Stu Downes

The Lotus Notes UK User Group been launched thanks to Ben Rose.

To join visit http://forums.lnug.org.uk/

I’ve circulated within my company.  The user groups are listened to by IBM and can grow into organisations with large conferences, such as the now acclaimed German Notes User Group.  So thanks to Ben for initiating and lets support it and help it grow into a success story.

Well I was playing, as you do, with Notes 7.  I like many people have probably got a Notes 7 client but corporate policy hasn’t quite got to the new release so server and template at still at and R6 design.

Nice thing to note is that saving chat transcripts still works with the 6 template.  The chats are saved in the memo form and a field is set $IMChatTranscript =1.  So if you have the rights just create a view or personal view in your database go for it, base it on the design of the all documents view, and set the view selection to be $IMChatTranscript =”1″.  Then set your preferences to save chat transcripts.  My favourite setting is to prompt on closing chat windows.

This works only with the integrated client.  I’d like to see some functionality to save chats from the Connect client.

Rumour has it, from some attendees I’ve spoken to, that the traditional Notes workspace is gone in Hannover.  Hurrah, Hu bloody rah.  I’ve been using the menu driven icons since release 6 and have grown to love them.  For those still enjoying the Workspace – best start getting used to something different ….. if the rumours are correct.

 Well Lotusphere will be drawing to a close as I write this post.  I, unfortunately, didn’t make it across the atlantic.  What have I picked up from a distance?  Well Hannover development is coming along strong as is the server side of the next release of Notes and Domino.  Sametime is undergoing a bit of a revolution in terms of being based on an eclipse coding base, improvements in look and feel, and better links to common IM service providors (with the exception of MSN which I feel is a great shame).

Workplace didn’t get as much press or blogging as I expected, there was a new release but no real fanfare detected from this distance (maybe at the event there was more).  I still have some difficulty seeing the roadmap.  What I now see and hear is the upgrade to the next release of Notes and Domino is the same as all the others – new technologies, new features, step change in client but still backwards compatible (good!).  What I didn’t see was the roadmap, there is a definite roadmap for Notes and a roadmap for Workplace ….. and the new notes client is a thick client for both platforms ….. but overall where is the direction.  Is it a J2EE based environment where the Domino stream will eventually merge (although retain backwards compatibility)? Is is a dual back end single client roadmap?  Maybe I’m the only person thinking this.  People who attended Lotusphere may well tell me “hey come next time, if you’d been here you would have all this clarified”.  My answer there is that I’m scowering the sources of information available on Lotus software, lotus.com, the blogs and still I can’t answer those questions.  If I can’t how do the CIOs and CEOs who pay the bills?  They won’t be scouring for information like me and I feel the message still needs some clarification.

The announcement at Lotusphere that Sametime 7.5 will be shipping in Q2-Q3 is good news, screenshots here.  The screenshots were first posted several months ago by Paul.  What do I like about the new client (again details are still sketchy as the feeds from bloggers in Lotusphere trickle out):

• ability to paste in screen shots or images
• ability to see in the chat window when someone disconnects!
• contact details displayed in the window (how many times have I asked “what is your number”)
• native VOIP ability (waiting to hear more about links with vendors and present VOIP suppliers)
• where are they functionality to link with google maps to add an additional social element to the experience (and help easily identify home workers or those working out of their normal office)
• Companies who will be integrating their telephony include Avaya, Polycom, Nortel, Siemens, Tandberg

Some interesting stats were delivered (this may just be sales spin):

• 8 of 10 top banks worldide use Sametime
• 8 of 10 pharmaceutical companies use ST
• 3 of 4 most profitable companies use ST

Data to produce this post has been taken from:

Ed Brill  Paul Mooney  Ray Bilyk

I look forward to more concrete information and a beta appearing for us all to test.

One thing I see in Enterprise environments is the way the Domino or Notes application becomes pervasive.  “Hey thats cool, I could do with one of those for my team” is the general theme.  The application are simple to develop and deploy and are template based.  Obviously the better managed organisations will be ready for this and have a set of standard templates with a request, approval and deployment process – and also probably a seperate process for bespoke applications.

But what tends to happen afterwards in my experience is that the template is never updated.  The database eventually with newer versions of the server and client works great but starts to look like something out of a computing museum.  It isn’t long before users are saying “this is rubbish” – well actually it works fine but it looks rubbish.  However for the user the look and feel is actually important and enough moaning from enough people will eventually get the attention of someone up the chain!

This is one area where Domino administration and development teams can try and assist their customers by offering the upgrades to the latest designs – easy with standard templates – more expensive with bespoke templates.

I’m just working on a database now which when I think back to the days of views, folders and twisties is a million miles away.  Twisties replaced by bespoke graphics, views and folders replaced with graphically driven navigators which would not look out of place on the best websites.  Breadcrumbs in the database …… the power is there, the legacy however can be enough at times to tempt people away to alternatives that are better looking than that legacy.

2 posts ago I discussed some gotcha’s with email.  Ben picked up on the fact that I hadn’t discussed workflow emails containing document links…and Graham also picked up on applications being the biggest challenge…so here goes!

My experience has always been that email is migrated first with applications following, and these are all enterprise level migrations with more than 10,000 user involved.  The momentum is generally great with email and once processes and procedures are in place you get into a relatively simple repeatable pattern.  I’ve found with applications the momentum is broken by several key activities:

• Is the application still used?  Simple one and there are plenty of tools to identify unused applications. 
• Who owns the application?  Normally even with the best deployment procedures the owner has changed jobs, the organisation has changed and this stage can be diffucult for both the IT and business sections of the organisation.
• What do you as an IT function decide to recommend for a particular application (choices below)?
• What does the business want to do with the application?

Applications are an altogether more complex and difficult beast.  I’ll divide them into 3 simple categories:

• Those based on a standard out of the box template
• Those based on a standard template which has been tweaked
• Those developed to a bespoke standard to resolve a particular business need

 I’ll not get into the arguments about why you would migrate but consider that should you need to migrate for one reason or another you have 4 options:

• Retire
• Re-code for Domino (i.e. browser access with no reliance on Notes client)
• Replace with an off the shelf solution
• Re-code for another application platform

 For the last 2 options there will also be a data migration exercise to undertake.

So in the world of Stu where all migrations run smoothly (ha!) what would I recommend if you must migrate:

• you are going to have a disrupting influence on your organisation – be up front and clear about it.
• remove the reliance on the Notes client before migrating email.  Let me expand – I don’t mean force users to use a browser but at least get the application browser ready (through re-coding or implementing technology such as Bowstreet), remove the need for doc-links which any alternate email system won’t understand.
• get business buy in to your recommendations for the applications early.
• try and build momentum on the migration side…..

 Many blogs, and my own experience, shows that years after the mail migration has completed the application environment will still be living.  In fact in most large organisations there will be some business critical applications that will be complex enough to make migration so difficult or risky that a browser based Domino solution for that application is likely to be the only solution.

Richard Schwartz has put together this consolidated feed of over 60 attendees who will be blogging during Lotusphere.  This will certainly help those of us who can’t attend: 

http://smokey.rhs.com/web/bloggregate/v2beta1.nsf/feed.rss?OpenAgent&category=Lotusphere%202006&count=50

Ed Brill made this comment in a post today:

• Notes “Hannover” lives and is going to be a big “wow”, very soon

Could this mean that Hannover may be released as Beta at Lotusphere????  If they do this is one product I can’t wait to see and comment on.  I’m certainly looking forward to seeing the activity centred collaboration functionality….again time will tell whether my guess is correct!

 Well I’ve had the joy of doing a few of these so will share my experiences on how to get to the other side with minimum pain.  I’m just going to blog here about email ….. otherwise it would be far too long a post.  So here are some considerations:

• Attachments are compressed by default in Domino.  Using Huffman compression in release 4 and 5 and if enabled LZ1 compression in Domino 6 and above.  This means that unless you have a third party compression tool doing similar in Exchange you will see an expansion factor of anything between 10 and 40% per attachment, my experience tells me to make sure for every 1 MB of data in Notes that there is 1.3 MB available in Exchange.
• When you first migrate data the single instance does not work, so 1 email in Notes migrated to exchange = 1 email even if it has multiple recipients.  Single instance only operates for new emails once your users are running on Exchange.
• What data are you going to migrate?  Email, calendar, to do, personal address books, archived emails, personal journals….
• Where is the data?  If it is local to a user how do you manage the migration.
• What tools and software do I need to deploy?
• What level of co-existence do I need while both email environments are running?  none, email only, directory syncrhonisation, calendar and free time lookups – each adds complexity
• When I’m migrating users are there any limitations which will cap the number of people I can move at once?  directory infrastructure, network bandwidth, number of migration stations, storage…..and many more

Well hopefully that will help a few people ensure they don’t miss huge chunks of work!!!!