User problems with Notes 6.0.1

[roosterup]

We just implemented notes and have had a heck of a time with our legal department. they live and die in email. here are just a few of there problems;

1. Can't set a default font for new memos or replys.

2. The formatting of emails sent outside the company is screwed up, specifically on replies. there are carriage returns in the text for no reason.

3. In a long threads, the "to" and "from" fields are on the right side. This is hard to look at.

4. Printed email look extremly different than whats on the screen.

5. Can't save an email out on the network like you could an EML file

6. Can't search for emails by subject or time.

7. Listserv

8. All attachements in thread fall to the bottom of email. Users like it better the way they are listed in outlook, through out the email.

9. mysterious doc-link

10. Can't forward email from the trash folder.

11. When sending a page on the net, notes steals the focus and keeps the focus after the mail is sent.

12. Favorite links doesn't sync with IE favorite links.

13. the to field in a new memo doesn't search on a users short name.

anyone else heard these kinds of grips? can I possibly fix any one of these?

 

[AmazingDominik]

hi,

You can "fix" most of them. However I do not have the time to explain all of the needed modifications here.

Some remarks however:

1/
Some of the things you mention are not "problems" but peoples "preferences" that they force upon the organization to resist the change. They want to keep on their Outlook where they have total control instead of accepting a controlled system such as Notes. Explaining the reason for these controls can "fix" this.

2/
Some of the things you mention are simply not true. User training can "fix" this. Number 6 for example will sound hilarious for experienced Notes users. Their is no other platform in the world that offers such advanced search possibilities then Notes.

3/
Some of the things you simply do not need when using Notes. Things such as exporting eml files for example. Notes offers very powerfull features that make the need for this obsolete.
If you look at Notes as a replacement for Exchange/Outlook: it is NOT. That is comparing a house with a car.
Notes is a complete groupware/intranet environment that can automate any workflow and make your company paperless while Outlook is an e-mail solution that offers only some basic collaboration tools.
Administrator, developer, and end-user training can also "fix" this.


4/
The remaning issues such as the default font, and displaying and formatting issues can easily be modified by an experienced Notes Administrator/developer.


I therefore suggest that you contact a Notes business partner near you who can assist in making these changes for you and provide Notes user training and Notes administration and development training.



Kind regards,

Dominik Malfait
dominik@amazingit.com

http://www.amazingit.com

 

[roosterup]

Well let's just consider 1. You could edit the .nsf and set the font to whatever, but when the mail templete was refreshed it would go back to the notes default. So the only way to solve this is change it back after every upgrade?

 

[AmazingDominik]

Hi again,

You can prevent your design modifications to be altered in the properties.

When you modify the form "memo" for example you can then look at the design properties (access this from the form list) of it and select: "Prohibit...."

Of course if a new version of Notes makes improvements to the memo form you will miss out on these.

For the mail template I keep a record of all the changes I made (a lot). I let upgrades replace the template and then I apply the changes again (a lot of copy and pasting) where applicable.

You normally do not upgrade every week, so that should be no problem.

You can also prevent upgrading for the whole mailbox design and still get the new templates: just create your own new template and modify it. Then replace the users mailboxes with this design. When you upgrade to a new version, the standard templates will be upgraded but not your own template!

On the other hand: If the user changes the "Default font" in the user preferences this will also change the "new memo" font. But off course this will also change the whole interface font so be carefull with that.

But then I wonder: why would a user want to change the default font? What is the added benefit of this? Is it only to look a bit more fancy? I would not let my users waste their time on that. What has that to do with business? And most mailservers will throw it out anyway and if they don't, you will need to be lucky that the recipient has the same font installed!
So, why bother? I am e-mailing 14 years now and never felt the need to change any font.

If you really need to keep exact formatting with logo's and fonts an things like that: create the memo in a Wordprocessor and attach it to a memo!
If you need to do that a lot: go to the user preferences and set the alternate memo editor to "Word" Then the user can choose "Create->Word memo" from the menu and create a fancy memo that will occupy a lot of server disk space, slow down your network, create high costs for recipients that need to dial in,....

So you see: there are many solutions to this. But the most easy one is to educate your users about e-mail etiquette... Special fonts or formatting should be avoided in memo's. The message is important and should be kept short, the way it looks is not important. They invented attachments for longer formatted texts!










Kind regards,

Dominik Malfait
dominik@amazingit.com

http://www.amazingit.com

 

[roosterup]

I guess it's not so much the font as it is the size. The top dog around here uses a high res on a small flat screen and has troulbe seeing the default fonts.