Lotus Notes has introduced the welcome page from version Notes 6 and above. When you log into your Lotus Notes account in these versions, the first page that loads up is not the Workspace as it used to be in the earlier versions. Now you get a welcome page, which can be customized to look the way you want it.

However the workspace is still available as it is best suited for those who use other applications. The default Notes welcome page is simple and has options to open the Mailbox, Calendar and the To Do List and the Contacts. There are several other built in welcome page options that you can choose. To explore and select one of them follow the simple steps below.

• Open your Lotus Notes Account.
• You will get the default welcome page, the first line will contain a text “Click here for Welcome Page options” followed by a black arrow pointing downwards. Click on this arrow.
• You will find a Dropdown menu called “Current Welcome Page selection” listing all the options available.
• Click any one of them to select that as your default Lotus Notes Welcome Page.

Creating a Customized Welcome Page
It is also possible to create a customized welcome page of your choice. Follow the below steps to create your own welcome page.

• Open the Lotus Notes account and click the black arrow to edit the welcome page options.
• Click on the tab “Create a welcome page”
• Notes will prompt you to select a name for the page you create. Enter a name and click next.
• Notes will prompt you to choose whether you want to use frames or a personal page. Frames are rectangular boxes that can be used to display the content you want. The areas of these frames can be altered as per your needs by pushing dragging the margins.
• The Personal page gives multiple layouts that you can choose from and options to add pictures, applets and links. You can also choose the background color of your choice for the layout.
• After selecting the layout you want click finish to instantly get the chosen layout as the welcome page.

What is an Order Management System?

An Order Management System is an application that helps a company track the orders placed by its customer at various stages of processing. It gives a complete picture of the events happening around an order right from the instant when an order is placed till it gets closed.

An order may have to pass through different functions within an organization for it to get executed successfully. Manual processing may be time consuming as well as ineffective in several conditions and hence automation of the workflow becomes mandatory. Not only does this help in the speedy processing of the order and hence the timely delivery to the customer but also serves as a structured mechanism for the organization to review its performance and capabilities.

Ideally Order Management Systems are linked to other applications such as the CRM and Warehouse Management System so that related information are obtained automatically without manual intervention. Why should you link the OMS with other applications? What are its benefits? Assume a situation where there are many orders floating simultaneously, the OMS can assign priorities to the orders based on the customer profile when integrated with the CRM. It can also give an indication immediately when an order is placed whether the required product is available in the right quantity if it is integrated with the Warehouse Management System.

How is Lotus Notes Domino relevant to an Order Management System?

The OMS is essentially a tracking system of the flow of work among several functions within the organisation, sometimes even outside organisation by associates and partners who operate together for the completion of the Task. Apart from being a convenient platform to build workflow applications Lotus Notes has all the features that are required to have complete control of the system including assigning access privileges to external users. Lotus Domino’s capability to support web enabling of these applications can be a great asset in making the OMS a powerful tool that can be accessed from any where with minimum risk of information security.

The comprehensive programming features available in Lotus Notes Domino helps to build the application that can literally meet any requirement. Other technologies like Java, J2EE, XML etc can be integrated around the core Lotus application to obtain advanced features and customized User Interfaces.

Lotus Notes Domino also has the advantage in its capability to integrate with other Enterprise applications and platforms. With tools such as the Lotus Enterprise Integrator available, it makes it easy for integrating the Lotus Notes applications with other Enterprise application including Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) applications.

To develop a successful OMS, defining a well structured process for the entire system is absolutely essential, an experienced partner can help you develop the application that can be reliable and make your business stable.

New to Lotus Notes? Or have you recently migrated to Notes?

Set Lotus Notes as your default mail client so that whenever you click on any hyperlink (from any newsletter or a web page or in an email that you have recieved) which is intended to send out a mail opens up a new memo in Lotus Notes.

To make Lotus Notes mail client your default Mail Client, follow the steps below.

1. Log into your Notes account and go to File option in the top menu.
2. Choose Preferences and select User Preferences
3. In the window that is opening up, click on Mail and choose Internet.
4. You will find a section called Default Mail account in which the option to choose Lotus Notes as your default mail client is available. Enable it.
5. You will also have another option to check whether Lotus Notes is your default mail client every time you start your system. Even if you accidently change the settings, Notes will prompt you when you start the system the next time and helps you ensure that Notes is configured as your default mail client .
6. Click OK to close the window and restart your system.
7. You will be prompted whether to change Notes as your default mail client. Click yes to it.

This ensures that all mail links are getting opened as a new memo in Lotus Notes.

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Out of Office messaage is set to let those who send you mails know that you are not in office and when you are expected to be back.

This can be configured in Lotus Notes client and an automated reply will be sent to those who mail you informing them about the duration of your absence. You can also choose to write a message yourself that is to be sent out. There are also options to avoid sending these messages to a few selected individuals or to a group by creating exceptions.

To activate this feature, follow the steps below.

1. Click Actions tab in the top menu and go to Tools
2. Select Out of Office from the options list.
3. In the pop up window, you can fill the date when you will leave and return.
4. There is a default message that you see in the Out of Office Message tab or you can choose to write your own message by clicking Special Message.
5. If you dont want these mails to be sent to any particular individual or to a group, click on the Exceptions tab and choose the corresponding options.
6. Click Enable to activate the feature.

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While opening the hyperlinks in your mail from your Lotus Notes inbox, you most often find it opening in a default Notes browser. This browser may not have all the options that are present in a conventional browser. To overcome this you can change the browser settings in your Notes client to open the links in any browser of your choice. To change the configuration, do the following simple steps:

1. Open File menu in the top menu options, go to Preferences and Location Preferences.
2. Click on the Internet Browser tab.
3. Open the dropdown menu in Internet browser and choose the browser that you want.
4. If not available, choose as Other and select it using the field below by giving the path of the browser.
5. Click Save & Close tab in the top action bar.

You should be able to open the links in the browser that you have chosen after these settings are given.

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Good news for Apple Macintosh workstation users.

IBM is spreading its arms into another user segment- the Apple Macintosh workstation users. As a first step it has made its collaboration and messaging services accessible from a Macintosh workstation with the help of Lotus Domino Web Access 7.0.2 Software and a web browser. The software now supports the Firefox 1.5 web browser form Mozilla and IBM claims that this software has greater security environment.

Further to this IBM is planning to release the Lotus Notes 7.0.7 by the end of the year 2006 which can run on a Mac OS X 10.4 based workstation. This is expected to have all the important features of Lotus Notes 7.

Click here to know more on that.

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As mentioned in the earlier posting Lotus Notes Domino falls under the category of servers that support incremental backup. This helps in easy backup of applications and databases with minimum concern about storage memory.

There are several Backup products like IBM’s ADSM back up solution, BakBone’s NetVault, BrightStor ARCserve Backup Agent, Lascon Storage, and Cheyenne’s Arcserve Backup with Notes Agent etc. Most of these products support incremental backup of applications and come with their own unique features.

Cheyenne’s ARCserve is simple to install and configure but seem to have difficulties when large number of servers are to be backed up in a central location. BrightStor ARCserve Backup Agent for Lotus Domino enables backup of a local or remote server without shutting down the server or disrupting user access.

Among the many options available IBM’s Adstar/ADSM back up solution and Cheyenne’s ARCserve Backup with Notes Agent are regarded as the most convenient products used for Lotus Notes Domino backup.

However the pick of the lot is the IBM’s ADSM which has a product line that can suit any kind of enterprise- be it very small or an SME or a large enterprise. It has amazing recovery capability which includes Online, Nearline & Offline recovery. The server speed degradation is also minimal with the use of this product. A centralized backup management system can easily be developed with its ability to support backing up of servers at remote locations also.

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