Just scheduled my first meeting using the Tungle beta plug-in for Notes 8

March 4 2010

This is so cool.

At Lotusphere, Tungle announced that their connector for Lotus Notes was in beta.  The Mac version wasn't ready until a few days ago, though, so I hadn't yet really started to tell people to "tungle me".

Last week, I installed the beta plug-in and didn't really think anything further about it.  Earlier today, though, a colleague used Tungle to schedule a meeting between a few of us IBMers and an outside party.  If you haven't tried this, what happens is that each party invited to a meeting specifies when they are available -- the person setting up the meeting can use Tungle to find some times to start with if all parties are on the service -- and when all parties have responded, the meeting is booked.  Before the plug-in, what would have happened is that I would have received an iCalendar invitation to process onto my Notes calendar.  Now, with the plug-in, I simply received an email indicating that the meeting had been scheduled, and voila -- the plug-in automatically put it on my calendar.

Tungle is a great way to set up meetings outside your organization, where free-time search is not possible.  With the Notes plug-in, the process becomes seamless on both sides.  My customized Tungle page shows when I am available, and my Notes client keeps it updated in the background.

We are looking forward to announcing the formal availability of the Tungle plug-in for Notes soon.  Meanwhile, if you want to check out the beta, find the details and sign up information here.

Link: Tungle.blog: Tungle.me for Lotus Notes -- Beta Connector Now Available! >

Ed Brill | Highland Park, IL USA Category:  notesdomino lotusnotes 8.5 lotus  Add/View Comments [7]

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  1. 1  Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 3/4/2010 8:23:28 PM

    My experience is that solutions that require everyone to install a plugin often have a hard time getting off the ground; you have to attain a critical mass of users (and not a mass of critical users) before the network effect kicks in.

    I'd really like to see Lotus embrace the idea of federated sharing between organizations, like Exchange does. { Link } With a little luck, this kind of federation will become increasingly commonplace, although it may take a third-party cloud-based clearinghouse to emerge before the lion and the lambs sit down together.

  1. 2  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 3/4/2010 8:36:20 PM

    Tungle is great, and I have been using the Notes plug-in since Lotusphere - but I really hope they update the connector so I can pick which calendars show up on the Tungle end. I don't want the Facebook Birthday federated calendar blocking time on Tungle.

  1. 3  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 3/4/2010 8:42:01 PM

    @1 we can push the plug-in down to Notes users through policies and Eclipse provisioning, so that will make things easier. There are also Tungle plug-ins for about a dozen other systems or calendars. Tungle is essentially acting as a clearinghouse as you describe, and one that doesn't require me to have a trusting relationship with Microsoft ("Federated sharing uses the Microsoft Federation Gateway, a cloud service offered by Microsoft, as the trust broker between two federated organizations.").

    Movement in this direction is positive, regardless.

    @2 tell them, not me :-)

  1. 4  John Head http://www.johndavidhead.com | 3/4/2010 9:09:38 PM

    they know - this is just a bigger stage :-D

  1. 5  Brett van Gelder  | 3/5/2010 4:13:04 AM

    As John says, do be aware that there is a bug currently that causes federated Facebook birthdays to block out your whole day. But this is still a HUGE timesaver and beneift. I've told them and they say that this is in the Notes stuff... I don't agree. We shall see.

  1. 6  Marc Gingras http://www.tungle.me | 3/5/2010 12:49:17 PM

    Hey There,

    We are really excited about our integration with Notes. We did take note of your comments above.

    Few points:

    1. Tungle doesn't require participants to be Tungle users (or have the Tungle widget for that matter). Participants can submit their availability, and when the meeting is booked, they will receive a confirmation email that can add the event to their calendar with the click of a button.

    There is advantage to get everyone on Tungle, but it is not necessary. This was a critical element when we buillt our service.

    2. Facebook - agreed that it would be nice to be able to pick and choose which calendar you can sync with Tungle from your Notes client. Something we are working with the IBM team on adding.

    Keep the feedback coming. Much appreciated.

    Marc.

  1. 7  Chris Miller http://www.IdoNotes.com | 3/5/2010 4:05:42 PM

    I am glad Marc chimed in. The plugin user gets the benefit of having your freetime sync'd with the service but anyone can schedule against it. I have nee pointing everyone to mine for over a month now and have done about 10 meetings or so with outside parties. Listen in to the podcast marc was kind enough to do describing the integration:

    { Link }

    And then you can register for the beta right away { Link }