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Author: Howard Greenberg

Title: Six Steps to Implementing Lotus Notes

Magazine: Network Professional Journal

Date: 02/01/1996

Six Steps to Implementing Lotus Notes

Howard Greenberg

Strategic systems, applications designed to automate specific business functions, can result in significant employee time savings. Lotus Notes provides an excellent platform for developing strategic systems: its application development environment allows fast development of such strategic systems as a sales automation system, a service request and tracking system, or a human resources database. Its integrated email system provides easy development of work flow applications, and its object oriented database can store compound documents that include data originating from other, non-Notes applications (a 1-2-3 spreadsheet, a Word document, or multimedia objects, for example).

While Notes benefits an organization by allowing diverse groups to work together and share information across the enterprise, these benefits come at a price: Notes is much more complex to deploy on a network than a word processor or spreadsheet. When deploying Notes, factors such as security, network architecture, application design, and training have to be carefully considered. Lotus Notes should not be thought of as an application that gets installed on everyone’s desktop, but as a system that is implemented across the organization.

Implementing a Notes system is not difficult provided that you create and follow an installation plan. This article discusses installation planning and outlines six steps an organization should take to implement Lotus Notes.

Step 1: Pilot Implementation
An organization considering implementing Notes should first run a pilot installation: a limited number of users running one or two small Notes applications. Pilot installations are a practical way to understand the value of Notes without committing to a full scale implementation. Many organizations pilot Notes prior to deciding whether to implement it on a large scale.

The pilot installation can be designed and implemented using internal resources or outside consultants. If outside consultants are brought in, they should be willing to work with employees and to transfer skills as they work on the pilot phase. This allows employees to gain experience necessary to run the system after the consultant is gone and the organization moves beyond the pilot stage.

Application selection. A pilot application should accomplish three goals. First, it should provide the organization with hands-on experience using, developing, and administering Lotus Notes. Second, it should provide visible benefits for users. Third, it should show IS and non-IS management that the system provides a significant return on their investment. To achieve these goals, the application should be chosen carefully. Simple but effective applications are best: not too complicated, but not so trivial that there is no perceived value.

Number of users. The number of users should be limited to between 50Ð100, depending on the size of the organization. Who the users are is very important: key decision makers should use the pilot application. Likely candidates for a pilot application include executive information systems, discussion databases, information warehouse databases, and sales information databases. The pilot application could be limited to one department or group (like a sales information system that stores information about products) or could cross organization boundaries (like an approval system for new product development).

Implementation. The pilot application should be monitored carefully to ensure that problems are fixed quickly. Users should be surveyed on a regular basis, either formally or informally, to determine their views and opinions about the application. After a fixed period of time, the pilot installation should be reviewed to determine its success and what was learned from the pilot. The results of this review will help to determine the next step in implementing the system throughout the organization.

Step 2: Infrastructure Plan
Once your organization decides to implement Notes on a larger scale, an infrastructure plan should be developed. Many companies have deployed Notes without proper planning, only to redo much of their original work because they failed to adequately plan for the Notes infrastructure. The infrastructure plan should address each of the following areas.

Certification scheme. Notes uses a hierarchical scheme for naming users and servers. This hierarchical scheme requires that an organization name be used and be part of the full user name. Notes also allows the use of organization units to differentiate users in different areas, allowing delegation of user name administration and insuring that common names such as John Smith are given a unique user name. Organization units can be used at a functional level, dividing sales and engineering departments, or to denote a location, like a country or region. A combination of functional and location organization units may work well.

The certification scheme should be determined prior to implementing Notes on a large scale. If changes are made after a large scale implementation, users will have to be “re-certified” to the new certification scheme, a potentially time-consuming and expensive process. Proper planning in the infrastructure plan can prevent costly changes later.

Domains. A Notes domain defines a group of users and servers who share a common name and address book. In addition to information used for mail routing and replication, the name and address book stores information about the users, servers, and groups in that domain. In very large organizations, one name and address book may not effectively store all this information, leading to using multiple domains to limit the size of each domain‘s name and address book. If multiple domains are used, however, users sending mail to another domain must add the correct domain name after the user name. For example, sending mail to Howard GreenbergNetExperts would require that the domain name be appended to the user name like “Howard GreenbergNetExperts @ NetExperts” if the user Howard Greenberg is in a different domain from the person sending the mail. Although you can split a single domain into multiple domains after implementing Notes, it is a time consuming task. It is easier to choose and implement a domain scheme for the organization in the beginning.

Specialized servers (database, mail, and hub servers). When the number of Notes users grows larger than fifty to one hundred, you need to consider splitting up Notes servers by function, allowing each server to perform a particular task. The different specialized servers are:

These specialized servers all use the same Notes server software. The difference is that they are dedicated to a particular task and therefore can be optimized for that one task.

Replication plan. In Notes, replication synchronizes databases between different servers and users. A replication plan should determine when servers replicate as well as the type of replication topology. Replication between servers should be scheduled carefully to avoid overloading the servers, which could cause replication to fail. Using hub servers and a hub and spoke replication plan is strongly suggested once the organization has more than three to five servers.

Network plan. Notes servers can only communicate with each other if they share a common network protocol or if they communicate via dial-up phone lines. The network plan should detail what network or remote communications connection each server will have the others, as well as detailing how users will connect to the Notes servers. The plan should list the network protocol being used, and should determine whether a modem connection to a remote site will be sufficient. If anticipated network traffic to the remote site will be heavy, then a WAN connection may be necessary.

Remote access plan. If your network has many remote (laptop, dial-up) users, using multi-port cards like a Digi board can reduce the number of busy signals laptop users get when they dial in. There are two options for servicing dial-up users. One option is to install modems directly into the Notes servers. This allows users to dial directly into the server and access data on that server. The other option is to use a remote LAN access tool that allows users to dial into the LAN itself and then access all of the services on the LAN, including the Notes servers. This option allows dial-up users full remote access to all of the LAN’s resources. However, this solution is more complicated and expensive to set up than installing modems directly into the Notes server.

Mail routing (including connections to other mail systems or the Internet). Because most organizations have existing mail systems, the infrastructure plan should address how Notes users will send mail tofrom the organization‘s existing mail systems. The plan should also address how mail will be sent to the Internet.

Server monitoring plan. The infrastructure plan should address how Notes server performance will be monitored. Notes comes with built-in event and statistic monitoring to monitor Notes software. Additionally, software like IBM’s NetFinity and Compaq‘s Insight Manager can be used to monitor the server hardware and operating system. Lotus has an add-on product called NotesView that can monitor the Notes servers and use HP’s SNMP based OpenView software to notify administrators of problems.

Hardware and NOS specifications. Notes server hardware should be chosen based on anticipated server load, the operating system, and the organization‘s experience with the hardware provider. The operating system should also be chosen depending on anticipated load and the organization’s familiarity with the network operating system. Currently, OS2 Notes servers have the broadest support for add-in products (such as gateways), and a recent PC Magazine article (June 27, 1995) named OS2 and NT servers best choices for a Notes platform. However, which NOS you choose will depend on the environment the server will operate in.

Backup and disaster recovery plan. A plan should be put in place to allow for off-line backup of Notes databases. The databases should be backed up daily, with periodic off-site storage of tapes. Replication can also be used to create a backup Notes server that can be brought on-line quickly to replace a failed server. However, replication should not be the only backup scheme, since deleted documents will replicate to the backup server. Using tape backups will allow deleted document(s) to be recovered. (See Bob Daly‘s article in NPJ’s NovemberDecember 1995 issue for a detailed discussion of disaster recovery plans and David J. Demlow‘s article in January NPJ on intelligent network backup.)

Pager and fax gateways. Pager and fax gateways extend Notes functionality by allowing users to receive messages from Notes on text pagers, and by allowing faxes to be sent and received via Notes. These gateways should be considered as part of the infrastructure plan.

Integration with legacy systems and relational databases. Certain Notes applications may require that data be moved on a regular basis to legacy systems and relational databases such as accounting systems, human resources, and inventory systems. Tools like InfoPump allow data to be moved tofrom Lotus Notes on a regular, scheduled basis.

Step 3: Roll-out Plan
Rolling out Notes includes installing Notes on all designated servers and workstations, installing Notes applications, and training users on Notes. The roll-out plan should address the following questions:

Step 4: System Administration
Once Notes is up and running, it must be administered on a regular basis. A system administration plan should be in place that specifies who is responsible for administrative tasks for each location andor server. These administrative tasks include controlling access to servers, scheduling and performing regular server backups, monitoring servers to ensure that they are operational, setting up new servers and user machines, setting up new user ID files, removing users from the Notes system, archiving old documents from databases and mail files, controlling access to databases, and staffing a help desk to respond to user questions and problems.

Step 5: Application Development
Application development really starts from day one. When organizations consider implementing Notes, they typically think in terms of what applications Notes can be used for. In the pilot phase, organizations generally develop one or two Notes applications. As Notes is deployed on a larger scale, they develop more applications as users identify more uses for Notes. Before developing new applications, you need to decide if Notes is the right platform for that application. Poor candidates for development in Notes include applications that must have constantly up-to-date data like accounting systems, reservation systems, and inventory systems.

The first step is developing an application is to train the application developers. Once the developers have received training on the platform, they should begin with simple discussion forums and warehouse information databases. Using outside consultants to supplement in-house development will help developers conquer the learning curve faster. An organization that anticipates a large amount of in-house development should adopt application development standards. These standards should define how Notes fields, forms, views, and macros are named, documented, and used, ensuring that developers can work on other developer’s projects when needed. The standards should also define how Notes help documents are created and used as well as document security standards for application development.

Step 6: Training
Although training is listed last, it starts from day one just like application development. Proper training is essential for smooth implementation and use of Notes. For the end user, custom courses that focus on specific applications are the most useful. For system administrators, training that covers Notes terminology, installation of Notes servers and clients, administration of database replication, Notes mail, and Notes security are vital. Advanced training dealing with server monitoring, certification and domains, server performance issues, and application templates is also important. Application developers should gain hands-on experience with form and view design as well as the basic design elements of a Notes database. More advanced development topics should also be addressed, including building a complex workflow mail-enabled application, incorporating OLE objects into forms, prompting users for information, looking up data from other Notes or non-Notes databases, and implementing more advanced security topics. Lotus offers a full Notes certification program for system administrators and application developers.

Summary
Notes is a powerful tool for creating strategies systems that can dramatically increase productivity and speed up business processes. Due to its complexity, careful planning is essential for a smooth Notes implementation in your organization. Following the six steps outlined in this article will aid your organization‘s Notes implementation.

Howard Greenberg, a level II Certified Lotus Notes Instructor, a Lotus Certified Notes Specialist, and a Master Certified NetWare Engineer, has over thirteen years of diversified experience in the computer industry, with specialties in clientserver computing, personal computers, and multimedia technologies with IBM. He has extensive experience with Lotus Notes, Novell NetWare, servers, workstations, and operating systems like DOS, Windows, and OS2, and has developed and taught classes on clientserver topics. To contact the author, call, fax, or email him:

Phone: 407-362-8028

Fax: 407-395-6749

Lotus Notes Network: Howard GreenbergNetExperts @ NetExperts @ Notes Net

Internet: howard_greenberg.netexperts@notes.compuserve.com


About the Network Professional Journal
Technical Journal of the Network Professional Association Volume 5 Number 2 February 1996

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