Genii Weblog

One company on 8.5: From Notes to iNotes to Notes

Fri 10 Jul 2009, 11:59 AM



by Ben Langhinrichs
In yet another demonstration of how collaboration via email is broken, I decided to give IBM the benefit of the doubt on all counts.  This is a single company using rich text routing (where possible), with the latest released versions, Lotus Notes 8.5 and Lotus iNotes 8.5, using the latest release mail template.  In this example, I used the same SpamGeek log message created by Daniel Nashed as I did in my earlier post going from Notes to Outlook to Gmail to Notes.

In this example, Person A sends a rich text message to Person B, which is part of his own company, through normal Notes email.  It arrives in rich text format, as you would expect.  Person B wants to forward the rich text email to Person C, also in the same company.  If he had done so using a Notes client, the email would have arrived exactly as it was sent.  But Person B is working offsite today, and logs into his email using Lotus iNotes, running with the appropriate  template on the Domino 8.5 mail server he uses.  He simply forwards the email, using the regular Notes name (not an internet address) for Person C.  Later, Person C opens the email in her Lotus Notes 8.5 client.

So, Lotus Notes 8.5 to Lotus iNotes 8.5 to Lotus Notes 8.5, all within the same company using normal routing without SMTP.  Let's see what happens.



Original SpamGeek log file sent from Lotus Notes 8.5 by Person A

Original email in Notes 8.5 client



Email in Lotus iNotes 8.5, rendered by the Domino server from rich text message  

Note that the tabbed table is represented by links, rather than flattened out into a regular table.

Email displayed in iNotes 8.5



Email in Lotus Notes 8.5 client for Person C after being forwarded from Lotus iNotes 8.5 from Person B.

The links still appear, but are all broken, as they point back to Person B's draft version.  Hence, all data on those other tabs is inaccessible.

Email forwarded from iNotes with broken tab links



Email in Lotus iNotes 8.5, rendered by iFidelity on the Domino server from rich text message  

Note that the tabbed table is flattened out, with tabs shown individually.

Inline JPEG image



Email in Lotus Notes 8.5 client for Person C after being forwarded from Lotus iNotes 8.5 from Person B.

The tabbed table is back.  Notice that there are still some rendering issues, which we are working on correcting with iFidelity, but all data is intact.

Update: I made some more fixes and updated this image with what the new version does.

Email after being forwarded from iNotes with iFidelity, and all tabs working.

Copyright © 2009 Genii Software Ltd.

What has been said:


837.1. Chuck Hauble
(07/10/2009 06:40 PM)

Another great example Ben...

How IBM doesn't have a team of people verifying that this stuff works totally inside their own product is baffling..