Lotus LMS and LDAP

This just in from the "Geez!" department...

We use Lotus LMS and Domino LDAP. We are busy putting employee data into the two directories we serve up via DA. Well, we've got the agents all set to run, data is being populated, but when you look up user details in the LMS the user's location doesn't appear. Not good. I've checked and confirmed via an LDAP browser that the field is visible via LDAP so it looks like an issue with the LMS. Call IBM and they say, yes, it is a known issue that's being coded for, but also the point me to a technote that indicates that this is a field that isn't stored in the LMS, it's only accessed in the LDAP directory. This means you can't run reports based on location - but wait, what if we want to run location based reports???

Well, we've decided to combine to pieces of data into the departmentNumber - the actual department number and the location data. At least our departments and locations are one to one, mostly.

One more thing - there's no "easy" way to do a mass update. Data from LDAP is only updated when the user logs into the LMS. Guess I'll be looking at LEI or maybe Directory Integrator for this little job. 'Cause no one ever needs to do a mass update, nope not me!

Building Private Views in Notes 6

Like many users, we get requests for help creating private views in many databases. Previously, someone would build a "private on first use" view and then remove it after the view is opened by the user. Alot of time is spent, and then if the view is stored on the desktop and the user loses their desktop, the view is gone and has to be rebuilt.

After some thinking and research, I remembered/found again the DXL export tools. I'd read about them , and heard them talked about, but hadn't really done anything with them - dammit Jim, I'm an Admin, not a developer!

Well, yesterday I was poking around trying to slice some helpdesk information to help get calls resolved in a better way and created a private view. I was pretty happy with how it turned out, and wanted to give it to the admin that does the user work, but I really didn't want to create a new private on first use view that others might see.

So I found the DXL export utility (Tools - DXL Utilities in Designer) and exported the view. But wait, there's no import utility!! Searching the help database, there was an example to import a whole new database, but I didn't have the patience to re-write the code for importing one file into an existing database so off to Google I go. And the first hit was a link to Andrew Barker's blog and this nice agent that does the import for you. Thanks Andrew!!

Drop that agent in the database, test the agent - and it works great. Next step, email the DXL file to the other admin and have them import it. Works great, except I had created the view as a private view, so when the other person imported it, it wasn't visible to them.

So maybe, I can fudge the security on the view?? I opened the DXL file in Notepad and searched for my name. There it is in the $Authors and $Readers at the bottom of the file. Just had to add the canonical name for the user, and you're all set. Import that and you're good to go.

Firefox PR1 and Thunderbird .8 available

Just released, at least in the last 24 hours, is the Pre-Release of Mozilla Firebird. A really nice browser that I've had very little trouble with. And being Open Source software, there are some very cool extensions that are available. Caveat: some extensions will be disabled until they are updated for compatibility with PR1. This affects the View in IE extension in particular for those of us that still need IE for certain products - can we say iNotes?

Also available is the .8 release of Thunderbird mail client - say goodbye Outlook Express. The best thing about this release is the addition of RSS support, so you can read your blogs in your mail if you don't have a preferred reader. On the downside, there's no support for OPML yet - extension anyone - so importing your blogs may be a little daunting. Also, the same compatibility issues apply for extensions here, so my wife may need to live without the Contacts sidebar for a little while.