Replacing Lotus Notes: taking over applications, workflows and documents

Lotus Notes, today HCL Notes with the HCL Domino server, was a fixture in larger and mid-sized companies for many years. Most people know it as an email program. Its real strength lay elsewhere, though: Notes let you develop applications that bring documents, workflows and permissions together.

That is why the replacement is often only half done. Email has moved to Microsoft 365, but dozens of databases still run on a Domino server and are needed every day: holiday requests, capital expenditure approvals, contract management, complaints, visit reports, knowledge collections.

Why the applications stay so long

Notes applications are inconspicuous. They run, they need little care, and the people who use them are used to them. As long as nobody wants to change anything, there is little reason to touch them.

They usually become a problem for one of these reasons:

• The people who developed them are gone. Nobody dares to make changes any more.
• The Notes client is the last exception. It has to be installed and maintained on every PC, just for a few applications.
• Little works on mobile or in the browser. Approvals on the move or access for partners are hard to provide.
• The data is walled off. Other programs struggle to get at the contents.
• Licences and server operation keep running, although only part of it is still needed.

What a Notes application contains

A Notes database is structured differently from a classic database with tables. Anyone replacing one should know its peculiarities:

• Documents rather than records. A request, a contract or a report is a document with fields, body text and attachments. Part of the information often sits in the formatted text rather than in fixed fields.
• Forms and views. Forms determine what a document looks like and which fields it has. Views sort and filter the documents. Both show how people work with the application.
• Workflows via agents and email. Approvals often run like this: a document is submitted, the manager receives an email with a link, approves or rejects, and an agent passes the document on. These workflows are the real work of the application.
• Fine-grained permissions down to the document. Notes can set a single document to be readable only by certain people. These permissions must apply just the same in the new system, or someone suddenly sees what they should not.
• Links. Documents point to other documents, including in other databases. When moving, these links break unless someone plans for them.
• Attachments. Contracts, drawings and receipts sit as files directly in the document.

Not everything has to move

The first step is an inventory of all databases on the server. It almost always shows that a large share is no longer used. For each database, one of three decisions makes sense:

For the archive, an export of the documents with attachments into a readable form is often enough, for example as PDFs with metadata, stored somewhere with suitable permissions. Which records must be kept and for how long is something to settle with your tax adviser or legal department.

Rebuild the important applications step by step

1. Record the workflows, do not copy the forms

Rebuilding a Notes application one to one also takes over every detour that has crept in over the years. It is better to write down with the users how the workflow really runs: who submits, who checks, who approves, what happens on rejection? The forms show which details are needed. What such a review looks like is described in Documenting business processes.

2. Start with one application

Begin with the application that is used most or causes the most trouble. Often that is an approval workflow where staff want to sign off on the move.

3. Transfer and check the data

The migration should be rehearsed early: transfer documents with fields, attachments and permissions, compare samples with the original, fix what is wrong. Formatted text and document-level permissions in particular need attention. More in Moving old data to a new system.

4. One after another

Then the next application follows. Once the last one has moved and the archive is set up, the Domino server is switched off.

Where should the applications go?

For simple lists and forms, SharePoint and the tools in Microsoft 365 are sometimes enough. Where workflows with approvals, fine-grained permissions and connections to other programs are needed, these builders soon reach their limits. What they can do and where they stop is covered in Low-code. For documents without a workflow, see Storing documents centrally.

We replace old systems with ElbDesk, the foundation we build on: ElbDesk brings sign-in, permissions, collaboration and documents with it, and only the workflows that define your applications are developed. What that looks like step by step is shown on our page about replacing old systems.

Checklist before you start

• Is there a list of all databases on the server, with the date each was last used?
• Who is responsible, on the business side, for each application in use?
• Which workflows send emails or run automatically via agents?
• Where do permissions apply to individual documents?
• Which documents must remain available for reference, and for how long?
• Who still has administrator access to the server today?