Lotusphere 2010: The new Lotus solutions catalog is live

January 17 2010

Lotus Knows I'm probably stealing somebody's thunder, but there is so much news to cover this week, I thought I'd write about this one early.

A long time ago, Lotus customers and prospects ooh-ed and aah-ed over the world of Notes/Domino solutions available in the printed "Notes and Domino Guide".  You could see all kinds of ISV solutions, tools, enhanced templates, etc.  We tried to replicate that online, but the results of the Lotus Solutions Catalog were, well, less than successful.

We've long since wanted to do something better.  The new Lotus Solutions Catalog is online now, at its new home of catalog.lotus.com.  Here you will find hundreds of solutions for Notes/Domino, as well as all the other Lotus software products.  The new catalog, which is running on Lotus technology (including XPages), has a whole bunch of interactive features -- the ability to download trials, rate software, leave comments, share the link, bookmark, etc.  In short, a much more e-commerce-like (note, I said "like") experience, and directionally indicative of where we'd like to go with it in the future.

We converted a whole bunch of partner entries that had been in the old Solutions Catalog, but my take is that that was a fraction of the overall portfolio in-market.  Partners, if you are at Lotusphere 2010, please be sure to stop by the Business Partner Solutions Cafe and learn how you can get your solutions included in the Lotus Solutions Catalog.

Ed Brill | | Lotusphere 2010 | Orlando, FL USA Category:  Lotus  Add/View Comments [20]

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  1. 1  Carl Tyler http://www.epilio.com | 1/17/2010 3:02:01 PM

    Ed do you know what happens to the solutions that are already entered into the existing catalog? Is that now being removed?

    Do we need to submit somewhere else for this site?

  1. 2  John Stockbridge http://www.brookstone.com.au | 1/17/2010 3:48:52 PM

    I agree, we have been in the Solutions Catalog since it started. I have had a look at the new site and cannot see any way of adding our product there.

  1. 3  Erik Brooks  | 1/17/2010 4:21:01 PM

    "Here you will find hundreds of solutions for Notes/Domino, as well as all the other Lotus software products."

    ...and Websphere Portal, apparently.

    Viewing this as somebody who's never seen *any* version of this list, my comments:

    1. There's some general UX strangeness on the site. Like there's a black "Lotus Greenhouse" bar at the top which apparently has a different opinion of my authenticated status than the blue catalog bar. The first has a button that says "Log Out" (even though I'm not logged in) and the second has a button that says "Login."

    2. I'm seeing some squished partner logos, e.g.

    https://greenhouse.lotus.com/plugins/plugincatalog.nsf/assetDetails.xsp?action=editDocument&documentId=A26A4D12B41235F585257671000D3489

    Sorting seems busted too. E.g. on the opening screen choose "Business Process Management" and then try to sort the resulting list by name... nadda.

    3. A "top X downloads" list would be a great, especially if it was visible from the front screen.

    4. The opening screen has "Lotus knows your solution" on it. In text. It seems like this would be a perfect place to re-use the branding effort that's already taken place, not to mention spruce up the page with a nice graphic.

    5. The "Featured Downloads and Essentials" logos are for the most part very blurry, obviously resized from other sizes. E.g. the Tripit logo is virtually the same size as the one on the actual Tripit.com site, but definitely looks worse.

    Overall, KILLER concept. Needs some polish though.

  1. 4  Erik Brooks  | 1/17/2010 4:23:37 PM

    Oh and Ed I didn't mean to dump these on you. I would've commented myself but when I click the "Feedback" link in the bottom-right footer, I get a Lotus Greenhouse screen "The document you have requested does not exist on this system or is not available to you. Please make sure that the URL you have entered is correct."

    I do see this in the lower-right footer though: "Catalog-i6.2_20100116" implying that this is Saturday's release of the catalog so perhaps more work is underway to clean up this site?

  1. 5  Craig Wiseman http://www.Wiseman.La/cpw | 1/17/2010 5:07:42 PM

    The concept is great, and needs to be done. Congrats to all involved in making it happen.

    I'm going to take the opinion that the site is a first/early draft.

  1. 6  JFranchetti  | 1/17/2010 5:56:21 PM

    Great idea. Would be nice if screenshots were required on all submissions.

  1. 7  John Stockbridge http://www.brookstone.com.au | 1/17/2010 7:44:09 PM

    Ed, I have answered my oquestion about product entry. It is here https://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog_draft

    However, I have written to the catlog team asking why Brookstone's products have not been transferred from the old catalog - even in draft form.

    Perhaps the transfer rules only apply to US partners (synical smile) which is a shame since we are finalists in the 2010 Lotus Awards in two categories and have won on several other occasions.

  1. 8  Tony Austin http://notestracker.com | 1/17/2010 8:03:58 PM

    Agree, it certainly looks spiffy. But as Carl says, why aren't those of us already with entries in the older catalogs -- there are at least two of these going back five years or more -- automatically appearing in the new one?

    Were we all supposed to have been told how to migrate our entries across, or what? (And how did the existing non-IBM catalog entries get there while ours didn't?) It's exciting, and I'm sure we all want to show up ASAP in the new showcase!

  1. 9  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/17/2010 8:29:22 PM

    There's an answer on the transfers -- will share when I get the details

  1. 10  Tony Austin http://notestracker.com | 1/17/2010 9:07:04 PM

    Ah, just found an incoming e-mail about how to add to the new catalog. As John Stockbridge says, it's https://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog_draft (obviously accessible only after you've logged in to Lotus Greenhouse).

    And the e-mail says: "All solutions in the current Lotus Business Solutions Catalogs have been migrated to the Greenhouse site in a draft state awaiting update from our partners before they will be published. Solution entries can now display company logos, screenshots, and embedded multimedia." ... Grouse!

  1. 11  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/17/2010 9:42:56 PM

    and there's the answer. I will track some more details down --partners who are here this week should visit the solutions cafe to get involved!

  1. 12  John Stockbridge http://www.brookstone.com.au | 1/17/2010 10:20:38 PM

    @11 Ed, yes I have seen that, but there is no way of accessing the draft entries.

    Have checked the current solutions catalog and our entries are definately there, still can't see anyway of getting them into the new catalog though.

    Great idea however, but if you are going to have some business partners transferred and not others then be prepared for the flak :-)

  1. 13  Michael Masterson http://catlog.lotus.com | 1/17/2010 10:29:20 PM

    We've been making some great progress and are receiving loads of feedback her at #ls10. We're certainly not done yet and I encourage you to share your thoughts with me and the team.

    General questions or any issues you have should be directed to catalogs (at) us.ibm.com and feel free to send suggestions/requests to me directly at masterson (at) us.ibm.com or on twitter @mlmasterson. Thanks!

  1. 14  Ed Brill http://www.edbrill.com | 1/17/2010 10:29:27 PM

    The new IBM Lotus and WebSphere Portal Business Solutions Catalog is a collaborative solution catalog designed to dynamically deliver widgets, plug-ins, portlets, industry solutions and sample applications across the entire Lotus and WebSphere Portal software portfolio. It is the next generation of catalogs - built on IBM Lotus Domino XPages and leveraging expertise from the Lotus and WebSphere Portal teams.

    The new Catalog offers a dramatically refreshed landing page, updated rich content functionality, improved search filtering and enhanced social capabilities while expanding content contribution possibilities from the Lotus and WebSphere Portal communities. Another new feature of the Catalog is the ability to have your asset hosted on the Greenhouse site allowing you to simply and easily reach new customers.

    All solutions in the current Lotus Business Solutions Catalogs have been migrated to the Greenhouse site in a draft state awaiting update from our partners before they will be published. Solution entries can now display company logos, screenshots, and embedded multimedia.

    For those partners attending Lotusphere, join us on the Showcase floor at ped IBM 25 for a demonstration of the new functionality of the Catalog or to update your existing solution live at the ped! If you are unable to join us in Orlando, please contact the Catalog Team Catalogs@us.ibm.com to assist you with updating your solution.

    To create a new submission or update existing entries in the Catalog you must first register with Greenhouse: https://greenhouse.lotus.com/home/login.jsp

    Once registered, the submission form is available...

    (@12, see that last couple of sentences)

  1. 15  John Stockbridge http://www.brookstone.com.au | 1/17/2010 11:22:37 PM

    @14 Thanks for the feedback ED. I've looked at the submission form and it only lets you create new submissions. There is nowhere to access your product listings that are supposed to have been transferred in draft form.

    I really would rather avoid the additional effort of creating new submissions.

    I have sent an email to the catalog team about 3 hours ago, but no response yet. Still, it is Sunday there still. . . . so I'll just wait until I hear from them.

    In the meantime, lots of people accessing the new catalog I guess and seeing only the lucky few that got transferred.

  1. 16  Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 1/18/2010 1:37:00 AM

    some Tag cloud in the catalog would probably do good .

  1. 17  Michael Falstrup  | 1/18/2010 2:47:22 AM

    This is great, all we need now is a Lotus Live Apps Store, so partners can distribute their solutions through the cloud. I fear that all the hard work is lost, if we can't offer our solutions on this new platform.

  1. 18  Tony Austin http://notestracker.com | 1/19/2010 2:33:21 AM

    As John Stockbridge also said, there's no apparent way to find your solutions that were supposedly-migrated (according to that e-mail). There's only the new submission form at https://greenhouse.lotus.com/catalog_draft and no apparent update facility. So those of us who can't be at Lotusphere to go to the booth and ask in person need to be given advice about where to find the migrated solutions, probably best as a follow-up mail so that we don't all have to individually contact the Catalog Team (to whom I've just made the same request).

  1. 19  Tony Austin http://notestracker.com | 1/19/2010 10:11:05 PM

    Got a reply back (overnight, in Australian terms) from the Catalog Team, explaining that they'd been experiencing a few glitches in the migration process. They kindly manually migrated my solution across, and I guess others will follow fairly soon.