Sunday, May 23, 2010

Performing Notes to PST migration with Lotus Notes Application Connector

These days, switching from Lotus Notes email client to MS Outlook is one of the most common decisions that many organizations implement. GroupWare applications have to offer tools that let the organizational groups communicate within the workplace with more ease and comfort. Lotus Notes email client is very popular and effective tool that can support communication throughout the organization with email, discussion lists, and other communication methods. However, there are many organizations that usually look for a pure email client only and for this MS Outlook is an ideal solution. This ultimately makes many organizations from different verticals to switch from Notes to PST.

Now while a user migrates from Lotus Notes to Outlook, he or she might come across different migration issues. These days there are many users who generally use Lotus Notes Application Connector and utilize Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2002 in order to access their email messages, , address book, calendar, and To-do (Task) items. Therefore, if you are making use of Application Connector on a Lotus Notes (NSF) database and the data does not migrate to Outlook (PST) database file, the most important point that you have to make sure is the connector you are using must be valid and has complete Property Map Template (PFT) to use.

Generally, the connector use PFT to map fields in Notes forms to properties in Exchange Server forms and then try to convert the Lotus Notes data to Outlook accordingly. However, if one of the Notes field cannot be mapped to an Exchange Server field, the data gets skipped leading into data loss.

Administrator can generate PFT in two dissimilar procedures - At one hand; he or she can utilize the Generate Template option accessible with the Lotus Notes Application Connector. And on the other hand, PFT can be created by running the Lotus Notes Application Conversion Assistant. Lotus Notes Application Connector produces PFTs which usually do no require any customization for simple Lotus Notes databases such as document library.

But, just in case the database gets customized, then the administrator must run the Application Conversion Assistant first before performing any migration of any data with Application Connector from Notes to PST. Apart from this, administrator must not forget using the Application Conversion Assistant’s PFT. In fact, this helps Application Connector in performing various actions like generating a template, selecting Edit Template, deleting text and pasting entire contents of the Application Conversion Assistant’s PFT into it, or copy the generated file by Application Conversion Assistant to the Application Connector program directory.

Application Conversion Assistant scrutinizes Notes database design and helps in the creation of comparable forms in an Exchange Server public folder. At times, situation arise when certain design elements do not translate between programs and therefore you require reviewing the generated Outlook forms and perform any design modifications as per the user requirements. Run the Application Connector only when you are pleased with the form design. However, if the administrator makes any types of alterations in any field in their Outlook forms, then it is very essential that the same changes gets reflected in the PFT file by manually editing it and later check the same for any syntax errors.

If you are a novice user or even if you don’t have a through technical knowledge of migration, the probability is always high that all these might just leave you in disgust. Notes to PST migration could have been easier if you might have switched to Kernel for Notes to Outlook software. This is intuitive software that can assist you migrating from Notes to PST effortlessly. In addition to this, Kernel for Notes to Outlook software supports all the versions of Lotus Notes, Domino Server, Outlook, and Exchange Server.