Lotus Notes

[Hack]

I have a general, curosity question about Lotus Notes.

The company I work for now uses this 'thing'. It is my first exposure to it. Every where I've ever been has used Outlook/Exchange.

When I come in in the morning, and fire up Lotus Notes, there is never, ever and new mail waiting for me.

A half an hour later when I decide to check mail again, there are like 10 new mail messages waiting, all having been sent the prior day.

Everyone around my office hates Lotus Notes and hates that fact that the company forced them to go to Lotus Notes, so it is something of a point of pride that noone, and I mean no one, has ever learned anything about Lotus Notes beyond how to do the most basic stuff, so no one can tell me why it takes this stupid mail package so much time to deliver mail that was sent a day ago.

Does anyone know why this happens?

[szlamany]

I was a consultant at a large manufacturing firm that used LOTUS.

I gotta say that the ability to share ideas and information with developers around the world is perfected in LOTUS NOTES. MS Outlook has none of the functionality of this product in that regard. That's a shame!

For the three years I was there I never noticed the issue you describe.

[Hack]

I was a consultant at a large manufacturing firm that used LOTUS.

I gotta say that the ability to share ideas and information with developers around the world is perfected in LOTUS NOTES. MS Outlook has none of the functionality of this product in that regard. That's a shame!

For the three years I was there I never noticed the issue you describe.

Well, it happens to me (and everyone else in my company) on a daily basis. Based on what you say, however, I'm thinking that maybe it has more to do with how the Notes administrator has mail configured, than with Notes itself.

Anyway, you are the first person I've evern encountered that had something positive to say about Lotus Notes. I would be interested in hearing how you used this product to "share ideas and information with developers around the world". Regardless of the platform used, this would be something very handy and if Lotus Notes can do it (and I believe you when you say it can), then I'd learn about this feature and pass it along to the other developers I work with.

[szlamany]

First, keep in mind that I was just a consultant with this company - and I have no idea how to create the stuff they did with NOTES - I just used it.

When you went into NOTES, you got a nice desktop - with all the different "databases" that were available. Help desk, developers notes, e-mail - all kinds of stuff - I only had access to the ones I needed to work in.

When a problem was reported to the helpdesk, the call would be logged by creating an entry in the helpdesk database - they had some kind of template system that made this really easy. It was also very easy to e-mail the "link" to the log item - so that I would receive an e-mail (in NOTES) saying to follow this link.

Once in that link I could amend and add text to the "log item" - really intuitive and easy - almost like "WORD" just sitting in the middle of a "document".

There were all kinds of "tokens" in these documents - so that you could flag the item as "done" - all that kind of stuff.

It was really easy to filter the list of items - sort and what not - based on all these tokens in the document.

The company was an international manufacturer - so they had plants all over the world (France, Spain, Italy, Brazil - tons of places). They were in the middle of a 3-year conversion to SAP, so they had a developers databases in NOTES that allowed us to also share project requirements - the same kind of easy amend and adjust techniques.

Just the ability to easily switch to seeing both SENT ITEMS and INBOX at the same time was neat - so easy to sort and see related items. Seems like in OUTLOOK to do that you get another WINDOW popping up with the related items - maybe you can do this in OUTLOOK, but it seemed so easy in NOTES.

[Hack]

Ok, I think I may revise my opinion of Lotus Notes as this sounds like it would be a very cool thing, although Lord knows, no one in my company would know how to do it.

As this is kind of a general discussion forum section, I'd like to revise my original question (as mentioned, I'm thinking our Notes Administrator doesn't know what he is doing and that is why my mail acts like it does), and ask this one.

How many folks out there are using Lotus Notes is a fashion similar to what szlamany described?

[dglienna]

I went to school with the brother of Ray Ozzie, the inventor of Lotus Notes. He sold it off to IBM a few years ago. Really sharp guy. Had an insight to how things should be long before they came into being. I never used it, but I remember reading that it was good for working offline, and that it would connect seamlessly so that no work was lost. Not sure how timely it was, though

[Hack]

In the remote chance anyone is mildly interested in the cause of my originial question, I found out it deals with how Lotus Notes is set up to perform replication.

Apparantly, in my shop, the replication schedule is, how shall I graciously put it, somewhat "flexible".

[Valleysboy1978]

I was a Lotus Notes Developer for two years (it is acutally a BASIC language) so the migration to VB was extremely easy.

I developed a database to assist with software deliveries to our clients. The staff would create a delivery request and it would then send an automatic email to the client. The client then logs onto the company website and authorises the install. The install is then completed by our in-house support division. Before this it was done via fax and usually took most of the day. Using Lotus Notes it now takes no more than 30 minutes.

As for the mail problem it sounds like a replication problem. Chances are the mail server is separate from your inbox server. However, if the administrators were doing their their job the replication would be instant, not every 10 minutes

Notes now also comes with Instant Messaging across the network so you can see if someone is logged on and talk to them in real-time. Of course in an office this is pointless, but when that other person is in another country sharing files is instant which can be very funky.

[mendhak]

I've used Lotus Notes for just a few months, and didn't like it very much although I do acknowledge that it's better than MS Outlook.

Your problem seems to be replication-related, but that's all I'd be able to know.

[Valleysboy1978]

Not exactly hard to surpass Outlook though is it?

[mendhak]

I wouldn't say that in terms of popularity though.

[Hack]

I still prefer Outlook. If I want a database, I'll use Access or SQL Server or Oracle.

If you haven't signed the petition mentioned in the sticky thread at the top of the Classic VB section, I strongly encourage you do to so.

[mendhak]

If you haven't signed the petition mentioned in the sticky thread at the top of the Classic VB section, I strongly encourage you do to so.

Not if I don't agree with it. Is there a thread somewhere with people bickering over this and stating their reasons for being for/against it?

[Valleysboy1978]

I wouldn't say that in terms of popularity though.

That's the problem though, how do you measure Outlook's popularity?
Many use it because it comes with office so they use it because they have nothing else available. I wonder if Outlook would be as "popular" if they had to sell it separately

[mendhak]

That's the problem though, how do you measure Outlook's popularity?
Many use it because it comes with office so they use it because they have nothing else available. I wonder if Outlook would be as "popular" if they had to sell it separately

True that. Due to the association with Windows, it seems most "natural" that you use MS products. Besides that, it integrates well with our sharepoint portal and a couple other MS applications.

In other words, complete office solutions. A rival would have to match that and more in today's market.

[szlamany]

True that. Due to the association with Windows, it seems most "natural" that you use MS products. Besides that, it integrates well with our sharepoint portal and a couple other MS applications.

In other words, complete office solutions. A rival would have to match that and more in today's market.

The real problem is that OUTLOOK has no need to get any better - any real improvements - in order for more customers to purchase it. That's the problem with monopoly - single vendors do not produce best-products.

If you ever used some of the neat features of LOTUS - group IN and OUT box items together in one view. "True" shared documents - ability for multiple users to collaborate and add to existing documents (and I'm not talking detached doc's in some folder - these are right in LOTUS). Ability to define and change "tokens" and "hot spots" in the document that then manifest out to the "outline" view, so doc's can be sorted and filtered by those "tokens".

OUTLOOK's little TASKS and CALENDAR/APPT features are primitive compared to what NOTES could do.

[Valleysboy1978]

I agree. Lotus Notes combines many of it's features together such as mail, calendar, meetings, holidays, RTC etc

[Hack]

I was told that Lotus Notes has better and more secure encryption that does Outlook/Exchange. I have no idea if that is true or not, but I was told that is one of the reasons my company went with Notes.

[Notes Developer]

Funny, first reply did not work.
Yes, Domino/Notes is more secure. Connections to Domino Servers, either through the internet or in a LAN are normaly encrypted with 128 key.
Comparing Domino/Notes with Outlook/Exchange is a bit unfair, because Domino/Notes is more a platform for document databases, not only an email system. Developing applications in Notes is also completely different. In Notes you get a whole designer client. It has its own set of languages, a formula language and lotus script. You can also use java, javascript, html and xml. You do not use plugins or activeX. But there is a C and a C++ API. There are other connectors available and ODBC, COM and OLE are no problem. But even if you do not have a desinger, there are a lot of database templates available ready to be used, Teamroom, document library with workflow and many more.
And it the server runs on several plattforms like unix, linux, windows, OS400 etc. New applications are written once and they work on all plattforms. You do not need to recompile native notes applications and you get a web server too.
The problems you encounter may have serveral reasons.
It could be, that your administrator has not set up the email router right. Instead he uses replication to deploy the mails. Or you are working on local email databases with a periodical replication. That is not the way to do it in a LAN. Normaly you get mails in Notes immediately, if it is set up correctly. Setting up a server with default settings should normaly result in a working system with the router delivering mails correctly.
Do not compare Domino/Notes with other relational database systems. It does not have relations. If you want to know more about notes, look at the forums at http://www-130.ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/ or Inside Notes at http://www-128.ibm.com/developerwork...tes/index.html
That explains a lot.
Notes is very powerfull, makes rapid developpement possible and enhances communication in the office. But you have to learn it. It is not as simple as Outlook Express.
At the moment there is a beta Version of Domino/Notes 7 available. It runs very stable. No problem to set up server and client on your PC at home and working with it. There is even a DB2 license available to test the new storage system and new features. I use client and server for a test environment and so far I had no problem at all.
Cheers

[Hack]

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the info and Links!

[szlamany]

Hack...

Does your company have a bug tracking and/or project development product that they use?

Once of my clients - a bigger school district/city wants to put find a product that does both - bug tracking and project development - and they don't want to use MS Project (I guess it's no good for bug tracking).

Thanks...

[Hack]

Hack...

Does your company have a bug tracking and/or project development product that they use?

Once of my clients - a bigger school district/city wants to put find a product that does both - bug tracking and project development - and they don't want to use MS Project (I guess it's no good for bug tracking).

Thanks...

Yes, we do. It is handled by our support department. I'll get you some information on it.