Notes 8 client running with a Notes 7 mail template
July 19 2010
I'm on a flight right now, and the passenger across the aisle has caught my eye. No, it's not her sparkly jewelry, but rather the software running on her Dell laptop. She's using the attractive Lotus Notes 8.5 -- but with the less-attractive Notes 7 mail template.
This is far from the first time I have seen this combination. When we were first working on building Notes 8, eager beta testers tried out the "Hanover" release at any cost. As companies adopted Notes 8, some chose to deploy new clients ahead of server upgrades. But at this point in the 8.x cycle, almost three years since the version's initial release, I am hard-pressed to come up with good reasons for why an admin would have users running the latest client without the latest template.
I have spent the flight resisting the urge to reach across the aisle and chose file | application | replace design (the other passenger between us obviously would not approve, but then again he looks like an Outlook 2003 kind of guy). I know she would be so much happier, and would tell all her friends back in the office that Notes doesn't have to be as ugly.
So, dear administrator readers, tell me why this combination is out there? I assume most valid answers will be related to running Domino 7 servers. But with 8.5.1 having shipped months ago, in most cases having exactly the same hardware/OS requirements as Domino 7, why not upgrade those servers? I know everything has a cost and a priority, but I would like to know more about the tradeoffs that lead to this sort of halfway-there upgrade this user is squinting at.
Post a Comment
- 2
tom oneil | 7/19/2010 9:56:18 PM
Our admins tell us R8.5.1 needs 64bit servers.
Did I ever mention my primary workstation will be eight years old in November?
- 3
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/19/2010 9:56:29 PM
Because if they make their own template, IBM will not support them (been there, been torched by that), and the Fax/Archiving/Doc Mgt vendor won't support 'em either.
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Bill Malchisky Jr. http://www.BillMal.com | 7/19/2010 10:03:21 PM
The places I have seen this combination fall into the following categories:
(a) No training budget. Can have incorrect perceptions herein
(b) Took a bath (financially) in 2009 and are just recovering, so finishing the upgrade will occur, but not anytime soon
(c) Customized mail templates and they are making a strategic decision as to which version to customize and get the over-worked dev team to commit and then test across their supported browsers
(d) Apathy. The IT Team uses the ND8.5.x template and they forgot how the users are suffering
(f) Third-party add-in compatibility. One product observed is is a popular CRM SaaS tool. They advertise ND8 support, but in the case observed the client spent days working with the ISV which had "no answers" why things broke, Eventually they provided a solution for each affected client after six days each. This created a major success barrier...sadly, Notes can get the blame here, when IMHO it is misplaced, based upon my experience in working with both parties.
To be fair, I do not know how wide-spread this vendor's issue is, but it certainly is a problem for this customer. I recall it took RIM almost 2 years to support properly ND8--right or wrong, it just was their schedule.
So, key third-party support on mission critical applications can set the upgrade pace. I have seen this across brands more so with firms that are Outlook/Exchange shops and provide Notes/Domino support for their solution. Since they do not use Notes internally, they really have little (or less) production experience in how well the alternate offering works.
Hope this helps.
p.s. You could have pulled a 'Monk' on the flight, and started fussing obsessively about the dirty looking laptop. Ultimately the guy in the middle eagerly changes seats so you could attend to the other passenger's needs. :)
- 6
tom oneil | 7/19/2010 10:13:56 PM
@5 C'mon, Ed. I'm a developer. :-)
We're on Windows Server 2003 (I think). I don't pester my admins. They do enough for me just keeping my environment alive and doing my transfers. If they want to wait to install 8.5.1... I wait.
- 7
Carlos Casas http://www.rockteam.com | 7/19/2010 10:22:17 PM
Ed-- Nice blog entry. In my small world of SMB and mid-market clients, the "half upgrade" is very popular. Here's what we've noticed: Organizations don't have the time, money, nor resource to support or even do an upgrade right. I can name you 5 of our own clients in the past 6 months who've done the half upgrade in which we helped complete for them. We're in the middle of a 3K user plus environment upgrade as I type this and I can tell you that the end-user environment is mixed yet it's functional and working. The old slogan goes, "email is email" which is what I hear time after time. It seems to me in enterprise space, there are teams of skilled Admins running, managing, micro-managing these types of upgrades. It becomes a mission statement for these large IT entities. Walk into the world of SMB, Mid-market, and you'll find a completely different story --at least this is what I've seen over the past few years. The various parts in doing a Lotus upgrade takes quite a bit of base level knowledge that many Admins don't have or don't really care to have given the other 50 hats they have to wear to keep the business running. In my small BP world with a team of experts walking into SMB accounts... it's quite a common find. Getting it done right takes some investment from these organizations that quite frankly, have a hard time justifying when "email is well...just email". We would probably see a lot less of these half-upgrades if the "story" of Lotus Notes was a bit more compelling --> a rich client that fully loads (without a progress bar) in under 3 seconds, a much lighter footprint, the list goes on, and do this while keeping all the cool features of 8.5.1. The user experience is just not in the template... it begins with the double-click of the orange icon as well. Just my 2 cents.
- 8
Erik Brooks | 7/19/2010 10:22:32 PM
@1/@3 brings up a good point, and comes back to a major shortcoming regarding N/D app dev we've all been discussing over the past few weeks: the templates.
The core templates are, in a way, an Achille's Heel of N/D:
- Poor/no documentation, so people are hesitant to modify them
- Poor/no documentation, so people are hesitant to dissect them to learn from them
- Lack of change control means it's hard to check in/check out custom changes, see @1/@3's integration references
- IBM/Lotus internal template dev self-promotes a habit of not being forced to "eat their own dog food" regarding template programmability, which is bad for generalized N/D app dev. For example, the mail template has C-API hooks. That's fairly absurd. Whatever deficiency isn't addressed by the LS/Java/SSJS apis needs to be added to those directly. If IBM template dev needs a particular feature, build it, and expose it to ALL of N/D app dev. Quit using undocumented "reserved" features.
Imagine if somebody told IBM/Lotus dev: "The 9.0 mail template and teamroom template will be 100% XPage driven. Whatever features you need in SSJS, ask. We'll have to create them. And there will be formal documentation for the entire template."
At that point you've effectively open-sourced the core templates of one of the greatest messaging and RAD platforms of all time. Couple that with an XPages-focused Designer Lite and a an easy, free Domino server turn-up and you may have just created yourself an army of new, young-blood developers.
A "Nifty-Fifty/Fabulous-Seven/etc." group of templates wouldn't hurt either.
- 9
Abraham v | 7/19/2010 10:22:42 PM
The answer is simple
Her company is still running Domino/Notes 7 officially, however she wanted to try the latest version that she found in the IT share (possibly after a computer crash), so she installed 8 unofficially.
I know that has happen to us.
- 10
Erik Brooks | 7/19/2010 10:34:22 PM
I forgot to emphasize my main point: Hacking into the core templates (particularly the mail one) is something that, once done, successfully, admins are hesitant to reproduce. "If it ain't broke don't fix it."
Here's an alternate view:
Did you ask the woman if she had even *seen* the 8.5 template?
"New 8.5 goodies? I WANT THAT. My mail quota effectively doubles with this DAOS thingy? I WANT THAT. Oh, Full-text index searching? I WANT THAT." (Yes, I know FT searching has been around forever, but it may not be on in her organization.)
Who's showing this user the product she *could* have? I doubt it's the Lotus Knows campaign.
- 12
Bill Malchisky Jr. http://www.BillMal.com | 7/19/2010 10:43:23 PM
@9, yeah... I would add that to the list as well. Good point.
- 13
David Bell | 7/19/2010 10:48:55 PM
@6 - "C'mon, Ed. I'm a developer. :-)"
All the more reason to be setting them straight; 8.5.x would give you a lot more options for app dev.
System requirements and supported versions are published for all to see; there really is no excuse for that misinformation.
Challenging that kind of thing and promoting the truth is the responsibility of all of us who know better.
- 14
Andy Donaldson http://blog.macian.net | 7/19/2010 10:53:10 PM
As has been echoed by others here, it usually falls down to time, money and the leadership teams willingness to sponsor an upgrade. If it ain't broke, why upgrade it? Plus, like stated above, old workstations get in the way. With only 1GB of RAM will choke if trying to run the full standard version.
- 16
Mat Newman http://www.matnewman.com | 7/19/2010 11:15:40 PM
Since you ask ... :-)
It could also be about the functionality - here's my list of gripes with the Java overlaid template.
a) Mail - GTD Methodology. Notes basic mail interface - 2 clicks (Copy into->New) vs 3 Clicks (More->Copy Into->New)
b) Mail - Remove from folder (I don't file in folders - I have a full-text index) requires a more precise click, I got the "Move to folder" dialog one too many times...
c) Mail - Same as (b) - Follow-up flags, too precise to bring up the "Add or Edit flag" dialog, again GTD...
d) Mail - Same as (b), Reply buttons ... a majority of clients that I work with I have implemented native Notes mail routing, I don't want to clutter their mail with history - or fill their quota - and encourage them to use reply-links and mail-threads. Too precise a click required to bring up Reply->Reply
e) Calendar - I need "quick n dirty" direct entry, just like 6,7 and 8 basic
f) Calendar - I need to scroll between months while talking to a customer to plan my work - 6,7, and 8 basic allow me to "roll" through my month calendar showing 2 weeks of this month and three weeks of the next...
g) Calendar - I prefer tabs at the top (like Notes 6,7 and 8 basic - oh and Lookout2007) with my tasks in a list under the calendar navigator ... again GTD, what's on today - and what can I do next off my long To-do list,
h) Calendar - I like being able to click a date in week or month to zoom into that day in one-day mode, you can in 6,7 and 8 basic, you can't in 8 eclipse
I am not going to Ctrl+Alt every time I open my calendar so I can have these features.
Ed, it's not always about the eye candy. If it looks great, but slows me down, or reduces the features available to me, I'm sticking with functional.
BTW - I have a meeting this afternoon with a customer who is on Lotus ORGANIZER / Thunderbird, and is looking at moving to Notes. My involvement is to demonstrate a custom built Organizer frameset for the calendar, since the sales guy demonstrated the Notes Calendar and he (the customer) asked how he would be better off with the Notes calendar vs what he has with Organizer. The customer shot the sales guy down with the more feature rich Organizer interface.
The biggest thing about the eclipse calendar is the overlay functionality with multiple calendars - "My Calendars". A number of our customers love it, but an equal number don't. A few years ago I built a multi-calendar database which allows you to see up to four calendars on the screen at one time, and to do direct-entry into those calendars - just like in Outlook. A few of the clients that I gave the app to continue to use it over the "My Calendars" feature, since it's - in their opinion - less confusing, and allows direct entry into the other persons calendar.
Maybe the lady sitting near you is like me, she is prepared to put up with the missing features in the eclipse client as a trade-off for the side-bar (WildFire ROCKS!), but she's not prepared to loose functionality in her PIM apps for pretty java views.
- 17
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/19/2010 11:25:09 PM
Okay, it's tacky to quote one's self, but this is irresistable...
{ Link }
"Just like the Widget Catalog, DCT, ID Vaults, Policies, SmartUpdate, Presence Awareness, Server-side Archiving and Clustering, IBM remains content to let the user experience be dictated by the implementer instead of the vendor...
Until the reality sets in that on-premises admins in organizations of less than 1000 are not motivated to make Notes a world-class experience themselves, we're not going to see these kinds of simple, basic changes that would make the vast majority of customers much happier."
Why is she running the 7 template on an 8.5 client? Because she CAN. That is, because there is no path to enforce the upgrade of the user experience.
You like to -- indeed we all do -- rag on Microsoft about the rip-and-replace approach to upgrades. But it has a very fundamental advantage: IT is compelled to reevaluate every past decision in the process, justifying massive costs with improvements to the user experience.
Why does a Domino admin give a crap whether his users are having the latest experience? Heck, he might be running the 7 template, but still using data compression and DAOS, giving him the best advantages while denying them to the user. Is there any way in which the user would know she's being cheated? It's not like she saw the "real" Notes mail client somewhere.
You put yourself at the mercy of the implementer, who has pretty much zero incentive to DO anything for users until/unless he's forced to migrate. Either quit shipping product that tolerates (and even encourages) lazy maintenance, or massively increase the public awareness that the experience doesn't have to suck.
It's only puzzling because you think of the question in IBM's terms instead of the customer's IT department. Think like a Domino administrator and it becomes completely obvious.
- 18
Tony Palmer http://palmerweb.blogspot.com | 7/20/2010 12:00:36 AM
@17 Reminds me of the quote below. No wonder that Users and CxO are keen to move to a different IT model.
*Private Clouds Are Just Another Name For IT Done Right*
{ Link }
I guess the point is that the Domino admin should care, the incentive should be to support the business users - 'cause if you don't someone else will.
- 19
Bill Malchisky Jr. http://www.BillMal.com | 7/20/2010 12:38:28 AM
@17 A lot of techs (both admin & dev) feel that if they do their job properly or completely, they lose job security. So, they tend to leave out comments in code and make it needlessly complex, or do not roll-out all the features and close support tickets--all so they can appear to be in-demand and more needed.
It's a false premise and a mentality that I hope will change. Few are the firms that do IT correctly, in-house or out.
- 20
Stuart McIntyre http://blog.collaborationmatters.com | 7/20/2010 12:43:17 AM
Ask the IBM CTO office ;-)
Whilst it's not the Notes 8.x client / 7 template combo, I am still hugely shocked when I go into an IBM location and see so many non-Lotus brand IBMers using Notes 7 clients or Sametime Connect 7.5.
The answer I usually get when I ask people is that IBM is a large multi-national corporation and it 'take time' to get round and get that many people upgraded. I can understand that would be the case, but many of your customers would have similar excuses too - costs, difficulty of upgrading remote users, age of machines, cost of training, third party integration and so on. If IBM can't roll out the latest release (say 8.5.1) across its own user estate in say, less than 3 months of release, then I would argue that there much be something that can be done to make the product easier to upgrade...
It also comes back to the classic corporate IT department stance of blocking progress - so often I come across execs and line of business folks desperate to move forward, with social software, advanced collaboration, UC2, use of consumer social media sites etc. and the IT folks saying 'No'. Users are seeing that if they take ownership of their own business application support by using external services, downloading their own browsers, acquiring their own laptops/mobile devices, or choosing to use Mac or Linux platforms (in most organisations), then they can stay up to date and leverage the advances being made. Until this mindset changes to one when corporate IT embraces change much more readily, our users will continue to be failed in ways similar to you outline in the post, Ed.
I've recently spent a few weeks being forced to use a massively locked down standard-build laptop that one of my customers has provided for remote-support purposes. It is horrid - Windows XP, IE6, firewall, desperately slow Anti-virus, no rights to install plugins/extensions etc, enforced resolution/wallpaper/screensaver, 14-day password changes etc etc. It has been a revelation to me - that poor users are subjected to this miserable experience of computer usage on a day-in, day-out basis. Add Lotus Notes in to the mix, probably with lock-down policies, out of date templates and no training, and I'm surprised users aren't jumping out of windows as we speak!
- 21
Eric Mack http://www.EricMackOnline.com | 7/20/2010 12:53:05 AM
@16 Excellent points. It depends what the driver is looks vs performance. I have some very productive clients using Notes and they LOVE notes 6 & 7 for stability and performance. Looks doesn't even enter into the equation for them. It's about a tool that helps them get things done. For them, Notes Rocks. Why mess with it? It's hard to argue with them - they get the VALUE of Notes.
- 22
Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 7/20/2010 1:22:06 AM
@17
Nathan, you are right on.
Admins are thinking like admins.
From my perspective as a developer and a user it sounds like this:
Performance is how many users can they cram onto a box to make my response time as slow as possible. How bad is bad enough for my user experience before I bolt because Notes sucks so bad that I'm thinking Outlook. ****, the **** iterface hasn't improved in 20 years. At least Microsoft has given Outlook a new skin every 5 to 10 years or so. Why can't I event find anything - what's an index and why can't I create one.
However, what the admin is thinking is...
I haven't got time to deal with anything new. I'm still trying to get around to setting up transaction logging so I can get DAOS going. I wonder how much more I can tweak out of this 3 year old server before I run low on drive space this winter with all those attachments flying around again. This old R4 mail template works for me, it will work for them. We have bigger issues to deal with. Now what has happened to those two users in Sales again...
What are these users experiencing typically. While the servers are somewhere between 6.5.4 and 8.5.1, the Notes clients are typically 5.0.12 to 8.5.1 depending who their users know. Their mail templates are typically hacked R4 or R5 mail templates that no one wants to take the time to see if anything besides the company logo needs to be updated or as others have aluded they bought a third party tool that they may not even use but don't know what's going to happen to everybody's mail when they get design replaced. Don't want to risk breaking it - lets go another 20 years on that old R4 template. After all R2 databases still work.
Personally, I'd be happy if other admins like me would actually turn on FT indexes. If they did, then Notes would suck A WHOLE LOT LESS. If you are low on drive space then it might be time to do your first policy and forced down local mail replicas w/a FT Index, and turn on replication (notes starts and every 15 mins). The indexes won't eat up any server space, and you might have less network traffic since only data replication is coming down from the server instead of design and data. It's a start.
- 23
Tripp Black http://www.mindwatering.com | 7/20/2010 1:25:21 AM
Oh Ed, be creepy. Your sales.
You can get away with it...
hahaha. Just giving you a hard time.
Really, I'm not usually that bold either, or good at it. My wife Nicki, who is far less outgoing than me, actually can do this, and it comes off "right".
- 24
Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/20/2010 2:04:45 AM
Mordac: { Link }
- 25
Bill http://www.billbuchan.com | 7/20/2010 2:29:32 AM
Well, someone's got to go and say why.
Because the 8.5.0 release was pretty bad - some customers fled after upgrading to it. And more conservative shops - risk averse shops - will wait for at least one stable version before contemplating upgrades.
8.5.1 with all the confidence sapping fixpacks is getting there. 8.5.2 might actually get the 8.5.x stream back to the reliability levels of the 7.x. server code. Here's hoping.
So yeah - why is it unusual ? In fact, as they've broken the 'server-workstation-template' cycle if they are still running 7.x servers, then at least they're pushing forward.
Fighting for budget for server upgrades is a nightmare. Especially when we're all told to cost-cut.
Just ask your colleagues in IBM GS who host many clients. On v5.
---* Bill
- 26
Simon O’Doherty | 7/20/2010 2:42:38 AM
It is not that uncommon, although nearly always that I have seen is because the template has been modified with specific company business logic.
- 27
LongLiveLotus | 7/20/2010 2:55:18 AM
"he looks like an Outlook 2003 kind of guy"...
Did he have horns? pimples? halitosis? was uncomfortable sat next to a lady? compter kept crashing?
thought so - diagnosis correct Dr. Brill
- 28
Ben Poole http://benpoole.com | 7/20/2010 3:21:53 AM
I see this sort of thing all the time—I well remember Notes 5 debuting in my old org, with Notes 4.5.2-era mail templates. I see R5-era mail templates on Notes 7 machines on the commuter route too!
But don't blame the admins—they only upgrade mail templates if the business requests it, I find.
As others have pointed out, mail file customisations blow all this out of the water anyway: the woeful lack of documentation and APIs for the Lotus Notes mail template make sure of that.
- 29
Henning Heinz | 7/20/2010 3:43:42 AM
Call it stupid or not. The main reason (in my small world) why the mail template is staying on an old version is because the client upgrade process does not automatically (or at least ask for) upgrading the mail template unless you tweak it to do so.
The poor truth is that if IBM does not enable a feature by default it (in many cases) will not get deployed (I don't blame IBM for doing this).
- 30
Patrick Kwinten http://quintessens.wordpress.com | 7/20/2010 3:51:49 AM
when Hannover becomes a Hangover...
- 31
Tony Bugge http://www.uio.no | 7/20/2010 4:29:10 AM
Hi Ed,
we distribute and run the Notes client in different ways, but up until this year, we have been dependent of our local IT personell to distribute it at their institute.
We use manual inst from fileserver, silent inst from fileserver, Tivoli inst from tivoli / fileserver, Terminalservers and sentral distribution from a fileserver based on Tivoli etc. And we use iNotes and Traveler.
But when we upgrade, the template doesnt automagicly upgrade, so we have to learn the local IT personell and the users to upgrade the template - we do have a website for them to use and just choose which version or latest version.
Having the local IT personell earlier to upgrade/install - it gave us a lot off different version out there - and not before this wear we have syncronized the versions to the newest ND851 and then also we have syncronized the templates, for our windows users. The mac and the Linux users are still on semi-manuell installation.
So some automagic function here to sync client, server and template in a mixed and decentralised site as ours would be nice. but maybe it is already there. (Smartupgrade is difficult because it needs a high elevated pw integrated in the smartupgrade clients.)
Best regards,
Tony.
PS: Your website gives us good information, thanks.
- 32
Name removed. | 7/20/2010 5:30:03 AM
Please do not publish my name on this.
Why we haven't moved to v8.5.x on the server?
'Cos IBM, several years ago, convinced us to migrate from AIX to zOS. And now that IBM have marked Domino EOL on the mainframe we took the decision not to upgrade on that platform and instead move back to a supported platform
- 33
Bastian W. http://www.lntoolbox.com | 7/20/2010 5:30:19 AM
Hi Ed,
Nr. 1 got one important point I think... adding the Fax-software into our mail file and put in some other "hacks"... then do some tests and start the roll out took some time. If there is a small company who didn´t have developer knowledge they need to stay with the R7 mail template until they get it managed to import every change into the new mail template.
regards
Bastian W.
- 34
Nick Young | 7/20/2010 6:40:17 AM
Its amazing that admins don't simply use policies to upgrade users mail templates when they connect to the servers using a particular client release - especially seeing that support is available for such a configuration.
{ Link }
In one location we are stuck with an R7 server but we are running 8.5.1 clients and mail templates in the interim. Not perfect, but the customer is still enjoying the latest clients benefits.
- 36
Darren Duke http://blog.darrenduke.net | 7/20/2010 6:49:51 AM
All the other points, template customizations, etc, are correct in some scenarios but the real reason is lack of administrator knowledge. And to be clear, Ed said the lady in question was already running 8.5.x Standard client, just NOT the mail template.
How many organizations have upgraded their Notes clients (before 8.x) in the last 5 years? Most stayed at 6.5.x on the client so it has been a long time and a lot of intellectual capital has left the organization in that time frame.
You'd be amazed how many admins don't know about "load convert" and don't know a mail template upgrade can be tied to a smart upgrade. Some seem to think they have to do them all individually.
- 37
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/20/2010 7:16:58 AM
I can't count the number of times I've heard this strategy...
"First we upgrade the servers. Then when all the servers are done, we upgrade the users. Then when all the users are done, we upgrade the templates."
There's a support argument against having users on more then one template. It's a bad argument, but it gets made nonetheless.
- 38
tom oneil | 7/20/2010 7:40:45 AM
I think some people are still stuck with the idea of "There's new technology... why aren't they using it?"
We're planning on rolling out R8.5.x clients out to users who have computers that can handle it (I think it's possibly 10% of the PCs where I work). The servers (as I've mentioned before) will be 8.0.x and won't be upgraded until next year.
Even if we had the servers to do the upgrade... where are the Google-like (free) reference materials for us to hand out users for the basic-to-standard conversion? Providing great materials like those would make the decision to upgrade a bit easier.
- 39
tom oneil | 7/20/2010 7:40:52 AM
@13 "Challenging that kind of thing and promoting the truth is the responsibility of all of us who know better"
You speak to me like I'm doing Lotus a great injustice by sticking with the R8 basic client. My company probably has more Lotus apps than any other company in the Midwest (sans IBM). We are still rolling out 1-2 new applications a month. I think we're doing a lot better than other companies without the standard client.
Anyway... What do I really care about R8.5.x Standard when my PC has 1MB of RAM and will turn eight in November?
- 40
Peter Smith http://www.lan2lan.com | 7/20/2010 7:42:10 AM
@all of the above..
I've seen all the scenarios talked about, another one is where 8.5 clients are pushed out as part of a new laptop build / hardware refresh, before the Domino upgrade has got going.
for some organizations this is the only time they refresh client software, which can lead to this.
@35 re @25 I do know of a UK GBS hosted customer who was told they (GBS) would support R5 mail templates against R8.0.2 clients on (from memory) a mix of hosted R6 + R5 servers. Was a while ago so may have all upgraded by now....
- 42
tom oneil | 7/20/2010 7:52:42 AM
@41 I really don't notice her age unless I ask her to reboot.
She's like an old horse. She was still waiting for me at my desk when I took a two year hiatus.
- 43
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 8:27:55 AM
@35 - most of the third party custom templates for fax, etc. look exactly like the vanilla template - you really can't tell "from over the shoulder".
PS - you really should have sent her here:
{ Link }
- 44
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/20/2010 8:39:45 AM
@39 1MB of RAM? Wow, I bet DOS just screams on that machine. Still playing Ultima on there?
- 45
tom oneil | 7/20/2010 9:03:38 AM
@44 I'm amazed at how well these things hold up. Two versions of Visual Studio, Lotus Notes R8, SQL Enterprise Manager, and Microsoft Word can all be open at once with no issue.
To add more insult to injury... Our standard is still IE6. (Luckily I test our web pages with Firefox)
You guys have to remember that LARGE companies were the flag-bearers of Lotus Notes for a long time. Large companies don't move that fast. I bet if Ed asked that woman who she worked for, she would probably answer with a) the government, b) a bank, or C) an insurance company.
- 46
Travis Hiscock | 7/20/2010 9:09:43 AM
I can't resist, IBM are still running Sametime 3.1 from 2003.
Try this URL and logon with your IBM Sametime ID:
{ Link }
Ah upgrades.
- 47
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 9:12:10 AM
@45 This is one thing the Loterati forget: not everyone .wants. to be on the bleeding edge.
Social media, etc., are all the rage, but I'd estimate that only 10% of the folks I interact with daily both at work and outside could even tell you what twitter is.
- 48
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 9:13:17 AM
@46 Yes, but the difference is that the lady Mr. Brill observed was using a WORKING IBM product.
I haven't been able to log into that sametime server for 4 years.
- 49
Lance Sittig | 7/20/2010 9:34:40 AM
I can speak from what's going on at this very moment in my environment...I have 2500 users, most have smart upgraded but 100 haven't been able to for various reason...until I get those cleaned up I cringe at running my batch template upgrade and having our help desk flooded with those users calling to say that Notes is broke, when its just that they are upside down on template/client.
@36 I thought the simultaneous template upgrade was only available with Upgrade by Mail (frowned upon by most IBMers but I used with relative success).
- 50
Pedro Quaresma | 7/20/2010 9:40:05 AM
Hey, if a computer can be used to play Ultima, it's up to date!
- 51
Lisa Duke http://www.simplified-tech.com | 7/20/2010 9:55:02 AM
If the IT guy upgrades the server and implements DAOS, he gets half the server back in free space and considers the project a success.
If he has to walk around and talk to the users, he'll get pulled into fixing printer jams and being griped at about things that are out of his control. Users are grouchy. Why leave the server room?
Selling Notes is IBM's job. The users should see it and come ask for it. If the dude in the server room were brave enough to *talk* to people, he wouldn't be in that job. He'd be managing the people in that job.
- 52
David Bell | 7/20/2010 9:57:22 AM
@39 - "You speak to me like I'm doing Lotus a great injustice by sticking with the R8 basic client."
The post to which I responded mentioned nothing about clients; it was about servers.
You responded to Ed with "I'm a developer" and "I don't pester my admins" like you have no responsibility to change anything; you're just going to accept whatever your admins say.
My intention was more "you're doing everyone in the Lotus community an injustice if you don't at least try to change the misinformation coming out of your admins" because I think we are all responsible for calling it out when we see it.
You clearly know what they are saying is wrong but are willing to go along with it.
- 53
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 10:18:29 AM
@48 No, silent upgrade works with any install.
The first time the client talks to the server after the install, the upgrade is initiated. This is true even if you do a manual upgrade (running setup.exe).
One of the many awesome things about N/D.
- 54
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 10:18:54 AM
@49, not @48. duh.
- 55
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.La/cpw | 7/20/2010 10:19:53 AM
QOTD: "Selling Notes is IBM's job."
- 56
Bill Brown | 7/20/2010 11:09:18 AM
Or how about a simple explanation... The user got a new laptop w/ Windows 7 on it and the IT staff read that Notes 7 wasn't supported on it. They install a client version supported by the OS connecting to their existing 7 infrastructure.
Using a 7 mail template on an 8 server/clients was supported, but we found some little oddities that would recommend against doing it. I never saw 8.5 templates were supported on 7 servers.
- 57
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/20/2010 11:38:40 AM
@56 "I never saw 8.5 templates were supported on 7 servers." If she's using her email on a plane, she's running a local replica. In that case, the server really doesn't care what version of the template is in use.
Not that their IT would necessarily know or care. Just that this is how it is.
- 58
Tom Dobrucky http://www.famcomp.net | 7/20/2010 11:59:08 AM
Ed-
I was in a solid Notes shop that was forced to go to Outlook ala the State standard. They didn't what to upgrade the template because they didn't want people know what was going to be taken away from them when they went to Outlook. Go figure right?
- 59
Mark Dowling http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com | 7/20/2010 12:50:08 PM
I know Ed is kidding but if someone replaced one of my user's templates on a plane somewhere - I'd be P!$$#D.
- 60
Craig Boudreaux | 7/20/2010 1:23:11 PM
What about this possibility:
Her company is still mostly on 7. 7 servers, 7 clients, and 7 mail templates, but one 8.5 server. She's a developer and develops X-page applications for that server.
Infrastructure wise, that would be an easy situation to get into.
- 61
Peter LaComb http://notesanddotnet.blogspot.com/ | 7/20/2010 1:44:01 PM
Doesn't replace design require Designer access to the mailbox? What admin in his or her right mind gives users more than editor?
- 62
Colin Williams | 7/20/2010 2:51:06 PM
Heres two that slow progress here;
1. She likes the overall look of 8.5 but is sick of the 8.5 JAVA mail views "dying".
2. She is a remote user and her admin has yet to schedule a time when 18MB of template can replicate down over her slow link (+ the associated weirdness that happens to the inbox if the user is using mail at the same time).
- 63
Gary Wood | 7/20/2010 3:03:54 PM
@37 Nathan has the main thing I think, "First we upgrade the servers. Then when all the servers are done, we upgrade the users. Then when all the users are done, we upgrade the templates." I've seen that upgrade strategy a thousand times over the last 10 years. It's the standard upgrade path ... sometimes because that's just the way we've always done it but resource constraints are almost always a factor. Not enough people or funding to do it or support it all at the same time.
Depending on the number of servers, a few weeks to a few months of upgrading. Catch breath (another month). Depending on the number of users, a few months to a year of upgrading. Catch breath (another month). Then we'll start on the mail templates and all the other design templates. If you're in the early adopter set, you can be on 8.5 with a 6.x or 7.x mail template for months before everything is set for the template upgrade.
- 64
Keith Brooks http://www.vanessabrooks.com | 7/20/2010 3:21:40 PM
Shame on you Ed. You had a golden opportunity, possibly with an executive, or not, but will never know now. Whenever I see a Lotus user on flights or in Airport lounges I introduce myself and they usually are just as happy to meet you, some are not but that's the way life is.
Yes she could have replaced the design but it would seem that her server is not running the 8.5 template else mail would have looked right if she replicated it with design, etc.. And even if she didn't get the design surely would have noticed the way it looked and asked to have it fixed.
So my thought is they rolled out new client software enroute to a server upgrade(or she got a new laptop with latest client).
Our clients are all on some form of 8.x because Quickr, Sametime and DomDoc(yes I have them) do not all run on the same version of server. So you push mail servers to latest and push the names.ntf of latest to all servers and start the upgrade of clients using one of the methods which works best for the customer sites.
The reason why bigger clients don't update as often is just resources. Lack of them. And then you sometimes get the admin or manager that wants to plan so detailed that a year goes by before they do anything and then they start the process all over again(my clients reading this know my opinion on this waste of time).
Newer is usually better but you have to respect some apps or 3rd party pieces that are not always ready to update, if ever.
I do take offense that you blame the admins when I would blame management usually for being too cheap or worse, purposefully delaying or trying to push their own agenda(gmail or whatever).
Policies and smart upgrade only go so far. If IBM would make updates available as MS, FF and almost any other product from the web this issue would also go away. For those who would argue against this, you do it today for your OS which is many times worse if it gets botched then a person's app/mail client.
- 65
Marie Scott http://www.bleedyellow.com/blogs/crashtestchix | 7/20/2010 4:03:52 PM
Smart Upgrade does not always upgrade the template even with a policy in place...we ran into this issue with 8.5 and 8.5.1 client software upgrades. Client version monitoring is also problemmatic as it doesn't always reflect what the user is actual running. So this person's admin may not have taken the time to update the template...because they think it's already been done.
- 66
Removed | 7/20/2010 4:31:23 PM
As per this blog's terms of use, I am removing this anonymous comment. I have no doubt that the commentor was accurate in some of what they said, but it seems they couldn't stand behind their words. --Ed
- 67
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) | 7/20/2010 5:52:34 PM
Pacific Northwest point of view: I am currently going through my domain catalog right now, finding all those databases that are still using the 7.0.3 mail template and contacting the Notes admin for that database to ask the same question. 97% of these were simply overlooked when the user was upgraded. The end user typically doesn't even know there is a difference between the client software and the mail template.
Ed, I didn't realize you were that shy. "Wow, you use Lotus Notes? Cool, so do I! What else do you do with it besides email? <more small talk to get her comfortable> Hey check this out, there are some extra features you can turn on. Just pull down View - Advanced Menus, then File - Application - Replace design.."
Be sure to drop the tray table for the dude in the middle and set your laptop on it to show her. He wants to see it too. Never miss an opportunity!!!
- 68
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/20/2010 6:08:45 PM
@66 - LMAO. You actually had production code that tried to cram 10000 document handles into a Redim'd array!? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
- 70
tom oneil | 7/20/2010 7:59:28 PM
I'm starting to think you fell asleep on the trip and this was all a dream.
- 71
Declan Lynch http://www.qtzar.com | 7/20/2010 8:01:30 PM
"But when we upgrade, the template doesnt automagicly upgrade, so we have to learn the local IT personell and the users to upgrade the template - we do have a website for them to use and just choose which version or latest version."
In our environment we have a policy setup that automatically upgrades a users template to the mail85.ntf when they get the 8.5.x client installed on their machine. All automatic and no user involvement or even admin involvement once the policy is setup.
We have also upgraded 95% of our users to 8.5.1 using SmartUpgrade.
The tools are there to do the upgrades.
- 72
Erik Brooks | 7/20/2010 8:28:10 PM
@68 - Obviously we all know "don't do it," but I wouldn't say that 10,000 docs in-memory is an unrealistic expectation.
Depending on the doc size that could be a concern, but if it was server-side code on Domino 64-bit on a 64-bit OS with gobs of memory I'd ask "what's the problem?"
Of course, we all know the answer to that.
Initially you're only talking about the doc handle itself (plus some minor supporting attributes) which is tiny. Heck, you can have a NotesDocumentCollection with a bazillion docs in it. It's only when you start to crack open the doc, access items, etc. that it gets heavy and things go wonky.
@Ed - "I couldn't think of any non-threatening way to engage."
Take a cue from the Old Spice Commercials! :-D
"HELLOOOO ladies. Look at your laptop. Now back to mine. Now back to yours. Now back to MINE.
Sadly, it isn't mine. But with Notes/Domino 8.5 it could LOOK like it's mine."
"Notes 8.5, THE MAIL YOUR MAIL COULD LOOK LIKE!"
- 73
Craig Wiseman http://www.wiseman.la/cpw | 7/20/2010 8:32:44 PM
"I'm on a swan boat."
- 74
David Bell | 7/20/2010 9:55:59 PM
@72 - LOL - please let's get that into a Lotus Knows TV slot.
Perhaps with a variety of endings:
"Notes 8.5, THE MAIL YOUR MAIL COULD LOOK LIKE!"
"Notes 8.5, THE CLIENT OUTLOOK LONGS TO BE!"
"Notes 8.5, MAIL AND APPS TO GO!"
Do we need to start a competition ?
- 75
Sriram | 7/20/2010 10:23:31 PM
In our organization, Guys who does the Notes upgrade know very less about the Mail Template and they ofter forget to upgrade the template.
Is there any way that an administrator can get a report from the server on the users' client version and their mail template version? This will be great for an admin!
- 76
Pedro Quaresma | 7/21/2010 5:27:59 AM
@72, 73, 74 LOLOLOLOL!!!
- 77
Volker Weber http://vowe.net/about | 7/21/2010 8:34:45 AM
"HELLOOOO ladies."
How do I get the images with Ed sans shirt out of my head?
- 78
Irv Schor | 7/21/2010 9:18:02 AM
@1 - Regarding adding Fax features specific to a client via the template. The vendor we chose provided some nice additions for the mail file, however the majority of users in the field would never have a full client. Seems most vendors only supply customizations for the client rather than the complexities of what's involved in customizing iNotes and the iNotes forms database as well. Therefore we chose not to add the customizations, which made upgrading mail files to 8.5.x fairly easy. One thing we've also done is create a field in our Person Docs and have an agent periodically review the user's mail template and update the person doc. Makes for good reporting/tracking during upgrades and support (hint - add as a feature!).
- 79
Mike Robinson http://www.invcs.com | 7/21/2010 10:46:57 AM
@72, that would be a great parody type you-tube type ad and definitely would get lots of chuckles. Would even be great to play at a Lotusphere ;)
- 80
Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/21/2010 1:55:29 PM
Ed - I'll echo what many others have said: the primary reason for this disconnect is mail template upgrades. There needs to be an easier way to customize the mail template and have those changes carry forward. Most companies want their own letterhead on e-mails. It's been done ever since Notes introduced that feature eons ago. It's been painful ever since, too.
@37 (Nathan) - "There's a support argument against having users on more then one template. It's a bad argument, but it gets made nonetheless."
I take it you haven't ever been the sole person in IT responsible for everything with an electrical cord, supporting 200 users spread across 15 locations and multiple time zones. :-)
@72 - That's funny and relevant now. It will be somewhat less funny and relevant next week. Come January it will be a cold dead fish. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Lotus did it, though.
- 81
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) | 7/21/2010 2:54:01 PM
@70, @72 - LMAO.
- 82
David (The Notes Guy in Seattle) | 7/21/2010 3:56:10 PM
@69 - Ed, it's only creepy if your motives are creepy. I don't think making sure every customer gets the most out of your product is creepy. As one who deals with CTO's dressed in suits, I don't see you being intimidated by a 25-year-old in casual attire.Besides, the more users of her profile who are happy with Notes, the more successful Notes will be.
If you need, I am willing to fill in for you in those situations. (and my motives aren't creepy) It is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the greater good.
- 83
palmi | 7/21/2010 7:30:46 PM
I agree with you on not talking to her - it would have been creepy.:) But business cards need to be handy.
Template changes, ok easy , create a blank design based on mail template ( Create one and delete all elements )When you are modifying or doing new development in MAIL85.NTF just make sure you move them over to this template all the changes you made from Live template. Later when you upgrade them Compere them to each other if needed , copy them over to New template and sign your done ( 2 hour the most ) Test on your mail template and then deploy it.
- 84
David Bell | 7/22/2010 12:11:15 AM
@75,78 - the catalog contains the details of the template used by each database, automatically maintained by the servers.
The Files tab of the admin client can show at a glance in real-time which templates are in use. Click the column header to sort and anomalies jump out at you.
- 85
Darren http://www.dadams.co.uk | 7/22/2010 5:59:07 AM
A few weeks okay we (the Lotus brand in the UK) ran a Lotus clinic for some senior IBM managers. Fifteen attendees, only one wasn't running an 8.x client (he had Notes 7). Out of the remaining fourteen only one had a pre-8 template. But how did these two slip thru the IBM upgrade net? That I don't know, but both said roughly the same thing... "I'm extremely busy, I just need to read e-mail and action it... I don't really care what it looks like as long as it does what I need it to in order to do my job".
The person who had Notes 8.x installed had their template upgraded and was pleased with the new look and feel, but they were much more enthused about the ability to use Connections, Quickr and other things that we introduced them to (like live text and widgets).
So a bit of perspective - yes we've added loads of great new features thru the 8.x cycle, and the mail template does look better, but not everyone spends all day in e-mail and what it looks like doesn't always matter to them (even if you could successfully debate that they could add a few productivity points to their working day).
- 86
Sriram | 7/22/2010 6:27:11 AM
@84, Yup..I can get the templates from the Files tab..but is there a way to get Client version Vs Template in a go?
- 87
Charles Robinson http://www.cubert.net | 7/22/2010 7:58:02 AM
@86 - No, there isn't a view like that in names.nsf, but you could create one. Person documents have a field that stores client versions. It's usually close to being correct.
- 88
Irv Schor | 7/22/2010 1:52:31 PM
@84. Thanks Dave, I am aware of that but spend a majority of time in the directory. We've created some Administrative views tracking template and client versions there as well. This way when its time to upgrade a batch of users we can easily create a text file to place on the server to run convert with. Using the directory ensures we're only dealing with active personnel and mail accounts.
@87 - We've done this as well, however I'd only use about 85% as close to being correct. This is because the field seems to hold onto multiple values (i.e. Person changed hardware, Person uses a second PC or laptop, etc.). I think with some more thought, that field could be improved as well.
- 89
Nathan T. Freeman http://nathan.lotus911.com | 7/22/2010 11:18:31 PM
@72 - Read the technote more closely. The scenario is that you have 10,000 documents IN AN ARRAY (not a collection) and then you do a Redim Preserve on it.
I'd really like to find a SQL product that would let you iterate over 10,000 rows of a query result, putting each row into a random access array, and then clone that array to add another element to it. I'm thinking maybe, just maybe, the IDE would reach out of the screen and slap you in the face. Or at least the metaphorical equivalent thereof.
Then again, I've heard of people from IBMGS struggling with Notes because they were trying to put 600,000 product line items into memory simultaneously in Java, so maybe basic CS constructs like asynchronous processing and paging buffers just aren't widely accepted. Nevertheless, in that case, the real failure is that the IDE didn't say IM IN UR LOOP N U R TEH SUCKZ0RZ KTHXBAI! on the first compile.
- 90
Erik Brooks | 7/23/2010 7:30:35 AM
@89 - LOL @ the IDE!
You can use an aray with a smaller number of docs/objects, it's the 10,000+ that makes it choke right away (I think it used to be ~5,000-6000, before the increased number of private handles in 6.5.6/7.0). I'm guessing that if you do it frequently enough with a smaller number you'll still get some problems.
I actually encountered this in an in-memory List object a long time ago, which specifically should have had a monstrous limit of memory. The docs themselves added up to about 10MB of space, but lo-and-behold: crashtastic.
It *should* be simple memory management/reference counting, but apparently there's a bug somewhere in there with Redim Preserve and objects. Check out this discussion from Andre Guirard, it will probably make you cry (I did):
{ Link }
I cried at comment #4 in particular. Basically he's saying "do your own memory cleanup, ours sucks."
What's worse is he also seems to be implying "No, we won't fix it."
- 91
Greg Zygadlo http://www.schange.com | 7/25/2010 5:17:32 PM
We have done server upgrades and then client upgrades, but one of the big reasons we haven't pushed the template upgade is the is something in the users current template that is carried into a future version of the template.
I have one user who still uses a V4 template because it has the different views, By Person, By Date, etc.
If I forced that down I know he would want a restore so we could capture those views.
As as admin I want to get my users to the latest template that goes in accordance with the version my server runs. Because of the different templates running we have run into DST issues when the time changes occur twice a year.
I have looked into customizing the template, but knowing everytime a FP comes out or a new version that the template is going to get overwritten has stopped me from doing any customizing. Also there is no real documentation for customizing a mail template.
- 92
Erik Waldener | 8/3/2010 6:46:37 AM
We stopped our upgrade to 8.5 a year ago because of a defect in the released version of the standard mail template (Swedish). We could not run our system without being able to add a signature to our mail. The IBM support team supplied us a SPR to check if it is fixed in oncoming releases. I searched the Notes/Domino fix list for SPR# MKEY7V4HAT today without any result.
- 93
Rodrigo Mancilla | 8/3/2010 12:15:08 PM
Is there a way to upgrade the mail template on the Lotus Notes client instead of the server?
- 94
Mark Dowling http://cork2toronto.blogspot.com | 8/3/2010 2:44:25 PM
"What admin in his or her right mind gives users more than editor?"
@62 Not this one. I guess I have less to fear from Ed than I thought :)
Imagine a company that buys a fax product or mail archiving solution or document management solution that integrates with Notes.
Since there're not a lot of books on mail template customization (er, NONE), many companies use the stock template provided by the vendor of the third party product. This has many fewer risks than figuring out what design elements are need and stitching them in to an 8.x template.
This is just one very plausible scenario.