Lotus Notes 7.0 Migration from 6.5 for End Users

Overview

People use Notes/Domino in all sorts of different ways – two of the most popular being email and messaging. With that in mind, Notes/Domino 7 offers significantly enhanced mail functionality and expanded calendar and scheduling. This document covers some of the more important and useful of these new features and assumes that you are familiar with basic Notes functionality.

New mail features

Notes 7 mail offers a significant number of new features. These include:

• Message marking based on recipients list
• Instant messaging from the mail database
• Quick flags for Follow Up messages
• "Autosaving" an in-progress document
• Block mail from sender
• The following sections describe these features in detail.

Message marking based on recipients list

Message marking was introduced in Notes 6. In Notes 7, an additional option allows you to display icons in mail views that indicate how important each message is, based on the recipients list in the To and cc fields. These message indicators help you quickly identify and respond to the most critical messages addressed to you (see figure 1).

In figure 1, you will find a column displaying a solid circle, a half- solid circle, and an empty circle for each received message. A solid circle indicates that you are the only recipient in the To field of the message, a half-solid circle indicates that you are one of "x" number of recipients included in the To field of a message, and an empty circle indicates that your name is included in the cc field (or is one of more than "x" names in the To field) of a message.

The message indicator column can be sorted, to quickly identify messages addressed to you. These message indicators help you to determine the degree of attention required for a message.

You can also customize message marking preferences.

To do this:

• From within the mail database, select Actions > Tools > Preferences.
• Under Mail, click the Message Marking tab.
• Click the Recipients tab.
• Select the options to display the appropriate icon. You can also specify any alternate or group names under which mail might be sent to you, for which you want these preferences to apply (see figure 2).

Figure 2. Recipients tab in Preferences dialog

Quick flags for Follow Up messages

Quick flags allow you to set priority flags to a message for Follow Up, without displaying the Follow Up dialog box. You can set a quick flag for a message by clicking Follow Up > Quick Flag from your inbox action buttons (see figure 5).

Figure 5. Quick flag options in Follow Up menu

The quick flag is set using the defaults in Follow Up preferences. To change the default preferences, do the following:

• Choose Actions > Tools > Preferences.
• Click the Follow Up tab.
• Indicate the importance of the follow up action to be used as the default by selecting one of the priority levels (Urgent priority, Normal priority, Low priority).
• Optionally, you can set the default follow up date and time, and also set an alarm.
• Click OK.

You can use the Follow Up MiniView to keep note of follow up actions you need to take. In addition, Notes 7 allows you to access follow up action messages listed in the Follow Up MiniView from calendar views.

Block mail from sender

The Notes 7 mail database now allows you to block mail from one or more users. You can block emails from a particular user, or from the entire mail domain (for example, @domain.com). Messages from the blocked users are delivered directly to the new Junk Mail folder in the Notes 7 mail database.

To block mail from sender(s):

• 

  
  Select a message from the sender you want to block (or if you want to block several senders at once, select a message from each sender to be blocked).
• From your mail action buttons, go to Tools > Preferences > Block Mail from Sender. The Block Mail from Sender dialog appears. (You can also use the right-mouse menu to do this.)
• Choose "Block mail from this sender (sender@domain.com)" to block mail from that specific sender. Or you can choose "Block mail from any address that ends with (@domain.com)." Choosing this option blocks all mail from this domain. This option is only available if the sender has an Internet-style address, rather than a Notes-style address.
• Click OK. All future incoming messages from the blocked users will be delivered automatically to the Junk Mail folder.

To unblock mail from sender(s):

• In the Junk Mail folder, select the message(s) from whom mail will no longer be blocked.
• Select Actions > Unblock. Click Yes to confirm the email address to be removed from the Blocked Senders list. (You can also use the right-mouse menu to do this.)

Right- click menu expanded

The Notes 7 mail database right-click menu has been expanded to include many new actions. These include blocking mail from a sender, setting quick flags for Follow Up, initiating a chat conversation, adding a sender to your address book, copying your message to a new memo, calendar entry, or To do item document, moving a message to a particular folder, and creating a QuickRule.

Sort by Message Subject

Notes 7 now supports sorting messages by subject. This feature lets you quickly locate messages on a particular subject. Additionally, Notes prompts you to confirm whether or not a message should be sent with an empty subject.

View Unread

Notes 7 lets you display only unread messages in the Inbox. This can be done via View Unread (see figure 11). This action allows you to toggle between the display of only unread messages and the display of all messages.

Autosaving an in-progress document

In Notes 7, you can have an active working document (like mail) saved automatically, through a new feature called AutoSave. With this feature enabled, Notes saves the document to a local encrypted database. This helps you to recover messages in case of a power failure or system crash. Notes discards these messages or documents when the active working document is sent, saved, or discarded.

To use this feature, you need to enable AutoSave in your user preferences. The User Preferences dialog now includes a new checkbox for enabling AutoSave, and for setting the time interval at which an active working document is automatically saved.

Go to File > Preferences > User Preferences. Under Startup Options check AutoSave.

Instant Messaging

Sametime instant messaging is tightly integrated with the Notes 7 mail database. Using this feature, you can communicate with colleagues from within your mail database in a "chat" environment.

Note: Sametime instant messaging server information must be configured in your Notes 7 client by your local technical coordinator in order to use this feature.

Saving an Instant Messaging Chat Transcript

Notes 7 provides the option to save a chat transcript in a text file or in the mail database.

To save a transcript from the chat window click Meeting > Save to Database.

To see the saved transcript in your mail, click Views > Chat Transcripts in the left navigation pane of the mail database (see figure 3).

Figure 3. Saved chat transcripts in Chat Transcripts view

The Chat Transcripts view displays the document with the name of the person you were chatting with, and the date and time the transcript was saved. The "Chat I started" and "Chat I took part in" icons in the view can help you find a particular transcript. You can forward the saved chat transcripts to others, allowing you to share information in an instant.

Instant Messaging Preferences

Notes 7 allows you to set new options for alerts and preferences for saving chat transcripts.

These preferences can be set by accessing File > Preferences > User Preferences. Then select Instant Messaging > Options. The Instant Messaging preferences appear (see figure 4).

Instant Messaging Presence Awareness

Lotus Notes 7.0 offers enhanced presence awareness based upon Lotus Sametime. You can now see a person's name in a document or view and tell whether or not that person is online (indicated by a globe icon), and if so, you can click the name to initiate a chat session.

To further support Sametime integration, Notes instant messaging chat windows are now in a separate thread. (They are no longer blocked when the Notes client is blocked.) Notes instant messaging contact lists now include three new options: show online people only, show short names, and sort list. You can also minimize lists to the Windows task bar.

New features in Calendar and Scheduling

Chat from Meeting Invite

Notes 7 extends the integration with Sametime instant messaging to your Calendar meeting invitations and other calendar entries. You can initiate an online chat with the chairperson of a meeting notice, and other invitees included in the meeting schedule. Do this from within the meeting invite.

On the action button, click Chat > Chat with Chair (or All)…

Calendar Cleanup

Lotus Notes 7.0 Calendar and Scheduling (C&S) includes a new Calendar Cleanup action that helps you quickly and easily maintain your calendar. To access this feature from your calendar action buttons, go to Tools > Calendar Cleanup. The Calendar Cleanup dialog box will open.

From here you can delete entries based on when they occurred and type of entry (calendar or To Do, etc.).

Filter Calendar Entries

Calendar views are now enhanced, with a set of filter options to access your calendar entries quickly.

Calendar filters let you:

• Search for meeting invitations from a particular chairperson
• Search calendar entries by type (for example, by appointments or by reminders)
• Search calendar entries by status (for example, by accepted status)
• View calendar entries marked as private

Scheduling Online Meetings

Scheduling a meeting using the Notes 7 calendar supports scheduling an online meeting. When scheduling an online meeting, you can include the online meeting location, the password for the online meeting, and attachments required for the online meeting. The chairperson can even restrict the online meeting to meeting invitees only. (Your environment must have a Sametime server with Web conferencing to use this feature.)

Rooms & Resources. Setting Preferences

While creating a meeting schedule, you can reserve rooms and resources required for the meeting. The Notes calendar lets you search for an available room and resource. You can perform this search by using the Find Room or Resource action. This action is available via the Action Bar on a meeting document, and via the Actions menu. You can also set preferences for Rooms and Resources (see figure 9).

To set these preferences, do the following:

• Open the calendar and choose Actions > Tools > Preferences. Click the Calendar & To Do tab, and click Rooms and Resources.
• Specify the site that the Find Room and Find Resources dialogs will open with by clicking the Address book icon.
• Select the Room(s) list by clicking the Manage Room List button.
• Select the Resource(s) list by clicking the Manage Resource List button.
• Under "Preferred Room list management" or "Preferred Resources list management," specify how Notes should function when you select rooms or resources for a meeting invitation.

Figure 9.

When the preferences for Rooms and Resources are set, these preferences serve as the defaults for the preferred site, and the preferred list of rooms and resources that display when you are scheduling a meeting. If, at any point, you change the location of the meeting or add another room, Notes automatically reschedules the reservation.

Notes also has the ability to "learn" to identify non- preferred rooms, and automatically add them to the list (or change the preferred site value) whenever a new meeting invitation is created and sent out. The Notes client will detect that an invited room/resource/site is not in the configured preferred set, and prompt you to change/update your current list.

The rooms and resources workflow has also been upgraded to eliminate double bookings -- rooms or resources booked directly through the Rooms and Resources database are now processed the same way as those booked through Calendar and Scheduling.

Note: To add a room or resource to the master database, notify your Lotus Notes administrator.

Importing Holidays into Your Calendar

Using Lotus Notes 7 Calendar, you can add a predefined set of holidays. When you add a set, Notes adds each holiday to the Calendar as an anniversary. You need to import holidays to create entries in the Calendar. To add holidays, choose Actions > Tools > Import Holidays and select a holiday set (see figure 10).

Figure 10. Import Holidays dialog