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Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Mat Newman  December 8 2011 20:10:00
I really pleased to advise that my session for Lotusphere 2012 got accepted: "User Blast".

Building on "Where is the Love?" from LS11 - where you may have seen or heard of "The 10 Minute Demo" - this session is going to be a 50 minute full-on blast, show casing of the power of Lotus Notes (I'm supposed to leave some time for questions).  I have a list of items prepared, but with so much content that could be included I thought I would throw it over to you to help decide some of the tips/solutions that I can demonstrate during the session.

With a twist.

I want you to tell me what Lotus Notes CANT do!

You've heard your users complain, you've found something yourself, or you just don't believe that Lotus Notes is capable of doing ... what?

Feel free to comment here, or message me using the social media of your choice (some connect options are on http://about.me/matnewman), I can be found on most networks.  Of course, you could always go Communications 1.0 and email me: mat at matnewman dot com.

Bring them on, I'm looking forward to your input, and to seeing you at Lotusphere 2012 :-)
Comments

1Robert Baehr  12/08/2011 23:41:59  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Lotus Notes CAN'T pour me a beer :)

C'mon - someone hadda say it

2Darren Duke  12/09/2011 0:11:05  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Bull meet China Shop ;)

1) Retroactively run mail rules on existing mail

2) Have more that 32k of blocked senders

3) As a meeting participant I can't add users to a meeting

4) Scroll partial months (although this maybe addressed in the future)

5) I'll stop at 4 :)

3Bill Buchan  12/09/2011 0:24:17  
Here’s a few

1. Read and Write PST files. On some Exchange to Notes migrations, this would have saved a ton of cost and effort if the user could natively read and write PST files. And looking at Outlook Redemption+Midas, it doesn't look that hard.

2. Reporting. Bizarre that IBM's new focus on Analytics and its Cognos reporting engine ignores Notes databases. (Its almost as if IBM doesn't like Notes. But that'd be a ridiculous assertion)

3. Interfaces. We have lots of Notes interfaces, but:

a. The C-APi is hard and platform specific.

b. The C++ is basically buggy and unsupported. Fail.

c. The LSX toolkit is only noteworthy for the 'first question at beat the geek' asking when it'll be fixed. (Answer: Never)

d. The Calendaring and Scheduling API was first promised when Noah started building the arc.

e. Calling Notes-C API from Lotuscript works in all platforms. Except iSeries. Sorry iSeries folks.

So come on. 22 year old product and we still don't have the interfaces working ? Really?

Come on. Give us a really good web service API to everything in Notes. Today.

4. 'Patch' the mail file template.

Customers love adding functionality to the mail file template. However, they don't like having to rewrite the code every time the version changes. So why not have a 'patch' mechanism that allows us to 'diff' design changes, and then apply the 'diff'.

The C-Language guys have been doing this since - oh - the 80's? How hard can it be?

5. Read IdeaJam.

I wonder how many idea jam.com ideas have not yet been implemented? I'd ask at 'Meet the Product Managers' but have probably been banned from the mikes.

---* Bill

4Mike  12/09/2011 0:29:33  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

It can't win over my IT Director

:-(

5Sam S  12/09/2011 0:47:32  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Don't want to turn this into a LN Flame post, but I will echo Bill's comment - spend a few hours on ideajam.

A few off the top of my head:

1) Thesaurus - (and I think I've explored all of what live text can do, but it is no where near as handy as what Outlook/Word has done since forever)

2) Sort after searching - If I go into All Docs and search for "AutoCAD" and then want to sort the result by send date/sender/size/etc, I can not.

6Darren Duke  12/09/2011 0:50:27  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

@5, sure you can sort after a search.See { Link }

7David Schaffer  12/09/2011 0:53:47  
Multiple mail accounts

No easy way for a user to work with multiple email accounts -- something Thunderbird and Outlook Express have done for free for years.

And with newer releases, sad to say, Notes can't run a full work day without hanging (although this may be more an issue with Windows and OSX - don't notice my Notes client hang on Linux but I use that one a lot less).

8Craig Wiseman  12/09/2011 1:12:13  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

[Aside: It would be enormously satisfying to list out the things I wish Notes/Domino could do that IBM could fix it if just CARED a bit about Notes/Domino (I'll just refer you to my IdeaJam list for that)...]

I'm assuming you're asking this so you can show us how to do some of these things in your session.... that I won't be attending as it appears that #LS12 is not in my future 8-(

When I say, "I wish", I don't really mean *I*, but I have heard these from users, and these seem in the realm of possibility.

* I wish you should share a NOTES calendar as an iCal/RSS feed. Example: HR could set up a calendar and put events, holidays, etc., that folks could subscribe to.

* I wish you could easily compact all your local Notes databases.

* I wish you could easily sync your journal/notebook to your mail file.

* I wish you could easily set an image file or color as your mail message background. {remember, I am chanelling my user requests here.}

9V. Watson  12/09/2011 1:14:25  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Lotus can't seem to get rid of "Lotus 1-2-3" as a file type option when importing from the "File" menu. And can't replace it with Excel or some other spreadsheet standard.

Can't browse to import .png image resources (yes, I know you can type the file name in).

10Bill Buchan  12/09/2011 2:04:17  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

@9 - god yeah. Show a user the import/export and they see .123...

---* Bill

11Sam S  12/09/2011 2:21:31  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

@6 @5 - on my second wish, append with "by clicking on the column name like you can in every other view and program"

12Dan King  12/09/2011 2:26:06  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Hotdesking: never got the roaming feature to work easily/well. All I want is for a user logging in to Notes on any PC to have the mail and calendar shortcuts open their own mail. And if contacts were part of the mailfile rather than stored locally that would be even better....

13Shean McManus  12/09/2011 5:13:00  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

My admins repeatedly ask me for two features:

1) A way to determine, in the meeting scheduler, where a person is located for a day. Of course, they can open the calendar and if specified there can get their answer but they want something color coded in the grid.

2) The ability to *easily* schedule a meeting for future delivery. Obviously this can be done with a custom agent but that isn't very admin friendly.

Look forward to your session!

14Chris Miller  12/09/2011 7:21:54  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

I think you should have asked for one per comment.. :-)

15Mat Newman

12/09/2011 9:11:48  Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

WOW - Great feedback guys, Thanks. At least here the comments describe WHY, rather than the vague 'I hate Lotus Notes' rants. Keep them coming :-)

Mat Newman IBM Champion

16Tinus Riyanto  12/09/2011 10:19:52  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

1. Thesaurus like @5 says

2. If you are using local mail.box and automatic replication schedule there is no visible notification if you are trying to send email with size bigger than what your server's router would allow. Well the error appear on replicator page but watching that page kinda made the automatic part moot, isn't it ?

3. No way to delegate your journal even if it is sync to your mail file on server. No way to open other people's journal (if you managed to get the delegation part working)

4. And more on Idea Jam :D

Do you mind publishing your session elsewhere for those of us who can't go to LS12 ?

17Thomas Lindberg  12/09/2011 22:04:16  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

You Can not make domino Call annoter server and get mail from it.. Huge problem When Dealing with firewalls that is only open from inside and out and not the otter Way

Regards thomas

18Steve Pitcher  12/10/2011 14:09:57  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

It would be awesome to column sort a view after a search result set is found.

Oh yeah, to use complimentary Connections features in Notes 8.5.3 you need a Window/Linux/AIX server to host it. No support for IBM i (iSeries) folks.

19Marty Buckley  12/12/2011 11:43:28  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Well Done Mat, can't wait to see the Yellow Suit again walk the halls of the Dolphin. :)

Is the answer "There is nothing Lotus Notes can't do"?

20Stuart Hickson  12/12/2011 12:43:39  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

Great to see you've been selected again to speak at Lotusphere Mat. The '10 minute demo' is something I've stolen from you after last year! You are showing us all what Lotus Social Software can achieve. Look forward to your session, as always. Oh, and the answer is, save the Australian middle order from collapse at Bellerive!

21David Hablewitz  01/17/2012 13:59:22  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

To clarify, or as wikipedia puts it, to disambiguate, Much of what is listed above can be done. From the beginning, the intent of the Lotus Notes development environment has been to provide the ability to create your apps as you need. For example, running mail rules against mail already delivered can be done. All you need do is write the code.

Also, the question "Can it be done?" is different from "Can it be done this specific way?" It isn't valid to say "it doesn't run Connections on iSeries". It DOES run Connections, in fact, it runs on 3 different OS.

Then there is the one about sorting columns after searching. No programming needed. It already does this. Someone needs to more carefully review the search options. In the search bar, click More then in the Sort Results by field, change it to "Keep current order (sortable)" or "show all documents (sortable)".

That said, there are some things it can't do. But most can be addressed. As someone mentioned, a good starting point may be Ideajam.net. I have submitted more than my share of suggestions for product improvements and bug fixes to IBM Technical Support via SPR and posted enough ideas on ideajam.net to be ranked no lower than 4th for the past few years. But in the spirit of the question, what have you tried to create in an app that you couldn't?

22Sam S  01/18/2012 1:06:14  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

@David H - How easy it is for a user (or administrator) to do something is just as important as whether Notes does it or not. Maybe even more so.

Look at it this way....the applications/websites that are getting the most market share are not the ones with the most features; they are the ones that have the popular features that are easy and intuitive to use.

23Steve Pitcher  03/21/2012 12:39:01  
Lotusphere 2012 session: User BLAST! ... Have your say

@David, I stand corrected. I've reviewed the search options and indeed it is there. Fantastic.

About Connections...you're incorrect. Connections is not supported on IBM i (it's not iSeries anymore by the way...not since 2006).

Mat Newman

THE Notes (formerly IBM/Lotus Notes) Guy. Productivity Guru. Evangelist. IBM Champion for IBM Collaboration Solutions, 2011/2012/2013. Former IBMer. HCLite. Views are my own.

#GetProductive #GetHCLNotes

Mat Newman




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