Admin2006: What "Hannover" means to you

May 11 2006

Yesterday afternoon, I had the honor of sharing an Admin2006 stage with Mary Beth Raven for a session entitled "Lotus Notes 'Hannover' -- What it means to you".  We had somewhere around 150-175 people in attendance, and almost all stayed for the entire session.  I haven't read the evaluations yet, but based on the hallway conversations and other informal feedback, I think the session hit its mark.

I started out by doing a quick 2006 Notes/Domino plan overview -- talked about the 7.0.2 features that I highlighted the other day and some other current tidbits.  Then we moved into talking about "Hannover".  The more I talk about our objectives for the release, the more impressed I get with the work that research, development, usability, and everyone else are putting into it.  At some point in the presentation I had a "wow" moment over all the innovation going into this release.

As I do more of these presentations, I'm finding ways to make the message simpler.  Next week at DNUG/IBM Lotus Technical Forum, Kevin Cavanaugh and I will carry these same themes for Notes "Hannover" forward as well.  They are:

  • Best-in-class usability and capabilities
  • Open client platform
  • Composite applications
  • Activities
Since the second, third, and fourth items on that list are all in the area of innovation, the presentation necessarily has to spend time talking about them conceptually as well as our implementation plans.  So I did that, then turned it over to Mary Beth for the latest on "Hannover" usability.  Things I learned from this section included:
  • There are six full-time UI designers on Notes "Hannover" -- more than any other Notes release
  • They never talk about "the user", but rather about the personae that Mary Beth described on her blog the other day.  Pictures of these end-users are in the conference rooms in Westford, and developers are essentially being forced to think about usability from one of these perspectives.
  • Notes mail will have both a sequential view and a conversational view -- with the latter being a great way to view threaded interactions (aka reply-to-all-with-history battles).
  • The workspace UI is a key focus for "Hannover".  Almost 100% of the people in the room said they still use the Notes workspace to navigate vs. bookmarks.  To some degree, this makes sense for an admin-focused audience -- they have stacks and stacks of similar databases on different servers to view.  But the audience represented that their users still mostly use workspace, too, and some never even train on bookmarks.
One of the great things about this presentation is how focused the interaction was between those in the audience and Mary Beth.  I was honestly expecting to get some "I don't like that in blue, can you make it green" kinds of input, but all of the questions and comments were at a much more global level.  And had some very useful input.

Mary Beth also demonstrated the new pernames.ntf template.  Interestingly, she did this demo from my Notes 7 client, rather than a Notes "Hannover" alpha build.  I found this to be a powerful reminder that "Hannover" is Notes.  The UI will look better in a "Hannover" client, but the compatibility is there like always -- no rip-and-replace.

Some of the specific features she showed were the popup dialogs that allow end-users to apply their own labels to fields in the address book, as well as indicate a "primary" e-mail address or phone number for the contact.
 
Image:Admin2006: What "Hannover" means to you

Last, she showed that the contact form is now streamlined in read mode, showing fields with data in a useful format (even useful in preview mode).

Image:Admin2006: What "Hannover" means to you

We wrapped up the session with a discussion of plans for the next Domino server release, including the over-my-dead-body mail retraction feature.  Still don't have a detailed spec on that, so we couldn't answer questions on what criteria are established for whether a message can be retracted or not.  Good news for a couple of people, though, was the committed plan to be able to disable this feature or control it by policies.

I can't post the slides from the session since it's not an IBM conference.  However, some of the same content will be in the DNUG/IBM Lotus Technical Forum presentation next Monday.  I will post a PDF of those, as well as updated Notes "Hannover" screen shots, Monday evening.

Ed Brill Admin2006, Boston MA USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [25]

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  1. 1  Ben Rose http://www.lnug.org.uk | 5/11/2006 11:17:23 AM

    Looking at that pernames screenshot, it might make sense to add some kind of @ProperCase to the names entry...would look a lot tidier and more professional.

  1. 2  Chris Toohey http://www.dominoguru.com | 5/11/2006 12:09:59 PM

    Very glad to hear that the databases are that backward compatible Ed, but something that you mentioned kinda made me wince...

    Although this is the pernames.ntf template and meant for personal address books, I've done a lot of work with CRM systems that harvest and/or synchronize data, and the biggest issue I've run into is information being in the wrong field - the pernames.ntf template allowing soft-labels could result in everyone having unique schemes for what information is stored where. This is good for the individual user, but can prove extremely problematic for anyone looking to maintain data standards and integrity across an organization, or build a master database of all contact information. During import/harvest, I don't want the Company phone number to list the VPs beach house phone, nor do I want to accidently fax a proposal to his mobile!

    Aside from just the CRM-type implications, there's also the telephone-based support woes; a Call Center rep won't be able to tell the individual to go to the 3rd field on the right hand side and absolutely be sure that this field is the Office Fax number.

    Other than that bit of playing devil's advocate, I'm really liking what I'm seeing/reading/hearing!

  1. 3  Brian Green  | 5/11/2006 12:53:22 PM

    @1 - I'm not sure the McGuinness' would approve. ;)

  1. 4  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/11/2006 12:59:53 PM

    @2 I'm not a vice-president (and I don't have a beach house, yet!) but I see your point.

  1. 5  Bruce Elgort http://www.bruceelgort.com | 5/11/2006 1:26:36 PM

    So what is the magic pixy dust that makes the address book look totally different in Hannover than it does in the Notes client?

  1. 6  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/11/2006 1:32:48 PM

    It's a good question.

    "Hannover" -is- the Notes client. Notes "Hannover" will benefit from the Eclipse-based environment, including things like the Standard Widget Toolkit (SWT) and other user interface constructs to improve the overall UI.

  1. 7  Matt  | 5/11/2006 2:09:29 PM

    @6 - hmmm...don't mean to jump the gun here...well, actually, I do :) - does that mean that SWT components will be available for use within Domino applications? Or is the front end for mail and address book divorced from the Domino back end?

  1. 8  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 5/11/2006 2:10:59 PM

    @2, but isn't that one of the great things about Notes, if you want to change your company's template (to not allow the soft name changes) you can! ;-)

  1. 9  Ben Rose http://www.lnug.org.uk | 5/11/2006 2:16:33 PM

    @2, @8

    All good points, we NEED to ensure this works when syncing with a Blackberry.

  1. 10  Chris Toohey http://www.dominoguru.com | 5/11/2006 2:34:03 PM

    @8 - Of course Alan! I'm all about improving the UIs of my user envirnoments, but I want to ensure that I have the ability to lock down/limit what my users can do. The administrator (via template replace, etc.) does have this ability of course, but don't they need a developer/designer to make the changes to the template? I guess this gets to the point that while I like giving people choices, I like giving the Admin a tool outside of template hackery to limit things. Now, I haven't done my homework with Hannover, but with all of the awesome features we're giving the users, are we additionally giving administrators the ability to control what the desktop client experience will be?

    @9 - Excellent point Ben - There are certainly ways code-wise to work around this. That prompt could only be setting the field labels and phone number values independent of their placement - the "OfficePhoneNumber" could still contain the Office Phone Number content, but it's placement may be "shifted" due to the selected in the prompt/picker. If that's the case, then mobile device sync should be ok. If not....

  1. 11  Danny Lawrence  | 5/11/2006 2:44:22 PM

    Ed, keep fighting the "mail retraction" fight. If you need help manning the barricades, give me a call.

  1. 12  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/11/2006 2:53:22 PM

    @11 what's to fight at this point? It's going to be in the product, but as an optional feature. I just read the spec on it, pretty impressive work (and I'll blog about it in more detail another time).

  1. 13  Mikkel Heisterberg http://blog.lekkim.heisterberg.dk | 5/11/2006 3:51:38 PM

    With the personal name and address book and the personas used for the Hannover development in mind I think it would make sense to add some geographical information to the personas mentioned on Mary Beth Ravens blog. For instance I think at least one of the personas should be located in a geographical location other than the US.

    I mention this in relation to the personal name and address book since the standard contact document isn't printable on A4 paper out of the box without cropping the right hand side. Not nice when he CEO of customers call to ask why.

    Explicitly stating a geographical location other than the US would make this kind of requirements explicit since this requirement would call for different time/date formats, different paper sizes etc.

    Just a thought.

    /lekkim

  1. 14  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/11/2006 3:59:58 PM

    @13 you should leave that comment on Mary Beth's blog...it's a very good point.

  1. 15  Frode  | 5/11/2006 5:50:15 PM

    Regarding the soft-labels. I have allso run into problems with this. I've seen a mobil syncronization software that read the soft-labels to place the correct numbers on the phone. Of course this will fail if the user enters "Ofice phone" incorrectly. Even worse in a case I looked into it failed totaly when a non-english pernames.ntf was used.

    Like others have mentioned; Soft-labelse are definatly a problem when it comes to syncronizing the data, and not easalliy fixed.

  1. 16  Darryl Miles  | 5/12/2006 1:45:42 AM

    My 2cents. Can a users contacts be included in a users mail file?

    It's backed up each night, available in once place, easier for access via web/fat client, easier for roaming etc.

    Darryl

  1. 17  Thilo Hamberger  | 5/12/2006 3:38:27 AM

    Soft-labels are also in the R5 personal address book. So, what's the big point about Hannover?

    It's great to see the workspace is still there. My favorite Notes feature. :) I just wish my Internet browsers would have a workspace. So much more clearly laid out.

    @16 Isn't that what the roaming user feature does?

  1. 18  Ian Scott  | 5/12/2006 4:06:46 AM

    @1, @3

    The difficult ones are the 'macs' not the 'mics'. There's a Macdonald and a MacDonald but only one McDonald.

    It has to be the way it is so nae hoots mon :-)

  1. 19  Craig Wiseman  | 5/12/2006 6:24:52 AM

    OK, I'll bite. So if the wonderful enhancements will work on your Notes 7 client, will we see them in 7.04 or 7.5 well before Hannover ships?

  1. 20  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2006 8:43:19 AM

    @16 We've discussed (it came up in Q&A during the session). Not in plan, for a variety of reasons (affects mail quota, apps that have been built to use the separate DB, etc.). You can sync contacts into the mailbox for Domino Web Access, and you can do things like roaming user configuration to get them up to the server to backup etc.

    @19 fair question. I did not say ALL of the enhancements will work on Notes 7, just that this particular set of features does. There's no plan at the moment to ship them in a Notes 7 release, with several reasons for that. And to reiterate, Notes "Hannover" is the next major release of Notes (to your query about a 7.5).

  1. 21  Craig Wiseman  | 5/12/2006 9:53:25 AM

    @20 I get that not all features will work in 7, but if signifcant ones do, then they could be back ported to 7.x and shipped in an incremental release before Hannover. I guess you consider a ".5" a major release, then.

  1. 22  Ed Brill www.edbrill.com | 5/12/2006 12:38:19 PM

    @21 would be support challenges to do the testing etc. for the new pnab to work in Notes 7. It might ultimately work, but it will be released as a Notes "Hannover" capability.

  1. 23  Craig Wiseman  | 5/12/2006 1:22:07 PM

    I just re-read my @21 comment and it sounds exactly like what M$ is doing with Vista features onto XP. I take it back - this is not a model to follow......

  1. 24  Jeff Eisen  | 5/12/2006 4:02:07 PM

    @16 and @20 Not quite accurate, Ed.

    The plan is that contacts will still be in local address book (names.nsf) and they will be used for addressing, etc. You will be able to sync them into your mail for for DWA (as you have for awhile) AND you will also be able to sync them into your mail file for your AA to have read and write access to your contacts.

    As part of this, we are working on making the syncing much more seamless than the current DWA solution of manually running an agent.

    Of course, usual caveats about everything subject to change.

  1. 25  Darryl Miles  | 5/13/2006 3:23:53 AM

    @24. Thanks Jeff. I wouldn't have thought 20-50 contacts in my mail file (@20) would have had much effect on my mail quota :-) But if sync'ing can be improved then that's great too.

    Having my contacts with my mail seems sensible and I would have thought, made it easier for everyone in the future.

    Darryl