Lotus Dr.

Fixed: Office 365 Invitation Issue

Denny Russell — Mon, 9 Apr 2012 07:42:53 -0400

A few weeks back I blogged about an Office 365 issue where calendar invitations were not coming through as invites but rather as text. With some guidance from a Response to that article, we were able to solve the issue. Below are the details of how to fix this issue.

The Scenario
The environment we are in is a co-existence of Office365 users and on-premise Lotus Notes users. The Lotus Notes users from the organization are maintained in the Office365 environment as External Contacts. The problem occurred when users with Office365 mailboxes attempt to send a meeting invitation to the Lotus Notes users, the invites come through as a memo (instead of an invite), in some cases with a blank body and in other cases with the meeting details in the body of the memo.

The Resolution
The resolution required the setting of the UseMapiRichTextFormat property for the contacts in Office365 (the Lotus Users) to Never. The default value for this property is set to Default. There is currently no user interface in Office365 to modify this setting; you have to do it using Remote PowerShell. Launch PowerShell. Listed below are the commands used to open a session and make the appropriate changes.

Open an Office365 session
$LiveCred = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $LiveCred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
Running the above script will prompt you to login. In order to successfully make the property changes, you will need to login using an account authorized to administer Office365.

Update the UseMapiRichTextFormat property
set-mailcontact "[Alias of Contact]" -UseMapiRichTextFormat Never
where [Alias of Contact] is the alias of the contact whose property needs to be updated. Please don’t use the brackets. So for example, if the contact’s alias is jdoe, the command will look like this:
set-mailcontact "jdoe" -UseMapiRichTextFormat Never

Other scripts that might be helpful
Get a list of Contacts
get-mailcontact
Get a list of all the properties for a specific contact
get-mailcontact "[Alias of Contact]" |fl

URL link to a Lotus Notes document not resolving correctly on the iPhone

Denny Russell — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 14:02:22 -0400

I've run into an odd issue with the iPhone and a link left in an email. Let me set up the scenario a bit.

A user has an email that has been 'stubbed' by an archiving process. The body of the message is replaced with a footprint of text so the user can easily get to the archived document. In a Notes client, a doclink is present and the user can click and open the message. For web/phone, there is a full url path to the archived message as seen below...

If a user clicks this URL link in iNotes, the archived message is opened up and easily read as seen here...

Now below, you will see the same message on the iPhone. When clicking on the link provided, I do not get the message to open, rather the database itself opens. Now the user has to navigate to find the message. Not very efficient.

Lotus Notes Client resolves with no issues.
iNotes resolves with no issues.
Android phones resolve with not issues.

iPhone does not work correctly. Anyone have any ideas on this one??

Some Microsoft 365 Invitations arrive in Lotus Notes as text not invitations

Denny Russell — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 14:27:22 -0400

We've run into an odd issue and I'm looking for help out solving it. We have users running Lotus Notes 8.5.3 and when an invite comes into their inbox from Office 365, one of 2 things happens.

1. It works and looks like this...

OR

2. It comes through as a Memo and text only...

Both Mail files inherit from the same 8.5.3 Mail Template
Both Mail files have 'Keep in senders' format' for the incoming mail preferences in the Person document in the Domino Directory.

What else could I be missing? Anyone see this or have other ideas?

Thanks in advance.

DAOS: What happens when a document is moved from one file to another

Denny Russell — Fri, 9 Mar 2012 09:10:31 -0400

After many calls from customers, I've been doing some research to see what happens when documents are moved from one .nsf that has DAOS enabled to another .nsf. While not surprising to me, the results seemed unexpected to some customers so I decided to write about it. Here is what I found out.

My test went like this.
Step 1. Send some attachments in emails and verifying that my DAOS folder is growing both at the OS level as well as issuing a Tell DAOSmgr dbsummary command at the console.
Flaw #1 in DAOS: There is no field that shows what documents in an application (.nsf) contain attachments in DAOS store. Going into the document properties, I should be able to confirm if an attachment is truly stored in there.

Step #2. I then set up 2 archive tests. The third party archive that I am using locates documents based on age and places a copy of them to a .nsf database. In the original email, the header of the message is left behind and the body is replaced by a footprint of text with a doclink pointing to the now archived document in the new location.

Test #1:
Archive to the same server. Documents are archived and then re-check the dbsummary, I see that the count on my original mail file stays the same and now my archive file is added to the list and it contains x number of documents (where x is the number of documents archived that had attachments).

Test #2:
Archive to a different server - DAOS enabled. Documents are archived and then re-check the dbsummary, I see that the count on my original mail file stays the same and now my archive file is added to the list and it contains x number of documents (where x is the number of documents archived that had attachments).
Flaw #2 in DAOS: DAOS is not shared across servers, so in a large environment, the same attachment will be stored multiple times across the network.

Test #3:
Archive to a different server - DAOS not enabled. This one has different results and what I would expect based on the articles and my limited knowledge of DAOS. Because DAOS is a store per server AND my new server is NOT running DAOS, the attachments are stored in the actual mail file. I proved they were in the actual mail file on the new server by shutting down the other server so that the original server and it's DAOS store would not be available. I was still able to open the attachment.
Flaw #3 in DAOS: See flaw #1 above.

Notes: The following must be true if you want the newly created file to also place the Attachment in DAOS.
1. You have enabled DAOS to run See Quick Start Guide.

2. Your template or database that you are moving documents to has the DAOS flag enabled

3. You have the .ini parameter set
Create_R85_Databases=1

Hopefully you find this useful. I would love to hear additional thoughts on this as well.

Recent Contacts setting in Lotus Notes 8.5.3 is better

Denny Russell — Wed, 4 Jan 2012 12:03:28 -0400

When building out my new laptop, I installed Lotus Notes 8.5.3. As I was setting all my preferences, I stumbled across a section titled 'Choose how names are added to Recent Contacts' and it has a much improved set of features.

While it offers a lot of choices, I still don't see exactly the one I want. Here is what I am looking for;
A combination of 'Only sender's name from emails I receive' and 'Only names from emails I send'. The third radio button, 'Only the "To" recipient names from emails I send & receive' seems close but it has it's own issues. What are they you ask? I commonly find that someone I know sends me an email with 20 other people in the 'To' field. I don't want those 20 other people added. A lot of times, I don't know them nor do I care to send them a message.

Having a check-box instead of a radio button would solve my needs. I could then pick the 2nd and 4th items and be on my way. This is definitely an improvement from where 'Recent Contacts' started, but could use a few final tweaks.

Folder References property does not remain when creating a new replica

Denny Russell — Fri, 9 Dec 2011 14:21:03 -0400

We've encountered an oddity and was hoping someone out there may have some insight on how to fix this.

We set Folder References on a database using the following code...
Option Public
Option Declare
Sub Initialize

Dim CurrentDB As NotesDatabase
Dim Session As New NotesSession

Set CurrentDB = Session.CurrentDatabase

CurrentDB.FolderReferencesEnabled = True

End Sub

And then verified that the property is set on the database...

Now, if we make a replica of that database, this value is no longer set.

So the question arises, "is there a way to get this value to carry over to any replica created?"

Are you aware of this LinkedIn Privacy Setting??

Denny Russell — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 08:56:27 -0400

Stumbled across this little gem and thought it was worth noting. By default, there is a setting, 'LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising' that is selected by default. To find this:
1. Click on your Name in the upper right corner and then choose 'Settings'
2. Go to the Account in the bottom left
3. Choose 'Manage Social Advertising'
4 You will find this field to update.

LotusDr.com is 2 years old

Denny Russell — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 08:40:45 -0400

Another year has passed and this site is still going. Looking back, I've only had 16 posts this past year, but they were some of my most commented posts. Maybe less is really more.

If you read last year's 1 year anniversary post, you saw that I've taken on a new site and have focused my efforts on helping out Inline Hockey Coaches around the world. It's been a fun project and it's going strong. Much like going to Lotusphere and meeting a lot of you, my hockey site allowed me to meet up with coaches from around the country as we traveled to tournaments. It's pretty cool to see this site grow and be a resource for so many out there. Getting 'Thank you' emails from coaches in Macedonia, Spain and other countries has been a reminder of why I continue to build the site.

I'll continue to write here but find myself less and less interested in what's going on in the Lotus Notes and Domino world and more focused on web development and social media. I may start to document all the cool new HMTL and CSS that I have been using in my job and some side projects I'm working on.

Who knows what the year will bring, but I wish the best to all my readers and fellow Bloggers.

Allow agents executed using server command "tell amgr run" to be seen...

Denny Russell — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 08:02:24 -0400

In working with our customers, many have requested the ability to see what an agent is doing when they use the 'Run Now' option. The 'Run Now' option in our products simply uses the 'Tell AMGR RUN' command at the console to start an agent. Unlike a scheduled LotusScript agent, once you issue this command, you have no control. This is nothing new, as it's been on IdeaJam for a while now.

Let me show you what I mean. (if you understand the issue and just want the information on the enhancement request, skip to the bottom.)

1. I started an agent with the Tell amgr Run command....

2. I issued the Tell amgr status command...

NOTE: It does not think my agent is running.
NOTE2: I understand this to be the way it is designed based on this Technote...
Title: How to run multiple agents in the same database using a Program document
Doc #: 1279832
URL: http://www.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21279832
NOTE 3: This Technote does not mention 8.5x

3. I tried to stop the agent with a "Tell amgr cancel"

NOTE: It does not know my agent is running. Again, it's expected.

4. I shut down the agent manager using "Tell amgr quit"

NOTE: Now here's the catch. When shutting down amgr, it knows that my agent was running and completes.
So why does #2 & 3 not know my agent exists, yet #4 does? If they know it's running to shut it down, they have to be able to report on #2 & 3.

So here is the good news, in working with IBM they understand the issue and more importantly, the need. They have created an enhancement request, SPR #JGIR73JSXW.

As many of you know, the way to get an SPR through is to get more weight behind it. So please, if you have the need for this, add your name to the enhancement request.

Lotus Notes Position in Western PA

Denny Russell — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:53:47 -0400

This opportunity was recently passed along to me. If interested contact,
Dave Watkins
412-722-0953
dwatkins@jhtechnical.com

SUMMARY
Lotus Notes Developer - Our client is migrating from Lotus Notes 8.0 to 8.5 and would like to have someone on staff to assist with the process and provide ongoing administration and development support.
plus as it will help them to keep the person busy.

DESIRED BACKGROUND
- Wants someone who has Lotus Notes Administration skills
- Able to handle ongoing maintenance, problem troubleshooting/resolution, light development
- Any networking experience would be a plus

This position is contract to hire in Saxonburg, PA.

Lotus Notes Error: The upgrade you are attempting is not supported

Denny Russell — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 15:37:18 -0400

We recently encountered this error when trying to upgrade a Lotus Notes client.

The upgrade you are attempting is not supported.

My Admin did a little research and found this technote on IBM's site.

The fix? Update the ini to the value you need.
You can determine if the installation is "Client Only" or "All Client" by checking the "Installtype=" entry of the notes.ini. For a Client Only install, the value will be 6. For All Client, it will be 2.

Hope this tip saves you next time you run into this issue.

Lotus Notes Admin opening in WV

Denny Russell — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:24:00 -0400

The Global Messaging & ECM Engineer will be responsible for engineering, maintaining, and supporting the global messaging, collaboration, and enterprise content management solutions at our client. This includes Lotus Notes/Domino e-mail, Lotus Sametime, Lotus Traveller, Blackberry, Axway MailGate, and Microsoft SharePoint.

Essential duties and responsibilities include:
Engineering and architecture of the global messaging product suites, including acting as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for one or more technologies.
Creating system designs based on business and technical requirements which are consistent with established architectural standards, cost concerns, schedule constraints, and industry best practices.
Perform ongoing research on emerging technologies and industry best practices to identify opportunities to increase operational efficiencies and align with our client’s IT strategy.
Develop detailed system documentation, including technical drawings.
Level 3 production support of the collaboration environment.
Provide on-call support as part of an on-call rotation.
Provide technical leadership in delivering messaging and collaboration projects and initiatives.
Prioritize and work independently on multiple, varied, assignments.
Perform other duties as assigned

KNOWLEDGE
Expert level technical expertise with messaging and collaboration products and related disciplines. Strong foundational knowledge of interrelated systems such as Windows, Linux, AIX, Networking, SAN, Backups, and Disaster Recovery. Experience working in a team-oriented, collaborative environment.
Required experience in all of the following environments to administer and optimize.
Lotus Notes and Domino (8.5.x preferred)
Lotus Sametime
Gateway/Edge technologies (Axway MailGate preferred)
RIM Blackberry
Microsoft SharePoint, Symantec Enterprise Vault, Lotus Traveler experience not required, but a plus

Contact:
Andrew Sigesmund
President
847.475.9100 (P)
847.475.9200 (F)
ANDREWS@SATTEL2.COM
WWW.AMS-STAFF.COM

’Save as .eml’ will now be an option in Lotus Notes & Domino 8.5.2 fixpack 2

Denny Russell — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 14:20:04 -0400

stumbled across Schmhen's Blog today and his article on 8.5.2 fixpack 2. One item really stood out as a fix that was wanted by many customers.

SPR# DCHR89GT3Q – Added a policy option to enable administrators to enable or restrict the ability for Notes client users to choose “Save as eml” under “File..Save” options from within an email.

I know for many, this was never even a question. Lotus Notes was just doing something that M$ had done forever. However, for others, it was a big stumbling block.

Either way, I'm happy to see they listened and the option will be there for those that really need it. Thanks IBM!

If you want to read up on the past articles, you can find it here, here and here.

Article published on ’Email Hoarding’

Denny Russell — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:00:41 -0400

I recently had an article, "Be On The Lookout For Email Hoarders" published by EnterpriseFeatures.com. It was a fun article to write and I even got to plug a few of the advantages of Lotus Notes and Domino. Take a read and let me know what you think.

New IBM books coming from Packt Publishing: Support the authors

Denny Russell — Wed, 9 Feb 2011 15:37:01 -0400

Most of know the authors of a few of the most recent IBM books. Packt Publishing is offering a special deal this month.

To celebrate the publication of four new IBM books in February, Packt Enterprise is offering an exclusive discount for all IBM books for the month. Here is the link which explains it in detail: IBM Tuesday. In this campaign we'd be focusing on our latest IBM books.

You, the readers will get to buy the books at a discount of 20%. So go out and support the authors we all know and love and maybe you'll learn a thing or two. If we want them to keep writing, we need to support them.

So what do you do with ID certification after a migration away from Domino

Denny Russell — Tue, 8 Feb 2011 16:17:44 -0400

A customer came to me with a very interesting question. They've used our products for years and now are migrating away from Domino to a Hosted Exchange solution.

Facts:
-- Each User has their own archive database currently stored on an archive server.
-- The archives is stored in a .nsf format.
-- The Archive files will not be migrated and the users will be required to open a Lotus Notes client to view them locally on their pc if they need to go back and read any old archived content.
-- Archives will be stored on users laptop/pc.

The Question:
What do we do about "Certification" of the Notes ID. Some are bound to expire, and all Domino servers will be retired so there is no option to recertify them. So what can we do to ensure they will still be able to access their archives over time?

The possibilities I've come up with:
1. Recertify with an expiration off in the future.
-- Set it to 50 years and you should be good.
2. I believe you could remove the need for a password so they aren't prompted (but you still would have the cert issue.)
-- This one I don't think is valid.
3. Make the local replica of the archives and make the Default ACL as Manager, that way, they could get into the LN client without an ID and access the database.
-- I'm not sure I like this one as it's not secure and anyone who gets the laptop could read it.

I've thought of a few items but wanted to lean on everyone to see what others have seen done in this situation. Anyone have any ideas or thoughts??

Lotusphere 2011 Wrap-up

Denny Russell — Fri, 4 Feb 2011 06:56:39 -0400

Another Lotusphere has come and gone and it's different on so many levels. After an 'interesting' OGS, my hopes weren't as high as I had originally thought they would be, but that all changed as the week went by. It wasn't what was said by any speaker or in any Keynote, but rather the actions of the people who attended. Despite the lack of any big announcements, people had a different attitude this year. They were upbeat and looking forward to the year ahead. Maybe it was the beautiful weather or the fact they were away from work for a few days, but if the product showcase was any indication of what's to come, it looks to be a good year.

As always, it was nice to meet up with old friends. There were even several, after many years of attending Lotusphere and other conferences, that I finally got to meet in person and it was great. Some where from Pittsburgh, or the author of book I've read (and was supposed to review), or guru's I've traded ideas and code with. People that I had, well, 'Get Social and Do Business' with. The whole theme of this years show is being lived out right now. We've all talked, tweeted and blogged about it. Quite honestly, it's how many of us have met. It's the way we all conduct our daily lives.

So as the new year officially begins, I look forward to what lies ahead. See you all soon at LS12.

Lotusphere Day 1: OGS and more

Denny Russell — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 23:00:52 -0400

The Good: As always, it's great to get down here and meet up with old friends, make new ones and put faces to all those people that we've learned to connect with over the year.
Traffic seems to be up at the booth and there are a lot of people moving around
500 College kids were brought in to expose them to the Lotus Brand
Beer at the Product Showcase, but isn't beer always good?
The opening band, Mass Ensemble
The theme: Get Social. Do Business
Blackberry Playbook
Kevin Spacey - He was good, genuine and right on the mark of the theme

The Bad:
Internet connections at the hotel
Alistair Rennie asking if there were any Nerds (not a way to start your opening talk)
The first demo was of a Blackberry Playbook, not a Lotus product.
No major announcements

The Ugly:
The complete miss on the OGS. Yes above I said the Theme was good. It's a great message, just the wrong audience. We ALL get it. The ones you are trying to "Sell" this too are back in the offices in charge not sitting here.
1 hour 20 minutes + of the OGS and until the first demo
500 college students who you want to engage your software and message and you missed the boat to excite them.
2 Customer panels - 1 was bad enough, but never once did they mention the IBM product they used. For all we know, they may not be.
Panelist reading from the tele-prompter.

Overall, I thought message was the same one I saw last year with Project Vulcan. I never expected PV to be a product, it appeared as a vision which is great. But when we got to the demo Notes Next, it was like the same thing I remember last year. We are going to connect your email and everything else.

Lotus Domino 7.0x End of Life

Denny Russell — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:32:29 -0400

I blogged about this a long time ago here, but just wanted to remind everyone that the End of life for Domino 7.0x is coming up soon.

Honestly, if you are still on this release, what is wrong with you?? Even if you haven't gone to 8.5x, you should be on 8.0x. You are missing out.

Lotus product lifecycle dates can be found here.

Once again, the Domino Upgrade is as easy as 1-2-3

Denny Russell — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 14:21:25 -0400

Because of all the other things I've had going on recently, I haven't been able to upgrade to 8.5.2 or the Traveler release that supports Android. Last night was finally my night.

3 servers were on tap for the upgrade. That included upgrading from 8.5.1 to 8.5.2 with a fixpack. 1 server would have Traveler upgraded as well and appropriate fixpacks. All 3 servers were done in no time. I realized something in the end, it took me longer to copy the Traveler fixpacks to the server (as I forgot to do so during my initial Pre-upgrade routine) than it did to actually upgrade the Domino servers.

Seriously, it's that easy. No rip and replace. No user or mail file rebuilds. Just bring down the server, launch the .exe and away we go.

Let's see you do that with the 'other' email system.

Once again, Lotus Notes Domino for the WIN!!