Posts Tagged: ‘HCL Domino’

Introducing HCL Domino Early Access Program

8. September 2020 Posted by HCL Domino Team

We’re proud to announce the HCL Domino Early Access Program, a new program that gives our customers and business partners a chance to test new product features early in the development cycle. This program provides a preview of features and functionality that may be shipped with a future version of HCL Domino and gives us the ability to incorporate your valuable feedback. At this stage, we are providing early access to features that contribute to HCL Domino v12. 

The Early Access Program aims to get feedback on specific features, with a more formal traditional beta program planned at a later stage to receive feedback on the overall release quality and language packaging. 

The Early Access Program is feature-driven and iterative, meaning new iterations and code drops will be made available as soon as it is declared ready for testing by our development team. New code drops can be provided in just a few weeks after the previous one, on short notice, without sticking to a fixed release cycle.  

Based on your feedback we may proceed, improve or adjust the feature, or in some cases withdraw the feature from the code stream. The following graphic illustrates this concept:

Each code drop is provided in the form of a Docker image which enables us to ship new iterations faster and to minimize the time to upgrade from one code drop to the next. You can expect us to deliver code drops at a fast pace as we want participants to have exclusive access to our latest product feature set. Please note that only the newest code drop will be available for you to download.

How to Participate

HCL Ambassadors who have registered Domino v11.0.1 Beta Preview will automatically be added to Domino Early Access Program. Customers and partners with a current Notes/Domino entitlement will also have access to the Early Access Program as of today. There is no need to register separately to participate.

For overall documentation of the Early Access Program, the specific testing scope, system requirements and instructions for deploying the Domino server on Docker, please refer to the release notes or see the online documentation here.

Upcoming Code Drop: Automating Certificate Management

The focus of this first code drop is testing a new feature planned for Domino v12 that allows administrators to automate the creation and management of SSL Certificates for Domino Web servers through the Let’s Encrypt® certificate authority.

Including support for Let’s Encrypt was a feature that was requested on the Domino ideas portal some time ago. We are using this idea as a starting point to modernize the handling of SSL certificates in Domino in general, e.g. by moving away from having to create and manually distribute *.kyr files to your servers.

  • For details about the new automated certificate management feature, please refer to the online documentation here.
  • If you like what we have done, vote for this feature in our Domino ideas forum here.
  • To provide feedback on this code drop, you need to have an HCL account to join the discussion in our forum here.

For general input and new ideas or feature enhancement requests, please use the Domino ideas forum here.

Next Code Drop: TOTP

In the next iteration of the early access program, we intend to provide TOTP (Token based One-Time Password authentication). Stay tuned for more information about the next code drop.

We want Domino to be built for you and by you! We’re excited to include customers and partners as part of the feedback loop as we work towards the release of Domino v12. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Best Practices for Upgrading to v11: Webinar Replay and Q&A

18. August 2020 Posted by HCL Domino Team

Last week, our team of global support advisors hosted a webinar on best practices for upgrading to Domino v11. If you missed the webinar, feel free to watch the replay here. In this session, we covered several topics on how to prepare for a successful upgrade including:

  • Baseline monitoring: Know your current workloads  
  • Evaluating your environment: Should you upgrade in-place, or do you need new hardware?
  • Deployment sequence: See the order of steps to upgrade your environment 
  • Preparing your environment: What to do before your upgrade 
  • Application upgrades: Learn how to handle your custom apps  

 We received a lot of questions during the webinar and you can find the Q&A recap below.  

 Want to learn more about what’s new in Domino v11 before planning your upgrade? Download this deep dive to see newest features. For our technical folks, check out this support article which provides a guide on how to plan your upgrade and a step-by-step guide for Domino install, setup, and upgrade tasks.  

Q: Regarding Notes.ini, are there any tools we can use to check the values used in our Notes.ini to identify redundant ones?   

A: DCT would be a good place to start, however there is no such tool available for the same. DCT will not detect duplicates. It is a best practice to start with a new notes.ini file. 

Q: Can we get a list of Notes.ini obsolete parameters? 

A: We are working on a consolidated article and will be publishing it soon. 

Q: Is there a URL for recommend new Notes.ini settings to help weed out old Notes.ini settings? 

A: Starting with a new Notes.ini file is the best way to ensure your file does not contain outdated settings.  

Q: Can we have a mix of both Domino 9 for applications and Domino 11 for email servers? 

A: Yes, you can upgrade your mail servers to version 11 now, and the application servers can remain at Domino 9.0.1. As mentioned, make sure that you are not mixing Domino versions in a cluster. Use a test pilot to see how well your Domino 9.0.1 applications work in the Notes 11 client. 

Q: Is Domino 11 still restricted to 3 or 4 HTTP headers (via Internet Sites and Rules)? 

A: The limit is now 20 HTTP headers in Domino 11. 

Q: Will HCL be bringing back and upgrading the Domino Configuration tuner (DCT.nsf)?  

A: Please vote and comment for the idea here.  

Q: Is there a trial of Domino 11 to test the migration? 

A: If you are entitled for Domino, you can download V11 from the HCL License and Delivery Portal and can test your upgrades without needing a trial version of Domino. If you are not entitled to Domino, we provide a free trial as a Docker container (several products are pre-installed and ready to test). More details here.  

Q: Is there a procedure to migrate Domino 9.0.1 to a Domino 11 on docker? 

A: You cannot convert a non-container Domino server to a container-based server. You’ll need to bring up the Docker instance and migrate the data. 

Q: Is LEI (IEI) supported on Domino 11?  

A: Yes, it is now HEI v11.0.1 (HCL Enterprise Integrator) which is supported on Domino 11.0.1.  

Q: Is there a specific setting for Infoware UMT tool running on 8.5.3? 

A: Infoware is not an HCL product, please direct this question to your vendor. 

Q: Should I re-install Traveler if upgrading from 11.0.1 to 11.0.1 FP1? 

A:  When you upgrade from 11.0 to 11.0.1 a re-install of Traveler is needed. Simply applying FP1 does not require re-running the Traveler installer. 

Q: Are there special considerations of IBMi and/or Sametime limited use?  

A: Sametime 11 is not supported on IBMi.   

  • Sametime 11 now supports 64bit Linux as well as Windows. See this requirements article for full details. 
  • Sametime 11 Limited use has some post installation steps that are important, they are described in this article.  
  • For Domino on IBMi, there are some specific hardware requirements in addition to the OS version that you should be aware of. Please see the system requirements for more details.  
  • For guidance on installing Domino 11 on IBMi, see this article.  
  • For IBMi there is also this post-installation step you should be aware of.  

Q: If we’re using Sametime limited use on IBM i, do I suppress nab upgrade? 

A:  Sametime 11 is not supported on IBM i.  Sametime 9.0.1 has not been tested with the Domino 11 NAB design. You can prevent replication of the design in the Advanced Replication properties. 

Q: This will be our first time working on a move and upgrade from mainframe to power. Do you have a guide that we can follow? 

A: From the hardware standpoint, the vendor should be able to provide some guidance. From a Domino standpoint, you can follow the guidance in this Upgrade guide.  

Q: How do you manage DAOS encryption on an upgrade using a temporary Server ID? 

A:  You can specify an alternative id using notes.ini setting, “DAOS_ENCRYPTION_ALTERNATE_SERVER_ID=otherserver.id” 

Q: Does Domino 11.0.1 require more resources compared to former versions? If there is a performance improvement, how many users can a given Domino server handle now? (Notes Standard vs. iNotes vs. IBM Verse 2.0 vs. HCL Nomad.) 

A: The number of users a given server can handle will vary depending on several factors. The amount of resources, disk, etc. plays a large role. The user behaviors (how they use their mail or applications), policies (like mail retention) all influence server capacity and server sizing.  

Baseline monitoring should give you an idea of how well your server performs today. We expect it to be at least the same or improved in version 11. Some examples of performance improvements (over 9.0.1) include tier 2 DAOS support (less disk I/O), Full Text Indexing and ODS. Vast improvements to NSF (larger ID Tables, larger folders), improvements to TXN logging. Your current OS and new OS may perform differently if you are upgrading from 32 bit to 64 bit for example.  No official benchmarking data is available at this time. 

Q: Is there a command line option to avoid the machine reboot on AIX/Windows if upgrading from Domino 9.0.1 that is enforced by the installer and cannot be interrupted by the installing user? 

A: If you choose a Silent Install it will just perform the necessary reboot if one is needed.  Manual installs you should be given the option to Reboot now or wait until later. 

Make certain you had a clean shut down before you try performing an upgrade. If any Domino files are still in use at the time of installation usually dictates if an OS Reboot will be needed before starting the Domino Server. Domino should not be restarted until the reboot occurs as that is what usually triggers the updating of the files that were in use and then Domino can be started. 

If you shut down Domino and it does not come down cleanly, you can run nsd –kill. With Domino server down, run a Domino maintenance task against a non-existent database name. (For example: “nflxup.exe doesnotexist.nsf”). This step flushes the transactional logs to disk and essentially simulates a clean shut down. 

Q: Will an updated version of the Domino Configuration Tuner Tool be available?  

A: Please vote on that idea here.  

Q: Can Domino 9.0.1 servers run the pubnames 11.0.1 template while we are upgrading the environment? 

A: Yes, of course!  

Q: Are there considerations from going from version 9 to version 11, specifically around http services? 

A: Specific to HTTP, there are security improvements. If you had configured sslcipherspec= in notes.ini, those settings have been moved back to the server document in Domino 11. New Domino security features in version 11 may interest you, such as SNI, SAN certificates, http password authentication to the ID in the ID vault, and more.  

Also, we changed the JVM from IBM’s JDK to OpenJDK. You should test any custom applications that rely on the JDK. Many of our customers are making the move to SAML authentication, which was supported in version 9 but we have made continuous improvements in this space since then. In Domino 10 and higher we are now auth-N capable, which removes the IdP limitations we had in version 9.0.1. Any SAML 2.0 compliant IdP should work with Domino 11. 

Q: Is Domino 11 NAB template also compatible with 9.0.1? 

A: Yes, it is.  

Q: Why does ODS need to be updated at the end (especially after the clients)? Shouldn’t it work to have ODS 53 on the server, with an 9.0.1 client using it? 

A: You should upgrade the ODS in order to use the benefits (especially in performance) of the new on disk structure. The ODS version is independent from the clients that are accessing the server. 

Q: ODS Upgrade is the last on your recommended list. Can it be done earlier? 

A: You can upgrade the ODS only after the server has been upgraded, however you can upgrade the ODS with the server if you want. 

Q: Why do you recommend using compact -C to upgrade ODS but not compact -ODS -* -upgrade option? 

A: Either command will work for upgrading ODS (we just left off the other one on the slide).  

Q: Is a Notes 11 Client a requirement for using AD sync? 

A: You must use the Domino 11 administrator client and have a Domino 11 names.nsf design (pubnames.ntf) on a Domino 11 server. 

Q: Can we get more detail on “switching Domino server identity”? Is that as simple as changing the server ID?  

A: The easiest way is to keep first 5 lines in notes.ini, start server, and do the server setup again. however, use option that you already have an ID at each step. 

Q: Is AdminP design backward compatible? 

A: Yes, it is. 

Q: If we are currently on 9.0.1, do we need to upgrade the names.nsf design to the latest template?  

A: Yes. Otherwise all the new settings are not available to you. The 11.x design is backward compatible with 9.0.1 servers. 

Q: How would Domino 11 affect applications running on XPages?  

A: The JVM changed from IBM to OpenJDK. If you are using JavaScript, be sure to test your application on Domino 11 prior to upgrading. 

Q: Must the Traveler Server be upgraded with the Web Servers? 

A: No, the sequence is a recommendation. You do not have to upgrade traveler servers at the same time as your web servers if they run on standalone machines. If Traveler and HTTP server runs on the same machine, then you have to upgrade both at the same time. 

Q: Will there be issues moving to hyperconvergent environment (nutanix or syneto or …) with disks tiering? 

A: Domino is blind to the lower layers of the stack – we only “see” what the operating system provides.  There are no particular Domino tuning or configuration required for HCI environments like VMware, Nutanix, et al.  (Note that your OS of choice may require configuration/tuning for the HCI platform.) 

Q: Say we have a 4-server environment. When we’ve upgraded the first server, do we need to worry about the new names.nsf replicating to the other 3 servers? 

A: You should upgrade the Domino directory template, but all the content will remain the same. The Domino 11 names.nsf design is backward compatible with versions down to 9.0.1. If you wish to prevent the design from replicating, uncheck the design box from the Advanced Replication properties. 

Q: Does the “smart upgrade” feature still work for the Notes users upgraded to version 11.x? 

A: Yes, it does. However, we have added an advance AUT feature which is better than Smart Upgrade. 

Q: I am interested in the licensing of Domino 11. Is there more information on the actual cost per user?  

A: Please reach out to your local HCL Product Sales Specialist or HCL Business Partner for licensing questions. Submit a request to have HCL sales contact you here.    

Q: Do you offer remote help to do the upgrade from 9 to 11 as part of our ongoing support? 

A: You can submit a request online to inquire about our professional services, as well as technical support here. 

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Neues aus der HCL Familie

13. August 2020 Posted by Gerda Marx

Seit dem 06.08.2020 ist die Domino Volt Version 1.0.1 allgemein verfügbar. Die Version hat einige neue Funktionen erhalten. Domino Volt ist ein Programm, mit dem der User einfache workflowbasierte Anwendungen in Form von "Low Code Entwicklung" erstellen kann. Einsetzbar ist Volt ab Domino V10. Was ist neu und wie [...]

Der Beitrag Neues aus der HCL Familie erschien zuerst auf hedersoft Blog.

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Low and Behold: Why Low Code Development Matters. Insights into a modern way to build applications

11. August 2020 Posted by HCL Domino Team

Low code is a software development platform that gives non-coders and coders alike the chance to develop applications through visual interfaces instead of traditional hand-coded programming.  

In plain English, it’s the power to create processes without the technical experience or hand coding background application development once needed.  (It’s like suddenly being able to sing, dance, and generally dominate like Beyoncé without having to undergo 25+ years of endless practice and constant performing.)   

Comparing application development to pop stardom may not be the most common way to highlight the potential benefits of low code. But by not requiring a background in coding expertise, low code allows a wider audience to create applications, making for a faster and potentially more innovative environment that companies can benefit from. (It’s like turning lemonade into even better lemonade. Ok that’s the final reference to Queen B, promise). But we’re just getting started diving into the upside of low code.

Develop Business Software at Incredible Speeds
Low code development should be fast.   

Unlike the laborious line-by-line hand coding process that is traditionally associated with software programming, low code can go from concept to reality in a flash.  Low code allows developers to execute apps up to 60-70% faster than handwritten code, bypassing the time-consuming steps of repeatedly writing, testing and debugging code until it works correctly. 

Low–code development can give designers drag-and-drop features through a visual user interface, making it easy to build intuitively while cutting down on complicated obstacles that only expert coders can spot and fix.  By making the process more visual and less repetitive, low code brings a newfound velocity to a typically slow undertaking.  

Increase Enterprise Productivity 

When you increase the speed of app building, and you save designers and developers time, you open new space up for productivity throughout the entire enterprise. But it’s not only the efficiencies that companies benefit from. 

Those closest to a problem can fix it without a drawn-out drama that drains weeks of time and energy from the IT department. Solving challenges and automating processes can take minutes not hours, ensuring workflow doesn’t suffer. And, when more people are involved in the design and deployment process, it empowers employees and raises the level of collaboration across the entire organization. 

While Non-Coders Build, Professional Coders can Enhance Enterprise Software 

While a major feature of low code is the inclusion of developers and business users with mixed backgrounds into the app-building process, professional coders also benefit. They gain more flexibility to customize and enhance their work by not getting tied up with repetitive coding.   

Freed from the more tedious aspects of coding, experienced developers can focus on tech strategy as well as making apps as creative and distinct as possible.  By avoiding the complex and painstaking handwritten procedure their talent to create can be fully realized. Getting the best from your most skilled programmers means giving them a low–code platform enhances your organization’s overall tech-development quality.  

Easier Integration and Automated Workflow 

The complexity involved in combining legacy systems, formats and applications makes data integration crucial.  Low code integration is fast and efficient, allowing for faster development cycles and a pronounced focus on outcomes and not production bottlenecks.  

It also allows you to automate business workflows within your app that would otherwise have to be performed manually, a result of working with spreadsheets and long paper trails.  Low code boosts automation and eliminates what can be an error-filled slog through those processes.  

Whether it’s speed, productivity, efficient integration and workflow or enhancing your employees’ best skills, low code can benefit any enterprise company looking for workflow solutions.  And you don’t have to suffer through decades of coding school to get there.   

Simplify and accelerate your enterprise software development today with Domino Volt by HCL.

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Domino Volt New Release: Your Questions Answered!

7. August 2020 Posted by Martin Lechleider

Last week, we hosted our new Domino Volt July release webinar covering the latest features and enhancements. We had several demos on how to directly access your Domino data, workflow enhancements, service catalogs, PDF integrations and more. For IBM z and IBM i customers, we covered the latest integration with Z and I Emulator (ZIE) to turn green screen apps into REST endpoints that Domino Volt can use to build new workflows and apps. 

We received a lot of great questions. You can find those questions — and the answers — below. Or catch all the excitement in this replay here:

 

Want more Domino Volt? 

Try v1.0.1 in the updated Domino Volt sandbox. Register for a free sandbox account. For those who already have a sandbox account, new sample apps have been uploaded here. 

We recently launched a Domino Volt roundtable series, where we introduce different important topics and host open discussions with our customers and partners. Join us for the following sessions:

  • Domino Volt App Integration Strategies: Learn about integration techniques and options within Domino Volt. August 12, 2 pm ET. Register now. 
      
  • Domino Volt Deployment Topologies: Learn about different deployment options to fit your needs. August 27, 2 pm ET. Register now.

DOMINO VOLT FEATURES 

Q: What additional resources are needed on a Domino server to handle Domino Volt? 

A: Domino Volt requires Domino V11.0.1 or greater. That’s is all! 

Q: If an app is built in Domino Volt, can it be modified in Domino Designer? 

A: You could add additional views, agents, or other elements as long as you do not change or delete things that Domino Volt created. 

Q: Where do you upload the PDF for fill–in? 

A: In settings, there is a File section where you can load PDFs as well as images, CSS, JS, etc. as needed in the app 

Q: Can a signature from a Domino Volt form be printed in PDF? Or even pictures from your smartphone? 

A: The PDF fill capability in Domino Volt does not support adding an image or picture to a PDF. 

Q: Can you deploy your own Service to the Service Catalog? 

A: Yes, on a service that leverages the HTTP Transport (REST).  You could have one that gets an OAUTH Token or returns a list of customers from CRM.  

Q: How do Domino Volt apps render on HCL Nomad? 

A:  Forms and views which are created by Domino Volt can be rendered in HCL Nomad. What you will see is a basic form and view without styling. This is because Domino Volt renders apps as web apps that use HTML, CSS and JavaScript – which does not work in Nomad. 

Q: When it comes to getting data from a Domino database, can the database filename be computed (based on supplied data at runtime) rather than having to select a database when defining the service? 

A: There is no ability to dynamically select the database currently based on supplied data at runtime. 

Q: When selecting a Domino DB resource and viewing the drop-down list of Domino DBs, how is the list generated? What happens when a DB has multiple replicas – either clustered or non-clustered? 

A: With this release, it reads the files system in the local server (where Domino Volt is installed) and shows the directory in which the app is located. The next release will handle external Domino server queries.  

Q: What are the implications of the depositor access limitation for anonymous users on application complexity. For instance, lookups to data in views for populating drop-down fields, invoking services, etc.? 

A: Domino Volt designers will need to be mindful of access rights when building anonymous apps that use services. This will in some cases limit what data you can expose to anonymous users. 

Q: Is it possible to get hidden field information, like creation date or current stage? 

A: Yes. There are JS calls to get all of this. You can find these here as well as in the new type ahead of the JS editor.  

Q: Is there a way to import JavaScript files to use in your application? 

A: Yes, JavaScript file can be referenced or directly imported into your apps.  There are some samples in the community on using external JS libraries. Check them out here.  

Q: Is it possible to define a conditional number of approval stages? For approvals related to monetary value usually the higher number will require more approval.  

A: You could do this with a display rule. You’d have different submit and maybe stage based on the criteria you choose.  You would have two “Submit” buttons, but they show up based on different criteria and may go to a different stage that has different requirements.  

Q: Is Domino Volt available without Docker? 

A: Yes, it is.  

Q: Could you provide the link to download Docker image to test offline? 

A: The Docker image install option is only available to entitled customers in their Flexnet download area. 

Q: Where do you download the SAP Connectors and find the HEI downloads? 

A: The download area for Domino Volt in Flexnet will provide access to these. 

Q: Is it possible to access data from previous Domino versions? 

A: Yes.  Data stored in NSFs that were created in earlier versions of Domino can be accessed by Volt.  The only requirement is that the NSF be on the same server as Domino Volt. 

Q: The user interface looks like HCL Leap. Are you planning to merge HCL Leap and Domino Volt? 

A: They are separate products. Domino Volt is for Domino customers whereas HCL Leap is a standalone offering. You will see more alignment between these two offerings in the future.  

Q: Can I use Bootstrap templates? 

A: You can use HTML5 components (in the HTML palette item) and I’ve used jQuery components as well. You can use components of it, but not a Bootstrap page template to house the entire application (yet).  

Q: What are current limitations of Domino data access? 

A: With this release you’re limited to accessing data from Domino apps that are on the same server as Domino Volt.  

DOMINO VOLT LICENSING  

Q: How are anonymous users licensed? 

A: Anonymous users don’t require licenses. Authenticated users require licenses. Domino Volt requires an organization to purchase the equivalent number of Domino Volt licenses as their base Domino licenses.  

Q: Can you clarify how anonymous access includes guest users? Are these user accounts authenticated in a secondary address book? 

A: The CCB entitlement includes access for Guest Users to HCL Domino servers deployed under this entitlement.   A “Guest User” can be Anonymous, where “Anonymous Access” to the Program is without verification of a user’s unique identity, or Authenticated Access with restricted maximum level of Domino application access (ACL) as “DEPOSITOR”. 

The user records in a Domino directory or a federated LDAP will contain the HTTP userid an Password for the user – either created by an Administrator or by an app allowing user registration with creation of credentials and admin of these – typically an administrator would designate a particular LDAP for this (can be a Domino directory).  And this use must be set with a max ACL authorization as Depositor.  

Depositors and Readers  

Depositors can insert documents into a database but they cannot read those documents. Readers, on the other hand, can read documents, but cannot deposit them. Although opposite in function, they complement each other conceptually because each is dedicated to a single purpose. (One additional right Readers have is that they can run agents.)  

So, for Domino Volt this means – Anonymous users (ACL=Reader) can:   

  • read public web info,  
  • participate in surveys 

Logged-in users (ACL=Depositor) can:  

  • deposit info, no edits  
  • post blog comments 
  • create interest profile  
  • read community content  

Q: Will Domino Volt support guest users (AzureAD guests or Connections Community guests) for free? 

A: The concepts are unrelated. If you are anonymous to Domino, for example, going to a URL without any specific transfer of credentials (SAML) and no login to Domino you’re classified as anonymous. Hence supported as an Anonymous Guest to Domino and Domino Volt. Note that we also have a Logged-in Guest which do login using valid credentials but limited by Domino on what this user can do. (See above) 

Q: How many paid Domino Volt licenses will I need for external authenticated web utility server users when I licensed Domino Volt for all our internal domino users? Is it unlimited like utility itself?  

  • All your internal users of Domino Volt must have an Authorized User entitlement to Domino Volt.  And all external users who customer permits creating Domino Volt applications and running full capabilities of Volt applications must be Authorized Users.  
  • You need Domino Volt Authorized User licenses for all internal/external users needing full capabilities  
  • Utility Server also support unauthenticated, anonymous access to applications on the server, which also applies to Domino Volt on Utility Server. 

Q: Is it possible to try Domino Volt on my own server without buying licenses for all my users?  

A: Yes, a trial can be requested from sales or you can try the Domino Volt sandbox. To purchase Domino Volt all Domino licensees must also be licensed for Domino Volt. 

Z AND I EMULATOR (ZIE) 

Q: What is ZIE? Is that an additional LICPGM? 

A: HCL ZIE for Transformation is a licensed program which needs to be purchased separately to Domino Volt. This product transforms green screen application to REST APIs which can be consumed by Volt applications. Please look at the series of videos. If you have additional questions, please contact ZIO@hcl.com and we would be happy to help.  

Q: Is there a solution on Domino Volt for Green Screen Application (Mainframe CICS Apps)? 

A: Yes. HCL ZIE for Transformation enables integration of green screen applications (including mainframe CICS apps) into Domino Volt application.  

Q: What is the license cost for ZIE? 

A: ZIE for Transformation is licensed based on the number of users. We do not publish our price. Please contact your sales rep or contact ZIO@hcl.com.  

Q: Is ZIE a separate Machine/Docker? 

A: ZIE for Transformation is a) development tool to transform green screen applications, and b) run-time library to perform the transformation of green screen applications. In the example we presented during the webinar, the green screen application is transformed to a set of REST APIs. These APIs are consumed by Domino Volt application.  

Q: Do the HCL Quick Start Services only apply to IBM Z and I platforms? 

A: HCL Quick Start Services is available for any customer who is interested in integrating green screen applications on System Z and I platforms in Domino Volt applications using HCL ZIE for Transformation product.  

Q: Is there any way to query a green screen? 

A: You can invoke green screens and retrieve output using HCL ZIE for Transformation. It is possible to retrieve output from a single green screen or combine outputs from multiple green screens.  

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Licensing Update: HCL Complete Collaboration (CCB) Guest Licensing

29. Juli 2020 Posted by Uffe Sorensen

Since July 2019, it has been HCL Digital Solutions’ mission to help our customers and business partners by introducing contemporary licensing and making license management easier for all our products.

Today, we are taking the next step towards consolidating all of our Domino licensing on a “per user” license model – the HCL Domino Complete Collaboration offering a.k.a “CCB.”

Effectively immediately, customers with HCL Domino Servers deployed under CCB Authorized User entitlements can be accessed by a Licensee’s entitled CCB Authorized Users and Guest Users.

A “Guest User” can be an anonymous web user (no authentication), or an authenticated web user with a predefined maximum level of Domino application access (ACL) as “Depositor.”

In addition, HCL Domino servers under CCB may participate in mail routing (SMTP), directory lookup and authentication (LDAP) for non-HCL Domino programs and permit access to free/busy time calendar information.

HCL made these changes to the CCB license based on customer requests to facilitate:
• A read-only external or internal web site for Guest Users
• Data collection using surveys generated by Domino Volt 1.0.1 and its anonymous user support available today.
• Removing the need for a separate Utility Server license for Guest Users with complex PVU reporting requirements.
• Clarifying licensing for mail and calendar interoperability in multi-vendor scenarios involving our partner’s solutions.

In August, HCL plans to update the formal License Information found here. In the meantime, you may refer to this blog or you can request a formal Product Notice for compliance.

If you have any questions about this announcement or have any licensing questions, please contact your HCL product specialist or Business Partner.

Uffe Sorensen & the Domino Product Team

Disclaimer – HCL’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at HCL’s sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion. Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard HCL benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multi programming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here.

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Meet the New Release of Domino Volt

28. Juli 2020 Posted by Martin Lechleider

Back in April, we launched Domino Volt, a new low-code capability powered by Domino that makes it easy to develop powerful workflow-based apps. If you need an introduction, check out our latest video: 

As promised during the launch, Domino Volt is committed to a quarterly release cycle and the latest release is now here. Domino Volt customers can download v1.0.1 on Flexnet today!  

We’ve been hard at work implementing feedback and requests gathered from our beta participants and customers and we’re excited to announce that we have more than 10 new features and enhancements. Keep giving us your input and ideas — we build our roadmaps with you.  

This latest release continues to empower users across the organization to build apps without needing technical skills while providing more value to your Domino investment. Highlights include: 

  • Unleashing Your Domino Data: With point-and-click integration, users can surface Domino data in their apps without writing any code. 
  • Extend Your Application’s Reach: Increase engagement beyond your logged-in users with anonymous access to apps.  
  • Empower Citizen Developers with Enterprise Data: Easily look up enterprise data, sales or directory information without needing technical knowledge. 

Building apps is now faster with easier workflow creation and access to data and you get more value from your apps by extending app usage outside your organization! Join us on July 30th for the global launch webinar as we walk you through all the new features in this release. We will be including several demos. 

Full Feature Set: What’s New in v1.0.1 

  • Anonymous Access: Extend the value of Domino Volt to those outside of your organization by building apps which can be used without having to authenticate against your directory.
  • Direct Access to Domino Data: Domino Volt designers now have a simplified way to integrate data from Domino views and documents into their apps.  
  • Out-of-the Box Directory Services: Easily look up information about people in your directory, such as determining an employee’s manager, email address, location, or any other data contained in the directory.
  • Dynamic Role Assignments: Dynamically assign users to roles. For example, you can assign an employee’s manager to have an “approver” role for submitted requests. This feature works with the new out-of-the-box directory services.
  • Application Upgrade: Update an app already in production with edits and modifications. This updates the app in place, so the URL used to access the app and data collected so far stays intact.
  • Docker Container: This container delivery helps to streamline the setup and management of your Domino Volt deployment. A preconfigured sample environment is included as an option for easy setup, for learning and evaluation purposes. 
  • Improved File User Interface in Text Widget: Easily add and manage files and images used in your Text items.
  • New JavaScript Editor: The new editor highlights JavaScript syntax and provides prebuilt code snippets and an object selector for fast code completion — increasing designers’ productivity. 
  • New JavaScript Functions: Build custom navigation and use buttons or other items from the palette for form submission. New functions include – form.getStageAction(),  app.getProductBaseURL(),   app.getFormLaunchURL() and app.getRecordURL().
  • PDF Document Integration: Add fillable PDF templates to your app for PDF document creation. Capture data and push it into the template. Store the resulting PDF locally or with the submission record.
  • Service Catalog: Define and catalog service definitions which can be used by Domino Volt app designers. This “define once and use by all” approach allows organizations to build and reuse integrations points specific to their organization and let Domino Volt designers build them into their apps without any technical knowledge of the API. 

Want to try these new features? We’ve updated the Domino Volt sandbox with the latest version so register for a free sandbox account to play around. For those who already have a sandbox account, new sample apps will be uploaded here this week for you to try out anonymous access, directory services, and access to Domino data.

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Going Inline with Domino Views

23. Juli 2020 Posted by John Curtis

I have spent many years working deep within the Notes Indexing Facility (NIF). I’m not done, because there is more to be done and harvested from the rich functionality well-bundled from day one by the earliest Domino developers. It can be a challenging area because so much variety of data flows through the code and onto the glass. If one is not careful, you will make one user story a delight while another becomes quite less so. 

One of the most problematic operations in NIF is its handling of updates. Someone could say “Well, what is the problem? Other database products have no issue updating their indexes, why is Domino any different?” The answer lies in the ease with which views and folders are created in Designer. It is a very common story that views constantly grow in number and complexity. 

So, I often reply to the question of the difference this way: “If you went to your MySQL or Oracle or DB2 or MongoDB administrator and asked for 200-1000 indexes on your database, what would they say?” Of course, they would laugh you out of the room, as they should. Yet, that number of indexes is quite normal on a Domino database and it is why they are updated lazily, on a scheduled or as triggered or forced. There are a variety of update/refresh rules and I will not go into them here. 

Some of the costliest issues with NIF are due to excessive queueing for updates. Most of the APIs and documentation call it “refreshing” when a user opens a view and wants to see the latest updates, which is completely reasonable. The trouble what when a large number of users (well, threads) do that at once, they each compete for the right to update the view in a “fair read/write” queue – that is, those who only want to read get no preference over writers (we don’t starve updates). The result can be a breach in Service Level Agreement (SLA) timings and opening a view simply takes too long. 

Following is a diagram I put together for SPR JCUS8MXLA2. Included in the mix is the “Update Task” representing scheduled, dedicated view updating: 

You may or may not know that in the v9.01 feature packs, Domino development rather quietly produced a feature to attack this problem. It is called “inline view updating” or just “inline.” You can toggle it on via

load updall <database name> [-T <viewname>] -inline on/off

What this does is to apply view updates at time of document updating. All refresh requests at view open time can therefore be treated as nops, as they are. Document updating becomes a heavier unit of work, but the view open and read performance trade-off is worth it.

A second effort was launched in Domino V10, which detects and then automatically creates a dedicated update thread to high usage views. It is enabled via NIF_VIEW_USAGE_ENABLED=1 in notes.ini.

I wanted to measure the effect of the first effort, -inline, so this summer at HCL Chelmsford (well, at home due to COVID-19) I’ve had the privilege of working with an intern in core Domino, Joseph Calles. I set Joseph on a quest to provide real timings with -inline on and off. He wrote some scripts that allowed him to vary the read vs update load against a 200K document database with three views and collected stats using “show trans” at the Domino console. Joseph capped the document update and view operations at 10/second, but of course your numbers will scale according to volume, bulk of data and hardware utilized.

No one is claiming these numbers are real-world, the data and processing is automated. But they are consistent relative to the gathered set. And they show some trends people should know about as they consider using -inline. The variance in test load was simple: for each run, the number of all operations was incremented by one per second.

The OPEN_COLLECTION transaction is what bogs down trying to update a view when inline is off. The benefit is very clear to see in the first graph, and it should be noted that without inline, time to open a view increases much faster than linearly. That .. is the log jam I mentioned.

In the second graph, open view and read view entries are combined to provide a single duration. This is close to what a user would experience opening a view and getting his/her first window of entries rendered. Again, the spike with larger numbers of transactions without -inline is clear.

Now, very few SLAs will be violated with 800 millisecond response. Again, the point is the curve. Showing maximum time to open a view shows the erratic, worst-case user experience, which would indeed violate most SLAs (note, times are in seconds in this graph):

Truth in advertising — document update times do increase with -inline on, but you would expect them to. And they don’t increase exponentially but linearly. But don’t confuse this with a decrease in throughput — it is not affected, only time to complete:

This final graph treats all operations — update, finds, view opens and view entry reads equally and averages their combined duration. So, overall duration impact of -inline processing if you will:

But it’s important to remember the original use case — multiple users trying to open and read a view but first “refreshing” (that is, updating). With -inline on, the refresh operation is unnecessary since any view being read is updated during a NSFNoteUpdate operation. So those view open operations are much lighter weight.

To say it again, this behavior is “normal” for transaction-centric database systems, especially the relational variety where data lives in neat rectangles (ok, they have progressed a bit). But in Domino, a document-storing and -processing NoSQL engine that supports so many different indexes constructing index data so many different ways, a lazy update model is appropriate lots of the time. And the -inline feature addresses those cases where it is not appropriate.

So, if you have contentious views — and please, not all views are hotly contended for — I recommend you strongly consider turning on inline view updating, using

load updall <database name> -inline on -T <name of contentious view>

And reap good benefit.

I would beware of turning it on for all views in a database as the document update cost could then surge. You know your most contentious views; tackle those first.

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The Art of the Possible with HCL Domino Volt

22. Juli 2020 Posted by Francois Nasser

We recently hosted our first HCL Domino Volt roundtable session, a series where we introduce HCL Domino Volt topics and host open discussions with our customers and partners. In this session, we covered several use cases for Domino Volt apps. We focused on visually enhancing out-of-the-box components with pure CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) and JavaScript. If you missed the live session, you can catch the replay here or read the recap below.

Domino today is used by over 15,000 customers globally to develop applications that run their business. With the introduction of Domino Volt, our mission was not only to protect the investment of our Domino customers but also accelerate their ability to deliver business solutions faster and increase the value of Domino. By providing our customers and partner with new application development capabilities that extend throughout the organization, we empower everyone to build solutions while still taking advantage of Domino’s security, reliability and low TCO.  In just 3 months since our launch, over 80 new customers have taken advantage of Domino Volt to accelerate their delivery of applications to the business.

Here at HCL, we believe in drinking our own Champagne (or “dogfooding” as the software industry calls it.) We recently launched an internal hackathon to see if our team could build apps to solve our business challenges as well as other real-world challenges facing our customers or community. More than 20 teams with more than 50 members across the globe participated, and none had prior Domino Volt experience! Some of the submissions were from sales team members who had no development experience at all. They were only given two weeks to design, develop, test, and deliver their apps — on top of their day jobs!

We were thoroughly impressed with the apps submitted. Using CSS, the teams got creative with their app designs and created solutions that solved exciting challenges. Here are some apps we want to highlight:

  • Blood bank app: Donors can submit their details, see emergency blood requests by type and location, and review criteria to donate blood.
  • Smart help desk: Users can create and submit IT support tickets
  • Weather app: Using a Google map integration, users can specify a point on the map to view the weather forecast in that selected area
  • Food delivery app: Charities can coordinate food aid deliveries to people in need, saving time for coordinators, and reducing errors.
  • Online-store: A full web retail shopping site
  • Vendor registration: Onboard vendors according to company policy
As you can see from the examples above, with a little CSS you can turn a simple sheet into a beautiful app and the process is pretty simple. Business users can develop their apps in Domino Volt by importing a spreadsheet or by simply dragging and dropping fields and actions. They can then apply styles with the Style Editor or import CSS provided by IT, and within hours have a great looking, ready-to-deploy application leveraging the approved Domino platform!

What’s Next? 

If you’d like to play around with Domino Volt, register for our sandbox to get started. It’s free and runs on a browser, which means no installation required. You can explore documentation on how to work with CSS and Domino Volt and try building your own apps.

We have an exciting upcoming new release of Domino Volt. We have more than ten new features and enhancements coming your way, including the highly requested anonymous access, direct access to Domino data, and out-of-the-box directory services. Please join us for the launch webinar on July 30 (you can also replay it later at the same link).

Lastly, we’re inviting you to two more scheduled roundtable sessions! We encourage open discussions, so come with your questions.

  • Roundtable 2: Domino Volt Application Integration Strategies, August 12, 2 pm ET. We’ll cover integration techniques and options within Domino Volt, including other Domino Volt applications, REST services, and Domino Views. Register here.
  • Roundtable 3: Domino Volt Deployment Topologies, August 27, 2 pm ET. We’ll cover different deployment options to fit your needs. Register here.

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Licensing Update: Reporting PVU Compliance for HCL Domino

25. Juni 2020 Posted by Uffe Sorensen

Since July 2019, HCL Digital Solutions has been committed to introducing modern licensing, license management, and support lifecycle practices for all our products. We know this is a journey over multiple years and we know that managing license compliance is complex. Specifically, dealing with virtualized servers and sub-capacity licensing for products on a Processor Value Unit (PVU) metric. 

While we intend to replace Domino PVU-based licenses with a simpler approach in the foreseeable future, we know that our customers want to know how to document their compliance with the IBM or HCL capacity-based licensing terms. Today, we are announcing that we will be consolidating our PVU compliance rules across all our products, starting with the Domino family – see “Reporting” section below for reporting methods accepted. Importantly, this announcement has no impact on any customer’s entitlements or license payments. 

DEFINITIONS 

What is Processor Value Unit licensing?
A Processor Value Unit (PVU) is a unit of measure used to quantify licensing of software on different processor technologies and configurations. HCL defines a processor, for purposes of PVU-based licensing, to be each processor core on a chip (socket). Each processor core has a specific PVU capacity dependent on physical implementation as can be seen in IBM’s PVU Table by Processor Vendor, Brand, Type and Model Number here.  

What is Sub-Capacity licensing?
A program can be deployed using either Full Capacity or Virtualization Capacity (Sub-Capacity) licensing. 

  • For Full Capacity licensing, (“bare metal”) customers need PVU entitlements to cover the entire physical server hardware where the program is running. 
  • Where Sub-Capacity (Virtual Servers) licensing is permitted, customers need PVU entitlements to cover all activated processor cores made available to the Virtual Servers used by the Program. This is normally a lower PVU count than bare-metal licensing. Likewise, Sub-Capacity licensing applies to BYOSL deployment on Public Cloud environments. 

REPORTING 

All Domino customers are required to maintain a record of their total PVUs allocated to the product. The report must be presented to HCL on request (per HCL Master License Agreement, §12, available here.) 

HCL now accepts the following reports for Full Capacity and Sub-Capacity licensing: 

Version HCL PVU Calculator 
(1) 		 HCL BigFix 
(2) 		 IBM 
ILMT 
(3) 		 Manual Spreadsheet
(4) 
HCL Domino V11+ X X X
HCL Domino V9, V10 X X X X
  1. The new HCL PVU Calculator is now available to HCL registered customers. View Calculator here.  
  2. HCL BigFix Inventory that includes PVU reporting for Virtual Deployments. 
  3. IBM License Metric Tool (ILMT) which is a tool available to IBM Passport Advantage customers. 
  4. A manual spreadsheet published and maintained by IBM.  Download Spreadsheet here. (Note: HCL assumes no responsibility for maintenance of this spreadsheet or associated documentation. However, HCL will accept this documentation solely for former IBM Domino customers to help with continuity.) 

IMPLEMENTATION 

The use of the various reporting methods is effective immediately, and all relevant product-based License Information (LI) documents will be updated at their next revision to simply point to HCL’s standard PVU compliance guidelines as provided above. 

If you have any questions about this announcement, please contact your HCL product specialist or Business Partner. 

Domino/Digital Solutions Product Team

Disclaimer – HCL’s statements regarding its plans, directions, and intent are subject to change or withdrawal without notice at HCL’s sole discretion. Information regarding potential future products is intended to outline our general product direction and it should not be relied on in making a purchasing decision. The information mentioned regarding potential future products is not a commitment, promise, or legal obligation to deliver any material, code or functionality. Information about potential future products may not be incorporated into any contract. The development, release, and timing of any future features or functionality described for our products remains at our sole discretion. Performance is based on measurements and projections using standard HCL benchmarks in a controlled environment. The actual throughput or performance that any user will experience will vary depending upon many factors, including considerations such as the amount of multi programming in the user’s job stream, the I/O configuration, the storage configuration, and the workload processed. Therefore, no assurance can be given that an individual user will achieve results similar to those stated here. 

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Sharing Domino Data: How Do You Solve a Problem Like Formatted Text?

24. Juni 2020 Posted by Paul Withers

We know that there can be sticky challenges in sharing Domino data — the fidelity of Notes Rich Text has long been an issue when sharing data outside of the platform. The standard starting point is the Notes Rich Text field renderer/editor and Notes Rich Text Item storage format. They become hard constraints that any solution needs to fit within, a box outside of which we should not think. 

At HCL Labs, we take a more radical approach. When new members were recently brought on board, they were instructed to not just think outside the box but to set the box on fire! This may result in approaches that don’t suit everyone. But the mandate we were given for Project Rosetta, an internal proof of concept, was to find an innovative solution for fidelity of formatted content for use outside of Domino with only one must–have: the data must be stored in Domino, in some format. Jason Roy Gary, Digital Solutions CTO, covered the outcome in the DNUG launch event and the recent OpenNTF webinar. You can catch the 10-minute presentation between 40:27-50:44 here or read on for more details.

Terms of Reference 

One of the early actions was to be very specific about terminology. For a Domino audience, the phrase “rich text” is inextricably coupled with the Notes editor and a specific storage format. As a result, we have made a conscious effort to refer to handling “formatted text”. I would strongly encourage anyone else discussing this to do the same, to avoid false assumptions. 

Two radical options remained on the table throughout: that Notes may need a different editor/renderer for this content and that existing content may require a one-off conversion, if that content wants to leverage the benefits. There were also two key expectations we acknowledged: This was not intended to replace Notes Rich Text and not all existing Notes Rich Text should be converted. If the content is only used in Notes Client or third–party solutions manage the problem already, the status quo is acceptable. 

Starting Point 

For our starting point, we asked this question: what are the standard editors beyond Domino, and what formats do they use? This seems a simple question, but what became apparent is that the Notes Rich Text editor is used for three specific purposes, each of which have specific paradigms and interoperable formats when considered independently of Domino. 

“Document processing” 

Occasionally in Domino I’ve seen Rich Text Editors and Items used for managing complex, strictly formatted content like policies and procedures. Sometimes the applications around that content has been designed to mimic complex document processing functionality like change tracking as well. Beyond Domino, this content is typically managed in a specific document processing tool, like Microsoft Word and even collaborative editors like HCL Connections Docs, Google Docs or Collabora.

After many years of resistance, the vendors have all moved to a standard format for interoperability, OOXML. The storage format includes some metadata not openly editable in the document processing editors, things like author, tags etc. But that metadata is fixed and limited in scope. The editors do not allow manipulation of the custom metadata. The editors also only permit editing one file at a time. 

Despite attempts to “store once, share everywhere,” complications of security and access often result in the content being copied around. The document is sent as a single discreet package with all images, embedded files etc included. This commonly results in a file that is too large for HTTP or even email sending, requiring the user to compress the file or copy to some secure file sharing solution, whether that be products like Connections or temporary transfer protocols like SFTP. 

This is a very specific paradigm, matching a Form with virtually no additional metadata and a single Rich Text Item. We acknowledged it as a valid use case, but a narrow one. It would be interesting to investigate whether we can store the content in a format that would allow in-place rendering but also allow editing in one of those external editors, e.g. Microsoft Word. But it was not appropriate to the current scope.

Email 

Email has always been a core part of Notes and Domino. At the time Domino was launched, email was not in wide usage. Indeed, MIME was not defined by IETF until 1992. However, MIME has become the de facto standard for interoperability outside of Domino. If you receive an email from outside Domino, it will be stored as MIME. Only emails from Domino domains will be stored as Notes Rich Text. 

Again, there is specific but limited metadata. For MIME emails, the Item type that addresses are stored in is not Text, it’s RFC822 Text. That’s a different data type internally within Domino, but one that the Notes Client is (presumably) programmed to interpret in a specific way. That is interesting and informative. 

The storage structure is also very particular for this use case. The email is only ever referenced from source by the sender. Everyone else receives their own copy of the email. There has never been an attempt to store a “single version of the truth” which all recipients reference. Consequently, what is circulated is a single package containing text, images and files – as with document processing. Size of associated content may be prohibitive, which is why many emails these days reference external images and may link to files on central services like Connections Files or Box. 

This is also a very specific paradigm, not matching the typical usage in applications. Would interoperability of email be easier if Domino stored this content as MIME instead of Notes Rich Text, and if the Notes Client had an alternative editor / renderer to use MIME rather than Notes Rich Text? That’s beyond the scope of our current investigation. But again, this type of content was left out-of-scope. 

Formatted Content in Fields in Forms 

The third scenario is formatted content in arbitrary fields in forms. The editors are not document processing tools, nor mail clients. There were various editors used, but the output fell into two categories – HTML and markdown. 

For editing markdown, there are two types of editors. The first type are editors in IDEs (VS Code) or standalone (Joplin) and these are designed to edit markdown files only. As with the document processing tools, these are out of scope. The second type are markdown editors that can be embedded into an application, like the editor on OpenNTF’s website or Stephan Wissel’s comment area on his blog. These more closely correlate to the kind of editor for a Domino application. They also map closely to editors that provide content as HTML, such as TinyMCE or framework-specific editors like the Vaadin rich text editor. 

There are some other significant differences to document processors and email editors. Firstly, the content is not intended to be copied around, only referenced. Secondly, images and file attachments are typically stored separately, which allows them to be cached by whatever client is displaying the content. Indeed, blog platforms like WordPress require these assets to be stored separately and the editors enforce this. Even in Domino, Declan Lynch’s Blogsphere template takes the approach of storing assets separately. Thirdly, there may be multiple formatted text editors on a form. And fourthly, the metadata adjacent to the formatted content – i.e. other fields – is random and rarely do two forms contain the same sets of metadata. 

This is the scenario Project Rosetta targeted. As can be seen from this analysis, there are key differences to how Notes Rich Text editors and Items function. But the use case we targeted was exclusively for content that is intended to be shared beyond Domino. 

Architecture Choices 

Our proof of concept had a simple goal: investigate feasibility of allowing content to be managed as HTML or markdown, ideally converted between the two, and stored in Domino. 

Typically, content is entered in one or the other. Markdown is a nice flexible approach for quick editing with basic semantic formatting, and it opens up some interesting opportunities for consumption. There are also some options available in markdown that are not easily available in HTML like note blocks. But I’m conscious that expecting users from Marketing or HR, for example, to enter content as markdown is not realistic. Converting between markdown and HTML and vice versa would solve this problem and is analogous to the low-code / pro-code round-tripping approach that has been discussed for Domino’s low–code vision. 

We built the API layer on top of Project Keep. The challenge we had was, if we were to send this content alongside other fields, how do we determine the data type that should be stored? In Keep and in Domino HTTP, attachments are already uploaded and retrieved as separate REST calls to accessing field data. So, we took the same approach here. The flow, at this point, would be to create the document with one call, then upload attachments or images as a separate call, then uploading or retrieving formatted content with Content-Type as “text/html” or “text/markdown.” Could that change? Of course. 

In terms of technology, Keep is Java and in Java the standard library for HTML manipulation is JSoup, the standard library for markdown conversion is flexmark. 

The benefit of keeping this manipulation between the two output types on the server is that clients just need to speak HTML or markdown. Different flavours of markdown may prove a challenge in the future, but that’s for the future. For app developers, you bring your own editor, we provide consistent conversion. Handling it on the server also allows a phase for cleaning the HTML. I am particularly keen to ensure we retain this as it opens up a number of potential innovative opportunities which I’m not ready to discuss at this time. 

Admittedly, it may be trying to solve a problem no one has. But R&D is about thinking about a problem differently and coming up with a solution not suggested before. It’s about being Icarus, daring to fly higher but willing to fall. 

I think we achieved what we set out to do, with a demo that went from mobile, to web, to an idea of what Nomad could handle with appropriate editors on top of the raw HTML / markdown, back to the web and back to mobile. It’s certainly not complete and work on Notes Client / Nomad would be required. And, as I said, it doesn’t cover all scenarios. But it demonstrates getting formatted content into and out of Domino without the peculiarities of Notes Rich Text, using something more universal. That opens up a new way for migrating formatted content from non-Domino databases into an NSF, so appealing to non-traditional audiences. And as Jason showed at the end of the session, thinking beyond Notes Rich Text for formatted content is a requirement for non-traditional clients and transfer formats, like EWS. 

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Announcing HCL Domino Connector for SAP Solutions

23. Juni 2020 Posted by Thomas Hampel

We’re pleased to announce the release of HCL Domino Connector for SAP Solutions. This connector now simplifies integration between HCL Domino applications and various SAP enterprise solutions, specifically, CRM, HR, ERP, and finance applications.  

The Domino Connector helps organizations save time by enabling the use of LotusScript to easily access SAP data without specialized or costly SAP training. The SAP connector easily installs over HCL Enterprise Integrator giving your Notes application team easy access to your SAP data. Additionally, with the 32-bit connector installed on Notes clients, you’re able to perform SAP tasks, retrieve SAP data, and initiate SAP actions.  

Learn more about HCL Domino Connector for SAP Solutions by viewing documentation here.  

Using this connector, you can:  

  • Facilitate data transfer and real-time access to SAP enterprise applications from an HCL Domino v11.0.1 server or HCL Notes v11.0.1 client. 
  • Use one or more HCL Domino servers to centralize connectivity to SAP applications.
  • Use server-based Domino application development tools, such as HCL Enterprise Integrator software, to enable SAP solution access without programming.
  • Integrate SAP solution information and business processes into web enabled HCL Domino applications.
  • Access remote enabled RFC’s, BAPI’s, and transactions.
  • Run agents from your Notes client, as well as use the LotusScript debugger to troubleshoot applications. 

HCL Connector for SAP Solutions supports:  

  • 64-bit Linux and Windows systems 
  • SAP 4.6c to ECC6, which allows you to take advantage of SAP’s capabilities 
  • HCL Domino v11.0.1 
  • SAP RFC SDK Client 7.2

Have an SAP solution to integrate with your Domino app? Contact sales to find out more about this release and how to purchase your connector.  

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COVID-19 Success Story: HCL Domino to the Rosie’s Restaurant Rescue

17. Juni 2020 Posted by Carl Tyler

Nestled in the picturesque American town of Tamworth, New Hampshire, you’ll find the popular and award–winning Rosie’s Restaurant.  This restaurant is one of those places where you go in, take a seat, and everyone including the staff treat you like family — a business doesn’t get a 4.9 (out of 5) star rating by providing bad service.  

Like many businesses, Rosie’s has been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and was forced to close its doors due to restrictions imposed on restaurants in the state. They were waiting for news on when and how they could reopen.  In early May the news came that restaurants could serve people outdoors as long as they were seated at least 6 feet.  Rose Scolaro, owner of Rosie’s restaurant said, “We didn’t have much time, we really had to kick into high gear to prepare ourselves for the return of customers. We built numerous picnic tables and installed a large canopy to protect patrons from any inclement weather.  We still had a tricky issue, though. With picnic tables spread out across quite a large area, we needed an easy way to inform customers that their order was ready.”

Rose contacted Epilio, an HCL Business Partner, to see if they could help.  Carl Tyler, CEO of Epilio tell us, “Rose came to us, and explained their situation, and knowing the pain businesses are feeling, we wanted to help, and we knew Rosie needed a solution — and fast. A few years ago, we’d developed an airplane reservation system using Domino and Twilio, so that users could be informed of booking changes via SMS text notifications.  I explained to Rose that we could very quickly implement a system that could send a text message to her customers informing them when their order is ready.  Using the fast development capabilities of HCL Domino, two days later we presented a solution to Rosie and her staff.” 

“It was great!” explained Rose. “Carl loaded up a web page on an iPad, and explained how when we took an order we could enter the customer’s order number and telephone number, and then press a button to send a message when the order was ready. We were thrilled! We’ve been using it every day since we reopened. At the end of each day, we can easily see how many messages were sent, and how that day compares to other days.” 

“The combination of Domino and Twilio really is very powerful, and with the newer functionality HCL has added to Domino, it was even easier to integrate than when we had built the Twilio integration previously,” said Tyler. 

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HCL stellt „HCL Digital Solutions Academy“ vor

8. Juni 2020 Posted by Gerda Marx

Knapp ein Jahr nach der Übernahme der Notes/Domino Sparte von IBM sagte Richard Jefts (General Manager HCL Digital Solutions) in seiner Eröffnungsrede der DNUG47online, dass die Akquise der IBM Software ein guter Griff gewesen sei und die gesteckten Ziele fast alle erreicht wurden. HCL hat im Notes/Domino Bereich alles [...]

Der Beitrag HCL stellt „HCL Digital Solutions Academy“ vor erschien zuerst auf hedersoft Blog.

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5 Myths about Domino You Need to Stop Believing Right Now

2. Juni 2020 Posted by Matt Engstrom

Even though some of us wish they were real since it was said they could make poisonous water potable and heal sickness — both things that could certainly come in handy — unicorns are the making of fantasy. While Domino isn’t a mythical creature of great grace, it has proven its security, versatility, scalability and value in large enterprises for the last thirty years. Because it’s been around so long and has such a committed and die-hard customer community (even calling themselves “Team Yellow”) it has taken on legendary status. It has also inherited misconceptions — such as the platform is out of date or even obsolete. Nothing is further from the truth. Let’s walk you through some of these myths and show you what is possible with the Domino of today.

HCL Nomad brings the power of HCL Domino applications beyond the desktop, directly to where your users need to be. Get the same applications, unparalleled security, and offline capabilities — now on mobile. Deliver your apps on Apple iPhone and iPad, Android phones, and Android and Chrome OS tablets with minimal effort. Check out this feature sheet to learn more about HCL Nomad. 

While you can still use your Notes client to access your Domino apps, apps can now be written for web browsers. Existing apps can be modified to run on a browser, and new apps can be written for browser access. The example you see here is an internal app we use for order processing written for the web and is used daily by our sales team.  

As much as we love and appreciate our Domino developers and administrators fluent in LotusScript and XPages, we want to open organization up to a much broader range of skills and talent and future proof your investment.  

Now, any JavaScript developer can enhance, integrate and build new applications that include data and processes from Domino — without rewriting from scratch. This example here is a tracker application built with a web UI written in React – complete with cool filter sets. 

HCL Domino v11 is the most open version of the platform yet. Our integrations enable enterprises to more fully leverage Domino with other tools and applications across their business.  

Here we show a couple of integrations we’ve enabled. On the left, you see an integration between our internal sales app with our CRM system that enables real-time data verification. On the right, we’ve integrated an app with Slack to provide instant notifications within a channel. Within Slack, a user is able to directly approve or reject a proposal submission which then advances the document according to the workflow set in our app. 

Domino apps are rock–solid and reliable. Which is probably why most of our customers haven’t thought about redesigning their apps or assume that Domino doesn’t provide the flexibility to do so.  

Here are several examples of how we modernized an app to today’s design standards. We also recently wrote a blog post about it. We not only gave a complex, business-critical app a face lift, but made it work on mobile devices.

Domino v11. Fantastic, not fantasy. Get it done with Domino. Get a demo today.

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