We love stories, especially success stories. This one is about how one of our clients used Teamstudio Export to help archive some large Notes databases. It’s a great example of how our clients use Export to solve real world problems.
Client Overview
Odin Paper Products produces specialist papers for the printing industry. The company employs more than 4,000 people in multiple locations throughout the world, and each year they produce almost 3 million tons of paper, generating $3B in revenue.
Business Challenge
Odin has been using IBM/Lotus Notes and Domino since the late 90’s, primarily as an email solution and document storage tool. Notes and Domino was replaced as the primary platform by Microsoft Outlook and SharePoint several years ago. However, they still had a number of large Notes databases left, and the goal of this project was to archive those databases in a way that would allow users to continue to have read-only access to the data, so that they could shut down what was left of the Lotus Notes environment.
Senior Application Analyst Robert Nelson was tasked with finding a way to archive the information contained in approximately 20 Notes databases and make it available to end users for historical reference purposes. “Some of these databases were very large – up to 8GB,” said Robert, “and to shut down our Lotus Notes servers, we needed to find a way to export these databases.”
“We attempted to detach and save the documents manually for one of our smaller databases,” says Robert. “We quickly determined that this was too time consuming and not a practical solution.”
The Teamstudio Solution
Robert and his teammates started to research tools that would help with the archival process, and came across Teamstudio Export via a Google search. “The Teamstudio demo made it look extremely easy to use and it created what we were looking for. A simple, easy to use HTML version of our Lotus Notes databases.”
After acquiring Teamstudio Export, Robert says it was easy to get up and running. “Export does require Lotus Notes 8.5, which I did not have installed on my machine. We use Lotus Notes via Citrix and not local installations. It took longer for me to install and configure Notes than it did to install Export.”
Robert says that, although the installation was easy, he did run into a couple of issues based on the size and age of the databases he had to Export. He says: “One issue was with missing / broken inline images that broke the export process. I wasn’t really sure what the issue was so I emailed Teamstudio Support.”
“[Teamstudio Technical Director] Brian Arnold quickly returned my email, explained what was happening and how to find and fix the issue. I eliminated the missing image, restarted the export process and it finished with no other issues.”
“The other issue had to do with the way old Notes databases stored inline images and the fact that the current Notes DXL Exporter doesn’t understand this storage format. I was told that this issue would require a modification to the way the Export tool worked. Teamstudio came up with a short-term solution and had a new version of the tool in my hands in two days which allowed me to export the database. The support received was fantastic!”
Results
Robert says he is very happy with the outcome of the project. “Teamstudio Export allowed us to easily export the databases and retain the information as requested by our users. This will allow us to begin shutting down our Notes environment in the near future. The Teamstudio team was fantastic to work with!”
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*To protect privacy, some client details have been anonymized.