Even though we now count on nearly ubiquitous Internet connectivity and bandwidth, many legacy Notes applications depend on the ability to go offline. Notes has always been famous for its ability to replicate whatever data you needed to your laptop and (assuming your application was designed to work that way) enable you to continue working while unplugged, such as on the airplane, at the customer site, or at the vacation home where you can’t access the Internet.
With SharePoint Workspace 2010, you can synchronize lists, libraries and entire sites to your laptop, use them offline, and then sync up with the site the next time you are connected. This includes not only the data, but much of the logic of the site (including custom data entry forms), resource data (such as Lookup lists that your application depends on) and more. When you click the “Sync to My Computer” button, you can choose to download everything (the default), just the application but not the content, or a customized selection of available content.
SharePoint Workspace includes a lot of smarts about how application functionality should work when users go offline. For example, certain workflow operations will execute only when new documents are posted back to the server. Also, the offline application will try to connect to an online resource that the user decided not to replicate locally (so offline does not have to be all or nothing).
10 Ways SharePoint 2010 Will Affect Your Notes Migration
10 Ways SharePoint 2010 Will Affect Your Notes Migration
Over the past five years, many organizations have decided to abandon their legacy Lotus Notes/Domino environments and transition to a platform based on Microsoft collaboration technologies (Exchange Server, SharePoint and Office). Many of these organizations, though, have hesitated in tackling the most difficult part of this transition: migrating their applications from Notes to SharePoint. Some hesitate due to concerns about the cost of rebuilding their applications on SharePoint, while others worry whether SharePoint has all the capabilities that their applications would need.
Quest Software contends that the release of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and SharePoint Foundation 2010 has changed the situation dramatically, for two reasons. First, Microsoft added a great deal of functionality that directly targets the needs of enterprises migrating from Lotus Notes. Second, Microsoft significantly improved the tools for developing custom applications in SharePoint, thus reducing the time and cost required to rebuild applications.
This slideshow highlights 10 aspects of SharePoint 2010 identified by Quest Software that will change the game for enterprises of all sizes who want to use SharePoint to replace or enhance their Notes environments. The first six items are major platform and functionality improvements that Notes people should especially appreciate and that will change their thinking about how applications might be rebuilt. The last four items address improvements of particular interest to developers who want to rebuild the functionality of their Notes applications on SharePoint.
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