End-user training options for Notes 8

July 11 2008

A customer considering whether to upgrade to Notes 8 or switch to an alternative recently challenged me that they would have to incur "significant training costs" in order to upgrade to Notes 8.  They argued that the UI had changed so dramatically that they couldn't simply upgrade and go.  Thus, they wanted to know how much to add into their upgrade projection to cover this.

With Notes 8, we had six full-time usability designers working with the product team from the project inception, who did 2000 usability tests and considered the perspective of end-users.  Their objective was quite the opposite of having to spend significant sums on training -- it was to get to a commonality with other desktop software products, consistent end-user-focused language, and simplify gestures and actions used within the Notes client.  

At IBM, we've rolled out Notes 8 to more than 40,000 users.  End-user training is entirely optional.  For the most part, the reaction has been one of "finally, I can get past Notes 'quirks' and work with it like any other software".  The help and "what's new" pages are chock-full of ways to learn about using Notes 8.

Some people need more time and media to learn about how to use something new, and that's perfectly fine.  We have put all sorts of end-user training material online at ibm.com/developerworks/lotus/notes (screen shot below).  It's all free and available anytime.

There are also several third parties providing training materials for Notes 8.  In some cases, the cost is US$1 per user, or even less.  I'm aware of three such vendors:

  • TLCC -- Their Notes 8 end-user training has been available for quite some time, and they have been around for years.  They have modules for going from Notes 6 to Notes 8 as well as Notes 7 to Notes 8, and their training itself runs on Notes and Domino.
  • WareSource has a solid ten-"tour" Notes 8 end-user update which can be delivered as a ½  day classroom course.
  • Workgroup Connections has built a full-featured Notes 8 on-line learning course, which includes a "knowledge check" to ensure successful learning.  Like TLCC, their course is an NSF, and they have options for you to deploy that on your own server.  Upcoming webinars (as soon as next Tuesday) are available to learn more about their offering
  • Recor offers standard and advance Notes 8 courses, and is working on more.

In sum, I believe that there are several levels of ensuring success for end-users with Notes 8 at low or no cost.  In the eleven months since we shipped, I've heard a lot of feedback about Notes 8 -- but never once have I heard "our users hate it".   They may be concerned with performance/startup time in some environments, but we are weeks away from shipping 8.0.2 (which I am running now), and it has significant improvements there as well.


Image:End-user training options for Notes 8

Ed Brill Highland Park, IL USA Category:  Notes and Domino 8  Add/View Comments [18]

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  1. 1  Gregg Eldred http://www.ns-tech.com/blog/geldred.nsf | 7/11/2008 7:18:55 AM

    You forgot to add one other link:

    { Link }

    :-)

  1. 2  Scott Marchione http://Scottmarchione.Blogspot.com | 7/11/2008 7:35:15 AM

    I can tell you from personal experience that most of the "We'll need tons of training" talk comes from people who worked with one of the Beta releases, but do not have the full release in their hands. I know that when I worked with Beta 3 I came to the conclusion that there would be a large need for training because some of the basic "Notes" items were either not easily accessible, or not there at all. I could also see how people who did not move up with the different versions may have some trouble as well. If you work in a shop where software versions aren't always the most recent, you wouldn't have the exposure to the new "look and feel" of current software versions. I know of places that still use Office and Windows 2000 and are happy with it because it's been stable for them. If those folks were given a Notes 8 client and told to be productive, it would be overwhelming and they'd probably lose interest.

  1. 3  Bill Brown  | 7/11/2008 8:22:10 AM

    I used to work more directly with end users and I hated any upgrade, no matter how minor. "It's different! I don't like it!!"

    Argh! 90% of the application, and most of what they used on a daily basis didn't change in a minor point release, but it gave them an excuse to bitch.

    Glad I don't do end users any more.

  1. 4  Jess Stratton http://www.lotususergroup.org/blogsphe.nsf | 7/11/2008 8:46:42 AM

    When I'm allowed to post slides from Admin2008 I'll give you a shout-out. I did "Giving Your Users the Complete Notes 8 Upgrade Experience" and I go into training options. The best scenario is the lunchtime conference room sessions.

    People don't realize that there is very little preparation required to do training - most end users need to make sure they know how to do the basic tasks they could do before, and then how to find the cool new stuff. This is already known by the power users (receptionists, office managers, support, etc.) Give those people incentive or allow them to leave a little early one Friday in exchange for holding a quick session. As those power users already know how to do everything, they can literally walk-in, sit down, and give a brief demonstration on a projector screen. Done!

    One key point I tried to drive home from my session is that training is NOT necessarily a three-day course that costs thousands of dollars. Training is:

    1. A quick email tip sent out to all users

    2. Five minutes spent at someone's desktop answering a question

    3. A brief lunchtime conference room demo

    That said, always send out "here's some cool new things you'll be able to do" BEFORE the upgrade. Whet the appetite and dangle the crumbs so they'll actually WANT to learn how to do it. :-)

  1. 5  Thomas Greene  | 7/11/2008 9:16:56 AM

    Will 8.0.2 include a Macintosh client ?

  1. 6  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/11/2008 9:23:00 AM

    @5, no, it is coming in 8.5, scheduled Q4 2008. Public beta is available now at { Link }

  1. 7  mikelotus  | 7/11/2008 10:36:30 AM

    Training needed for Notes 8? That's rich.

  1. 8  Alan Lepofsky  | 7/11/2008 11:51:25 AM

  1. 9  Alan Lepofsky http://www.alanlepofsky.net | 7/11/2008 11:54:04 AM

    I happen to know of a blog that helps users learn how to use the new features. :-)

    Notes 8

    { Link }

    Notes 8.0.1

    { Link }

    Notes 8.5{ Link }

  1. 10  Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/11/2008 12:01:12 PM

    Vaughan Rivett has been doing some training videos, too { Link }

  1. 11  Kevin  | 7/11/2008 12:38:34 PM

    I've seen the Workgroup Connections training and it is very good.

  1. 12  David Bell  | 7/11/2008 1:18:06 PM

    There is some excellent and very inexpensive (i.e. single digit per seat) online self-paced material offered by ElementK for end users who are both upgrading (a la What's New) or coming from other clients (Notes mail and calendaring).

  1. 13  Bobby Castleberry http://www.farms.coop | 7/11/2008 4:19:57 PM

    We just started with notes 8 from using just mozilla thunderbird and ximian evolution for mail. While our users don't "hate" it they are annoyed by some of the usability design decisions in notes. Things like not having a column for read/unread that you can sort by (instead having a button for next unread message). There are dozens of little usability things that in notes work differently from every other email program or don't work at all (like the preview pane). While users may not need much training going from an older version of notes if they are coming from any other mail platform you are going to need lots of user training. Thanks for the links, the TLCC looks especially promising.

  1. 14  Nick Halliwell http://www.comware.net | 7/11/2008 5:38:37 PM

    I have installed Notes 8 for a client in Cambodia, some of the staff had previously used Notes 6, the rest never used any corporate e-mail, just Yahoo and gmail stuff. Please understand that almost all the staff there are young and have no exposure to any form of corporate culture, they are all used to using free stuff, thats all they can afford.

    There have been no training issues around the mail client, everyone was able to use it without any training and with no problems. Even the MD who does not like change and hated using gmail, was totally happy using Notes 8.

    When we did give them training it was to do with preferences and then using things like Tables and the more advanced features of Notes.

  1. 15  David Bell  | 7/11/2008 10:37:54 PM

    @13 - what do you mean the preview pane doesn't work at all ?

  1. 16  Richard Moy http://www.dominointerface.com | 7/11/2008 10:53:13 PM

    Ed,

    You forgot to include our LearningDocs for Lotus Notes 8 training solutions which combines true-to-life interactive CBT, quick reference cards, customizable content, full enterprise tracking and management, and a host of others features all wrapped into one single Domino database all accessible from the Lotus Notes client or the Web browser. It has been very popular with some of your largest Notes organization. After 15 years in the Notes business we still do not get any respect.

    { Link }

  1. 17  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 7/12/2008 11:03:19 AM

    @16 I'm not sure the zinger last sentence is the way to earn it. Feel free to write me offline as to why you weren't on my radar...

  1. 18  Brett Purcell http://www.nlearnseries.com | 7/17/2008 5:59:14 AM

    Hello Ed,

    Nevada provides end user training and support materials for Notes 8 (as well as Quickr, Sametime, Symphony, etc..) in the form of quick reference guides. We would be happy to provide a complimentary evaluation sample(s) to any client. They really benefit all level of users in understanding the full feature set/capabilities of Notes 8.