sales force automation is the process by which all day to day transactions and events in the sales department are automated. It includes the automation of all the activities like daily reports of invidual sales executives, order tracking, sharing information among all sales executives,inventory control and monitoring, sales forecast, etc.This will be very helpful for organisations that are geographically spread across the length and breadth of a country or even across different countries.A centralized control is easily possible when the sales activities are automated as access to data becomes easier and quicker.

If you have a well defined sales process, automating it becomes very productive as it can help avoiding unnecessary delay in getting each process done manually.For instance, if a sales executive located in a remote place sends a proposal to be approved by his sales manager by post or courier it will take atleast 3 to 4 days to get it done.This can be avoided if the salesman uses a system and an appropriate software which could alert the manager immediately when a request has been sent to him.The manager can reply to it immediately and the whole activity can be completed in minutes.
There are a numerous instances like this where unnecessary delays could be avoided and help the sales people close the orders immedaitely.It can also help you track the employees performace in a more organised way.

Lotus Notes can be a very useful platform on which these softwares can be built.It can help you develop an application exactly in the way you want instead of purchasing a conventional Sales Fore Automation software which may not suit your requirement.

As already told in the earlier posts Lotus Notes can be used used both for mails as well as for applications that would help the organisation function effectively.The applications can either be custom built or generic products available readily.Products such as HRMS and CRM are developed by several software companies.You have to be very careful in choosing the application products as they may or may not suit the specific requirements of your
organisation.Keeping this in mind the best alternative would be going for a custom built
application which will suit all your requirements.Choose the right partner who can provide you the perfect combination of cost-effectiveness and Quality.For more information on sme services refer small business services.

What are the applications that can be developed using Lotus Notes/Domino?

Lotus Notes suits most the applications which involve workflow,although it can support other kinds of applications as well.Some of the typical applications for which Lotus Notes is employed are

Sales Force Automation
Customer Relationship Management
Expense Tracking
Leave Application
HR Management System
Payroll Management
Performance Approval System
Purchase Approval System
Enquiry Tracking

Let us see what these applications are and how it can help your organisation in the coming posts.

Lets find how to create a link to the notes document in a MS word document. To add a link to the MS Word document,we have to first create a NDL file.

To create a NDL file, open your notes document to which you want to create a link, go to
EDIT, Copy as link and choose Document link.Open a notepad and paste the link,now save this notepad with any name you want with an extention .ndl(eg.: link1.ndl),now the NDL file is ready to use.

Now open the MS Word document, go to INSERT,then choose OBJECT and then choose the tab CREATE FROM FILE and locate the NDL file you have saved and click ok. The link will now be created in the MS Word document.

To open the link the Lotus Notes application must be kept open.

Lotus Notes has a feature where information in Microsoft Excel can be used in its documents, forms and views.To transfer the data from an Excel sheet to the Notes document,we can create an embedded object in the Notes document or form.

What is an embedded object?
Data available in one file(source) can be transfered to another file(Destination) by inserting them.This process is called Embedding.The data transfered is called the object or the Embedded Object.
Whenever there is a change in the object it is automatically updated in the Notes Document.Alternatively,the data from a Microsoft Excel work book can be imported into the Notes Document or Forms.When you import the data to Lotus Notes, the data alone is tranferred and there is no link maintained between the Excel workbook and Lotus Notes.So, even if there is any change in the source document, no change happens in the Notes document or form to whichthe data was tranferred.

Firewall

What is a firewall?

Firewalls are softwares which help monitor and control the activities of a network. Using a firewall we can prevent or allow access to an external user contacting the systems within a network. When an external user tries to access a network in your office environment the firewall blocks the intrusion and helps us to safeguard confidential information. A record of all transactions including both that were allowed and rejected is maintained for future use. We can change the permissions and privileges for different users as when we require.

 Does firewall regulates only external access?

No. Firewalls can be used to regulate the internal users accessing outside information as well. This can helpful when you trying to deny permission to your employees accessing certain application through the internet. Selective ports can be denied/ provided access by using a firewall. This can be of great use in having a control over the internal environment.

This is what firewallguide.com has to say about this.

“A personal computer connected to the Internet without a firewall can be hijacked in just a few minutes by automated hacker ‘’Bots'’. The only way to make your computer 100% secure is to turn it off or disconnect it from the Internet. The real issue is how to make your computer 99% secure when it is connected. Not having protection is like leaving your car running with the doors unlocked and the keys in it which a thief might interpret as “please steal me”. Stated another way, when was the last time you handed a stranger your wallet and encouraged them to take your social security card, drivers license, cash and credit cards? Locking a car, using a “club” or installing a security system makes stealing a car more difficult. Internet security and privacy products provide adequate protection by making it difficult for “outlaws” to take control of your computer and rip you off”.

What is an internal security threat?

Many network administrators when asked about IT security think only of external threats like virus,hacking,spam, spyware etc., but there is much more to IT security than these visible threats.

Internal security threats are those which arise because of sources within the organization. It could be a disgruntled employee, ex-employees or contract workers, service providers who have/had access to your data. These people could carry your data out or could provide critical information to other hackers about the weakness in the security systems in place. This contributes to a major part of the IT crimes happening around the world.

The most common practice used in moving the data out of the organization is through e-mails. Employees having access to critical data might transfer them to your competitor easily by an e-mail. Other methods could be the use of USB thumb drives/ pen drives.

So how do you prevent them doing it?

• Restrict the use of pen drives in the office premises.

• Use mail scanning applications available to keep a track of the information sent/received.

• Remove the IDs used by the employees when they quit the organization.

• Restrict providing direct access to critical information to service providers, temporary staff, contract workers etc.

• Ensure that a thorough check up is done on the background of new employees recruited to work in data centers and server maintenance.

• Ensure passwords of employees are changed at regular intervals.
• Be cautious when giving access to outside sources to your network through remote login or remote desktop access.

Would you leave your office unlocked without any means of watching over who comes in and does what? Would you let someone come to your desk and take a look at your accounts books without your permission? Would you let someone take a look at your customer files, your billing records, your costing information and other such vital records? Ofcourse not.

You’ll be surprised how many small businesses leave their IT infrastructure unsecured. The main problem is one of awareness and visualization. It is easy to visualize how an office left physically open can lead to losses. It is much more difficult to see when computers/networks are left unsecured.

With this post, we are starting a series of posts that help you identify the security risks your small network faces and how you can stay safe. We will talk about internal threats, external threats, viruses, spam, phishing, identity thefts and many other darker issues associated with managing an IT infrastructure. You will find how you can use Lotus Notes/Domino to get past many of these security issues and how you can feel safe about your network. Keep reading, and please do post your thoughts back to the blog.

Before The Call | Solution

If you have a sales team that is cold calling on customers and if you use Salesforce.com, Before The Call has an interesting solution that lets you find out complete details about the lead through multiple sources, before your sales person makes that call.

“Know the Prospect:
Draw from the best-known market intelligence partners to enrich your leads without leaving Salesforce.com. The Validator service search tens of millions of records to ensure you have the most accurate contact and company information available. This information is important to any sales process and Before the Call is able to use this information to access other sources that will provide you a full picture of the prospect. No longer will you have to exit CRM to search for this information, it is all in-process, in-context and retained within your CRM application. “

Interested in doing this from within your Lotus Notes based CRM? While no readymade solution exists, it is possible to build links with webservices. It is also possible to get data from the different lead sourcing companies like infoUSA and merge it with your Lotus Notes CRM data. At Maarga, we offer complete lifecycle solutions for software development on Lotus Notes/Domino technologies. We can also club it with BPO/KPO services like internet based market research to get you the leads you need into your CRM.

The intention of creating this blog is to give useful information to the owners/administrators of Lotus Notes in the small and medium enterprises.You can find solutions for simple problems that you might face with Lotus Notes, information that could help you to use the software effectively, latest news and updates on lotus notes being featured here.

We welcome queries and comments from all the users.

So today lets get started with some basics of Lotus Notes.

Lotus Notes, a product of IBM is the client option for the IBM Domino server.Together with the Domino server the Lotus client forms a powerful combination of messaging/collaboration solution widely used across the globe.It also has additional features like calender and Scheduling capabilities built along with it, which makes lotus notes a very useful tool for the business fraternity.

Can Lotus Notes be used only for mailing solution?
The answer to that is a big NO, because lotus notes can act as a platform on which other generic applications can be installed.In addition to this customised applications can be built as per your invidual requirement.This could help your organisation in increasing the productivity,reducing the time-cycles etc.

We will come up with more information on Lotus Notes and its applications in the coming posts. Do subscribe to this blog and add your comments. Write to us if you have any questions on what Notes/Domino can do in your environment.