Since February 2018, Teamstudio Export has been the go-to tool for archiving old Lotus Notes databases to HTML format. Export takes any Lotus Notes database and creates a completely stand-alone HTML site, reproducing the views that allow users to navigate the archived data and even supporting full text search. Each document is rendered as a read-only web page, with the same look and feel as the documents in the original application.
Which is great, but what if your organization has implemented Microsoft Sharepoint and you want to use Sharepoint to distribute the archived Lotus Notes databases to your users. The process of archiving your Notes databases to Sharepoint is straightforward, but there are a couple of things you need to be aware of. We’ll lay out the process step by step in this post.
Step 1: Make sure you have the latest version of Export installed.
If you have an older version of Export than 2.1, you will need to upgrade before you can even export to Sharepoint. Even if you have a newer version, it’s best to use the latest one. We are constantly making improvements and fixing minor bugs; you can download the latest version from the Export download page. No need for a change in license keys, as long as you have a current subscription, your keys will work with any version of Export.
Step 2: Create the HTML archive of your Lotus Notes database.
Create an HTML archive of the Lotus Notes database that you want to export to Sharepoint as normal. The sites that Export generates are self-contained folders and all you need to do is to import the entire folder into the Site Pages library in your Sharepoint site. You can’t do this using the Sharepoint web interface, so you need to use Microsoft Sharepoint Designer. Once you have created the HTML archive of your Lotus Notes database that you want to export to Sharepoint, you’ll need to download and install Sharepoint Designer, if you don’t already have it. Yes, it’s called Sharepoint Designer 2013, and yes, the latest version is dated from 2016. On the plus side, it’s a free download, so there is that.
Step 3: Prepare your Sharepoint site.
Launch Sharepoint Designer and open the Sharepoint site where you want to host the exported Lotus Notes database. You’ll import the database into the Site Pages library in Sharepoint. If you plan to import multiple databases and want to store them in a directory structure then you will need to enable the “Display New Folder command on the New menu” setting to allow you to create folders. To do this, select “Lists and Libraries” from the “Site Objects” list in Sharepoint Designer, choose the “Site Pages” Document Library and check the option in the “Advanced Settings” section.
Select “Site Pages” from the “Site Objects” list. Create any folders that you need by right-clicking in the list of contents and using the New menu. Important: Each database you export to HTML is a completely self-contained folder and you can store the folder anywhere you like on your file system or in Sharepoint. The only exception to this is when you have doclinks in your databases. Those links will only work correctly if you keep the same relative path between the databases after they are exported.
So, if the two databases were in the same folder on your Domino server then they must be in the same folder in Sharepoint. If they were in sibling folders on the server then they must be in sibling folders with the same names in Sharepoint. If you recreate the same folder structure in Sharepoint that Export created in the HTML output folder, then everything will work correctly. It’s a good idea to keep this in mind at this point, as you create the folder structure you need in Sharepoint.
Step 4: Drag… and Drop.
All that remains is to drag the exported databases into Sharepoint. If you are importing your entire collection of exported databases then you can just drag the root HTML folder into “Site Pages”. More likely, you will want to drag individual databases one at a time. To do this, select the appropriate folder (it will have a .tse extension) and drag it to the appropriate folder in Sharepoint Designer.
You may find that the Sharepoint Designer UI does not update automatically when the import is complete. If that happens, click the green refresh button in the top-right of the Sharepoint Designer window to force a refresh.
Once your site is imported, you can access it from a browser by choosing “Site Pages” from the site, navigating to the appropriate folder if necessary and then clicking the “indexsp.aspx” page. If your Sharepoint site contains a single exported database, then you can make this display automatically when you enter the site by right-clicking on “indexsp.aspx” in Sharepoint Designer and choosing “Set as Home Page” from the menu. If your Sharepoint site contains multiple exported databases then you may want to modify the default “Home.aspx” page that Sharepoint creates to contain links to the “index.aspx” files for your exported databases.
And that’s all there is to it. The process is simple and reliable, as long as you keep these points in mind as you export your Lotus Notes databases to Sharepoint. If you have questions about this, or any aspect of managing and maintaining your Lotus Notes databases, click below to start a conversation. We love to chat!