– Pradip Sengupta, Partner, IPS Technology Services
Lotus Notes has been a widely used and popular tool especially
to large corporations since its introduction in the 90s. The Value proposition of Lotus Notes is
multi-faceted. It provides a robust
email system and a discussion thread for knowledge sharing. It also provides an easy way to develop
enterprise applications from simple transactional applications like conference
room scheduling to complicated processes such as procurement. Due to ease of deployment and robustness, a
significant number of companies not only switched to Notes Email in the 90s but
they also built many business critical applications.
Having said that, Lotus Notes has been an idle technology
for many years with no new features added until the end of the last decade. Only a very few new customers have purchased
Lotus products while many have switched or are in the process of switching to
newer technologies such as Microsoft Sharepoint, Exchange, ASP .Net, and Office
365. Companies are also switching to
Microsoft because of Notes’ high license fees as well as lack of qualified
talent available in the market to support the enterprise; it is very difficult
to find experienced Notes talent with deep knowledge at this time.
There are many proven methodologies and tools to
successfully migrate from Notes to SharePoint.
Additionally, there are multiple third party (e.g., Quest, Nintex,
Avepoint, Visionet) and proprietary software available to reduce the cycle time
of migration. However, without a sound
assessment, strategy, and a solid plan, migration from Notes to Microsoft could
prove to be a very challenging as well as frustrating task.
One of the main reasons for complexity of Notes to
SharePoint migration is the existence of customized Notes databases that either
do not use standard templates or they considerably extend their
functionality. Such Notes applications
range from small transactional applications to organization-wide utility
applications. Most of these applications
are built using an internal version of Notes and they employ legacy technology
that is not Internet-enabled. They often do not make use of the workflow
concepts.
With the advent of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and
Microsoft Office SharePoint Services (MOSS), corporations are developing user friendly,
web-based and workflow-enabled applications that can take advantage of the
Microsoft toolsets and integrate them with Enterprise applications built on
SAP, Oracle, and other platforms. It is
also noteworthy to mention that for some custom and non-standard Notes
applications it may be prudent to build from scratch using ASP .Net and SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) or
InfoPath (if applicable). This decision
is made after a detailed analysis of all Notes applications is performed.
Migration
Process
In order to successfully migrate from Notes to SharePoint,
the migration team may take the following FOUR
steps described below. Through these
high-level steps—along with with a strong Project Management Methodology and
Effective Communication strategy—a company can improve a migration project’s ROI
and start using applications in SharePoint quickly and efficiently.
1. Create Inventory and Conduct Assessment
The first step of migration is to create
an inventory of all components tied to Notes and objectively assess them to develop
a strategy and determine how they will be migrated to SharePoint. While it is difficult for a system
administrator to identify how many databases are running across all servers (as
Notes log.nsf and Notes catalog.nsf files as a Domino server is not very
analysis friendly), it is possible to come up with adequate data to build an
inventory required to conduct a thorough analysis on the following items:
-
Detail description and configuration of all Domino
and other related servers and their physical locations
-
Users and Agents who are using Notes and their
locations
-
All Workflows with complete definitions
-
User Interface technology used (CSS, JS)
-
Forms and Templates used in relations with
workflows and otherwise
-
All Notes Databases currently used
-
All Notes Applications
o
Document Management
o
Workflows supported by these applications
o
Connection to external data sources such as SAP,
AS400, Oracle
o
Connection to other Notes Applications
o
Discussion Databases
o
Team Room, if any
2. Define Requirements and Scope
As mentioned, it may be difficult
for the Domino server administrators to locate “all” servers and other Notes
components accurately; it will definitely help the migration team to build a
baseline from which the scope of the project could be defined. During this step, the team will define the
requirements and scope of the project for completing the following tasks:
-
Review inventory of applications and tag them as
o
To be migrated - Standard
o
To be migrated - Non-standard
o
To be developed from Scratch - Non SharePoint migrate-able
applications
o
Not to be migrated
o
To be removed and archived
-
Package or group applications into
o
Simple
o
Medium
o
Complex
o
Highly Complex
-
Archive legacy data
-
Standardize workflows, forms, interfaces, and data
-
Prioritize To-be-migrated and To-be-developed Applications
3. Develop a Strategy
After having a good idea of the
scope of the migration project, the team may develop a strategy to address “how
much” or a list of applications that are critically needed to transfer to
SharePoint. This is typically followed
by a detailed analysis of the following:
-
Integration
and Reporting Needs which will have
a significant impact on resources and schedule, as some of the reports may have
to be recoded in SSRS.
-
Buy vs. Build
is an important strategic decision
point as a third party tool (buy) gives a company a great advantage by cutting
down migration time to convert standard Notes files. However, the team must be especially careful
in analyzing the capabilities of a third party tools that is proprietary. A proprietary tool may give more headache in
terms of maintenance as the code generated by it could be inefficient,
unstructured, and closed, making integration virtually impossible.
-
Migration
vs. Developing from Scratch is also an important decision point as some
Notes applications built over years with unrestricted functionality may prove
to be very difficult. Developing these
applications from scratch in ASP .Net platform may be more cost-effective and
take less time if built from scratch.
-
User
experience is also an important factor for strategy as forms and templates
are considered for migration. If a
company wants to utilize modern tools to enhance the forms and templates,
appropriate tools such as Telerik or equivalent third party software may be
required to migrate screen data and automatically build user friendly
forms.
-
Architectural
Consideration is worth considering from the beginning to avoid any
performance and data integration issues.
A strategy around architecture will have to be articulated for standard,
non-standard, and build-from-scratch applications for migration.
4. Execute Migration Strategy
The objective of migration is to
make sure that all content from Notes Application is migrated comprehensively
and accurately. Correct content
migration is considered the most business critical aspect of the migration
process, as failing to preserve the legacy content with adequate fidelity and
completeness will result in unhappy end users and potential disruption to
business.
One big task in executing the
strategy and running the program is Solution Mapping. In this step, the migration team clearly
defines:
-
Which Notes
Rich text documents, images, attachments, OLE objects, Document links, Dynamic
formulas, ACLS and Document Security will move
-
Which SharePoint
List Items, Document Libraries and Infopath Forms (if any)
It is important to know that all
components can’t be mapped and these cases need to be handled on a case-by-case
basis. The migration team has to make a
well-understood plan showing how these applications are deployed with the
current content.
Once the solution map is completed
and communicated to users, the team will have to develop a schedule that will
show how the low, medium, and high complexity applications will be deployed
using third party tools to handle standard applications. It will also show how and when the non-standard
applications using traditional development in SharePoint or ASP .Net will be
deployed.
Pradip Sengupta
is the founder of IPS Technology Services and works with its clients as a Technology
Consultant and Project Manager with a specific focus on Technology Migration,
Healthcare and Engineering IT. For more
information, please email Pradip at Pradip_Sengupta@ipstechnologyservices.com
or call 248-835-9895.
