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.