt/eclipse/eclipse

donde /opt/eclipse/eclipse es el path al binario ejecutable del eclipse.

Es probable que esta misma solucion, arregle a otras aplicaciones que tambien usen SWT. En algunos lugares dicen de bajar las libs 2.16 ( las cuales si andan con SWT) y reemplazarlas por las 2.18 pero posiblemente se arruinen muchas cosas del sistema.

Existen ya unas versiones beta de algunas de las aplicaciones, las cuales tienen soporte para la 2.18. Por ejemplo segun tengo entendido para el Lotus Notes hay una version 8.5.1 que corre en Karmic Koala. La version 3.5.2 del Eclipse ya traeiria solucionado el problema.How to FIX SWT in Karmic Koala