Lotus notes how does it work

IBM Notes is essentially a desktop workflow application providing instant messaging, email, calendars, blogs, personnel directory and forums to organisations. White papers from our partners VMware U. Join Our Newsletter Want more on technology leadership?

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But useful Notes applications don't always require attention from the IT department. It's common in Notes for power users to develop applications that meet a tactical need, with little assistance from IT. On the other hand, Designer's easy-to-use interface historically can be a frustration at times to high-end developers.

Lotus Notes refers to the Notes client, which is installed on the user's personal computer, and is used to access both mail files and Notes applications. When a user connects to the server replica of their mail database using the Notes client, it's the Domino server that is serving up the content from the user's mail database.

The Domino server is also responsible for controlling access and security to mail files and application databases. The Domino server has a robust security model that can control access in Notes documents down to the field level. This includes both user access based on the user's Notes ID, as well as database and network traffic encryption. Notes and Domino run on a number of operating systems: from an Intel Pentium 2 desktop machine to the "big iron" of IBM mainframes.

This attention to multi-platform support means that IT departments can use existing servers and data center architecture to consolidate hardware and keep a tight rein on costs.

One of the most impressive features of Notes is its level of backwards compatibility between versions. It's possible to take a Notes application built in version 1 back in , and run it in the current Notes 8 release without any need to convert or rewrite the application.

We're not talking about showcase "proof point" applications, but real-world legacy applications which are still giving good value to the organization and do not need any feature enhancements. Few software applications can boast about compatibility across versions like Notes can. This means your application development investment continues to return value long into the future. Often, a Domino server migration consists of running the install utility for the latest version.

In as little as 15 minutes, the server is upgraded. All the applications built in prior versions of Notes still continue to run with no conversions necessary. Today's knowledge workers don't come to the office at am and leave at pm. They are " always on ," and they need to access their data whether or not a network connection is available.

The Notes client accommodates this requirement by replicating data between server and local versions of your mail files and applications. It's among Notes oldest and most cherished features—for good reason. When a network connection exists, Notes synchronizes data between the server and client. The replication occurs at the field level, so two people can update different fields in the same document such as an invoice or travel request ; the server merges the updates so that the document shows both sets of changes.

Frankly, this is slick. Nobody else has ever achieved this level of WayCool synchronization sophistication, particularly because it's so trouble free that the feature is usually invisible. Notes e-mail users replicate their mail files to local versions on their laptops, so they can be productive offline.

When they once again connect to the network, all the changes are replicated with the server and messages are sent to the appropriate people. It provides business based collaboration functionalities such as emails, calendars, to-do lists, contacts, management, forum discussion, blogging etc. It is the ultimate software that can be used with other IBM Domino applications and databases.

Nowadays, employees are not like job professionals. They can work from anywhere via connecting with IBM Notes whenever they require access to their data with or without a network connection. Basically, Notes synchronizes data between server and client. It is pretty obvious that users are more inclined towards Outlook as it offers sharing point feature.