Lotus Notes and Domino Experience

We have extensive experience developing robust production software in Lotus Notes and Domino.  We are a Principal Certified Lotus Professional.

Our experience includes applications that are Web based, Notes client based, and combinations of the two.

The following is a partial list of applications that we developed or substantially modified.·     

• Integration of Scanning, OCR and PDF into Lotus Notes - Integrated full-featured document scan-ning and OCR capabilities into a Notes-based commercial library automation package and into a commercial records management system. Features include handling multiple scanners, creating Adobe PDF documents from the scanned files, extracting the full text via OCR from the scanned document, and automatic generation of a document abstract.
   
• ePortal for Team Collaboration - Created a web-based portal that allows project team members to switch among several web-based projects.  Administrators can add and remove projects from the portal with a single click.  Team members see only those projects to which they have access.
   
• Internet-Based Collaboration Application with Document Library Capabilities - For a major technical university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, we created a Web-based discussion and document library application.  This application built from scratch, because standard Lotus templates were not a suitable starting point to meet the client's needs.  The application is user-configurable, and includes up to three levels of categorization and allows for complete document security.
   
• Integration With Documentum® - We created the programmatic interface used to integrate Lotus Notes email with Documentum-based document management systems. The result was the ability to automatically pull email into the document-management stream. The project required development of a specialized mail-in database and Visual Basic code to interface the Documentum with Notes databases.  
   
• Opportunity Tracker - We made significant modifications to an existing commercial application used for tracking and reporting on sales and marketing opportunities.  We added new levels of security that had not been designed into the system.  In addition, we added archiving and the ability to easily maintain the data in the system.  We also added numeric tables with spreadsheet-like functionality.  Because Opportunity Tracker is structured with layers of response documents, it was necessary to do most coding in LotusScript, frequently using recursive functions.
  
  One significant achievement with Opportunity Tracker was to link Microsoft Access to the Opportunity Tracker data for the purpose of generating reports.  Lotus Notes is notoriously weak at report generation.  Linking Access via an ODBC connection enabled complex reports to be extracted from the data.
   
• FindMail - This application supports people in reaching their Notes mail databases from the Internet using a Web browser.  FindMail authenticates the user and then switches the user to the proper Notes mail database.  The user, instead of having to know the long and cryptic URL needed to get to his/her inbox, types http://www.xyz.com/email. The FindMail application does the rest.  Development of this application required extensive knowledge of HTML.
   
• IT Request System - This application is used by the staff of a large, multi-location engineering firm to make requests for hardware, software and telephone equipment.  The application incorporates complex work flow in which the list and order of approvers is determined by what's being requested and by which department.  The IT Request System is integrated with three additional Notes applications, a catalog of approved IT hardware and software, a database of corporate information (HR, office and account number information), and the Notes public name and address book.
   
• MassMail - This application allows email messages to be sent to staff on the basis of either 1) a list of names, 2) name and address book groups, 3) specific Notes organizational units (OUs), 4) specific locations, 5) specific mail servers, or 6) the entire company.  If there is an attachment to be sent with an e-mail, the attachment is posted to an Intranet Web server, and the e-mail contains a URL link to the attachment.  In that way, the attachment is not repeated in each message, and a significant space savings is achieved.
   
• SWIN - This application collects standard information about S&W, including HR information for all active staff, Location information, Account number information.  SWIN provides the ability of other Notes applications to look up information that is otherwise inaccessible.  SWIN is updated nightly from legacy databases residing on an IBM mainframe.  An agent, written in LotusScript, uses FTP to pull the updated information from the mainframe.
   
• Asset Management System - This is a tracking and allocation system used to manage the physical assets of an information technology department.  It is used by IT area managers to allocate hardware and software.  Central asset management staff uses the application to book new assets and retire old ones.
   
• Project Team Application - Extensively modified an existing team collaboration system based on Lotus TeamRoom.  The application is entirely Web based, using Notes/Domino 5.0.