There may be occasions when a scheduled meeting has to be post-poned or pre-poned or even cancel sue to unavoidable reasons. Let us check how to get this done.

• Open the calender view and open the meeting schedule.
• If the meeting was scheduled by someone else, you can counter the meeting and propose a new time. There are options to even reject an invitation sent to you from others.
• If the meeting has been scheduled by you, open the meeting schedule note from the Calender and Click Actions and select the necessary Action like reschedule, cancel etc.
• It is always better to write a note explaining the reason for change of schedule along with the meeting schedule Note.

The Lotus Notes mail client has a Calender in it by default. The Calender can be used to keep track of the Meetings, Appointments, Anniversaries, Reminders and other Events. Each of them is a form of Calender Entry and can be created from the Calender view of the Lotus Notes client.

Lets us check out how to schedule a meeting using the calender which is the most frequently made Calender entry. Follow the steps below to schedule a meeting.

• Open the Calender view.
• Click on Schedule a meeting tab or Create button on the top menu bar and choose Calender Entry.
• A new window will open, Fill in the subject, the date, time and attendees of the meeting.
• The time zone can be changed according to the need. Also there is additional option to repeat the same meeting several times, the settings of which can also be chosen.
• You can also give a small description of the meeting and its relevance or instructions in the space provided for description.
• In addition to this there are additional optional fields such as Location, Resources, Rooms, Notification etc. The Resources and Rooms have to be configured with Lotus Notes so that their availability during the scheduled meeting duration is also checked.
• The calender entry can be marked as private so that others are not able to view the detials of the entry.
• After filling up all the fields necessary click Save and Send Invitations.

The Lotus Notes Client when installed with default settings will have a tool bar at the top of the Notes view. This will contain useful utility tools such as the Rich text field editing tools, attaching tool, edit, search tool etc. However this tool bar can be enabled or disabled based on individual preferences. Follow the steps below to enable or disable the toolbar.

1. Login into your Lotus Notes account and go to File, Preferences and Toolbar Preferences.
2. In the Basics view, disable the tick mark in the Toolbar display section to hide the Toolbar.
3. Enable the toolbar by marking a tick in the show Toolbar option.
4. You can also edit the toolbar option appearence like whether to display text alone or icons alone or both, the size of the icons etc.
5. choose the desired tool bar settings and click OK to save you references.

When a mail is viewed it appears different for each user based on their mail box design and settings. The most common difference being the width of each line in the mail is different for every user. Web based mails generally tend to have smaller width when compared to Lotus Notes or Outlook. To avoid this when composing a mail we can set the standard width of each line, so that the alignment is more or less the same when opened in any other mail client. To do this follow the steps below.

1. Login into your Lotus Notes account and go to File, Preferences and User Preferences.
2. Click on the mail tab and go the Internet View, the section named Composing Internet-Style Replicas will have an option to wrap each line after a certain number of characters.
3. Choose the number of characters to wrap every line and move to the next line.
4. Click OK and save the settings.

Sometimes we do not check our mail box for a long time when we are busy with some other task. This could result in missing some important notification or message sent to us that has to be acted upon immediately.

To avoid this we can set up Lotus Notes to give an alert when a new mail is received in the inbox. Follow the steps below to enable the alert.

1. Login into your Lotus Notes account and go to File, Preferences and User Preferences.
2. Open the Mail tab, at the general view there is a section called When New Mail Arrives, there you will find options to enable option to Show a Pop-up.
3. Enable the option to get a pop up message everytime a new mail is received.
4. There are additional features such as providing alert with a sound. You can also choose the sound to be played from a file in your system .
5. Click OK and save the settings to get the alert whenever a new mail is received.

You can set your favourite font as your default font when composing the mail in a new memo instead of changing it everytime you compose and send a mail.

Follow the steps below to set a font as default for a new memo.

1. Log into your Lotus Notes account, go to File- Preferences - Edit Preferences.
2. In the Basics view, Display Options section, click Default Fonts tab.
3. You will get a Pop-Up window to choose fonts for various sections. Select the fonts accordingly and Click OK.
4. The change will take effect when Lotus Notes is restarted the next time.
   

We can enable or disable saving a copy of the mail sent in Sent Folder by adjusting the user preferences. By default a mail sent using Lotus Notes will be saved in the Sent Folder, however based on individual requirements we can disable and later enable the facility as required.

Follow the steps below to adjust the settings.

1. Log into your Lotus Notes account and go to File - Preferences - User Preferences
2. Open the Mail view.
3. In the Sending section, Choose Always keep a copy in the drop down menu named Save mail that you send to  have a copy in the Sent Folder always.
4. If you dont want to save a copy, choose Dont keep a copy in the menu. Alternatively you can make Notes prompt whether to save a copy or not everytime a mail is sent by selecting Always prompt.
5. Click OK to save the settings.

You can have your Lotus Notes mail box locked if you have left it unused for a specific preset time. This will ensure that your mails are safe and not opened by others even if you are away from your desk for a long time.

To have this feature enabled follow the steps below.

1. Log into your Lotus Notes account and go to File - Preferences - User Preferences.
2. In the Basics view, at the bottom of the view an option to logout and lock Lotus Notes if unused for the specific time is available. Enable it.
3. There is another box to set the duration after which Notes is to be locked if unused. Select the duration according to your requirement.
4. Save your preferences and you will find that Notes will be locked after the preset time, if left unused.

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.