The challenge of bringing 50GB of data from an IBM Notes database into IBM Connections and from a local usage to a large audience in and outside of the company

1. Using IBM Domino Data in IBM
Connections –
a real life story
Andreas Ponte
Belsoft Collaboration AG
1#engageug

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• System Integrators
• IBM Domino/Notes
• IBM Notes Traveler
• IBM Sametime
• IBM Connections
• Custom Development
• Domino
• XPages
• Interfaces and Systemintegration
• Education for Administrators, Developers and Users
• Member of Penumbra Group

3. Winner of the IBM Business Partner
Excellence Award Europe 2015

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About the speaker
• Andreas Ponte about.me
• ~20 years in the Lotus/ICS world
• Worked for a Reinsurance Company until 2007, amongst other
things responsible for the global communication infrastructure
• Joined Belsoft AG, an IBM Premier Business Partner located
Switzerland, with focus on consulting in the IBM Domino and
mobile solutions area
• Since 2014 CEO of Belsoft Collaboration AG and
IBM Champion for 2015 and 2016
• Regularly speaking at own events and various user groups
around the world

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About the “doers”
Urs Meli
• Development
(IBM Notes / XPages)
• Infrastructure &
Administration
(IBM Domino / IBM Connections)
Frédéric Dehédin
• Development
(IBM Notes / XPages)
• Business Processes
• Data migration
• Project lead

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Using IBM Domino Data in IBM Connections –
a real life story
• We faced a challenge of bringing 50GB of data from
an IBM Notes database into IBM Connections and
from a local usage to a large audience in and outside
of the company.
• I will talk about the starting point, the steps needed for
the file migration, the integration of an existing IBM
Notes application in IBM Connections and how the
solution helps users from different companies to find
and share information.

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Using IBM Domino Data in IBM Connections –
a real life story
The challenge:
• Move 50GB of data from IBM Notes into IBM
Connections
• From a local usage to a large audience in and
outside of the company.
• Goal: replace the Extranet

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Agenda
• The starting point
• The steps needed for the file migration
• The integration of existing IBM Notes
applications in IBM Connections
• The result

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The starting point
• Leed database
• Library for Eurapco Electronic Documents
• 50 GB / 15’000 documents (attachments) to be
moved to IBM Connections

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The challenge for the upload
• „read“ information from current documents
and attachments in the database to:
• Add tags to the document
• Sort by original creation date
• Change the owner (Created by..)
• Share with different communities

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Migration of data
• Problems
• Challenges
• Solutions

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Migration of data
• Problems
• Missing functions in SBT
• Changing the owner
• Setting a creation date
• Files
• Duplicate file names
• Mime Type not updated, i.e. no .doc

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Migration of data
• Challenges
• Migration of data
• 15’000 documents, 50 GB of data
• Network Bandwidth
• Migration only during off-peak hours
• No freeze
• Data changes during migration

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Migration of data
• Solutions
• Notes Agent
• Upload documents to IBM Connections
• Based on information from Notes document
• Set tags
• Copy document to according community
and folder
• Based on information from attachment
• Set tags

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Migration of data
• Solutions
• Migration database to manage attachments
• Which attachments have been uploaded
• Which attachments have been changed
• TDI/SDI
• Change owner (created by..)

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Migration of data
• Challenges afterwards
• Offline functionality
• Users create events, agenda documents etc.
on local/offline in Notes
• Once online, folders and files will be created or
updated in Connections

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The Result
31.1.2015 1.11.2015 20.03.2016
Size of all files (including older versions) 38.5 GB 47.8 GB 50.2 GB
Total number of files 15‘785 17‘454 18‘095
Total number of folders 2‘042 2‘163 2‘210
Number of tags 186 488 630
Number of times all tags have been
applied to files
92‘865 95’805 96’493

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Total Events by ApplicationVisits by Applications
Analytics (today)

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Events
Before:
After:

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Events
• Attachments linked from originating database (LEED)
• Integration of IBM Connections into XPages and vice
versa
• XPages Application with the same look and feel as
IBM Connections
• Embedded in IBM Connections
• Attachments from a Notes database are displayed
in IBM Connections Files (from a corresponding
community folder)
• Widget for IBM Connections displaying events of the
logged in user and relevant community

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Events
XPages App
Connections Files

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Events Widget

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User Management
• We enhanced the login screen with a possibility to
• Register as a user
• Reset the login password

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User Management – Registration Page

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User Management – Password Recovery

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Automatisation
• We used a combination of TDI/SDI and Jython
scripts to meet the customer’s requirements
to:
• Automatically join a predefined community
• Automatically follow a community once
joined (and keep it that way..)

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Lessons learned for new projects
Although the Social Business Toolkit (SBT) is a
great piece of software, we ended up connecting to
the Connections API directly using the Apache
Abdera Library

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CRM integration to IBM Connections
• Goals:
• keep the Notes applications simple while not
adding 3rd party libraries
• keep the main logic in 1 place (XPages Proxy)
• keep the logic in the XPages scope in order to
make a future migration of the Notes applications
to XPages painless

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CRM integration to IBM Connections

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CRM integration to IBM Connections
• Use Case:
• Connect Domino data to Connections data
• Using Connections features with existing Domino
Data
• Handing over the collaboration aspects to
Connections (-> where they belong)

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CRM integration to IBM Connections

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Get in touch with us
Want to know more about data migration to IBM
Connections?
We can help with your customised data migration but
also with your needs for standard or repeating data
migration together with hs.Crawler by hedersoft

33. Questions?

34. Thank you for you attention