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Lotus Notes Administration Tips

LAST UPDATED: 08 November 2007 18:33:13 -0600

RETAIN YOUR TEMPLATES    RICH IS RICHER--AND BIGGER

SET ADMINISTRATION PREFERENCES    ENEMY AGENTS

BACK IT UP NOW    CREATING AN AGENT    IF AT FIRST YOU DONT SUCCEED--MODIFY

A DIFFERENT CRASH MESSAGE AFTER INSTALLING NOTES

RETAIN YOUR TEMPLATES

If you're a Notes Administrator who's spent a lot of time making adjustments to your Notes templates, take great care when you upgrade the Domino server software. By default, Domino copies new templates to your server every time you run the Install program. If you're upgrading from one major release to another, you may have no choice but to bite the bullet and start making changes to the new templates. But if you're installing quarterly maintenance upgrades, you can save
yourself a lot of time by backing up your existing templates and copying them back to the server's data directory when you're done with the install. Also document your template modifications.

RICH IS RICHER--AND BIGGER

The message portion of a Notes memo is in Rich Text Format and therefore allows formatting and file attachments. But using these features adds to a document's size--it will subsequently take up more space on a server and add more time when replicating. If you're a remote user or are sending to a remote user, it is a very good idea to be conservative with the size of file attachments and the amount of formatting you use.

SET ADMINISTRATION PREFERENCES

If you're a Notes administrator, things got a little easier in Notes 5. You can set Administration Preferences for more than one domain and give yourself a better starting point for performing routine tasks such as creating IDs. To set Administration Preferences, you need to have the Administrator client installed, but you don't need to be in the Administrator itself. In either client, select File, Preferences, Administration Preferences and start setting your defaults. If you upgrade to another version of Notes, you'll maintain your preferences if you install in the same directories you're currently using.

ENEMY AGENTS?

Notes agents are very powerful and can perform a variety of functions. They can run manually or automatically, act on documents you select, or act on documents found through search criteria. Sometimes, though, agents don't understand what you're telling them to do, and this can create problems. To avoid data loss when you're testing a new agent, take the precaution of backing up your database first.

BACK IT UP NOW

You should back up a database before running an agent on it the first time. In fact, you may want to test the agent on the backup copy before running it on live data. The easiest way to do this is to create a new copy on your hard drive. Here's how to back up your mail file:

Open your mail file, then select File, Database, New Copy. Change the default title to reflect that it's a backup or archive. Change the default file name to indicate that it's a backup, but keep the *.nsf extension. Keep the other defaults (local server, access control list, and so forth). Click OK.

You will see the progress indicators as Notes makes the copy. If this is a large database, it may take some time. Note--if you choose to create a replica instead of a copy, you are not really creating a backup. If you lose data from a replica, the deletions will replicate unless you have replication turned off or not initiated.

CREATING AN AGENT

Here are the basic steps to create an agent. As you walk through these steps, take a look at the various other options available to you.

Open your database, then choose View, Agents. From the menu, choose Create, Agent. Give your agent a name. Select a run option (for example, Manually From Actions Menu or If New Mail Has Arrived). Select which documents the agent should act upon (for example, All Documents In View or All Documents In Database).

Click the Add Action button. Choose one of the simple actions (for example, Move To Folder or Reply To Sender). Close and save the agent. Test the agent.

If you can activate your agent from the Actions menu, you can easily test it by clicking Actions, then its name.

IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED--MODIFY

You created your first agent and it didn't work--or it did work, but it needs to do more. But where is it? To modify an existing agent, do the following:

Open your database, then choose View, Agents. Find the agent you want to modify and double-click it. Make your changes. Close and save the modified agent. Test it again.

A DIFFERENT CRASH MESSAGE AFTER INSTALLING NOTES

When you install Notes, you're also installing a debugger called qnc.exe (Quincy, the detective). You had a debugger before whether you knew it or not, and your new debugger doesn't cause or prevent crashes any more than your old one did. But since it's different, you get different application failure messages. You may want to return to the previous state of affairs. On a Windows-based computer, you can disable Quincy in any of the following ways:

Option 1--Using your Find program, look for the qnc.exe file and delete it.

Option 2--Go to a DOS prompt, change to your Notes directory, and type

qnc -u

Then press Enter.

Option 3--From the Start menu, select Run and type

c:\notes\qnc -u

Then press Enter (where c:\notes is the path of your Notes program).

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